I left off the last post after the Chicago series. It was time to play against Colin and the Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals. I was clearly superior all throughout the regular season, but head-to-head is different than playing against the computer.
I lost the series in 6 games, and Game 6 wasn't particularly close. Despite my dominance against the computer, I could not properly adjust for a human opponent. Several eulogies for me and the season were written by friends, but again I had them saved in an old AIM away message that is now lost forever. Colin himself added a line down in the bottom of his profile that stated something along the lines of "I may not be [great? the best?], but I'm competent."
The Heat went on to win in the Finals. Allan Houston was named MVP, and Colin's own Alonzo Mourning was Defensive Player of the Year. The post-Knicks history of that season was narrated to me by Steve over AIM as I sat in my room 150 yards away in another building.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
The Live 98 Seasons (continued)
In the spring of 2002 I made another attempt at a multiplayer Live 98 season, this time with my suitemate Colin in Colonial Tower up at Albany. I was of course the Knicks, and I'm actually not sure who he played as. This was again the shortest season possible - 20-something games, 2 minute quarters.
The season went as expected, and as always I met Jordan's Bulls in the playoffs. It was a tough 7 game series that I don't have details of. However, once again, before actually getting to play against each other in the playoffs our efforts were stifled. My PlayStation memory card was corrupted, which I think was a common problem with NBA Live 98.
Fast-forward to a year later when we started over in a new venue - our friend's room (his bed in fact) at Empire Commons, which was SUNY Albany's new classy upperclassmen housing. This time Colin played as the Heat.
Again, the season went as expected. I won our regular season match-up and was the top seed. Colin and I were on an Eastern Conference Finals collision course. Then I ran into the brick wall of the mighty Chicago Bulls in round 2 and fell behind 3 games to 1.
The thing with these 2 minute quarters is that it makes for much closer games. If I'm playing a 48 minute game against the computer I might languish at points, get outscored one quarter, go scoreless for 5 minutes, etc. However, over the course of 48 minutes I'm eventually going to pull away definitively, most of the time. The shorter the time, the greater the variance. In an 8 minute game, if I go scoreless for 5 minutes I'm screwed. If I get outscored over what would have been just 2/3rds of a quarter, I've lost the game. This makes things more exciting and is generally desirable.
So in those first 4 games against Chicago, every single game came down to the wire. I had an old AIM away message that detailed each game, but you know how you hear about moms in the 1960s finally throwing out their grown-up son's huge valuable comic book collection? Well, my mom thought it was okay to throw out my old computers, so the detailed history is now lost forever.
Being down 3-1 is tough even when you're clearly better than the other team. Even if you're as high as a 79% favorite in every game, you're still probably going to lose the series (you have to be on the good side of 79% three times in a row, which only happens 49.3% of the time). There's no way I was a 79% favorite against the Bulls, so I was in quite a bad spot.
Those games were something else. We're talking buzzer beaters, overtime, shots with .2 left, etc. - and this continued past the first 4 games. In Game 5 I was nearly finished. Colin was watching, and I was down 3 with just seconds to go. When I hit the 3 to tie, the gravity of the moment made Colin literally cry out and fall backwards. Even though I was an opposing team, at that moment we were teammates.
I won Game 6 and then did, indeed, win Game 7 - both close. Overall an incredible, brutal series and probably the best I will ever be a part of.
The season went as expected, and as always I met Jordan's Bulls in the playoffs. It was a tough 7 game series that I don't have details of. However, once again, before actually getting to play against each other in the playoffs our efforts were stifled. My PlayStation memory card was corrupted, which I think was a common problem with NBA Live 98.
Fast-forward to a year later when we started over in a new venue - our friend's room (his bed in fact) at Empire Commons, which was SUNY Albany's new classy upperclassmen housing. This time Colin played as the Heat.
Again, the season went as expected. I won our regular season match-up and was the top seed. Colin and I were on an Eastern Conference Finals collision course. Then I ran into the brick wall of the mighty Chicago Bulls in round 2 and fell behind 3 games to 1.
The thing with these 2 minute quarters is that it makes for much closer games. If I'm playing a 48 minute game against the computer I might languish at points, get outscored one quarter, go scoreless for 5 minutes, etc. However, over the course of 48 minutes I'm eventually going to pull away definitively, most of the time. The shorter the time, the greater the variance. In an 8 minute game, if I go scoreless for 5 minutes I'm screwed. If I get outscored over what would have been just 2/3rds of a quarter, I've lost the game. This makes things more exciting and is generally desirable.
So in those first 4 games against Chicago, every single game came down to the wire. I had an old AIM away message that detailed each game, but you know how you hear about moms in the 1960s finally throwing out their grown-up son's huge valuable comic book collection? Well, my mom thought it was okay to throw out my old computers, so the detailed history is now lost forever.
Being down 3-1 is tough even when you're clearly better than the other team. Even if you're as high as a 79% favorite in every game, you're still probably going to lose the series (you have to be on the good side of 79% three times in a row, which only happens 49.3% of the time). There's no way I was a 79% favorite against the Bulls, so I was in quite a bad spot.
Those games were something else. We're talking buzzer beaters, overtime, shots with .2 left, etc. - and this continued past the first 4 games. In Game 5 I was nearly finished. Colin was watching, and I was down 3 with just seconds to go. When I hit the 3 to tie, the gravity of the moment made Colin literally cry out and fall backwards. Even though I was an opposing team, at that moment we were teammates.
I won Game 6 and then did, indeed, win Game 7 - both close. Overall an incredible, brutal series and probably the best I will ever be a part of.
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