Jim Durham

Here's how Jack Ramsay learned to become an NBA radio analyst: Back in the mid-1990s, after his accomplished basketball coaching career, ESPN Radio offered Ramsay a job alongside the man Ramsay calls the best play-by-play talent in the country, Jim Durham. Ramsay told Durham he wasn't sure about how to do this radio thing. "I think we worked it out well," Ramsay said Sunday before he, Durham and Hubie Brown called Game 2 of the NBA Finals at Staples Center. "Jim takes the action up to the score, then after the score he will pause and if I have something to say about the strategy or what a coach has done or what a player has tried that got him open, then I'll say it and then I'll give Jim the microphone back," Ramsay said.

Here's how Jack Ramsay learned to become an NBA radio analyst: Back in the mid-1990s, after his accomplished basketball coaching career, ESPN Radio offered Ramsay a job alongside the man Ramsay calls the best play-by-play talent in the country, Jim Durham. Ramsay told Durham he wasn't sure about how to do this radio thing. "I think we worked it out well," Ramsay said Sunday before he, Durham and Hubie Brown called Game 2 of the NBA Finals at Staples Center. "Jim takes the action up to the score, then after the score he will pause and if I have something to say about the strategy or what a coach has done or what a player has tried that got him open, then I'll say it and then I'll give Jim the microphone back," Ramsay said.

It is a historic NBA championship series, matching Magic Johnson against Michael Jordan, and three people who are a major part of it are Chick Hearn, Marv Albert and Jim Durham, who among them have 72 years of pro basketball broadcasting experience. This is Hearn's 31st season with the Lakers; NBC's Albert has been the voice of the New York Knicks for 24 seasons, and Durham, the voice of the Chicago Bulls, is in his 17th season.

It is a historic NBA championship series, matching Magic Johnson against Michael Jordan, and three people who are a major part of it are Chick Hearn, Marv Albert and Jim Durham, who among them have 72 years of pro basketball broadcasting experience. This is Hearn's 31st season with the Lakers; NBC's Albert has been the voice of the New York Knicks for 24 seasons, and Durham, the voice of the Chicago Bulls, is in his 17th season.

Cheryl Miller will work as an analyst for Wednesday's Clipper-Miami game on TBS, becoming the first woman to take on such a role. "I'm trying to really downplay this," said Miller, who will work alongside play-by-play announcer Jim Durham. "It's not my intent to fly in with a red cape and change everyone's mentality."

The Laker luxury jet was stuck on the ground for more than three hours in frigid Minneapolis, the weather causing problems Tuesday morning in their destination, Denver, an equally frosty city. Warm times they are not in the heartland, but important days they are for the Lakers, with delays, snow flurries, and the potential to accrue consecutive road victories for the first time this season.

Hubie Brown used knives, forks and tape recorders to stand in for Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Dwight Howard as he and Dr. Jack Ramsay conducted a makeshift chalk talk explaining why Orlando Magic center Howard struggled so much in Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Ramsay also said that Bynum's footwork impressed him and that Howard must have been frustrated when he could make only one shot. And that Ramsay is here, 84 years old, sharp as ever, gently willing to teach players, reporters and fans happened only because Ramsay was talked into being in the crowded three-man ESPN radio booth.

Playing in his opening match in the ATP finals at London, Novak Djokovic dived right in. The top-ranked Serb twice landed hard on the court Monday at the O2 Arena, but it didn't stop him from beating Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, 7-6 (4), 6-3, and setting up a Wednesday showdown with Group A rival Andy Murray. "All those balls were out of my reach, so I tried to dive," Djokovic said. "I don't usually dive that much. I don't usually spend that much [time at] the net as well. " Djokovic and Murray have played a few epic matches against each other this year, including a five-set Murray win in the U.S. Open final.

No. 1 Miami at No. 8 Syracuse is the game of the day and one of the best of the year. But it won't be televised locally Saturday. Instead, ABC will televise Washington-Washington State. If this was for the Rose Bowl, fine. But it's not. Unfortunately, ABC is required by contract to give Los Angeles a Pacific 10 Conference game. OK, but it makes no sense for ABC to show Washington-Washington State in almost half the country. It will go to 45% of the country; Miami-Syracuse to 46%.

USC may have missed out on its last chance to beat Notre Dame. The Irish are on their way to becoming unbeatable, thanks to their sweet deal with NBC. Imagine being able to tell a recruit that every home game--even those against Navy--will be on national television. There would be no problem convincing him this is a big deal. Just tell him to watch NBC any time, day or night.

With Mike Fratello on NBC assignments, Bob Weiss, coach of the Atlanta Hawks, joins an ever-increasing list of Clipper commentators. He will be paired with Ralph Lawler on Channel 13 tonight and Sunday for the first two games of the playoff series with the Utah Jazz. Weiss was a member of the last Clipper team to make the playoffs, in 1976 when they were the Buffalo Braves.

To have lived at the start of all this--to have watched the sudden, thudding impact of those doomed planes or the impossible crumble of the world's most potent symbols of prosperity and power--is to understand on a visceral level that American life has changed, perhaps forever. True, with clenched jaws and admirable faith in the future, we all got back to work. We carried on with the business of America while beginning the grim work of recovery and retribution.