Teen Wolf: How the Dragons blew it.

The Winter Olympics closed yesterday.  I can honestly say, I love the Winter Olympics.  I watched a lot of it this year. I don’t know if that’s a testament to the Winter Olympics or my penchant for watching fucking anything on T.V.   Last night I watched almost eight full minutes of Bad Girls Club on Oxygen.  Eight minutes, just staring at this colostomy of a TV show.  I actually called Direct TV today and asked to have Oxygen removed from my service.  Can’t have that shit.   Let’s give it up for the Canadians for having the balls to put Neil Young and Nickelback on the same stage.  Seriously, It’s like they don’t even know.   You can keep the hockey gold, as long as you keep Nickelback and Avril Lavigne.   However, seeing my former idol, Alex P. Keaton on stage at the closing ceremonies reminded me, Parkinson’s disease is brutal and that Teen Wolf is one bullshit of a ridiculous movie.

I say ridiculous, not because its implausible, that a high school student could transform himself into a wolf.  Or that Scott Howard’s condition was hereditary.  Or that wolves apparently like to do hand stands on top of moving vans.   In fact one night inspired by probably this in itself,  the night before Thanksgiving.  Which in Philadelphia was code for get as drunk as humanly possible.  We were leaving a bar, and my friend, who I’ll call “Blind Tommy”, told me that I had to drive his car.  He was simply  too drunk to drive.  I appreciate him being responsible and not putting us in jeopardy.  But maybe being named “Blind Tommy” was reason enough not to be driving in the first place or it could have been the eleven Rolling Rocks, I don’t know.   Not exactly sober myself and now driving,  I was shocked when a set of hands appeared on top of the car’s windshield.  No biggie, it was “Blind Tommy”.  He had just climbed out of the window of the moving car and onto the roof.  So here I was, probably not able to pass a field sobriety test, with a blind guy on the roof of a moving car, on the largest drinking night of the year.  How I was not someone’s new shower buddy, is still a mystery.   Good times.

Teen Wolf seems to laugh in the face of anyone who has ever watched, played or spelled the word “Basketball”.  O.K. I get the willing suspension of disbelief, which is why I am going to write this with the understanding that apparently wolves are really good basketball players, not to mention incredible dancers.  That being said, it’s shocking that more teams haven’t experimented with wolves as players.   South American point guards, Eastern European sharpshooters, centers from the republic of Congo.  Why not a wolf?  Hey New Jersey Nets forget sending scouts to Europe, how about getting your asses out into the Alaskan Wilderness and get yourself a guy who can play the 4 spot.   If only.

Teen Wolf came out in 1985, and is set in a Beacontown Nebraska.  I looked it up.  It doesn’t exist.  Fiction.  Which explains why the two rival high schools are the Beavers and the Dragons.  But it doesn’t explain why they are both wearing tight-fitting, oddly stripped uniforms.   This supposed to be Nebraska, not Leningrad.  Leningrad, by the way, one of the worst Billy Joel songs ever written, and that’s saying a lot, because once Christie Brinkley arrived, that dude threw up some turds.  This film has stuck with me for twenty-five years, simply because from a basketball stand point, I don’t know how the wolfless Beavers managed to beat a far superior Dragon team.  So I’ll break it down.

The Beavers have reached the championship game on the efforts of Scott Howard’s inner demon, the Wolf.  But not for this game.  We get 5’6″, 110 pound, neck scratching, Scott Howard.  There have been some diminutive point guards to date, who were outstanding  Too many to mention actually.  Scott Howard is no Mugsy Bogues.  We get the metaphor.  He just needs to be himself.    I’m sure looking back now, there is some regret.   He’s saying, how many opportunities did I have to dunk on people and pull premium tail?   Hindsight is 20/20 Scott, but from this forty-year olds perspective:  you blew it.  Outside of Michael Phelps and Lebron James, there’s not a guy in the world who wouldn’t have traded places with you.

The Dragon’s are sticking it to the wolfless Beavers.  I don’t know why that sentence is funny.  It just is.  Say it out loud.  The Dragon’s are sticking it to the wolfless Beavers.  Mick has just leveled Brad.  A running forearm to the chest, obviously a flagrant foul.  I mean he tattoos him.  Should be two shots and the ball, right?  Instead no call.  It’s a championship game, I guess they’re letting them play.  Coach Finstock calls a time out.  Enter Scott Howard already in uniform and oddly, carrying his gym bag.  There is 2:10 left in the first quarter.   Eight minute high school quarters.  The Dragons are up 22-3.  This thing is a clinic.   Scott gives a uninspired speech about how they can beat these guys, and let’s do it ourselves and we can do this.  I mean cue the eye roll.  So right out of a time out naturally there would be a jump ball.  What?  Scott Howard gets the tip and passes it to his boy, Chubby.  Oddly the largest guy on the court is standing at the top of the key.  Chris Webber somewhere is smiling, but Chubby clearly should be down on the block, banging with the big boys.  Chubby holds the ball for almost twelve full seconds.  You get five seconds to make an offensive move, but again, they’re letting em play.  So Chubby with little regard for any concept of team basketball, fires a one-handed push shot from the right elbow which oddly goes in from a left side trajectory.  Maybe it was the editing or maybe it was his Shawn Marionesque release point.  Needless to say the Beavers are on the march.   I’ve can’t help but notice #45 on the Beavers.  This guy can play.  Maybe he got lost in all the wolf hoopla.  But he just hit a fall away jumper, blocked a shot, and threw a one-handed baseball pass the length of the court for a lay up.

Like any good team down this many, after a made basket you would naturally press.  The Beavers do just that.  Scott Howard picks up Mick at half court.  Classic battle, mano e mano.  Howard picks an errant pass and outlets to a teammate, he follows the play up court and gets cleaned by Mick.  An obvious clothesline, and again a flagrant.  This guy is an absolute barbarian on the court.  He makes Rick Mahorn look like Dorothy Hamil.   Howard goes to the line.  Despite the fact that the play was away from the ball, and he wasn’t shooting and it wasn’t a flagrant, yet he goes to the line.  Odd.  Let’s face it.  Scott Howard’s free throw motion needs a lot of work.  But if they go in, I guess you don’t want to mess with it, see Rick Barry.   I mean he really does shoot like a Canadian who grew up playing Hockey.   The Beavers sink back into a zone.  Howard is playing the middle in a 2-1-2.  Finstock obviously is channeling the ’80 Lakers, who used a smiling rookie named Earvin Johnson at center to defeat the Philadlphia 76ers.  Allowing Magic to play all five positions in this series had nothing to do with him later contracting a near fatal disease, that somehow became not fatal, and allowed him to become a pioneer of coffee and potato skins for African Americans.   It works, Howard gets a steal and again gets it to Chubby, who unconscionably nails a hook shoot from the elbow.  To which Howard jumps on him and hugs him.  Hey how about getting back on D, buddy?  Celebrate when it’s in the books.  #45 is playing out of his head.  I count three blocks and at least 12 points in the second half.  But the focus seems to be on the all right-handed Scott Howard.  Does the Dragons coach not see that he can’t go to his left?  Pop out on him, force him left.  He’s killing you with his right, and it’s all drives to the basket.  Make him beat you with a jumper.  C’mon coach, this is 101 shit.  There’s a black guy in the game? Dragon’s coach, where has this dude been?  He’s wearing the Sabo goggles.  He’s obviously a defensive stopper.  Why isn’t he on Howard?  Why was this guy rotting on the Dragon’s bench?  Ah, the politics of mid-west white America.

Amaxingly the Beavers have closed it to within one.  The score is 52-51, nine seconds left and Howard has the ball at half court.  Time for a little chit-chat with Mick.  Hey, Bird and Jordan didn’t shut up when they played each other, and with three to go, he dishes to Chubby for a give and go.  Mick hammers him with no time left on the clock.  Mick, what are you doing?  Don’t foul!   The whole gym knew he was going right.  This is on you buddy.  That’s now like nine fouls on Mick and he’s done.  He and Howard exchange some pleasantries at the line and then, apparently in Nebraska high school basketball, after you foul out, you can creepily saunter away and stand under the basket while the opponent shoots two very important free throws.  Again, you’re allowed to stand under the basket while your opponent shoots two very important free throws.  Talking about renting real estate in a players head.  Another opportunity for a technical, blatantly ignored.

You know the rest.  Two awkward, jump foul shots that shockingly go in, and the wolfless Beavers win it all.  I mean Howard’s foul shots use more rim than a gay porn star.  Let’s be honest.  There are a lot of people to blame for this, and I’m sure there was a lot of finger-pointing after this loss.   The Dragons let the Beavers back in it.  They were outscored by an astounding 48-30 margin.  The Dragon’s coach did nothing to stop the bleeding.  Coach you’ve got a bunch of time-outs, use ‘em.   Maybe he had a game plan for the Wolf?  Maybe being up a bunch in the first he took his foot off the gas.  Mick let his emotions get the best of him.  I get that his girl tried to bang the Wolf in front of the whole school, that he didn’t go to, but was at the dance anyway, but buddy…you’ve got check that shit at the door.

Kudos to Coach Finstock.  Sometime you’ve got to let your guys play their game.  In this case, an awkward mix of unathletic junk that seems to go in.  He mixed up his D, and he seemed to play to his teams strengths, despite the grossly underutilized #45.  Seriously this guy can play.  I’m sure he went on to play a little juco ball somewhere.  But more importantly he didn’t let the officiating get the best of him.  He kept his cool and that in turn kept his players calm.  What did we learn from this game?  One.  It’s never O.K. to jump hug a teammate in the middle of the game, and it’s certainly never O.K. to jump up and front straddle your dad, in celebration.  I don’t care if you’re both part wolf.  It’s creepy and it certainly has no place in a high school gymnasium.  But as Coach Finstock says:  “Always get at least twelve hours of sleep.  Never play cards with a guy who’s first name is a city, and never go near a lady with a tattoo of a dagger on her body.  You stick with that and everything else is cream cheese”.