Schedule all opponents back-to-back

The NBA’s regular season should be made up entirely of teams flying into other towns and playing two games, MLB-style, with a rest day in-between. Miniseries after miniseries.

Some other boffin can count the points and make a scoring system out of things, turn it into a tournament, not my job. My job is to watch these games in case there are any fights.

I won’t pretend the rubber match of a three-game regular season series between the Reds and Pirates is anything special, simply because the teams already competed against each other twice that week. I won’t tell you the third game of a Cubs/Cardinals series is must-watch TV or that you need to drop everything when the Red Sox and Yankees wrap up a set with another appearance on Sunday Night Baseball. The acquaintanceship does not guarantee better baseball.

Good thing baseball isn’t basketball.

Basketball players make silly statements in each others’ Instagram accounts on off days, curtsy and kiss rings before every game and usually end up at the same bar at the end of the evening. These performers are friendly, friendlier to each other than they’ve ever been, which is good. I don’t need a bunch of fake animosity, dumb Dude Stuff.

This affection usually goes away once a disagreement pops up. Sides turns catty the second a referee submits an unpopular decision.

Suddenly we have two fluffed tails, tugging on shorts at the free throw line, hissing three ways. In a one-game stand they get over it in one hour. Everyone puts pants back on when the game ends, the adults gather for cocktails.

But what if they couldn’t get over it?

What if we made sure the players remain on different sides?

What if we scheduled them to play each other again, two nights later?

Nowhere in the history of the NBA’s regular season has NBA Twitter salivated over a Sunday afternoon game in December, but Friday night was the flip side of Zion Williamson’s 360, everyone ready to turn full circle and suit up again.

The show lived up to the hype, a potent affair that took until overtime to figure out. The Pelicans swept the Suns, but only after everyone realized the miniseries was a great idea.

We’ve had a few two-game miniseries already (Pistons : Hawks, Dallas: Denver, Lakers : Spurs, Pacers : Magic, Houston : Denver, Toronto : Orlando). Miami’s trip to Boston was one of the best, and the Jo Jo English inside us cannot wait to see those Knicks in Chicago twice this week.

It saves jet fuel, protects legs, helps the local economy. Instead of rushing to the bus after a one-nighter, these players stick around for another few days, tasting the local beer.

Gregg Popovich, what in the world would be wrong with “a playoff atmosphere” in November and December?

The Pelicans and Suns had every right to throw elbows or worse on Sunday, nobody did, all the kids were adults and all the adults wore shorts. Nobody’s feelings ran red, and we got 101 minutes of whooping and hollering NBA basketball in December.

I submit not every two-game series will feature two enemies who battled in the playoffs the spring before, but this is sure as shit better than most regular season NBA basketball.

The NBA tried the one-night stand. It didn’t mean anything.

The fake commitment of a midseason tournament is not the answer. The regular season should not be made up of sugar water-sponsored brackets we have to manufacture enthusiasm for.

It should be a series of extended visits, meetings you can look forward to, basketball without a plane to catch.

PAUL SILAS

This is how good the late Paul Silas was:

We knew him as a coach, an assistant one, always on TV but in the background: Nets, Knicks, Nets again, Suns and Hornets before earning his first head coaching position (that wasn’t with the Clippers) in 1999.

Still only an interim job. It was a lockout year gig with a Charlotte Hornet team full of headcases, performing without a leader in the wake of Vlade Divac’s free agent defection to Sacramento.

The 4-11 Hornets moved Silas to the interim slot after firing coach Dave Cowens, three days later the Hornets dealt leading scorer Glen Rice to the Lakers for starters Eddie Jones and Elden Campbell. The settled lineup finished the year 22-13, earning Silas the NBA’s cheapest head coaching contract (that wasn’t with the Clippers).

Silas’ interim team barely missed the 1999 postseason but vaulted up in the lottery, choosing Baron Davis out of UCLA to supplant the steady, so-so David Wesley. Silas did not buck to front office pressure, starting Wesley all 82 games during Davis’ rookie campaign. The 57-year old head coach guided his team through the horror of Bobby Phills’ midseason death, the 1999-00 Hornets made the playoffs.

The head coach’s reward was a jettisoning of yet another team-leading scorer: Eddie Jones and Anthony Mason to Miami for Jamal Mashburn and P.J. Brown, lesser lights in what was sold as a significant Miami upgrade. Those grades were assigned even before Anthony Mason turned 2001 All-Star.

Silas’ team earned the sixth seed in the 2001 playoffs and the Heat (with Alonzo Mourning) met Charlotte in the first round. The Mashburn-led Hornets punked them, sweeping Pat Riley’s No. 3 seed in three games.

Charlotte’s average margin of victory in the three games, including a pair of road wins, was 22.3 points.

“It was no contest,” Riley said on TV. “It’s a feeling of being outplayed, outcoached, out-everythinged.”

Outcoached? That admission sparked a grin from the 57-year-old Silas, whose relationship with Riley has been strained since 1991-92, when he worked for Riley as a New York Knicks assistant. Silas felt that Riley didn't give him enough responsibility that season and viewed him as lazy.

Until Charlotte hired him late in the 1998-99 season, Silas hadn't held an NBA head coaching job for 16 years, and he believes that Riley disparaged his work ethic around the league.

“That always came out anonymously, but I know who started it,” says Silas.

“I’m still so offended by that. I tried to erase that stigma for a lot of years.” (Riley denies that he ever ripped Silas. “That’s absolutely untrue,” he says. “I have too much respect for the man.”) For the record, the two didn’t shake hands after the series.

Yes, it was righteous.

That was Silas, famed for throwing Tyrus Thomas against the wall. As LeBron James’ coach in 2004, on national TV, Silas told Cavalier starting point guard Eric Snow to walk his ass to the locker room.

Eric Snow, a coach’s dream on every team he played for, took the suspension. Paul Silas took the mic.

Rest in power forward, Mr. Silas.

DANNY GRANGER HAD A LUCKY CHARM

Danny Granger’s 2009-10 Indiana Pacers finished 30-52, missing the playoffs and also a chance at the top of the NBA’s draft lottery. The Pacers were the NBA’s 20th-best team in 2010, Granger’s crew fielded a 1.1 percent at the No. 1 pick, presumably John Wall, yet this didn’t stop Granger from going all out.

Danny Granger, a former All-Star forward representing the Indiana Pacers that night on the dais, said he was wearing a John Wall jersey underneath his dress shirt; if the Pacers had won the lottery, Granger planned to rip off his suit jacket and dress shirt to reveal the jersey.

Someone should have told Danny.

The Pacers actually moved up in the lottery, to ninth, where they selected Paul George, far and away his draft’s best player.

DON’T MIND THIS

That Malik Beasley isn’t considered an epitome of NBA righteousness doesn’t matter to me, he was traded for Rudy Gobert, he has a natural rivalry with Rudy Gobert.

So when Rudy does a little Rudy …

… I can’t be bothered.

These two kind of replaced each other. And you remember what happens when personalities kind of replace each other, don’t you?

The greatest burn in the history of the world.

Chevy Chase left SNL after one season, SNL replaced him with Bill Murray, an obvious trade. When Chase hosted SNL soon after, Bill Murray (on his teammates’ behalf) got in a fight with Chase.

“They were big guys and really going at it. They were slapping at each other, screaming at each other, calling each other terrible names.

The best insult, which made a huge impression on me, was by Bill. In the heat of anger, he pointed at Chevy and yelled, ‘MEDIUM TALENT!'”

There is no greater insult. None.

Well, maybe one. When Rudy Gobert makes fun of your boxing technique.

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CHANGE THESE NBA THINGS

The league’s done marvelously on a lot of rule changes of late, parity reigns and the play is compelling, even in the season’s early stages. That doesn’t mean we can’t register complaints.

OVERTIMES

I love free basketball, and you should too. If the NBA wants to keep its first overtime at five minutes, fine. The second overtime has to be shorter.

The third overtime has to be very short. I hope we don’t get a fourth overtime.

The second overtime should be three minutes. The third overtime should be two minutes. Every subsequent overtime (these are for the games Doc Rivers coaches) is only a minute.

POSSESSION ARROW

It is time. These refs are the best of the best and they still can’t throw a jump ball for shit.

I understand the inherit unfairness, awarding the ball to Those Who Stood While Others Hustled, but it is fun to watch scrubs dive on the floor with the other team due possession just to get the arrow back.

ALL PARTICIPATION TROPHIES LEFT AT THE PODIUM

(“Participation trophies?” KD gone Strauss?)

Did you get an award for the best regular season record? Congratulations, your team is full of dorks who were not hungover, they did not have fun hotel sex the morning of that night’s game.

Win an award for making the NBA Finals? Congratulations, you won most of the playoffs.

Wanna be cool? Accept your award, leave it at the podium.

Robbie Robertson probably sleeps with his Jann Wenner award. Bono definitely gives it a pillow.

You don’t have to auction the award off later, but that would help.

“We’re persuaded it’s a great honor to be here” is cold as shit, Eastern Conference finals champions can learn from Walter.

BROOKLYN NEEDS TO CHANGE ITS COURT

Everything about the Net in-game experience is first class. Watch the entertainment between timeouts on an illegal stream or League Pass Laptop or whatever it takes, the Nets have fun.

The gray court, however, has done its job. It got the attention it wanted, now it needs to go.

The Nets can’t have a court that looks like the resting cessation face of Optimus Prime.

The next one is less a rule change and more of an aesthetic.

THE KNICKS AND BULLS SHOULD ALWAYS BE LIKE THIS

I’ve enjoyed bing-bonging, and assuring listeners that the Bulls are back. But let’s jump off the notion that the NBA is better when Madison Square Garden is around in May, or that the Bulls are a serious team.

It is better for the NBA that the Bulls didn’t contend (not even close) for a quarter century, and James Dolan routinely fails with all the capital he inherited.

The only way the Bulls win a title with Jerry Reinsdorf is under caveat, with ankle sprains for opponents in the final two rounds. And until Dolan leaves, no Knick team will have enough good players to mount a championship effort.

It is important that MSG (money) and the Bulls (legacy) prove unworthy of NBA competition.

QUARTERS SHOULDN’T BE QUARTERS

NBA games should stay 48 minutes, but the first period should be 14 minutes, the second period should be 14 minutes, then halftime:

Then, a 12-minute third period followed by an eight-minute fourth.

Let ‘em slug it out in the first half, burn a little game clock, heighten the mood for the remaining periods. And the final period should be a sprint.

Stronger legs in the stretch, better TV.

BANKED-IN THREE-POINTERS SHOULD COUNT FOR TWO

You did not mean to bank it in.

You shot a 24-foot shot well over 25 feet, you missed by a lot. The ball hit a glass wall past the back of the goal and bounced in. You didn’t mean to bounce it in.

Banked-in three-pointers are a bad miss that counts for three points. They shouldn’t. Banked-in three-pointers should count for two points. The players are lucky I’m giving them — gifting them — two.

Did you mean to bank it in? I don’t believe you. Bank another three-pointer and we’ll give you three points, plus the point back on your original “make.”

Otherwise, no. Two points.

Thank you for reading! Consider subscribing, it is cheap and I need gas money to drive to games. And a new windshield. And a sportcoat. Shoes. I haven’t paid off this laptop. All out of oatmeal. Gotta get some seltzer. Maybe a pop.

CATHY THE COOKER

Please listen to this if you are on public transportation today.