New York Times, Tuesday, October 28, 2014

The original idea came as a follow up to the FOOTBALL MATCHUP crossword made with my neighbor Kent Clayton. This is really a naming puzzle disguised as a sports theme. Unbelievably, all the sports clues are mine (ROY, TONYA, LET, YDS).

I feel giddy getting in GLITTERATI and the "Splish Splash" (BATH) clue!

It might surprise some folks to see me on a Tuesday, but I swear I send 90% of my puzzles thinking they are Tuesdays ... inevitably, Will asks me to get rid of some "later week" entries and try again! In this case I had to get rid of ECZEMA and a few other entries, but I'm glad I did. I had to start from "scratch" (eczema pun intended!) and this is my fifth rendition. In the earlier versions, at least 3 of the clues had Beatles lyric references (AND I love her, Come TOGETHER, IM A Loser, but I didn't want to cause a STIR.)

Honestly, I didn't know these were the only non-plural NBA team names ... that's trivia perhaps Will dug up. My original thought was to have RUN WITH THE BULLS (15) going down the middle, but this set was cleaner.

This is the most elaborate construction I've ever attempted (two sets of parallel 10-letter downs, and the two middle theme entries cross at 7 of their 13 letters.

It's a Q short of a pangram, but, despite (un)popular belief, I'm not ever trying to force one, tho I love to fill my puzzles with a Z here, a K there and at least one X.

Finally, there is my usual Minnesota shout out — see if you can spot it!

Andrea's puzzle today does something I like. It involves a complete set of things — in this case N.B.A. teams whose names don't end in the plural -s. There's something neat about completeness that appeals to a puzzle solver's mind. Or at least my mind. And as the N.B.A. season opens tonight, this puzzle couldn't be timelier.

I love being surprised by an early-week puzzle — what a neat a-ha moment when I ran across the NBA revealer. Even though I'm a long-time NBA fan (draft day used to be my favorite sporting event of the year, due to the gravity of the decisions the GMs have to make), I've never thought about the fact that there are only four teams with a singular name. How cool is that?

For all you aspiring crossword constructors out there, this is a textbook example of specificity. Many people ask me what makes a good crossword, and this idea of "specificity" is a tough one to grasp. Will explains it well with his use of the word "completeness." A reasonable theme here could contain entries ending in KINGS, HORNETS, NETS, BULLS, etc., but the constructor then has 30 to select from. To have four and only four names that could have been used feels a bit magical — that specificity is mighty elegant. Not everyone agrees with me (Jim and I have differing viewpoints, in fact), but high specificity is something I personally highly value.

I like the unusual layout, too. Acme does use 24 three-letter words, which did feel noticeable during my solve, but I love how it enabled so much long fill: ANSEL ADAMS, GLITTERATI, CATALYST. Adds so much to the quality of solve.

Those parallel downs in the NE and SW do require some crossword glue to hold everything together: IMA, AND I, UTA, DEM, YDS, but that's really not too bad, and it felt like a good trade-off in order to get those long parallel downs. It would have been perfect if DISCOUNTED and SEMITROPIC had been snazzier entries, to the level of ANSEL ADAMS and GLITTERATI, but that parallel down structure usually doesn't allow for such goodness. I personally don't use it too much anymore since it's so difficult to come up with great long downs with perfectly smooth surrounding fill.

Some tough crossings — AZT/ZOWIE (I imagine some will finish with AYT and YOWIE) along with SHTETL/EERO (SHTATL/AERO anyone?), which might have nudged this puzzle out of the Monday spot we usually see Acme's puzzles in. All in all though, such a fun theme with tight specificity and resulting elegance; a pleasure for this NBA fan. Now if we could only resurrect the good old Run TMC days…