NBA Playoffs Thread

There aren't many "natural" PGs in the game today. Look around the league, from Stuckey to Curry to Jennings, etc. The teams remaining (minus OKC) all have true points, so not a big surprise they advanced this far.

 

After having digested the previous night's victory and seeing ways that the Mavs could've given that game away last night and didn't, I'm very happy about that win.

I think this might prove that these aren't the soft Mavs from 2006, where they got pushed around by Shaq and schooled by DWade.

Only Terry and Dirk remain from that team and Chandler and Haywood, for that matter, give the Mavs an inside presence Eric Dampier could only dream of giving.

They made me a believer in the sweep of the Lakers. I hope they can keep this going, no matter who they might face in the Finals.

 

LeBron has a cold. A breathless report by Craig Sager.

 

Craig must have caught it ... somehow.

 

And perhaps it's no coincidence that Stuckey, Curry and Jennings all lead crappy non-playoff teams. Never been a fan of the Marbury style high scoring shooter point guard. They don't seem to win as much as the pass-first type.

Problem is a lot of natural shooting guards are forced to play out of position because of height issues. Westbrook and Curry are both tremendous players, but neither are naturally built for the distributor role they've been forced into, and both would be more effective (at least offensively) at the two spot. I think teams get too hung up worrying about how big their backcourt is, the few times I can remember when teams said fuck it and played the small two, it generally seemed to work out pretty well in the W/L column.

 

I don't consider Nash to be a hybrid, he's a true point guard who just happens to also be a tremendous shooter. Nobody could dispute that Nash clearly plays a "pass first" style, nor that his primary focus is on finding and creating shots for his teammates.

And I don't think I'd call Iverson a hybrid either, at least in terms of his style of play. He's more like a shooting guard who sometimes gets called a point because he's barely 6'0" tall. The best years of Iverson's career all came when he was starting at the 2 spot, with Snow at the point.

 

I don't think of Nash as a hybrid at all. A true point guard can also score, so long as he doesn't see himself as more than one of the five scoring options on the floor, with a good feel for where exactly his scoring game puts him in the pecking order.

Nash is the ultimate distributor. He just knows that if he's the guy open, well, time to distribute it ... to himself.

On the other hand, Iverson and Westbrook types (as somebody noted earlier, Barea belongs in this category) are looking to score at all times and when teams adjust to stop them, then they'll dish for an assist. Everything has to revolve around the threat they present to score.

Kiidd's not like that. Miami doesn't have a decent point guard, to me. Rose, I think, sits in the middle. One could say he's shot-first, but one might also say he has a good feel for his team and realizes he's the best scoring option, so as the guy with the ball in his hand, he takes that responsibility. I get the sense that if the flow of the game goes away from him scoring, he'd be willing to give up shots for the team. Westbrook is just the opposite. With him, OKC fans have to sometimes bang their head against the wall screaming "THROW IT TO DURANT!"

 

It's a fascinating study how this discussion shuts down when the Heat wins. Not a single post all game.

Happened throughout the Celtics series, too.

 

Especially when a certain hated figure on this board kills the beloved Bulls down the stretch.

 

OK, which one of you is LeBatard?

 

Last night was like watching Butler play in the NCAA championship game against UConn. NBA teams put up some clunkers from time to time, but it was a pretty bad time for the Bulls to put one up. The problem is that there are times when, other than Derrick Rose, absolutely nobody on that team can create offense. Look at the box score. Boozer: 7 points. Deng: 1-for-7 from 3-point territory. Korver: 1-for-5 from 3-point territory.

People who know the NBA as a superstar league would scoff at this, but Korver struggling absolutely killed them. If he can't hit from back there, then he's useless as a player. And I think he missed four open 3's in the second half last night. A lot of them were at key times, with a chance to either put the Bulls in the lead or tighten things up considerably down the stretch. As a team, Chicago was 3-for-20 from downtown, and that just killed them. On top of that, they were 16-for-26 from the free throw line, and 34.1 percent overall shooting. Just miserable.

While the Bulls' role players like Korver struggled, however, Miami actually had someone come up big. It probably remains to be seem whether Udonis Haslem has it in him to contribute like that throughout the series, but he was unbelievable in his 23 minutes last night. This is a guy who had played, I think, seven minutes in the playoffs and missed 69 games this season. What a boost for them. When they get someone, anyone, to step up as a fourth offensive option, they are damned near unbeatable.

Although the two games were double-digit wins, I think this is shaping up as a very interesting series. I'm really curious to see where it goes. But if Chicago doesn't get some offense from someone other than Derrick Rose, then it could be over really fast.

 

Yeah, it should be a really good series. It's interesting because both teams have had a game where their top player (LeBron in Game 1, Rose in Game 2) was absolutely horrible and lost. There hasn't a game where both teams are clicking well yet.

The good news for the Bulls is they can't shoot any worse than they did last night and they still had the game tied at 73 with plenty of chances to take the lead that they wasted.