NBA Playoffs Thread

[Small Town Guy]

A short break from the "Miami Heat are evil - No The aren't (they really are)" argument.

I still think the Mavs have a great shot at this. Some have said the Heat couldn't play much worse than they did in Game 1 and they still won by 8, but I thought Miami played all right, actually. Hit a lot of threes, Wade, LeBron and Bosh all had good games (if not completely dominating) and they got some bench help. The Mavs, on the other hand, got nothing from their bench, got killed on the boards, got an average game from Dirk...and were still down only four with a few minutes left. If they hadn't had a mini-collapse in the second half of the third quarter, they could have had control of the game going into the fourth.

There's obviously always the possibility that LeBron or Wade go off and that's that, but Miami has had one real blowout at home in these whole playoffs. Otherwise, they've trailed numerous times in the fourth but have pulled it out. But they aren't invincible there and the Mavs have been a good road team. Wouldn't be surprised to see a Mavs victory tonight.

In other news...Rubio finally coming to Minnesota? This would have been a lot more exciting a few years ago but my dad and other Wolves diehards (well, fans) will take anything they can get, as long as they don't draft another terrible Syracuse player.

 

[BrianGriffin]

So I guess the Celtics titles with Bird, McHale and Parish are pretty hollow, too. Same with those won by Russell, Cousy, Sharman, Havlicek, etc. Or those with Worthy, Jabbar and Johnson. Or the Sixers win with Erving, Cheeks and adding Moses. Hollow, all I'm sure......

One clarification on the pre-season predictions--while the Heat was probably the favored choice to come out of the East, I think the Lakers got more love to take the championship than the Heat did.

Why would these be hollow championships? Boston drafted two of its three stars and the third was acquired in a fair trade. It's not Boston's fault that the Warriors used their part of the trade to draft Joe Barely Cares.

And the Lakers? They gave up a lot to get Kareem. Again, history proved that the Lakers got the better of the deal, but that's only in retrospect.

Baseball is where it is because there is no downside to spending what it takes to get the best free agents. Basketball is more of a player-driven league. It increasingly makes sense for top players to gravitate together because so much of "greatness" is defined by championships, both in the short term and the long-term evaluation of the players' legacy.

What's bad for basketball is this makes the Cavs, the Raptors etc. the basketball equivalents of the Kansas City Royals and the Minnesota Twins. You can draft a Chris Bosh, but it's just a countdown before that player leaves to "join forces" with another superstar, probably in a high-profile market like L.A. or New York, but maybe if the circumstances are right, a Miami to play with D-Wade.

I don't blame the players for doing it and I don't blame middle relievers for taking mult-million dollar deals to pitch for the Yankees. But neither situation is good for the overall interest in the sport, to me at least.

And that's why I'm pulling for the Heat thing to fail.

A couple other comments:
Yes, Kareem was an early example of this when he asked to leave Milwaukee to go to either New York or LA.

To me, it's a little different with guys like Kidd because the Nets thing had kind of played itself out. By the time New Jersey was done rebuilding, he was going to be done, so a trade made sense for both parties. It's a little different from James leaving even as Cleveland is trying to build a championship team around him. They had come close, didn't they?

Again, I don't blame the players, but it's not good for the game, in my opinion.

 

[Stoney]

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/80260/#quickreply

If any are looking to shamefully waste time, I might suggest re-reading comments from the regular season NBA thread back when the Heat were struggling. Some of the premature declarations of failure are amusing. For example, one fella was ready to break up the Lebron/Wade partnership only about a month after it had begun:

I would expect a monster trade involving James to be coming around Christmas. Maybe to the Knicks for Amare?

No clue if this would actually happen, but if I owned the Heat or was their GM, I would look at breaking this up ASAP while I still could.

Lesson: it's a very long season, and the playoffs are something completely different than the regular season. What happens in November means next to nothing.

 

[Michael_ Gee]

No one has yet to explain why players picking what teams and what teammates they want is bad for the NBA as a business or basketball as a sport except to express variations of the phrase "I don't like it!" That may be a valid emotion, but its not a valid statement of fact, not without some evidence.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

No one has yet to explain why players picking what teams and what teammates they want is bad for the NBA as a business or basketball as a sport except to express variations of the phrase "I don't like it!" That may be a valid emotion, but its not a valid statement of fact, not without some evidence.

I believe the appropriate phrase would be "Stay off my lawn" or alternatively "Stay off my court". Harkening back for a day long, long,long ago that hasn't existed in decades and that we'll never see again.

 

[93Devil]

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/80260/#quickreply

If any are looking to shamefully waste time, I might suggest re-reading comments from the regular season NBA thread back when the Heat were struggling. Some of the premature declarations of failure are amusing. For example, one fella was ready to break up the Lebron/Wade partnership only about a month after it had begun:

I would expect a monster trade involving James to be coming around Christmas. Maybe to the Knicks for Amare?

No clue if this would actually happen, but if I owned the Heat or was their GM, I would look at breaking this up ASAP while I still could.

Lesson: it's a VERY long season, and the playoffs are something completely different than the regular season. What happens in November means next to nothing.

I know, but damn if the Heat didn't look like a group destined to make it this far.

Everytime a major player move is made (Moses to the Sixers, Garnett and Allen to the Celtics and others) they just steam rolled the league from the first day of the season when they are a title-worthy team.

The Heat just never seemed to have that juice.

This series is still far from over, but it looks like the Heat have enough this year to win it all.

 

[Stoney]

No one has yet to explain why players picking what teams and what teammates they want is bad for the NBA as a business or basketball as a sport except to express variations of the phrase "I don't like it!"

Valid point as long as they wait until the end to start picking. But what's a bit different here are the reports that Lebron/Bosh/Wade began orchestrating this long in advance, by some reports as far back as the 2008 Olympics.

If Lebron and Bosh played their last couple years in Cleveland/Toronto having already come to some sort of secret agreement about getting the heck out of there and playing together in 2010, that obviously raises some disturbing questions about conflicting interests and the level of effort they gave those final years. ESPECIALLY when you see how CLEARLY different Lebron's level of energy, intensity and enthusiasm appear in this year's playoffs vs. last year's. Was Lebron really giving Cleveland his all in last year's Boston series? Sure didn't look like it to me. And that belief's only reinforced after watching how very different he looks in this year's playoffs.

 

[93Devil]

I ask this in all seriousness, how much do you think Delonte West affected LeBron's drive?

If that did happen, and he found out during the Caltics series, I could really see how that could have affected his play.

I honestly would go with that over him tanking against the Celts because he did not want to win a ring then leave Cleveland.

 

[BTExpress]

So during the 2008 Olympics, or thereabouts, when LeBron, Wade and Bosh decided to join forces, let let their then-current teams continue to try to build around them, despite those players knowing they'd be bolting, that was ok? If owners did that, there would be lawsuits.

That's nothing but speculation with zero evidence to back it up.

You people act as though everybody was blindsided by this. Three years ago we read ad nauseum how the Summer of 2010 would shift the balance of power in the NBA. Could have been a shift to Dallas. Or Chicago. Or New York. It happened to be Miami. It was going to be SOMEBODY. Seriously, what did you expect was going to happen?

 

[YGBFKM]

That 9-0 run just ended the series. Same old sorry ass Mavs.

 

[NickMordo]

Mavs won't win if Dirk makes three shots. Wonder if that torn tendon is playing a role...

 

[Double Down]

It's incredible how quickly the Mavs have resorted to their timeless role as another team's bench.