1. Cavs/Magic Aftermath: After Orlando closed out the Cleveland on Saturday, we’ve all been buzzing about what kind of fallout there will be for the Cavs. Before we worry too much about the hysteria we should all recognize that the Magic’s win over the Cavs was convincing and had no hallmarks of a fluke. It is true that coming into the series, the Cavs were the clear favorites. They had the best regular season record and had smoked all playoff competition, while the Magic were pretty good but didn’t exactly dominate Philadelphia or Boston in the first two rounds of the playoffs. Nevertheless, Orlando was both a good team and a bad match up for the Cavs.
NBA Draft Update
This is the quickie, post-lottery mock. I was actually hoping the T’wolves would win the lottery. They were the only potential winner that might have brought some drama to the top pick. But it went to the Clippers who actually might take advantage of this opportunity to end the futility that’s been the trademark of the franchise since leaving Buffalo. I want to say again that the weakness of this draft is pretty much limited to the big men. The perimeter players are actually a pretty deep group. Because of this any drama in this draft will come when teams decide whether to reach for a Thabeet or Hill at picks 3-7, or just draft a solid perimeter prospect.
Re-Considering Wayman
In the last few weeks, the NBA has lost a few interesting characters. The particularly untimely passing was of Wayman Tisdale, the former power forward, who had a decent NBA career after a storied college career. I was actually pretty surprised to see so many nice articles about Tisdale, whose pro career was not great. The near consensus of all the stories I saw was that Tisdale was a great and affable guy, a talented musician, and decent pro (and a great collegian). I thought I’d take a look at Tisdale’s career and see if I could find some nuggets of information that weren’t provided to readers yet.
Game 7 Time
As very entertaining Thursday saw Orlando struggle at home against a short handed Boston team before roaring ahead in the final minutes to force a Game 7 in Boston. Next, we saw Houston bum rush the Lakers in the first quarter, which gave them just enough cushion to hang on and get the series back to Los Angeles. Here’s a quick rundown of what we saw in the series:
Playoff Thoughts
1. Harm But No Foul?: Perhaps the only thing we will ever remember the Dallas-Denver series for is Carmelo Anthony’s shot at the end of Game 3, where Antoine Wright attempted to intentionally foul only to have the refs ignore him and allow Melo to his a ridiculous three to knock the Mavs down to 0-3 in the series. The NBA immediately came out and acknowledged that the refs blew the call but let’s go a little deeper with a quick little FAQ:
Playoff Thoughts
1. Round 2 Begins: What is there to say so far this round of the playoffs? Let’s go series by series:
-Denver/Dallas: This series has been all Denver so far. So far, Denver has not used it super depth up front to frustrate Dirk Nowitzki. In fact, Dirk has looked really good. No, Dallas’ downfall is that they don’t have Josh Howard, who has struggled with an ankle injury, as well as the fact that Denver is shooting very well so far. Can Dallas hold serve at home? They are a very good home team (32-9 in the regular season) and Denver isn’t great on the road (21-20). Still, you get the sense that the Nuggets are a better team now than they were earlier in the year. I expect Denver to split in Dallas because of its superior depth and the Howard injury problems and we’ll see Denver end this thing in Game 5.