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.
-Lakers/Rockets: Here, we have the most interesting series so far. The Rockets won Game 1 in impressive fashion and battled before falling apart in Game 2. I expect that the Lakers have too much talent to lose this series but in terms of gut reactions, losing a Game 1 at home does make us question whether the Lakers are of championship timber. Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson never lost a Game 1 at home did they? Well, of course they did. Here’s a list of opening home games lost by Phil Jackson during his title run seasons:
-1990-91 Bulls: The Bulls lost Game 1 of the NBA Finals at home 93-91 on a Sam Perkins three-pointer near the end of the game. MJ and company responded by winning the next four games and Jordan’s first title.
-1991-92 Bulls: The Bulls lost the first game of their second rounder against the Knicks thanks to Patrick Ewing (34 pts, 16 rpg, 6 blocks). The Bulls eventually won a tough seven game series. The Bulls also dropped Game 2 at home of the conference finals and the NBA Finals that year, before winning both those series in six games.
-1992-93 Bulls: The Bulls didn’t really have home court in the Eastern Conference Finals or the NBA Finals. Still, they won the first two games in Phoenix in the Finals and then lost two of three at home in Chicago against the Suns before coming back to win Game 6 in Phoenix. These were the only home losses for this Bulls team.
-1995-96 Bulls: This was probably the best team of All-Time and were undefeated at home in the playoffs.
-1996-97 Bulls: The Bulls lost Game 2 at home in the second round against a very decent Hawks team before winning the next three to clinch the series. This was their only home loss in the playoffs.
-1997-98 Bulls: Once again, the Bulls lost a Game 2 at home in the second round to a pedestrian team (the Hornets with Glen Rice). The Bulls went on to sweep the next three games. The Bulls later lost Game 5 at home in the NBA Finals, which forced the epic Game 6 win in Utah where MJ hit the great shot against Bryon Russell (though he did push off a bit).
-1999-00 Lakers: The greatest Shaq/Kobe team had a weird conference finals series against Portland where they lost two games at home and were down by 18 in the fourth quarter of Game 7. They won the game and, later, the title. These were the only home losses of the playoffs for the Lakers.
-2000-01 Lakers: A great post season run where the Lakers were 15-1. The only loss? Game 1 of the NBA Finals at home against the Sixers, when Allen Iverson dropped 48 on them. -2001-02 Lakers: The Lakers dropped a home game to the Spurs in the second round and one against the Kings in the conference finals before coming back to beat both teams. So the short answer here is that both Jackson and Jordan have dropped home games on occasion in their title runs most years. A random home loss in the second round isn’t enough to really start worrying yet. In fact, history of Jackson indicates that the Lakers are just as likely to run the table the rest of the series than be locked in a seven game battle (Jackson has never really been tested in the second round during a title season).
-Celtics/Magic: The Celtics have a ton of guts. They compete and their rout win in Game 2 last night was totally unexpected given how thin they are right now. Still, I can’t help but think that this team is running on fumes. Is Eddie House going to shoot 11-14 again and score 31? Granted, Paul Pierce probably won’t have a 3-point game again but the Magic’s superior depth and Dwight Howard are going to make the time in Orlando tough. Boston has played harder than any team that has hit with injuries and adversity but gravity is just not on their side. Boston can definitely force a Game 6 but that’s as far as we will probably go.
-Cavs/Hawks: What is there to say? LeBron James and the Cavs might be tested at some point but Atlanta probably won’t do it. Instead let’s talk about the perception that the Cavs are a one-man team. Sure, they are but how one-man are they? James had the fourth best PER of All-Time this year. This doesn’t prove anything but the next best player is Zydrunas Ilgauskas (18.0 PER), which makes a difference of 13.7 on PER between the star and his top supporter. Wilt Chamberlain, who has the two highest PERs (and the fifth highest PER season) did not have any one near the 18.0 level (though the calculations were somewhat incomplete without turnovers, steals, and blocks). The other high PER scorer, Michael Jordan (he has the third, sixth, seventh, and eight best PER season) didn’t have much support in many of them. Indeed, his 1987-88, 1988-89, and 1989-90 seasons are notable for not having anyone with a per above 16.6. But the 1990-91 season (the sixth best PER season and MJ’s first title season), he had Scottie Pippen (20.6 PER) and Horace Grant (17.6 PER), which is more than LeBron had this year. Finally, Shaq also had some impressive help in his great 1998-99 and 1999-00 seasons with Kobe and company. The last 30+ PER comes from David Robinson of 1993-94, who had a pretty pedestrian supporting case too. In the end, James’ supporting squad offensively is about average compared to the other high PER achievers, above Wilt and most MJ teams but below the best MJ Bulls team and the Shaq squads. So, the Cavs are not particularly imbalanced relative to other star-based team.
2. MVP James: Speaking of LeBron, let’s talk MVPs…In what ended up being a pretty clear vote, LeBron took home his first MVP with a pretty commanding lead in the vote (109 of the 121 first place votes). This is LeBron’s sixth year but he’s only 24 years old. How does his first MVP stack up with other legends? Let’s take a look:
| Player | Season | Age | Year | MPG | PPG | FG% | RPG | APG | PER |
| W. Unseld | 1968-69 | 22 | 1 | 36.2 | 13.8 | 0.476 | 18.2 | 2.6 | 18.1 |
| B. Pettit | 1955-56 | 23 | 2 | 38.8 | 25.7 | 0.429 | 16.2 | 2.6 | 27.3 |
| B. Russell | 1957-58 | 23 | 2 | 38.3 | 16.6 | 0.442 | 22.7 | 2.9 | 22.8 |
| W. Chamberlain | 1959-60 | 23 | 1 | 46.4 | 37.6 | 0.461 | 27.0 | 2.3 | 28.0 |
| K. Abdul-Jabbar | 1970-71 | 23 | 2 | 40.1 | 31.7 | 0.577 | 16.0 | 3.3 | 29.0 |
| B. McAdoo | 1974-75 | 23 | 3 | 43.2 | 34.5 | 0.512 | 14.1 | 2.2 | 25.8 |
| M. Malone | 1978-79 | 23 | 3 | 41.3 | 24.8 | 0.540 | 17.6 | 1.8 | 23.7 |
| D. Cowens | 1972-73 | 24 | 3 | 41.8 | 20.5 | 0.452 | 16.2 | 4.1 | 18.1 |
| M. Jordan | 1987-88 | 24 | 4 | 40.4 | 35.0 | 0.535 | 5.5 | 5.9 | 31.7 |
| L. James | 2008-09 | 24 | 6 | 37.7 | 28.4 | 0.489 | 7.6 | 7.2 | 31.7 |
| O. Robertson | 1963-64 | 25 | 4 | 45.1 | 31.4 | 0.483 | 9.9 | 11.0 | 27.6 |
| B. Walton | 1977-78 | 25 | 4 | 33.3 | 18.9 | 0.522 | 13.2 | 5.0 | 24.8 |
| A. Iverson | 2000-01 | 25 | 5 | 42.0 | 31.1 | 0.420 | 3.8 | 4.6 | 24.0 |
| T. Duncan | 2001-02 | 25 | 5 | 40.6 | 25.5 | 0.508 | 12.7 | 3.7 | 27.0 |
| W. Reed | 1969-70 | 27 | 6 | 38.1 | 21.7 | 0.507 | 13.9 | 2.0 | 20.3 |
| L. Bird | 1983-84 | 27 | 5 | 38.3 | 24.2 | 0.492 | 10.1 | 6.6 | 24.2 |
| M. Johnson | 1986-87 | 27 | 8 | 36.3 | 23.9 | 0.522 | 6.3 | 12.2 | 27.0 |
| S. O’Neal | 1999-00 | 27 | 7 | 40.0 | 29.7 | 0.574 | 13.6 | 3.8 | 30.6 |
| K. Garnett | 2003-04 | 27 | 9 | 39.4 | 24.2 | 0.499 | 13.9 | 5.0 | 29.4 |
| B. Cousy | 1956-57 | 28 | 7 | 36.9 | 20.6 | 0.378 | 4.8 | 7.5 | 21.1 |
| D. Nowitzki | 2006-07 | 28 | 9 | 36.2 | 24.6 | 0.502 | 8.9 | 3.4 | 27.6 |
| C. Barkley | 1992-93 | 29 | 9 | 37.6 | 25.6 | 0.520 | 12.2 | 5.1 | 25.9 |
| D. Robinson | 1994-95 | 29 | 6 | 38.0 | 27.6 | 0.530 | 10.8 | 2.9 | 29.1 |
| K. Bryant | 2007-08 | 29 | 12 | 38.9 | 28.3 | 0.459 | 6.3 | 5.4 | 24.2 |
| J. Erving | 1980-81 | 30 | 5 | 35.0 | 24.6 | 0.521 | 8.0 | 4.4 | 25.1 |
| S. Nash | 2004-05 | 30 | 9 | 34.3 | 15.5 | 0.502 | 3.3 | 11.5 | 22.0 |
| H. Olajuwon | 1993-94 | 31 | 10 | 39.5 | 26.1 | 0.529 | 13.0 | 3.5 | 25.3 |
| K. Malone | 1996-97 | 33 | 12 | 36.6 | 27.4 | 0.550 | 9.9 | 4.5 | 28.9 |
LeBron is one of the younger first time MVPs we’ve seen but by no means is he the youngest. Perhaps its significant but James finally got his first MVP at the same exact age as Jordan. In another ironic twist, James and MJ had the exact same PER rating at their first MVPs, both of which happened to be the highest for any first timer. On the other hand, it’s funny to see that neither Bird, Magic, or Shaq were particularly young (27) when they won their first MVPs. Finally, it seems that there is not accepted age for MVPness. First time MVPs appear to be almost evenly distributed between ages 23 and 29, except for the odd fact that no one has one his first MVP at age 26.