1. It’s Over Johnny: Count me in the crowd that thinks there isn’t much reason to watch Cleveland-Detroit, Los Angeles-Utah, or Denver-New Orleans. Still, let’s take a look at what’s happened so far to see if there is anything to learn about these series:
–Cleveland/Detroit: This is playing out like your typical one-eight series. Cleveland has pretty much controlled both games behind LeBron James and the rest of the cast has been perfectly fine. What seems noteworthy is how much Detroit has struggled to score. Rodney Stuckey is leading the team in scoring at 17 ppg but is an ugly 12-36 from the field (0-6 from three) and Rip Hamilton has 16 ppg on also weak 13-30 from the field. A lot of this is a tribute to the great Cleveland defense but the Pistons regressed notably on offense this year (21st from 6th in 2007-08). Losing Chauncey Billups obviously hurts but this team is both aging and not particularly hungry. There is no great adjustment to be made here. Detroit must hit shots to avoid a sweep, which seems unlikely given their talent level and their inertia. Expect the Pistons to lean even more on Will Bynum, who has played so well this last month. It’s a shot in the dark but that’s all Detroit has right now.