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.
Playoff Thoughts
1. Boston-Chicago: This has been a truly great series so far, with drama galore. I’ve truly enjoyed watching this series so far but do fall in the camp that it hasn’t been played at the highest level. With Kevin Garnett, this would’ve probably been a 4-1 easy win for Boston but for us disinterested observers, we get probably the best series of the playoffs. Going into Game 7 tonight, here are some quick reflections:
NBA Draft Update
The 2009 draft remains shaky. I wouldn’t call it historically bad or anything like that. It suffers for two reasons. The first is it follows two pretty strong drafts. Most drafts would look weak compared to the ’07 and ’08 crops. The next is it’s strength is in wing players. Breaking the ’09 talent pool down into three basic groups of bigs, wings and points, I would say the bigs are extremely weak, the wings are strong and the points are slightly below average. The result of this will be many busts in the top 10 and a few steals late in the draft since bigs are drafted early and wings aren’t generally in high demand around the league and tend to slide more than any other type of players come draft day. The past draft that keeps coming up in my mind as one this will compare to is 1989.
Playoff Thoughts
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.