NBA Playoffs

For my initial post on this blog, I have decided to discuss the NBA playoffs. Simply put, the NBA playoffs have always been a big deal to me. I will be on pins and needles for the next couple of weeks, and will be a ton of fun to be around. Having grown up in Utah, there was only one professional team, leading most of us Jazz fans to throw our hearts into it with the passion of rooting for three teams. This has generally led to a great deal of heartache...especially in '98 with the famous pushoff (um..shot?) by Michael Jordan.

Anyway, I am starting to get an inkling of what Red Sox fans felt prior to 2004, when their team had gone 86 years without winning a world series, despite a series of near misses. You are always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and always expecting the worst to happen. Take this year for instance. The Jazz have as good a shot as any team to win the title. There is no team without a flaw. The Spurs are getting creaky and glue-guy/flopper extraordinaire Manu Ginobili is not healthy. The Lakers are not completely healthy. The Jazz own the Hornets, who rely too much on one player. The Suns have an identity crisis and a PG with 50,000,000 miles on the odometer. The Rockets rely on a superstar that has never won a playoff series and a group of role players (Landry and Battier and Harris and Scola and Jackson, oh my). The Mavs stopped playing defense sometime in 2006. The Nuggets are....well, the Nuggets and harbors the most eclectic collection of psychos since the immortal 1999 Trailblazers. Rasheed, Rueben Patterson, JR Rider, Damon Stoudamire and crew will never be topped, this is like DiMaggio's 56 game hit streak, Cy Young's 521 victories and VanderMeer's back to back no hitters. Although, Isaiah has really tried with the Marbury, Randolph and Eddy Curry deals, and the Blazers tried to outdo themselves by the Randolph and Miles acquisitions....but I digress.

The point is, even though the Jazz have as good a shot as anyone in the west, I still can't convince myself it will happen. The good news, however, is that the Jazz now have an alpha dog (Deron Williams) with some Cajones, as opposed to one (Karl Malone) who seemed to come up short in most of the biggest situations (See Seattle, game 7 1996; Chicago, game 6 1998). Hopefully he can usher in a new era for the Jazz. Thing is, I am worried that our pourous interior defense, led by the deplorably defenseless Carlos Boozer, will be the thing that bites us in the end.

Anyway, I will start my playoff preview with the NBDL, also known as the NBA Eastern Conference. I am pretty sure the Kansas Jayhawks could have made the playoffs in this conference. Or the Mountain View Bruins (I am sure Jeff Gardner could give Doc Rivers a run for his money). I will start with the Eastern Conference because the playoff matchups have actually been set. The Western Conference will follow tomorrow...if I get time (will be in sunny California starting tomorrow night).

#1 Celtics v. # 8 Atlanta Hawks (aka BYE) - Unbelievable, the NBA actually went to a bye for the 1 seed in the east. Well...not really, but it may as well be. The C's should roll in this round, and be able to give their creaky big three some decent rest.

Actually, when you look at it, the Hawks have some talent. Joe Johnson is a legit all-star (though not good enough to carry a team), Bibby is a solid player who can make the big shot (and more importantly has solved their long-deplorable point guard position), Horford is a fantastic rookie who can guard 3 positions and has a developing post up game, Josh Smith is one of the best wing defenders in the game, and could lead the league in blocks at 6-9. The problem is, none of these guys is a go-to scorer, even Johnson. The C's, on the other hand, have 3 go-to guys in Garnett, Allen and Pierce, the games best low post defender in Garnett, a very good perimeter defender in Rondo, and some good bench veterans led by ET himself (Sam Cassell). You get the point...blowout.

#2 Pistons v. #7 Philly - The Pistons are actually better positioned, IMO, than they have been over the last couple years, possibly including their title run in '04. They still have one of the league's best starting fives in Billups, Annorexic Rip, 'Sheed, Annorexic Tay, and Creaky McDyess (on his third set of knees). But the difference this year is that they finally have developed some depth, including Theo Ratliff's Expiring Contract, a revelation in Cheney, Washington's finest (Rodney Stuckey), a fantastic bench forward out of the Bob Huggins school of hard knocks (Jason Maxiell), Aron Afflalo, etc. They have the added advantage of being able to give you 5 legitimate offensive threats (each of their five starters has deep range on their shots), rather than playing 4 on 5 with Ben Wallace in there. I actually like this team to upset Boston, but I am jumping ahead of myself....

Philly is a weird team, and it is inexplicable that they are winning, other than the fact that it is easy explicible to win in the east. They have a solid PG in Andre Miller (who can't score outside 10 feet), a ball-hog athletic wing in Andre Iguoudala, a serial-overpaid defensive minded center (Dalembert), a solid rookie (Thaddeus Young), a couple of pretty decent, no-name guards (Willie Green and Sweet Lou Williams) and a reserve post players against whom it is advisable to wear a cup (Reggie "nad grab" Evas). Decent team, pretty athletic, no alpha dog, very little outside shooting. If only they would have kept Giricek....If only?

Detroit in 5

#3 Orlando v. # 6 Toronto - Yawn. Orlando isn't bad. But...they live and die by the three, and will ultimately die by it. They have a team of shameless chuckers such as Rashard ($118 million) Lewis and Hedo Turkoglu. Dwight Howard is going to be one of the best centers the game has seen, and is already a defensive/rebounding best. However, his offensive game essentially constists of "see ball, get ball, dunk ball". He is not ready to lead a team deep into the playoffs. Meer-Meer is good, but will get exploited by bigger guards (Chauncey Billups, anyone?). The rest of the team is a group of undistinguished role players...Except one

That one is Carlos Arroyo. He is distinguishable only in that if he hadn't have been such an unmitigated failure of a starting PG, a huge baby, and had his own penthouse suite in Jerry Sloan's doghouse, the Jazz never would have been crappy enough to draft Deron Williams, and would not have drafted D Will after giving Arroyo an inexplicable $5 million deal. I would like to thank Arroyo for being a failure, Detroit for taking him off ours hands, and the Portland Trailblazers for deciding that they liked a good-citizen, average teenage shooting guard as much as Williams and Paul and trading out of that third spot. Thank you all for making it possible.

Toronto is a lousy team. The have a head-case for a superstar (Chris Bosh). They have a group of ultra soft Italians and Europeans led by one Andrea Bargnani (the number 1 picks in 2005 and 2006 were FANTASTIC), a pretty good Spanish PG (Jose Calderon), a backup PG who is a health risk to himself every time he takes the court (T.J. Ford), a serial chucker (Kris Humphries) who had the Presidential Suite in Sloan's doghouse.

I don't think Orlando is great, but Toronto has been brutal. Orlando in 5.

# 4 Cleveland v. # 5 Washington - I look forward to a root canal more than watching any game in this series. I do appreciate LeBron, and he is fun to watch, but the various rabble that plays with him bores me (and the rest of America) to tears. The immortal Jim Paxson (with a little help from Carlos Boozer) provided LeBron with an NBDL cast starring a 7-3 Lithuanian who can barely walk, a pretty-boy from Miami (Ohio) that has been punched out by a teammate everywhere he has gone, a guy named Boobie, the worst shooting point guard of my lifetime (Eric Snow), a washed up center who can't score from outside two feet (Ben Wallace), a guy that thanks his lucky stars for Olawakandi and Kwame Brown, so as to avoid being the worst Number 1 pick of the last 20 years (Joe Smith), a motormouth who can do nothing but shoot 3s, and hasn't even been doing that well (Damon Jones). Brilliant guys, just Brilliant. You get one of the three best players in the game on his rookie contract, and this is what you surround him with, really? That said, there is no greater indictment of the NBDL (Eastern) Conference than that this pitiful team made the finals last year. I do like Delonte West OK...I guess.

Washington has the chance to be better, when healthy. And Gil Arenas is always entertaining because he is borderline loco. Jamison and Butler can fill it up as well. However, I can't take a team that starts DeShawn Stevenson at the 2 seriously, I just can't.

I guess Butler will probably guard LeBron. These playoffs could be the time when LBJ says "screw it" and takes 35 shots a game, Kobe style. I would if I were him--better that than throwing it down low to Ben Wallace. I just think Washington, if healthy has more options than Cleveland, and the only thing that would carry the Cavs through is a Hurculean performance from Bron-Bron. I don't think it will quite happen. Washington will win in 6, and LBJ will rip another day off his personal calendar, only about 800 until he will join his pal P Diddy and become a Brooklyn Net.

I have just analyzed perhaps the most boring set of conference first round games in the history of the NBA. I need some Zoloft.