Here's part 2, enjoy.
5. The Final Push: Unlike the Eastern Conference which is pretty much set, the teams standing from the 6th to 10th seed in the Western Conference are separated by 2.5 games (Nuggets, Mavericks, Suns, Rockets, & Jazz) and in the final week winning these final games for these teams is crucial and will determine who gets into the playoffs or not. Every team listed still has a couple of tough games left on the schedule and some of them will even play each other before the season comes to a close so it should be very fun to watch as I would consider this an pre-playoff tournament before the actual playoffs begin. The two teams I have left out of the playoffs when it's all said and done are the Phoenix Suns and Utah Jazz. Sorry guys.
4. Bull Tough: While everyone has praised the Oklahoma City Thunder and Miami Heat for their great season and wonderful play neither of them possess a better record nor have played better than the most-overlooked team in the league this year, the Chicago Bulls. At 46-17 on the season so far, the Bulls have been the team to beat all year and they have done it in the most-improbable fashion. With the league's MVP missing 26 games this year constantly battling different injuries, the Bulls have managed to keep winning by being a complete team and growing together in the absence of their superstar. From guys like John Lucas III to Omer Asik, every man on this team knows their roles now and no one is afraid to step up. It was clearly evident in the game last week against the Heat even when Rose played but was not at his best. If the Bulls have been this good without Rose in the regular season how good will they be when Rose is in the lineup for the playoffs? All that remains to be seen, and as great as the Bulls have been without Rose most of the year, Rose being healthy and able to play at a high level will be crucial to the Bulls making it to the Finals this year. Make no mistake about it, the Bulls are legitimate title contenders and the only team in the way of the Heat in the East, but there is no way they will be able to beat the Heat or any team (maybe the Bobcats and Wizards) in a seven game series without the significant presence of the MVP. 
3. Battle LA: All season long one team's potential scared me more than any other and that team was the Los Angeles Clippers. After the Chris Paul trade right before the season began, the Clippers became one of the teams to watch all year and watch, I have, for a good portion of their season. At the beginning of the year, the potential of the team was evident starting with a win against the Heat in early January on national television. As the season progressed they have only gotten better, they've adjusted the roster well enough to compete with the best, and here are a couple of the main observances I've taken from the team through the course of the year that define who they are: 1. Chris Paul is the best point guard in the NBA and this is his team not 2. Blake Griffin who is a douche that needs to be laid out by Josh McRoberts in the playoffs to level down his ridiculous amount of overconfidence. That being said 3. Blake is an extraordinary talent but still so raw that if he ever does learn how to shoot free throws, post-up and hit a mid-range jumper consistently, he will post 30-15 a season easily. Athleticism will only get him so far 4. Vinny Del Negro is a terrible coach and will single-handedly cause this team to come up short in the playoffs 5. The Clippers' have all the pieces needed to win a championship now.1 The Clips are winners of 13 of their last 15 and it seems as if the team is coming full circle at the perfect time. If the Clippers continue to play at this high level of basketball and can play into a better seeding (3rd seed potential) before the season concludes, it wouldn't surprise me if they advanced further than their big brother team and shared tenant, the Lakers.
The Los Angeles Lakers are another team going into the playoffs that no one wants to play in a seven game series right now. The midseason trade for Ramon Sessions has proven to be the exact jolt they needed and with Andrew Bynum's development on the court,2 he and Gasol (if he actually shows up) in the post will be a problem for any team. We've seen how dominant and problematic both can be in the playoffs and with Bynum getting more touches in the post now, a concern for Kobe being fully healthy won't be as important. In this recent absence of Kobe, who is resting for the final grind of the year,3 the Lakers have been able to build stronger chemistry without him in the lineup. Meta World Peace looks like he knows how to play basketball again and the role players (Blake, Barnes, Murphy) finally know their roles. Once Kobe returns, it'll be interesting to see if they can keep up the momentum and readjust to Mamba's dominance of the ball. That being said, the Lakers will be ok and with a veteran team, they know how to win when it counts. As the season comes to a close both teams in Los Angeles will look to claim the third seed and avoid the tough match-up with the Grizzlies in the first round. All season long the Lakers/Clippers "rivalry" has been heated and a matchup in the playoffs would be a must-watch. They are both currently separated by half a game and it will surely be a battle in LA till April 26th and possibly down the line in the playoffs.
2. Last of a Dying Breed: I remember when I wrote the season previews at the beginning of the year, there were two teams that I wrote off as having their windows closed already and being too old to realistically compete for a championship. In a shortened 66-game season including the grind of back-to-back-to-backs, there was no way veteran teams would thrive, but the Boston Celtics and San Antonio Spurs have proven this theory wrong. From the get-go the Spurs have shown that their poor postseason performance last year was a fluke due mostly to a bad match-up and the injury of Manu Ginonili rather than them actually being washed up. This year's approach to the season led by the masterful Gregg Popovich has been brilliant. The broken hand to Manu early in the year could almost be considered a godsend to the team as it allowed guys like Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard to assert themselves into the rotation (now starters), Tony Parker has reasserted himself and has returned to his 2007-form which he needed to be (see "5. Spurs"), and Old Reliable is still reliable when he needs to be. Add a killer bench of Captain Jack, Manu, Boris Diaw's Boobs, Gary Neal,Tiago Splitter, and the Red Rocket, and leave it to Pops to squeeze the most out of all his players and you have in my opinion the second best if not the best contender in the West. As much as I dislike praising Popovich, RC Buford, and the players for putting together a great regular season, giving credit where credit is due is necessary. When a team goes on cruise control for an entire season and is still one of the best in the league that has to mean something right? As long as the Spurs avoid the Grizzlies in the playoffs they can beat anyone in the west and make a last run at the finals.
As for the other old team, the Boston Celtics, their season has been far from perfect. After a mediocre start to the year where they were sub-500 and fighting to even be in the playoff race, the Celtics have slowly turned their year around and capped off a wild regular season by winning the the Atlantic division last night, a seemingly improbable feat for them just a couple months ago. To know that this final run by the Celtics was almost a couple deals away from not happening, it is incredible to see how the team has responded. Since the trade deadline, the C's have gone out and played most of their games with a sense of urgency and as a fan you notice that these guys appreciate the chance for one more. They understand this is the last run for them. All that motivational stuff still does not put out a winning a product, the turnaround in the C's season has been in large part possible because of Doc Rivers. He has turned injuries (Jeff Green, JO, Wilcox) and one of the worst benches in the league into a positive for the team. He has found a solid 10-man rotation with guys willing to fill whatever role as long as the outcome is wins. Steinsma, Pietrus, and Sugar Ray lead the bench, the Brandon Bass swap has been a huge success, and Avery Bradley is an absolute pest on defense.4 Paul Pierce is back and so is KG. Most importantly Rajon RondoooooOOOoooOOOooo is playing out of his mind. His emotions and his level of play will be the determinant in where the C's finish their season. I've stressed before that KG is that guy, but no, it is Rondo. Rondo needs to play the way he does on national television all the time if they want to beat the Heat and Bulls en route to the finals. As a big fan of the C's I look forward to seeing how these guys will play in the playoffs. I know one thing is for sure. They won't go down without putting a good fight. 
1. Dream Series: One of the realizations that happen every year once the playoffs begin is that the basketball gods never give the fans exactly what they want. Sure for the die-hard fan of their local team, when their team makes it to the finals they don't care about the match-up as long as their team makes it to the finals, but speaking for the casual fan who just wants to watch an epic series of the most-entertaining seven-game series of basketball, the dream series this year would feature four of the top ten basketball players on the planet, the top two MVP candidates this season, and two teams that may potentially face each other in the finals for the next couple of years. The two teams I am talking about of course are the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder. These two teams have been wonderful all year and they split their regular season series. Both games were entertaining with the game in Miami determined in the final seconds. The two teams are loaded with talent, play an exciting uptempo style, and are just really fun to watch. I won't continue to gloat over them because I do it quite often, so I'll explain why this potential series could not happen.
Starting with the Thunder. Their team is great, but their success will all depend on who they are matched up with and with the seeding currently the way it is, that is exactly where they would like to be which is 2nd in the west. That is because the three teams they cannot beat or will have the hardest time beating sit at 1,4, and 5 right now (Spurs, Clippers, and Grizzlies), and they can avoid two out of the three and only play one of them if they make it to the conference finals. The Thunder cannot beat the Clippers. They just can't and it bothers the hell out of me, and the Grizzlies as we saw in last year's playoffs give them a load of trouble in the post and this year they'll have Rudy Gay. So why not have the Grizzlies and Clippers play each other in the first round then one of them play the Spurs in the second round and everything will be solved. However, the seeding can change within this next week easily. The Thunder may eventually win themselves into the 1-seed or the Clippers can get the 3-seed (1/2 game behind the Lakers) and the Thunder can remain the 2-seed. Match-ups matter for these guys, but also three point shooting, interior scoring, and their final rotation to close out games does too. The Thunder are far from perfect and they could have used a trade for an outside scoring threat (a la Clippers and Nick Young) or an inside scoring threat to sit Perkins in crunch time instead of only signing D-Fish to improve (which isn't really an improvement). I still believe the Thunder are the favorite in the west because they're an experienced playoff team now and I believe KD and Westbrook will work much better this year together than last. Baron Jr. will be the gel and x-factor that completes them, and as long as Perkins and Iblaka protect the paint, the Thunder can be playing in June regardless of whoever they have to face in the playoffs. I'm just a bit worried.
The Heat's situation is really not as complicated as the Thunder's, but they're a team that can definitely make it more complicated than it really should be. There is only one team in the east they really have to worry about and that's the Bulls. If you want to throw in Celtics, sure, but just remember what the Heat did to them last year. The Heat are really their own worst enemy and no one should actually be able to beat these guys in a series. NO ONE. They have two of the five best players in the league, a top 10 big man (Bosh still sucks) and one of these guys is a special talent that is only given to us from the basketball gods every 10 years or so. Yet they still don't know how to finish games after playing over 150+ games together and that out-of-this-world talent is still afraid to play big in the clutch. Through the years, I've waited for that all-important "it" to come out from LeBron eventually, but he just doesn't have that in him. If the Heat face any adversity in the playoffs, I truly believe they can fall apart the same way they did against the Mavs last year. The only person that won't allow it is Dwyane Wade, but he's going to need the rest of the guys to show up as well.5 This will be a two series playoffs for the Heat this year, Bulls6 and if they can beat them, whoever it is in the finals. It is that simple, but the question remains, do they have the psyche to make it this easy or will they beat themselves along the way?
Two years ago the popular pick was Lakers/Cavs, last year it was Lakers/Heat, and neither one of those played out as we saw the collapse of LeBron in Cleveland and the solidification of greatness from Dirk that changed the course of what should have been. These surprises happen every year in the playoffs and it is what makes this time of the year so great because you never know what to expect. But if everything goes according to plan I don't think anyone will complain about a finals match-up between the Thunder and Heat. The playoff grind will bring casualties to a couple favorites down the line and the Heat and Thunder are definitely not protected from the upset as they possess quite a few flaws. The month of May is where we will see if they actually have it in them and deserve to be in the finals. Until then, one can only dream of the probability.
Footnotes:
1 They actually have all the pieces necessary: 3-point shooting (Nick Young & Mo Williams), scrappy energy guys that will fight anyone and they have the best combo in the NBA (Eric Bledsoe & Reggie Evans), veteran leadership (K-Mart, Caron, and injured Chauncey), defensive shot-blocker in the paint (DeAndre Jordan), all-star (Blake), and superstar that has “it” (CP3). The only thing I see missing is a third best player but that could be filled by Mo or Caron.
2 Yeah he’s developed into the second best center in the NBA and his numbers are up and he’s performing to the best of his abilities BUT he is very immature and stubborn. His attitude will only hurt him down the line. That three point shooting crap that he’s pulling and that high horse he’s riding needs to stop. It really surprises me that Kobe hasn’t done anything, but since he’s playing so well I guess it will be fine for now. I just hope Bynum understands that he still has a lot of room for improvement and that he hasn’t accomplished anything significant in his career yet that is worth puffing his chest.
3 Don’t worry folks, Kobe is fine, he’s not a human. He’s actually a robot. He’s getting a final recharge on his battery, a tune up on his knee, and an installation of destroy everything hardware. When the playoffs start, Black Mamba will be ready to kill everything.
4 Almost incredible how Doc turned this team around and found the perfect rotation to have these guys playing well. A large part is credited to the professionalism of the Big 4 especially Ray Allen who has accepted his role off the bench, Avery Bradley’s development into the new Bruce Bowen (I honestly didn’t think Bradley would make it in the league but he has found his niche), and the surprising effectiveness of their makeshift center rotation of Grelandon Steinsholbass. Simply incredible how Sasha Pavolic can be a part of a rotation competing for an NBA title. This should never happen in 2012….then again what era would have a successful team featuring Sasha?
5 I’m speaking to Mike Miller and Shane Battier’s remains, Chris Bosh’s manliness (if it actually exists), and that center combination of Ronny Turiaf and Joel Anthony? I don’t worry about Chalmers cause he’s been clutch his whole life, and this is the year guys…LeBron will not choke…I hope.
6 I can't emphasize enough how important Derrick Rose's health is in determining the winner of the eastern conference. He’s going to have to be brilliant and it really doesn’t matter to me that Rip Hamilton is starting to play well now, and the rest of the team has gotten much better this year, Derrick Rose is still going to have to carry these guys. If he was 100% the Bulls would be my favorites, but I just think that Rose’s health issues will be the reason the Heat win the east again.
No comments:
Post a Comment