“Everybody you meet is
undefeated.”
While neither the Heat or Spurs
are undefeated, they meet again at High Noon. The Heat are probably
asking how the Spurs even played this season after last year’s devastating
ending. The Spurs are thinking that they had the Heat beat last year, and
now they need to do it all over again – and hope the bounces go their way this
time. Perhaps home court advantage will make the sliver of difference
between winning and losing this time – though remember the Finals have switched
from the 2-3-2 format followed for decades to the 2-2-1-1-1 format followed in
the earlier rounds. The Heat had home court advantage, and therefore
Games 6 and 7 last year were in Miami.
For those who want to plan their
lives around the Finals, here is the schedule:
Game 1: Thu. June 5 at San Antonio, 9 p.m., ABC.Game 2: Sun.
June 8 at San Antonio, 8 p.m., ABC.Game 3: Tue. June 10 at Miami, 9 p.m.,
ABC.Game 4: Thu. June 12 at Miami, 9 p.m., ABC.Game 5*: Sun. June 15 at San
Antonio, 8 p.m., ABC.Game 6*: Tue. June 17 at Miami, 9 p.m., ABC.Game 7*: Fri .
June 20 at San Antonio, 9 p.m., ABC.
One thing to remember. The
Heat had a much easier trip to the Finals. First round: the
Charlotte Hornets, who had never been to the playoffs in their existence, whose
best player was Al Jefferson – if your best player is Al Jefferson, by
definition you are not an elite team. On top of that, Best Player
Al Jefferson was hurt for the series. By games 3 and 4, he could barely
drag his bad foot around the court. Second round: Brooklyn
Nets. The Nets were outscored on the season. All stats guys will
tell you that the best way to determine team quality is total points scored vs.
total points surrendered. Much more telling than win-loss record, which
has a lot of randomness involved. And I repeat – Nets were outscored on
the season. Not surprising, since their best players – Garnett, Pierce,
Joe Johnson, Duron Williams were all former excellent players.
Take it from me, it is better to have players who are excellent now.
Miami’s third round
series: The confusing, and confused, Indiana Pacers. After a great
start, they were a .500 team since February 1. Another telling stat for
team quality: How you played in the most recent games. In the last
40 games, Indiana was average, and then barely beat a below .500 team in the
first round. Atlanta was 38 – 44 on the season in the awful Eastern
Conference, and like the Nets, outscored on the season.
Compare that to the Spurs.
In the first round, they played a 49 win Dallas team that would have been the
#3 seed in the East (and who outscored their opponents by over 2 points per
game.) Second round, Spurs played the Portland Trailblazers, who had the same regular
season record as a team you may have heard of: The Miami Heat.
Tellingly, the Blazers outscored opponents by 4.0 per game playing most
of their games in the Western Conference, comparable to the Heat’s 4.4 per game playing in the East.
Finally, the Spurs had the
Thunder in the WCF. The Thunder had the second best record in the NBA
(second to the Spurs), had outscored opponents by 6.3 per game (43% higher than
the Heat) – and got to the conference finals by beating the Clippers (who have
been in the news recently) who had a better record than anyone in the East, and
had outscored opponents by 7.0 per game. I am trying to remember what
else has been newsworthy about the Clippers… Oh, now I remember:
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Anyway, back to the fake
blog. The OKC – Spurs series was a strange beast. The average
margin for victory in the first 5 games of Spurs - OKC was 20.4 per game,
with the home team winning each game. Put another way – a 41 point
swing depending on whether the game was in Texas or Oklahoma. No
wonder there are so many tornadoes there.
And game 6 was a doozy (as they
would have said in the 1950s). The Spurs were down 7 at halftime, decided
to not play Tony Parker for the second half, and instead started the immortal
Corey Joseph. He had not even played in 4 of the 18 Spur playoff games,
which is remarkable since many of the games were blowouts. Hell, before
starting
the second half, he hadn’t played in this game. In the 14 games he
had played in, he averaged less than 6 minutes per game. And like much of
what else Pop does – it worked. In the seven minutes Joseph played, the
Spurs outscored OKC by 7, tied up the game, and turned what looked like another
potential Thunder home blowout into a barn-burner (as they would have said in
the 1940s).
And the game then turned on this
play, OKC down 1 with 40 seconds left:
Even the guys in my Sunday
morning game wouldn’t call a foul on that one. Well, some of them would.
The Spurs have two big
advantages from the schedule they played in the playoffs. First, they
have been tested, and pushed, much more than the Heat have. Second, the
match-ups have been remarkably similar for the Spurs. In rounds one and
two, each opponent had excellent offensive teams powered by a jump-shooting
4-man and a dynamic scoring point guard (Nowitski/Ellis –
Aldridge/Lilliard). With OKC and Miami, the Spurs face teams with two
great players each (KD/Westbrook – Lebron/Wade) and inconsistent 3 – 12
players. And Ibaka and Bosh are similar too as the “third” of the
so-called Big Three on each team.
Of course, the Heat have the
advantage of having the best player in the world, abundant rest, and everyone
healthy.
The team match-ups are
fascinating. As recounted in earlier fake blogs, the Spurs have had one
top-20 pick in the past 20 years: Duncan. Who is now 38. They
start a guy, Danny Green, who was waived a few years ago by the
Cleveland Cavaliers, when they were in last place. Their leading scorer
in Game 6, Boris Diaw, was waived two years ago by the Charlotte Hornets,
who were in last place at the time. For games 5 and 6 against the
Thunder, Spurs started the Red Rocket – Matt Bonner – who was a second round
pick, 45th overall. Of course, that was 12 picks earlier than
my man Manu, 57th pick overall. They also give big minutes to
little Patty Mills from Australia – second round pick, 55th overall,
who couldn’t get off the bench for two earlier teams. Amazingly, with
Mills, Green and Marco Bellinelli, the Spurs have 3 of the top 15 three point
shooters in the league:
Compare that to the Heat.
Lebron – No. 1 player in the world – in his prime at 29 years old. No. 1
pick in the draft. D Wade, 3rd or 4th best
shooting guard ever (MJ, Kobe, Jerry West/Wade) – 5th pick in the
draft. Bosh a/k/a Voldemort, 4th pick in the draft:
Plus Ray Allen (before Curry,
maybe best shooter ever), Rashard Lewis (former Max Contract guy), Michael
Beasley, former No. 2 pick in the draft, and this guy, former No. 1 pick in the
draft:
So the Heat model was to put
together the Big Three (honestly, now Two and a Half Men) and surround it with
big-name talent. The Spurs model is to take guys off the scrap heap, tell
them to play hard, pass the ball, and shoot when they are open – unless a
teammate had a slightly better shot. Once again, this re-match will be a
test of models.
OTHER THOUGHTS
Technology:
As you might guess, I watched a
lot of the playoffs. And in every game, when they panned the first row of
the seats, there was always a few people – in the first row of an NBA playoff
game – with their head buried in a damn cell phone, texting away. Like
this:
The NBA should start removing those people from the arena. Just like they did with Sterling. (The evil one, not our client.)
DFish:
One
of my favorite players, Derek Fisher, may have played his last NBA game last
night. I watched him after the game last night, not wanting to leave the
floor, trying to soak it all in one last time. I
am sure he spilled much well-deserved Sad Water after the game (as described in
earlier fake blog):
We now know that the shedding of sad water was
an extremely good thing. When losing hurts enough to cry at the end, that
proves you cared. If we are very lucky, tears are part of what we are. I hope
that the 67 teams that lose during March Madness care enough to cry when their
seasons end.
Jesse Winchester wrote and sings a song called "If
Only", lyrics below. Click on the link below for the song itself. Enjoy
March Madness, for both the one team that wins it all, and the 67 other winning
teams that don't.
"If we only lived on the ocean floor
Below the waves and the storm and roar
We'd stroll along in our garden blue
Where the flowers all come and play with you
"If we only lived on the ocean floor
Below the waves and the storm and roar
We'd stroll along in our garden blue
Where the flowers all come and play with you
It's true we'll live in a great big tear
But the world above will never harm us
here
Oh I, I just wonder where would I
Be without the tears I've cried
Unless you're from another star
Tears are part of what we are."
Oh I, I just wonder where would I
Be without the tears I've cried
Unless you're from another star
Tears are part of what we are."
If
DFish retires, he will retire as the player with the most NBA playoff wins of
any player ever. Read that sentence again. Most. Ever.
From Arkansas Little Rock. Drafted by the Lakers, 24th pick
late in the first round. Look at the guys drafted at about the same
place, and tell me this guy did not have a remarkable career:
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21
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NYK
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Dontae'
Jones
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Mississippi
State
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22
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VAN
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Roy
Rogers
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Alabama
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23
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DEN
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Efthimi
Rentzias
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Greece
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24
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LAL
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Derek
Fisher
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Arkansas
Little Rock
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25
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UTA
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Martin
Muursepp
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Estonia
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26
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DET
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Jerome
Williams
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Georgetown
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27
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ORL
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Brian
Evans
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Indiana
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28
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ATL
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Priest
Lauderdale
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Central
State
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29
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CHI
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Travis
Knight
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Connecticut
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When
DFish left the Lakers to go to the Warriors years ago, I predicted he would
come back some day as Laker coach. Here’s hoping I was right, and it
happens NOW. (Unless he wants to keep playing – I still do, and I wouldn’t
blame him at all.)
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