Category Archives: Basketball News
What an ending.
Boston was down one point with 10 seconds to go, all Atlanta had to do was get the ball in, hit their free throws and get out with a win. But Rajon Rondo steals an inbounds pass, then since they don’t have any timeouts, Boston goes directly into a play. Kevin Garnett comes out to set the high pick, it works the Hawks switch so Rondo is now covered by Al Horford… but it doesn’t go as planned. Hawks win.
Boston now heads home for a game Thursday night up 3-2 in the series.
Reuters
When Baron Davis went down it looked bad. The video of the injury is at the bottom of this post but don’t watch it if you are squeamish.
Davis suffered a dislocated kneecap. He’s done for these playoffs and frankly this could be the sad end to his career (he will be 33 next season and his production was already in decline due to age and other injuries).
Davis’s kneecap leaves the Knicks in a tighter bind — and their bind was already plenty tight being down 3-1 to the Miami Heat. Davis was the starting point guard and without him the Knicks lean on Mike Bibby. The guy the Heat let walk at the end of the last season for nothing.
Of course, there’s always Jeremy Lin… if he is back from knee surgery and ready to go by Wednesday. Can he be? ESPNNewYork.com looked into it.
“He’ll get back into the gym (Monday) talk to the doctors about where he is physically,” (Knicks coach Mike) Woodson said. “We’ll make some decisions before we get on the plane and head to Miami.”
They have a few days, and smart money says Lin is on the plane to Miami with the team. But whether or not he can play remains to be seen.
Lin or no Lin isn’t going to swing the series to the Knicks. But he gives New York a fighting chance that Bibby and Toney Douglas — the other two point guards on the roster — do not. New York needs Lin back. We’ll see if they get him.
The Nuggets were facing elimination heading into Tuesday’s Game 5 at Staples Center, and as if seeing their season come to an end wasn’t motivation enough, Lakers center Andrew Bynum provided them with a little something extra, courtesy of comments he made at one of the team’s practice sessions before this one.
“Closeout games are actually kind of easy,” Bynum said. “Teams tend to fold if you come out and play hard in the beginning.”
Nothing was easy for the Lakers, and we’ll never know what might have been had L.A. actually played hard from the start. They did not, and now the series will head back to Denver for a Game 6 after the Nuggets played with a sustained fire and energy for 48 minutes that earned them a 102-99 victory.
Andre Miller was masterful with the way he ran Denver’s offense, finishing with 24 points and eight assists in 28 minutes off the bench. JaVale McGee was an absolute monster, getting loose around the rim seemingly at will while finishing with 21 points on 9-of-12 shooting, to go along with 14 rebounds and a couple of blocked shots.
Denver held the lead for most of the night, and ran it up to 15 points — its largest of the game — with six-and-a-half minutes left. L.A. made a furious rally at that point behind four largely ridiculous three-pointers from Kobe Bryant, but ultimately couldn’t make it all the way back.
Bryant finished with 43 points, Bynum had a quiet 16 points and 11 rebounds, and no other Laker was able to impact this game on either end of the floor.
The Lakers, to a man, didn’t have an explanation for not coming out with enough energy and focus to match that of their opponent and close this series out. The Nuggets, however, were unified in detailing their motivation. And they agreed that Bynum’s comments provided just that.
“His feeling on closeouts is a little different than my history of being in them,” George Karl said afterward. “So I told my players that. “
Mike Brown admitted what his All-Star center said could be construed as “bulletin-board material,” but didn’t necessarily have a problem with Bynum’s comments.
“It is bulletin board material,” he said. “If a guy wants to say that, in my opinion, he’s got to back it up. But we all have to get his back and try to help him back it up. We did not as a team.”
McGee admitted Bynum’s comments were motivational, but being in the playoffs for the first time in his career was likely a bigger reason for the way he came out and dominated in a potential elimination game.
“Usually I’m nowhere near the playoffs,” he said, referencing the fact that he played the past three and a half seasons for the dismal Washington Wizards, before the mid-season trade that brought him to Denver in March.
“My last game is usually, if it’s a regular season, in April,” he added. “I definitely didn’t want tonight to be my last game.”
He played like it. And so did his teammates, especially defensively. Denver stuck to its principles, sending hard double teams at Bynum all night long, doing the same against Pau Gasol, and daring the Lakers to be efficient with their ball movement before knocking down mid-range or three-point shots.
Until Bryant’s barrage late in the fourth, L.A. couldn’t hit anything from outside, so Denver was able to continue to pack the paint, making life miserable offensively for the Lakers’ bigs.
Kobe, as you might imagine, didn’t have a problem with Bynum’s comments that wound up being that last thing the Nuggets saw in their pregame film session. But ultimately, he knows that his team can’t pull a no-show in the playoffs, no matter where the other team’s motivation is coming from.
“That’s true, closeout teams can be easy sometimes,” Bryant said, in temporary defense of his teammate. “But tonight wasn’t one of those nights.”
“I don’t think it makes a difference,” Bryant said. “Did it pump them up? Probably. Were they going to come out and play with that kind of energy anyway? Probably. We didn’t execute and they obviously played harder than we did, so it’s a lesson to learn. You never want to give anybody bulletin material to begin with, but if you’re going to be a champion, you’ve got to play through that type of stuff.”
Bryant also didn’t believe that as a team, their energy magically appeared at some point late in the fourth quarter. He’s had performances like that too many times, and he’s been the one who’s had to personally drag his team back from the dead many more times than that.
“I wouldn’t say our energy kicked in in the fourth quarter,” he said. “I almost bailed us out. That’s what happened. It wasn’t an energy switch, I started making shots left and right and got us back in the ballgame. That’s not something that we can use to rely on to get us to a championship. It can’t be that. We all have to step up and we all have to contribute and we all have to play with that kind of energy and a sense of urgency.”
It’s better for the Lakers to get a grip on this now, in the first round, while they still hold a 3-2 lead in the series with two more chances to close out the Nuggets if absolutely necessary. Bryant pointed to the inexperience on his team as a possible reason for Tuesday’s poor showing, while mentioning the opportunity to gain that experience on the road in Game 6 in the very next breath.
“I’ve been in this position before, but a lot of guys on the team haven’t been in that position before,” he said. “It’s important to remind them that yeah, this sucks, but it’s not the end of the world. You’ve got to go up there in a tough environment, gain some experience, and earn your stripes.”
The Nuggets know they’ve competed in all but one of the first five games of this series, and coming off a huge road win to save themselves from elimination — while having the opportunity in front of them to force a Game 7, where anything can happen — will likely be more than enough to get them going for Thursday’s Game 6 back in Denver.
Andrew Bynum and the rest of the Lakers would be wise not to give the Nuggets any additional motivation.
Reuters
The theory going into this series was that the Knicks would win a game or two simply because Carmelo Anthony and maybe J.R. Smith or Steve Novak would just get hot.
But the Heat’s defense this series has doused any spark before it could catch fire. The result is the Heat have cruised to a 3-0 series lead and look likely to close it out in a sweep at Madison Square Garden Sunday.
The Knicks are suffering plenty of indignities — they now have lost an NBA record 13 straight playoff games. Three losses to the Heat, all by double digits. And it hasn’t been that close. Knicks fans are making Amare Stoudemire the scapegoat for a playoff collapse but the Knicks problems are in a roster built of names and stars with little thought to chemistry and fit.
The Heat had some of those problems last year, but they have overcome them. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade have figured out how to compliment each other, Erik Spoelstra came up with a system that fits what the Heat want to do.
New York has no idea how to make Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony work together. Mike D’Antoni couldn’t do get them to do it; Mike Woodson has made this ‘Melo’s team and left Stoudemire on the periphery. It may be moot today as Stoudemire is a game-time decision due to the left hand he smashed into a fire extinguisher case in frustration…
Actually, it’s moot either way.
The only question left in this series is if Sunday can be the Knicks can have that one insanely hot shooting day. Probably not, the Heat have proven they can take ‘Melo out of his comfort zone.
Then New York can start to focus on how to make this thing actually work.
Getty Images
It ended pretty much like everyone expected it to end, five games with the Pacers in control at the end.
But at times it didn’t feel like it was supposed to — the Pacers looked like a team still learning how to win in the playoffs. Orlando played hard and gritty ball, they never stopped shooting threes and when they fell they were dangerous.
But like in Game 5, all that could keep Orlando close for only so long. In the end talent won out and with Orlando missing its all-world center Dwight Howard it was only a matter of time. In Game 5 the Pacers were down 2 entering the fourth but outscored the Magic by 20 — led by Danny Granger’s dozen in the final quarter — and pulled away for a 105-87 win and a 4-1 series win.
It is the first time the Indiana Pacers have advanced past the first round since Reggie Miller’s last season and Rick Carlisle was coach (2005).
Their reward? The Miami Heat. (Unless you think the Knicks can pull off the greatest playoff comeback in NBA history. We’ll stick with the Heat for now.)
For Orlando, they head into a summer of uncertainty — what will happen with coach Stan Van Gundy, with attempts to shape the roster to Howard’s liking, or in the end they may just move him. The bottom line is they were 5-12 without Howard to end the season and were not a playoff team.
This game was a battle of the point guards. Orlando stayed close because of Jameer Nelson, who had 27 points. He was fantastic off the pick-and-roll with Glen Davis, stepping back to hit the three (5-of-8 from deep) or driving into the lane. Indiana struggled to defend him in this game and all series.
But the Pacers responded with the duo of Darren Collison and George Hill. This was Collison’s night — 9-of-10 shooting for 19 points off the bench, his speed was just too much for the Magic to slow. Hill finished with 15 points and had a good third quarter that kept Indiana in it.
But the third quarter had belonged to the Magic, who played with the desperation of a team trying not to be eliminated. They outscored the Pacers 24-19 in the quarter, played good defense and made of a game of it.
But Granger came alive, Collison made shots and after a 36-16 fourth quarter the Pacers are moving on.
Indiana has been a team on the rise, a team with good talent and good balance that plays smart at both end. Now we’re about to find out just how good they are.
But first, Indiana should celebrate the win and the step forward. They earned it, even if the path could have been tougher.
You’ve gotta feel for the Chicago Bulls right now. After going 50-16 in the regular season to secure the Eastern Conference’s best record, the Bulls watched their best player tear his ACL with just over a minute remaining in Game 1 of the series, and Game 3 saw Joakim Noah go down with an ankle injury.
Needless to say, this isn’t the same team that made the Eastern Conference Finals last season or had the conference’s best record this year, and they didn’t look like it on Saturday afternoon. Without Rose, the Bulls don’t seem to have any ideas on how to get by Philadelphia’s top-5 ranked defense, and the team shot just 40% from the field on Saturday, while only making 3 shots from beyond the arc and 11 free throws. The Bulls’ game plan seemed to be to force-feed Carlos Boozer and hope for the best, but Boozer needed 24 shots to get his 23 points, which the 76ers were happy to live with.
Meanwhile, with Noah out of the lineup, 76ers center Spencer Hawes was able to have an absolute field day. Hawes had 22 points on just 11 shots, which is a big reason the 76ers were able to win despite the fact that Lou Williams, Jrue Holiday, and Evan Turner combined to shoot just 12-45 from the field.
The Bulls are obviously in dire straights — even if Noah comes back for Game 5, the Bulls are going to have a very hard time winning this series, and even if they manage to escape the 8th-seeded 76ers, it’s pretty clear their odds of advancing much further without Rose are slim to none. Meanwhile, the 76ers’ defense is looking as good as advertised, and it looks like they have a great chance of being the 1st team to beat a 1-seed in the 1st round since the 2007 Warriors, although the 76ers’ win will certainly come with a pretty big asterisk attached to it.
Reuters
Derrick Rose is out for the rest of the playoffs. Joakim Noah, who was a game-time decision, ended up not playing a minute. And it didn’t matter from the Chicago Bulls, who staved off elimination in Game 5 of their series with the Philadelphia 76ers thanks to a great performance from Luol Deng and some absolutely suffocating defense.
The Bulls won Game 5 by doing what got them the best record in the Eastern Conference — playing some absolutely ridiculous defense. As good as Joakim Noah is defensively, the Bulls are one of the deepest defensive teams the league has ever seen, and Omer Asik and Taj Gibson did a great job filling in for Noah on the defensive end of the floor. And while nobody is even thinking that the Bulls don’t miss Derrick Rose desperately, C.J. Watson and Ronnie Brewer are two of the best backcourt defensive players in the league.
On Tuesday, the Bulls’ defense played up to its full potential, and the results for Philadelphia were brutal. The team shot 32% from the floor, made 2 of its 11 3-point tries, and had a 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Andre Iguodala shot 4-19 from the floor, Jrue Holliday shot 5-17, and Elton Brand had a grand total of 5 points. To put things bluntly, the 76ers couldn’t find the basket with a map against Tom Thibodeau’s defense.
The Bulls didn’t light the scoreboard on fire without Rose and Noah, but Luol Deng’s great performance (he scored 24 points on 10-19 shooting from the field and 4-5 shooting from beyond the 3-point line) and a solid 19-point game from Carlos Boozer was more than enough for the Bulls on a night where their defense played such lights-out basketball.
The Bulls still have a long road ahead of them if they want to make it out of the first round, let alone any further, but they showed how they just might be able to pull it off on Tuesday night. If the Bulls can keep using their unrivaled combination of defense and depth this effectively, their season just might not be over quite yet.
Reuters
The theory going into this series was that the Knicks would win a game or two simply because Carmelo Anthony and maybe J.R. Smith or Steve Novak would just get hot.
But the Heat’s defense this series has doused any spark before it could catch fire. The result is the Heat have cruised to a 3-0 series lead and look likely to close it out in a sweep at Madison Square Garden Sunday.
The Knicks are suffering plenty of indignities — they now have lost an NBA record 13 straight playoff games. Three losses to the Heat, all by double digits. And it hasn’t been that close. Knicks fans are making Amare Stoudemire the scapegoat for a playoff collapse but the Knicks problems are in a roster built of names and stars with little thought to chemistry and fit.
The Heat had some of those problems last year, but they have overcome them. LeBron James and Dwyane Wade have figured out how to compliment each other, Erik Spoelstra came up with a system that fits what the Heat want to do.
New York has no idea how to make Amare Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony work together. Mike D’Antoni couldn’t do get them to do it; Mike Woodson has made this ‘Melo’s team and left Stoudemire on the periphery. It may be moot today as Stoudemire is a game-time decision due to the left hand he smashed into a fire extinguisher case in frustration…
Actually, it’s moot either way.
The only question left in this series is if Sunday can be the Knicks can have that one insanely hot shooting day. Probably not, the Heat have proven they can take ‘Melo out of his comfort zone.
Then New York can start to focus on how to make this thing actually work.
Getty Images
There was a point at the end of the third quarter that it seemed like the Atlanta Hawks were going to crumble once again in the second half, but somehow they were able to overcome the turnovers and terrible offensive possessions that saw their 12 point lead with less than three minutes to go in the third quarter shrink to just two points heading into the final stanza. It wasn’t a pretty ending, of course, but it got the job done as the Hawks stayed alive at home with the 87-86 victory over the Boston Celtics on Tuesday night.
It’s probably not fair to consider everything Atlanta does on offense as “typical Hawks basketball,” but the ending probably shouldn’t have surprised anyone … despite it being insanely crazy. Josh Smith attempted to inbound the ball with 10.9 seconds left, but instead turned it over, giving Rajon Rondo the ball and the chance to win the game while ending the Hawks’ season in ridiculous fashion. Rondo was unable to convert on the other end due to a dribbling snafu, however, and the Hawks just barely eked out the victory.
Game 5 was one of the more entertaining games in the series — and altogether different from the first four, much to no one’s surprise — but the Hawks wouldn’t have been able to do it without Al Horford. Horford was back in the starting lineup for the first time since an injury in early January and his efforts were brilliant, scoring 19 points, grabbing 11 rebounds and adding three steals, blocks and assists while giving Atlanta a much-needed presence in the low post.
The Celtics were hot from the field on Sunday when they took the 3-1 lead in the series, but that certainly wasn’t the case on Tuesday. Boston ended up with a respectable shooting percentage of 44 percent from the field, but Rajon Rondo’s jumper returned to regularity, Paul Pierce missed a potential game-winner late in the game and Brandon Bass continued to struggle from the field. It wasn’t a particularly terrible effort from Boston, either, but if Pierce is unable to play at 100 percent — and he clearly wasn’t on Tuesday, spending stretches on the sidelines — this series is going to get harder for Boston as long as it continues.
As far as the keys to the Hawks offense were concerned, it seems that being able to put their original starting lineup out on the floor was all that was needed to get the offense back on track. Aside from the lapse at the end of the third quarter, Atlanta’s offense moved the ball very well, evidenced by the fact that all five starters scored in double-figures for the first time in the postseason. Josh Smith scored 13 points, grabbed 16 rebounds and dished six assists on a bum leg, Marvin Williams scored 15 points while looking rejuvenated and Jeff Teague had a solid 16. Joe Johnson probably would have hurt his standing with Atlanta fans even more had they not won the game, though, as his 15 points on 17 shots certainly wasn’t indicative of a player that recently received a max contract.
Going forward, it’s going to be interesting to see if the Hawks are able to build on the momentum as they head back to Boston. Atlanta didn’t look great in Boston, but that might change with Horford back in the mix — and Boston’s been unable to find much consistency this series, anyway, so it’s tough to tell what might happen in Game 6. Rondo has shown the ability to control stretches and, if the Celtics are going to close out the Hawks in six games, he may need to take over on Thursday night … especially if Pierce is still favoring his knee.
Reuters
The old model wasn’t going to work anymore.
Mark Cuban has read the new CBA that the owners and players signed off on after the lockout, and he saw the increasingly punitive taxes and penalties on big spending teams. He looked at his business model of the last decade — which was to win by spending like the ATM machines that are the Lakers and Knicks — and knew things had to change.
Flexibility became the watchword. Starting this season Cuban started to look to the future reshaping the roster with younger free agents — ideally both Dwight Howard and Deron Williams at the time — and made hard choices. Dallas didn’t bring Tyson Chandler back. Or Caron Butler. Or J.J. Barea. Or DeShawn Stevenson.
Combine that with the roll of the dice on Lamar Odom that flamed out, and the Mavericks didn’t have the depth, didn’t have a different guy who could step up every night as the second star. Last season they had depth and matchups that could confound anyone. Last season those guys were key behind Dirk Nowitzki — and the team leader himself showed up this year with a championship hangover not ready to play at his peak. His shooting percentage dropped from 51.7 last season to 45.7 this season and there was nobody there to consistently pick up the slack.
The result was the defending champs getting unceremoniously swept out of the playoffs by the up-and-coming Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Dallas defense was still solid this season, but their Mavericks offense fell from eighth best in the league (109.7 points per 100 possessions) the year of their championship to 22nd best this season (103.3 points per 100).
It was the price of flexibility.
This coming summer Jason Terry likely is gone. Jason Kidd may come back but not at the price he’s asking. Shawn Marion and Brendan Haywood will be moved if Dallas can find takers, although Marion’s defensive value may keep him in the fold. Any player not born in Germany is not safe on this roster going forward.
Flexibility.
It is Nowitzki and the chance to chase Deron Williams this summer that is the drive. The original goal was to lure Williams and Dwight Howard, but Howard chose to spend another year with Orlando (even if the Magic decide they need to trade him the Mavericks do not have the assets anymore). Williams is the target, but he does like the idea of Brooklyn and staying with the Nets. Even though that franchise has little shot at Howard or another big name either. Here is what Marc Stein wrote at ESPN.
One source well-acquainted with Williams’ thinking told ESPN.com this weekend that the Mavericks, in their current state, have no better than a “50-50 shot” of getting D-Will’s signature in July …
Even if Dallas does not land Williams, it has landed cap space and the ability to make moves and evolve this team into a future winner. Cuban saw what Jerry Buss did with years the Lakers — make moves too early rather than too late — and saw the new CBA rules and made his move. In a couple years we may look back and see it as brilliant.
But this season it came home to roost on the court in a first round playoff sweep at the hands of the Thunder. It was the price paid for a gamble. Cuban tried for the half-court shot of trying to rebuild on the fly and not take a step back, and that missed like half-court shots usually do.
But the Mavericks got their ultimate goal. They have cap space and flexibility. Now we’ll see what they can do with it.
