TrueHoop: Daily Bullets
- Ramona Shelbourne with a great profile on Kobe Bryant and the Lakers at the end of another disappointing season: "The circle of people Kobe Bryant trusts is small and getting smaller. In the last year, he has lost too many of them. Phil Jackson retired and is reachable only by phone now. Lamar Odom lost his way. Derek Fisher was traded. Pau Gasol has faded. Andrew Bynum isn't worthy yet. Only general manager Mitch Kupchak remains. Kupchak's place with the Lakers is different now. Everything is. The team let many of its longest tenured employees go during the lockout. Scouts, equipment managers, strength coaches, front office personnel. All discarded for unsatisfying reasons. Like Bryant, Kupchak's job is harder now. He has fewer resources. His options are limited. He took his big shot by trading for Paul, but it was taken away before it became a reality. After that, there was almost no way to make it right. At least not right away. But knowing and accepting are different things."
- Ric Bucher reports more bad news for Billy Hunter and the National Basketball Players Association, which is under investigation from the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan.
- Carlos Boozer is easily the worst frontcourt defender on the Bulls, and probably shouldn't have received an All-Defense vote. But his teammate Joakim Noah, the best defender on a top-3 defense, should have been a first- teamer.
- On the New York Times, Rob Mahoney takes a good hard look at the rebounding matchup in the Western Conference Finals: "No team closes out defensive possessions more effectively than the Spurs, and few are more capable of capitalizing on the offensive boards than the active and athletic Thunder. But the offensive rebound isn’t merely an end in itself. By extending possessions, the Thunder have the potential to derail San Antonio’s early offense, even if also has the potential for great risk, should the Spurs secure a defensive rebound quickly and cue the break. It’s a gambit that could go either way, making success all the more important."
- Courtside fashion icon Jimmy Goldstein on Russell Westbrook's duds: "I smile when I see Russell Westbrook's fashion choices. Wearing glasses without any lenses in them I don't think is something I admire, but if the players want to look like mirrors, that's their prerogative."
- Latrell Sprewell wasn't old school, he was Old Testament.
- Ben Wallace drives WHAT?
- Even when he misses, Ray Allen helps the Celtics just by being out on the court.
- The Thunder won't be showing their games outside the arena anymore, following a shooting after their Game 5 win over the Lakers. It's understandable, but a shame; that seemed like a very cool scene.
- On The Classical, Danny Chau argues Russell Westbrook has an organizing presence, in his own way: "Westbrook, with no discernible system in place in Oklahoma City, makes his teammates better by streamlining his duties on the floor. A traditional point guard is entrusted with the duty to create and reset plays. For the Thunder, that trust is dispersed three ways. On any given possession, Westbrook, Durant, or Harden are handed the reins to the offense. With three different styles of attack, there is no one identity to fall back on. Westbrook, by ceding some control to other playmakers, reinforces his structure of trust. It’s the closest Westbrook comes to molding the offense in his image. Tradition dictates the importance of maintaining control. For Westbrook, success relies on letting go."
- Trailer for a very cool-looking documentary on New York City pick-up basketball. Kenny Anderson, Fly Williams, God Shammgod, Homicide, Kenny Smith, Smush Parker, Headache, Julius Erving, Pee Wee Kirkland and others. What you might already be thinking.
- A very rough scene, including multiple shootings, in Oklahoma City after the Thunder win. Royce Young of Daily Thunder: "There were an estimated 10,000 people outside the arena Monday watching the game in Thunder Alley. It’s a question now as to if Thunder Alley will continue after this incident."
- John Hollinger (Insider) on JaVale McGee: "Turns out he's not just a punch line. McGee showed more development in two months in Denver than he had in four years in Washington, particularly on the offensive end where he showed some refinement with a sweeping hook shot. McGee still takes ridiculous chances on blocking shots he has no hope of reaching and leaves his feet constantly on the defensive end. On the other hand, he went for 21-14 against an elite frontcourt to key a close playoff road win, rejected a phenomenal 22 shots in 181 minutes, and had three 14-rebound efforts in seven games. In other words, while he's still something of a project, he's a productive project. Which makes him one of the league's most interesting names in restricted free agency. We know he's an athletic freak who probably has the highest leaping reach in basketball, so if he can just get halfway decent on the mental aspects he'll be a star. That tantalizing possibility, as the first round made clear, may cost Denver a lot more now that he's shown signs of possibly achieving it."
- Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register on the Lakers' season: "All the meanings could be seen in the final game: The Lakers were too slow, failed to defend consistently, had virtually no bench help, didn't get a team game from Bryant, couldn't depend fully on Bynum and had to accept excuses afterward from Gasol about what a tough year it was. 'He always wants me to be aggressive,' Gasol said of Bryant, 'but it's been tough for me. I've been in a facilitating role most of the year, pretty much the third option most of the year.' Then one of the last things Gasol said for the season was simply this: 'A lot going on this year.' Yes, more than enough to keep the Lakers from making that leap they've made look so seamless before ... from talented players to championship team. 'We just weren't doing it together,' Bynum said."
- This is turning into another one of those years ... if the NBA is rigged to favor big markets, they are terrible at rigging things. Out: New York, both Los Angeles teams, Chicago. In: Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Boston (bear with me), Philadelphia (likely not for long) and Miami.
- Jazz GM Kevin O'Connor on KFAN, when asked about the "one and done" rule that allows players to join the NBA after one year of college or equivalent: "My wife writes the checks. And she would not like to write a check if I told you what I thought about the whole thing. Because the NBA would calling up ... and saying to send a check."
- Idea from a Blazer fan's active imagination. How about hiring both Van Gundys in Portland, to take over jobs as coach and GM as they see fit? Would eliminate trust issues, dramatically improve the defense and create one hell of a sitcom.
- The owner of the Warriors and mayor of San Francisco making very strong comments, loaded with certainty, about the Warriors moving to San Francisco.
- Kevin Garnett has some thoughts about Philadelphia fans.
- Heat superstars wonder aloud what Danny Granger is up to with his tough talk, which is probably a decent sign Granger's tactics have been effective.
- Is Shaquille O'Neal in position to make fun of Metta World Peace for having too many names?
- Time lapse video of Staples Center's busy weekend, with a thumpin' rock beat.
- Kevin McHale gets a C+ for his coaching.
- Holy Italian league playoff buzzer beaters.
- A while ago, I got very excited about Ian Levy's pretty charts showing team's offensive plays and how often they use them. Now he has them for all 30 teams. There is a lot to glean from them. But also ... the lines of the charts, like clouds in the sky, luck into recognizable shapes at times. Can't help but notice that the chart of the Lakers' offense looks like a dead bird. The Heat's looks like a little singing cartoon dude. The Thunder's is a fighter jet. The Hawks (work with me on this) resembles the head of a Great Dane.
- Russell Westbrook had four turnovers in the whole series.
- Jeff Green was nearly the victim of a deadly sneaker avalanche.
- James Jones would be embarrassed if he missed a 3-pointer by as much as he missed this dunk.
- Philadunkia's Tom Sunnergren on the ageless Kevin Garnett: "The careers of professional athletes end, as a general rule, about the way Hemingway described going bankrupt: slowly, then all at once. An injury — say a knee sprain that happens in a February 2009 game in Utah — occurs, never fully heals, becomes a chronic, lingering source of discomfort, then, as the player fights through it, adjusts, maybe unconsciously to mitigate the pain, a host of other maladies spring from the adjustment: calf strains, tendonitis of various stripe, back pain. Bio-mechanical breakdown ensues. Eventually, they’re a shell of themselves. A copy of a copy; like that Michael Keaton movie, but even harder to watch. A season later they’re on a golf course. Kevin Garnett, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, is not on a golf course right now.
- Mike D'Antoni, from his interview with SI's Jack McCallum: "Could you use the word 'resign?' It hurts when I even hear the word 'quit.'"
- Lovely visuals illustrating that Kevin Durant has surpassed Kobe Bryant as a crunch time player.
- Neil Paine (Insider) points out that even if Kobe Bryant outplays Kevin Durant, Durant's supporting cast has the advantage: "Bynum and Gasol have been good in their own right during the postseason, but neither can give Bryant the kind of secondary scoring punch that Westbrook brings to Durant and the Thunder. Then there's Harden, not only the game's best sixth man, but one of its top players, period. During the regular season, he took on a similar possession load as Gasol and Bynum and was far more offensively efficient, averaging a staggering 1.254 points on possessions he was involved in ending. In the playoffs, he has ramped up his usage while still maintaining a sky-high efficiency, one of the big reasons the Thunder have the NBA's No. 1-ranked offense during the postseason. That's why the numbers are so clear-cut. Whether you're a PER proponent (Westbrook/Harden 22.1, Bynum/Gasol 21.6) a Win Shares per 48 Minutes guy (Westbrook/Harden .193, Bynum/Gasol .173) or an Adjusted Plus/Minus guy (Westbrook/Harden plus-2.6, Bynum/Gasol plus-1.8), all the advanced stats say the Westbrook/Harden combination is a better and more productive duo than Bynum and Gasol."
- Gonzaga's Robert Sacre, a legitimate 7-footer with good hands and decent athleticism, says all the right things at the Nets 2012 Draft combine.
- An inspiring bench is a beautiful thing.
- Is Andrew Bynum's best season ever tied to his revamped running form? Ethan Sherwood Strauss, writing on The Classical, investigates:" When I asked Lakers trainer Garry Vitti about the foot strike change, he explained that although this had indeed taken place, the evolution of Bynum’s movement 'was much deeper.' Vitti elaborated, 'Because of his gluteus medius weakness he had is known as a trendelenburg gait where his glute med couldn’t stabilize his pelvis … with increased strength of his glute he was able to control his pelvis better which translated to him being able to get his body over his forefoot which would allow him to propel himself more efficiently.'”
- Daily Thunder's Randy Renner with a statistical nugget that is as much a condemnation of the Lakers' passive defense as OKC's steady offense: "The Thunder has produced a turnover turnaround in the playoffs. During the regular season OKC led the league by averaging 16.3 givebacks a game. In the playoffs that number is down to 10.5 and that’s the best in the league. During this series with the Lakers the number is even better as the Thunder has averaged just 8.3 turnovers a game."
- USA Basketball releases its roster for the 2012 Select Team, which is sort of the Dream Team junior varsity.
- What was Roy Hibbert thinking?
- Brett Koremenos digs into Evan Turner's struggles for HoopSpeak. You have to wonder: If Turner wasn't a top 2 pick, would this be the case: "Currently, Turner’s 9.97 playoff PER ranks 114th amongst players who’ve seen a postseason minute. 114th. That’s out of 155 players who have seen the court in the postseason. This would be fine if he were one of the human victory cigars at the end of the bench, but Turner is playing 34.3 minutes per game in the postseason."
- It's funny what matchups end up being consequential in the playoffs. For instance, the Celtics are really having trouble with the Lavoy Allen-Thaddeus Young front court combo.
- Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol can combine to create some beautiful basketball, but this year they've drifted apart on the court.
- Without Chris Bosh, the origami paper-thin Miami Heat are proving that the "Big Three" model is dangerous, right? Not so, writes Heat Index's Tom Haberstroh: "Of course, the San Antonio Spurs offer a compelling counterargument. They actually have more of their payroll wrapped up in their trio than the Heat, but they seem to be doing just fine. Interestingly enough, the Spurs have taken the opposite approach to surrounding their Big Three: find younger diamonds in the rough and develop them in their system. While the Heat went wild for veterans on the wrong side of 30 years old, the Spurs plucked Gary Neal, Kawhi Leonard, DeJuan Blair, Tiago Splitter and Danny Green. The Spurs might not have gone the safe route with veterans, but their players have higher ceilings and a greater chance to provide more bang for the buck."
- Isn't it time for James Harden to get his own shoe? And should it be modeled on this?
- Video of the 9-0 run that sealed Game 2 for the Thunder.
- John Hollinger argues that R.C. Buford should have been Executive of the Year (Insider). The trade Buford made with Larry Bird (who won the award) that sent George Hill to Indy for Kawhi Leonard is just one example of Buford's unappreciated brilliance: "That's a solid move for Indy, and for the chunk of the league's GMs that just throw stuff at the wall and hope something sticks, that's about as deeply as they saw it. But for San Antonio, I don't think people realize what a spectacularly good trade this was. Not just because it gave the Spurs a defender at the 3 who proved better than people expected, but because of the cap ramifications. Leonard is on a rookie contract and will make $1.8 million, $1.9 million and $2.9 million in the coming three seasons; Hill, meanwhile, will re-sign a somewhere between $5 and $7 million a pop as a restricted free agent. Over the next three seasons the Spurs will save about $12 million as a result of making this trade, without losing anything on the court."
- Meanwhile, ClipperBlog's Charlie Widdoes doesn't understand why Clippers GM Neil Olshey didn't win EOY: "The Clippers made a bigger improvement this year than the Pacers, and no one can question that they did so because they got Chris Paul. When you get a player of that caliber and the move works as planned, history says you get rewarded with the Executive of the Year award. It doesn’t matter how it happened, when LeBron James signed with the Heat, Pat Riley won the Executive of the Year award. In my mind, when you get Chris Paul, every other executive has to top that."
- Even after Duncan retires, the Spurs will be good for as long as Gregg Popovich and his system are in place.
- The Celtics clamped down on their pick-and-roll defense in Game 3.
- Chris Bosh's absence puts a strain on LeBron James, and reveals just how terrible the Heat's top role players have been.
- Do fans in Indiana have the swag to pull this off?
- Mike Meister, founder and head coach at the Thunder Sports Institute, e-mails a question some stat geek may be able to address: "Looking at how the Thunder made their comeback reinforces what I teach my teams: Players love to practice halfcourt shots or running 3s, but mine get chewed out for it all the time. My experience with almost 70 teams and my own playing experience is that you win more games with layups and free throws than you will with jumpers, especially 3s. I don't have access to Synergy or Elias, but I scanned through articles and tend to find more instances of this trend. My question, which maybe will be something you would look into anyway, is: Are more NBA games won on free throws and layups than on jumpers? Especially deeper mid-range and 3s. I know overall for the game, yes, but just looking at crunch time scoring and maybe especially the last two minutes."
- What can the Clippers do to slow down the Spurs offense? Perhaps they'll try to make Boris Diaw a scorer.
- So Bill Laimbeer and Isiah Thomas walk into a diner ...
- We noted on Wednesday that the Lakers and Thunder don't draw a lot of charges. (TrueHoop reader Michael's great point: Teams with quality rim protectors, like these two, don't have to resort to charges to stop layups and dunks.) Charges are not the same as flops. But they are prime opportunities to flop. And sure enough, there won't be a Flop of the Night today, for the simple reason that after a night of Sixers, Celtics, Lakers and Thunder, we can't find clear video of an obvious flop. Now, if history is any precedent, tonight's action, which includes the Heat, Clippers and Spurs, will feature plenty.
- The Brooklyn Nets logo has roots in old New York City subway signs.
- Has Sebastian Telfair found a home in Phoenix?
- Grantland's Michael Kruse digs deep into why we don't have ads on jerseys: "Tradition is an incomplete explanation. That $370 million sits fat like a hanging curve. It takes a special kind of credulity to think owners of teams in major American sports who are so resolute in all manners of revenue extraction simply shrug their shoulders here because of some particular reverence for convention. Ads on jerseys will unsettle the fans? They will not. It'll be like new Facebook or something, when everybody bellyaches for about 10 minutes and then it's just Facebook. We'll get used to ads on jerseys, and fast, and the owners know this. Because we always do. Because we get used to things like the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl and extra points getting kicked into not just a net but an Allstate ad. That's a Coors Light Cold Hard Fact. So what's really the reason for this country's faux-prudish reluctance to put ads on jerseys?"
- How one man learned to love the Spurs.
- Chris Paul and Eric Bledsoe have been a tremendous combination in the playoffs, and were in the regular season too ... so why don't they play together more?
- Rashard Lewis made $23,336 per minute of basketball played this year.
- SI's Zach Lowe on James Harden's role in Oklahoma City's end-of-game offense: "Oklahoma City players attempted 120 shots in the regular season during games in which the scoring margin was three points or fewer in the last three minutes of regulation and overtime. Durant and Westbrook took 103 of those shots, per NBA.com. Harden took five. He made one. James Harden, Sixth Man of the Year and likely All-Star next season, made one basket the entire season in the last three minutes of a close game. He has already taken five such shots in six postseason games, compared to six attempts for Durant. This is a sea change happening instantly, a strategic switch so dramatic you almost wonder if Scott Brooks has been waiting all season to unleash Harden on unsuspecting defenses.
- Thunder fans react positively to their Game 2 win. (Via @Okastro)
- Wait, left-handed Greg Monroe is actually right-handed?
- SI's Chris Ballard on Tim Duncan: "O.K., it's a toss-up as to how this will make you feel about Duncan: Did he once invite a bunch of teammates to a paintball course even though most had never played paintball? Perhaps. Did Duncan then stack his team with ringers and bring his own high-powered paintball gun? Maybe. Did he give certain players such as Danny Ferry guns that, according to Ferry, were bent and shot six feet to the left every time"? There's a chance. And did Duncan then take great delight in hunting down his teammates, chasing the pale, balding, shorts-wearing Ferry until he was in close range, at which point Duncan unleashed a hail of water-soluble hellfire upon the man? It's possible." The story appears in the May 21 issue of Sports Illustrated.
- Congratulations to Larry Bird on winning Executive of the Year. Things looked bleak in Indiana for a while, but he has helped build a very dangerous team in a small market and without a top-9 draft pick that has a real chance to get all the way to the NBA Finals. Impressive.
- John Hollinger (Insider) on the 76ers dynamic bench: "Philly is a sneaky team because its starters aren't the ones that beat you. The Sixers' first five is a big fat plus-2 for the playoffs; it's when Allen (plus-23) and Lou Williams (plus-27) come in that the Sixers have been able to gain an advantage against opponents' subs, and with Boston's weak bench that figures to continue." This post also includes a few points about some very un-veteran decisions by the C's in crunch time.
- A small lineup could give Rajon Rondo more scoring opportunities. The Celtics certainly need the points.
- President Obama was at my favorite sandwich shop today, but missed out when he didn't order the chicken cutlet.
- A picture of Mario Chalmers being hit on the shooting elbow during his last-second shot.
- Andrew Han of ClipperBlog with a great description of what the Spurs can do to a defense: "Do you know how Clipper fans have fallen in love with watching Chris Paul probe a defense all season? That probing is basically engrained in the design of the Spurs offense. It stretches and manipulates the Clippers defense until it yields a breakdown. Jordan Heimer mentioned as much on last night’s ClipperBlog Live. At one point he paused the game after a wide-open Spurs 3-pointer to see who had failed to rotate to the shooter. Except that the defense had so thoroughly been torqued that almost every Clipper defender was out of position."
- Some crave the rough and tumble atmosphere of playoff hoops. But it doesn't always make for the most exciting games.
- LeBron James stacked up the stats playing power forward in Game 2, but on Heat Index Tom Haberstroh wonders about the cost: "James amassed 28 points, nine rebounds, six steals and five assists in 40 minutes in Game 2 while also playing significant time at power forward guarding David West. As impressive as that stat line may be, James was noticeably passive in the final minutes, not to mention that he missed two critical free throws. Was he tired? That's a question only he knows the answer to, but before Tuesday's game James expressed some reservations about playing power forward full-time in Bosh's absence. He stopped short of saying he had concerns about fatigue. "I wouldn't say 'concerned'," James said. "But hopefully I can get a few minutes here, a few minutes there (to rest), especially in the playoffs. I understand that 40 minutes in the playoffs is different than 40 minutes in the regular season. It's just how it is."
- When the Heat go small, Danny Granger needs to play big.
- It sounds like Ramon Sessions is going to be spending time checking Russell Westbrook in Game 2. That's fine, but it doesn't really matter who guards Westbrook if the Lakers big men don't improve their pick-and-roll defense.
- Dwyane Wade to Paul George: You reach, I teach.
- It doesn't look good for the Clippers against the Spurs, but that doesn't keep Eric Bledsoe from shining.
- Seattle is one step closer to getting a new NBA arena.
- SI's Zach Lowe doesn't want anyone pointing fingers at Erik Spoelstra for the Heat's inability to execute late in games: "Every team tends to look better on offense coming out of timeouts, but the gap in quality between Miami’s out-of-timeout offense and the rest of its stuff is significant. The Heat need to be better when Spoelstra and the coaching staff aren’t there to baby-sit every play."
- Speaking of which, here's a positive review of the Heat's crunch time plays from HoopSpeak and one from Grantland.
- Kawhi Leonard and Tim Duncan wearing their serious faces.
- Kevin Pelton does a good job of getting both feet outside the restricted area.
- The Spurs disarmed the Clippers favorite plays in Game 1.
- When your PER is higher than your age, you're Kyrie Irving. Or a short list of other players. Also, free agency has been the bane of Cleveland fans. But now that the Cavaliers have Kyrie Irving, the kind of player anyone would want to play with, free agency could become their friend, writes David Thorpe.
- The Pacers have not gone small much, and don't like to go small. So if the Heat go small ... what happens?
- Timothy Varner on 48 Minutes of Hell: "Chris Paul and Tony Parker finished third and fifth in MVP voting. They share a position. One could make an argument that they were the league’s best two point guards this season. Coming into this series, it will be fun to speculate whether Parker or Paul will win 'the matchup'. ... The problem, of course, is that matchup doesn’t exist -- at least not in the hero ball sense. Paul vs. Parker is not a Hollywood boxing bout. It isn’t even a true blue Castillo-Corrales slug fest. It’s a paper tiger. Within their program, the Spurs prefer to feature wings who can defend multiple positions. Bruce Bowen is the historic standard, but the Spurs regularly use Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green, Manu Ginobili, and Stephen Jackson to defend multiple positions. Ginobili might be deployed against 1s, 2s, and 3s; Jackson against 2s, 3s, and 4s. And so on. This doesn’t make the Spurs entirely unique, but it does point to one of the more intriguing matchups of the series: Danny Green vs. Chris Paul."
- Something is up with the Lakers' pick-and-roll defense. Kevin Ding of the Orange County Register: "In their previous road game, the Lakers played pick-and-roll coverage incorrectly 92 percent of the time, according to [Coach Mike] Brown's own analysis of the Game 6 loss in Denver. It is hardly shocking that they were shredded by a far more talented, more focused Thunder attack."
- Paul Shirley came across a YouTube video of a big college dunk from his Iowa State days. He writes about it for ChicagoSide: "In this particular play, my college teammate, Jamaal Tinsley, made into fools several members of the University of Colorado backcourt before throwing the ball to me for a one-handed dunk that might even be called ferocious, if you need an adjective. Tinsley’s ball-handling tricks served as the final sentence in a masterful short story; my dunk was the exclamation point. The crowd released its tension in an avalanche of happy noise. For me, it was an incomparable rush; better than the most intense sexual encounter I’ve ever had. (Which might be an indictment of my sex life, but probably isn’t -- sorry, no hyperlinks here.) Even as I watched the video more than a decade later, I felt something similar to sexual release: a chill down my spine, sagging shoulders, relaxation in my lower back. I’ve never done cocaine. But that feeling -- the sense that I had just brought about a palpable crescendo of enthusiasm in 14,000 people, most of whom were paying rapt attention to my every movement -- is exactly what I imagine cocaine would be like: intense, immediate, and incredibly pleasurable. And just as dangerous -- because that feeling was one of the reasons I played basketball."
- A long-simmering debate among athletes: What matters more, the number of miles (or in basketball, minutes played) or age? The New York Times digs into the issue by looking into running research and finds ... science doesn't have a clear answer yet.
- Beware the columnist who has been watching lots of "Law & Order" re-runs.
- College hoops statistics suggest that you can't do much to make your opponents miss 3s. The winning strategy appears to be, especially if you're the favorites, to expend your energy trying to limit the number of attempts.
- Blake Griffin says he is not concerned about being labeled a flopper.
- Losing playoff games by big margins does not bode well for the Lakers.
- Zach Lowe of SI.com: "I am astonished on a daily basis by how many fans, both in Boston and elsewhere, think the Celtics are a good offensive team, and are thus surprised they have struggled to score against the Hawks and the Sixers. The misunderstanding seems to come from the fact that a) Boston has very famous players on its team; and b) the Celtics rank fifth overall in field-goal percentage and eighth in three-point percentage. So let me put this as clearly as I can: The Celtics are a bad offensive team. They were so-so last season and in 2009-10, and have been in continuing decline on offense for three seasons now. It’s wonderful that they shoot with great accuracy, especially from three-point range, but accurate shooting does not alone make a team good at scoring points. Field-goal percentage is no way to judge offense. It does not account for how many shots a team generates, how often it gets to the foul line and what sorts of shots it attempts. And in news that broke three years ago, this is where Boston fails."
- Now online in its entirety, for free: The documentary Small Market, Big Heart, made on a shoestring with the goal of humanizing the plight of Kings fans, who have long done a hell of a job supporting the often-miserable Kings.
- I think this is humor from Kobe Bryant. Or maybe not. (Via Slam.)
- Will James Jones make it back into the Heat rotation as a zone buster?
- Goran Dragic is a sexy free agent name. For perspective, his stats are very similar to Jarrett Jack's.
- D.J. Foster on ClipperBlog, giving Blake Griffin an "A" for effort: "It started on an individual level, and it started with Blake Griffin. Over the season, Griffin developed his own reputation throughout the league. He was a flopper and a villain, an entitled superstar who had little interest in anything else but dunking and scoring. That all may be rooted in some form of reality, but there wasn’t the slightest hint of any of that in Game 7 in Memphis. Griffin may have played the ugliest, prettiest game of his career. There is nothing glamorous about battling with Zach Randolph. At one point, Randolph quite literally saddled Griffin and rode him to the ground. He clocked him with an elbow. Battling for every inch of space is something that rarely earns you money, recognition or stats -- just respect. Griffin was willing to sacrifice everything for a win -- bum knee, pride, whatever -- by finally engaging in the little battles that he’s often declined to take part of. If there was a scrum in the paint, you could guarantee Griffin was in the middle of it."
- From the Clippers team plane: Chris Paul is a big baby. Related: Marc Gasol and Blake Griffin making hilariously dramatic faces during Game 7. (Via @jailblazin)
- Greg Monroe makes all us perfectly adequate children look terrible on Mother's Day.
- John Hollinger (Insider) doesn't like the Lakers chances against Oklahoma City: "At first glance, this series pits three Lakers stars versus three Thunder stars, and seems like it should be a pretty even fight. Glance closer and the advantages tilt the Thunder's way. For starters, Durant is a much better player than Bryant at this point in their respective careers. And looking deeper, Oklahoma City's fourth-best player, Ibaka, is dramatically better than anybody else on the Lakers, and most of their role players are a bit better than their counterparts on the Lakers."
- Kobe Bryant is better suited to defend the speedy Russell Westbrook than the crafty James Harden.
- Royce Young, on an ESPN 5-on-5, with an interesting take on the "rust versus rest" issue: "I don't necessarily think it'll be a rust issue for the Thunder, but more an overeagerness to play. These are guys that are starved to play basketball. They absolutely live for it. And waiting nine days to get at it again, especially with the way the last game against the Mavs went, has to make the Thunder a bit anxious to get on the floor. It probably won't affect anything other than maybe the first 15 minutes of Game 1, but that might be enough to get in an early hole."
- Hornets fans are dreaming of Anthony Davis in a Hornets hat on draft night. Here is that dream, true already, in a way.
- Jared Wade of Eight Points Nine Seconds investigates whether the Heat got the benefit of the whistle an undue amount in Game 1. He also brings this sharp analysis: "More than anything, however, the last sentence in Granger’s quote is what stood out to me: 'I’ve never been in a situation like that.' This reminded me of something Granger said after Game 4 of the Magic series, during which the Pacers lost a 19-point lead in the final eight minutes of regulation before eventually beating a bad team in overtime. About the raucous crowd in the Amway Center, Danny said the following: 'It was a hostile environment -- one of the craziest environments I’ve played in.' Even though the 28-year-old Pacers’ captain is a seven-year NBA veteran, he has neither played in many hostile playoff environments nor played through foul trouble in the playoffs. This is revealing. And it’s not just him. Lest we forget, many of this team’s key players have very little playoff experience."
- Over at HoopSpeak, Ethan Sherwood Strauss explains, with helpful pictures, why today's defenses make it so much harder to be a high-scoring big man in 2011 than it was in 1998: "There is a reason why Rik Smits -- in his prime -- had a higher usage rate than even today’s best centers, and it’s not that we stopped producing tall people of notable skill. Speaking of Pacers and the 1990s, I believe Roy Hibbert would be an ever better All Star in that era. He’s certainly much larger than Robinson, Olajuwon and Ewing pretended to be. His post moves are refined and when given the chance, he drops ball-in-hoop like an automated arcade prize claw. But there is a problem, an obstruction to the plan that was salient on Sunday. It just wasn’t mentioned by the many who lamented how Indiana failed to press their frontcourt advantage in Game 1. Simply put, the Heat don’t want Hibbert to get the ball.
- Regret in Philadelphia after losing a golden opportunity to steal home court advantage against Boston. In Game 2, Brett Koremenos advises them to let Andre Iguodala direct things far more than he did on Saturday.
- With Chris Bosh sidelined due to injury, expect LeBron James to soak up a good portion of those power forward minutes. Can the Heat run away from the Pacers with this lineup and negate Indiana's size? Will the Pacers force James into foul trouble and limit his minutes? Will battling David West leave James too worn down to take over late, as he did in Game 1? It's a fascinating development.
- A Q & A with ESPN's Stephania Bell on Chris Bosh's abdominal strain reveals something you probably could have guessed on your own: you don't want any muscle tears near the pubic bone.
- Brandon Jennings is becoming just good enough to be a real headache in Milwaukee as the Bucks decide on his future with the team.
- How shot location data can serve as an accurate guide to the Spurs-Clippers series.
- The Spurs lit up the Clippers in two of three regular season matchups, but Aaron McGuire notes on 48 Minutes of Hell San Antonio didn't exactly shut them down on the other end: "While the Spurs were hardly a wonderful defensive team in the early going this season, the Clippers consistently picked apart the Spurs defense like few other teams did this season. They were overall relatively competitive in their three game gauntlet against the Silver and Black this year, losing by only 3 points on a fluke overtime-forcing miscue by Chris Paul in Los Angeles and serving the Spurs one of their five home losses."
- A Thunder fan and a Sonics fan exchange open letters about the complicated relationship between their respective fan bases.
- Hey Rajon Rondo, your swag is showing.
- Trust me, you want to see Kyrylo Fesenko's "SPACE MOUNTAIN IS TERRIFYING" face.
- Speaking with SLAM's Tzvi Twersky, Allen Iverson recalls his first game with Michael Jordan: "Like, you’re just out there with him, and he’s your idol. You look up to him; he’s the reason you play basketball. And, then, you’re just standing beside him, waiting for the jump ball. I just remember I couldn’t stop looking at him, like, the way he had his uniform on, I’m looking at his socks -- he didn’t have the NBA socks on, which we’d get fined for not wearing them (laughs). He didn’t have the NBA socks on, and I’m just looking at him. He didn’t even look real."
- Here's how the Heat-Pacers regular season series went: Heat win in a blowout. Heat win by a little less. Heat win in overtime. Pacers win in a blowout.
- John Hollinger (Insider) expects a competitive series between Miami and Indiana, at least when Roy Hibbert is on the court: "To see how much of a factor Hibbert might be, check out this stat: When LeBron James was on the court against Hibbert in the four regular-season games, Miami was plus-17 in 128 minutes -- not good for the Pacers, obviously, but manageable. When LeBron played and Hibbert didn't? The Heat were plus-30 in 31 minutes."
- ESPN's Israel Guttierez brings you a series prediction from Heat coach Erik Spoelstra: "This next series I'm sure will feel like it's played in a cage rather than a basketball court. It will be extremely physical."
- Chris Paul channels his inner John McEnroe.
- At the end of playoff games, the Grizzlies are suffering from bad-shot fever. The only prescription is more Marc Gasol, writes Rob Mahoney on Court Vision.
- Remember when JaVale McGee threw the game ball into the stands after Denver took down the Lakers in Game 4? He was throwing it to his Mom.
- PopcornMachine gives us a look at what the Heat did to the Knicks at the end of the first three quarters of Game 5.
- Arron Afflalo hasn't found his shooting stroke in the playoffs, but he's still making smart moves off the ball, writes Brett Koremenos.
- Having won a title in the last five years is a surprisingly powerful predictor of winning another, as Stat Geek Smackdown champion Benjamin Morris has explained. On Skeptical Sports, he digs into why that might be, and suggests it could be the result of the playoff format conveying big advantages to the best teams, whereas the regular season is more random: "In stark contrast to other team sports, the NBA Playoffs are extremely deterministic. The best team usually wins (and, conversely, the winner is usually the best team). ... This is pretty much a function of design: A moderately better team becomes a huge favorite in a seven-game series. So even if the best team is only moderately better than the 2nd best team, they can be in a dominant position. ... On the other side of the equation, regular season standings and leaderboards—whether of wins or its most stable proxies—are highly variable. Note that a 95 percent confidence interval on an 82-game sample (aka, the “margin of error”) is +/- roughly 10 games. If you think of the NBA regular season as a lengthy 30-team competition for the number one seed, its structure is much, much less favorable to the best teams than the playoffs are."
- Wizards blog Truth About It isn't feeling any regrets about letting JaVale McGee go
- Scary times for Clippers fans. When Blake Griffin went down clutching his knee, lots of people didn't know how to react. After all, he has that habit of making fouls look worse than they are. Which is too bad, because Griffin has spent this series repairing his on-court image, in minds of many. He's attacked the rim fearlessly, shelved that herky-jerky jumper and accepted the thankless duty trying to push the Grizzly big men, all of whom are bigger than Blake, away from their comfort zones. And he's done it all with solemn intensity rather than theatrical scowling. Here's hoping he comes back strong in Game 6.
- SI's Lee Jenkins on HoopSpeak Live, talking about the Lakers and Nuggets and how much George Karl enjoys not coaching Carmelo Anthony.
- Michael Schwartz's thorough postmortem on the Phoenix Suns contains this gem: "The Suns were also significantly better offensively with Frye on the floor, scoring 107.7 per 100 with him but just 98.8 without him. If Channing were a team, he would have ranked second in offensive efficiency this season. Phoenix also shoots better from every distance and floor area with Frye in the game, pretty crazy considering Frye himself shot just 41.6 percent from the floor. One would not think that would be the case for a streaky shooter who was so bad to start the season, yet his spacing ability really is that important to the Suns’ offense, and it has been the last three seasons." (Via Valley of the Suns)
- It's nowhere near Los Angeles, but Stephon Marbury has a statue before Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
- Ryan Hollins joins McGee as an oft-ridiculed 7-footer making a difference in the playoffs. Meanwhile, Kevin Garnett is still the player who makes the Celtics great.
- Like Star Wars? The commenters of Daily Dime Live (which starts tonight at 7 p.m.) will make you smile.
- Anthony Davis, King of the Fry-o-lator.
- Pop quiz: Which NBA team had the best offense in the NBA this season, by a healthy margin? Answer. John Hollinger is a little salty (Insider) about how the Spurs have been ignored: "Don't let San Antonio's 27-3 mark in its past 30 games with the Big Three and near-certain home-court advantage for every remaining series distract you. And by all means, feel free to ignore the fact the Spurs are 19-1 on the road in their past 20 games the Big Three have played. After three methodical beatdowns of Utah, including one of the sweetest last-second plays you'll ever see to get a Matt Bonner 3 at the end of the first half of Game 3, the scary thought is that San Antonio's defense is catching up to its offense. The thought entering this series was that Utah's bruising post game was the perfect attack to face San Antonio, especially after Zach Randolph beat them up in the playoffs last spring. Instead, a spry-looking Tim Duncan has completely bottled up Al Jefferson, Boris Diaw has provided a much-needed post defender at the 4 and the Spurs are fourth in playoff defensive efficiency -- a mark that would be even better were it not for the copious amounts of garbage time in the first three games. So keep ignoring them. They'll just be quietly chuckling while they await their next overmatched opponent, standing 13 wins from one of the greatest closing kicks in league annals."
- People are all upset that Al Jefferson said the Spurs are fantastic, and better than the Jazz. I don't think people should ever get in trouble for telling the truth.
- It was suggested that Utah's "big" lineup, which features Derrick Favors, Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson, might give San Antonio trouble. But the Silver and Black Machine has sliced and diced every combination of Jazz players they've faced. Just like in the regular season, they've spread the floor, attacked the weakest link in the defense and drilled open 3s.
- Let's give some credit to Scott Brooks for this: he knows how to let James Harden do his thing.
- Why are ACLs so vulnerable? Turns out even NBA superstars can't overcome genetics.
- NBA tickets for one dollar. From a Bobcats press release: "Under the promotion, season tickets could be priced as low as $43 for an upper-level seat, with the cost per game equaling the draft pick the team receives in the lottery. For example, if the Bobcats get the No. 1 pick, the price would be $1 per game, or $43 for the season (41 regular season games and two preseason games). Even if the Bobcats receive the No. 4 pick, the $4-per-game cost would amount to $172 for the season. This is a price point that has not been available in the past, inviting customers who may not have been able to become Bobcats season ticket holders previously." NOTE: This promotion is over ... those super cheap seats are sold out.
- Don't look now, but Jrue Holiday is starting to cash in on his star potential.
- Nick Flynt with a two part breakdown of the Clippers defense that rarely broke down in Game 3.
- Among the many things the NBA should take pride in: Very few games interrupted by chickens. Although there was that Hawk incident.
- Carmelo Anthony hung most of his 41 points on the Heat when matched up against Shane Battier. Brian Windhorst wonders why Spoelstra didn't put LeBron James on Anthony down the stretch, and I'm wondering whether it's time to officially retire Battier's "Stopper" label.
- Not enough rebounds. Too many turnovers and long jump shots. The problems facing the Bulls are the same ones they usually pose to their opponents.
- The Celtics are banged up, especially on the wings.
- Nets Are Scorching blogger Devin Kharpertian got a familiar feeling watching James Harden slice through the Mavericks defense.
- It's almost certain that they won't come back and win the series, but that shouldn't stop New York fans from feeling good about the Knicks' thrilling Game 4 win.
- A lot of what happens on the court is a competition for some kind of swagger. All that working out, and running around, though ... and just eating some yogurt might have done the same thing.
- Be careful using something you see in one playoff game as insight into what will happen in the next playoff game. They're all different.
- Reggie Evans knows how to stop Marreese Speights from setting a good pick.
- A frame-by-frame look at Miami's airtight defense.
- The Pacers have had some odd lapses against the Magic. Jared Wade has some critical feedback, "Stan Van Gundy has been drawing up excellent out of bounds plays all series. This was one of them. But it really only worked because it was a quick-hitter to be executed against a defense that forgot the basic fundamentals of guarding a player you learn in second grade. Fortunately for Van Gundy, Paul George complied."
- The Thunder are doing a great job of locking up Jason Terry.
- I'm not sure it's possible to look tough when you're in Mickey Mouse ears, but the Pacers make a good effort.
- Tom Sunnergren of Philadunkia has some important advice for Jrue Holiday and the Sixers: "In an admittedly small sample, [Jrue's] shooting 70 percent in this series when Rose isn’t on the floor. In a larger one, he’s scoring 21 ppg in five games against the Bulls this season. Get to the basket, Jrue. Challenge Watson defensively: Derrick Rose only averaged 1.8 personal fouls per 48 minutes in the regular season, his backup committed 4.3. Use that. Most of all, though, the Sixers can’t relax for a minute. The Bulls are wounded, but don’t take them lightly, guys. You’re liable to get your hand bitten."
- Things I didn't know before reading this Mark Murphy feature on two of the unique talents in the NBA: Rajon Rondo introduced Josh Smith to Smith's future wife, and that the two crashed a prom together as high school seniors.
- What happened to Devin Harris? The picture at the top of this post says it all.
- The NBA playoffs are showcasing the guile of the Gasols.
- SI's Zach Lowe looks for ways the Nuggets can turn things around against the Lakers. Solving this issue is going to be a doozy: "The Nuggets have struggled to defend the Bryant/Sessions pick-and-roll, a play that has really flummoxed the league since Sessions arrived as the true dribble-drive threat Blake and Derek Fisher -- also occasional partners on this play -- could never be. They switched a ton in Game 1, leaving poor Lawson to try to defend Bryant. They tried to avoid switching in Game 2, in part by having wing players (Gallinari and Brewer) defend both Sessions and Bryant. Denver was better, but still inconsistent; perimeter defense and over-switching have been an issue for much of the season in Denver, and finding a workable solution to this simple play -- one that doesn’t involve defense-breaking rotations elsewhere -- is going to be hard."
- Is Lamar Odom really ready for a comeback?
- Chris Paul said this about Marc Gasol to the Clipper bench: "I'm going to knock him out." I'm sure the 2011-12 Pacific Division Sportsmanship Award winner was talking about knocking him out of the playoffs.
- A look back at some players who should have been in the All-Star Game.
- Some who hoped Oklahoma City would develop a "system" on offense have voiced frustration. But heed this, from Rob Mahoney: "The Thunder are so tremendously good at utilizing the secondary break -- a stage of semi-transition that has long been good to the Mavericks as well. The only difference: Westbrook, Durant, and Harden all put so much pressure on opposing defenses in the initial transition stage that shooters are subsequently open almost as a default."
- Vince Carter says he can still do a 360 windmill dunk. Dallas would make due with more scoring of any kind.
- One of my favorite things during the postseason: David Thorpe's postseason MVP rankings (Insider). According to Thorpe, the guy at No. 5 "may be the most dangerous offensive force in basketball today." This list always contains a few surprises, including ... Nick Young?!
- Congratulations to Ryan Anderson, the 2012 Most Improved Player. This award may represent an improved public profile more than actually improved play, because a look at the numbers shows there are some far more deserving candidates. Ryan Anderson was really good last year; he just didn't play nearly as much.
- Kevin Durant had a shooting night that was reminiscent of what Dirk Nowitzki did to the Thunder last year.
- The Pistons want Kyle Singler to come back to the Detroit. But it sounds like he's having a jolly time living and playing in Spain. Can't say I blame him.
- Tacking on a couple Kobe-related points to Henry Abbott's post on why the Lakers should give Andrew Bynum more late-game touches.
- LeBron James says he has not imagined himself as a Knick.
- A staggering percentage of the nation's young seven-foot men are in the NBA.
- A lot of how the NBA deals with misbehavior is along the lines of how schools do the same thing. Suspensions, for instance, are the main tool of both. Here's a case, from a school in Washington, suggesting suspensions don't work well at all, and a much better approach is heavy with patience and compassion.
- Kind of related: Our intelligence is not fixed, but changes, and believing that evidently makes it more so.
- Zach Lowe of SI.com: "Through two games, it’s clear Miami is reinvigorated on offense. Good news for the league: It has only been two games against an overmatched Knicks team whose best defender suffered a poorly timed case of the flu and whose second-best defender is out for the season with a torn ACL. Still, the early results are encouraging: Miami is leaning on some basic actions in which its star players work together on and off the ball, rather than having everyone stand around while James or Wade runs a high pick-and-roll."
- The video suggests Nick Collison can guard Dirk Nowitzki far better than Kendrick Perkins, but that's not how Scott Brooks sees it, evidently.
- You think the game is dangerous? Check out the timeouts.
- The last time the Knicks won a playoff game gas was $1.70 a gallon.
- Front-row Grizzlies fan vs. common decency and Marc Gasol.
- John Hollinger (Insider): "Here's an amazing stat: Derrick Favors has played 47 minutes in this series and is a plus-6. The other 49 minutes the Jazz are minus-52."
- Rajon Rondo is teasing an R&B album in which he's performing with an unnamed "female Drake."
- No Pacers have been hurt punching fire extinguishers, and that's not coincidence.
- Accepting the award for Defensive Player of the Year, Tyson Chandler thanks his teammates for making him look like a great defender. He also says that he thinks Tony Allen is the best on-ball defender in the league, with a nod to LeBron James.
- Former Sonics employee Jeremy Ripanich, on Deadspin, with an inside view of the Sonics' departure from Seattle: "Either [Clay] Bennett is an idiot who married into his fortune and lucked into the team, or he's a canny businessman who played the game shrewdly and won. I have to think he's the latter. I need only look at the organization he's put together to know he's running the club better than Schultz -- the media-ordained genius -- ever did. It was Bennett who brought in the architect of the club, Sam Presti, based on their mutual connections with the San Antonio Spurs. It was Bennett who allowed Presti to build slowly around Durant instead of demanding wins immediately. Sure, there was plenty of bad faith on Bennett's part during the sale, but at this point it's silly to expect anything else from a sports owner. Caveat emptor applies to us as much as it does to owners. They are running revenue-maximizing operations, and a fanbase is of use to them only to the extent that it makes them money. All we can hope for is that an owner cares enough about his product to give us something worth watching every year. By all evidence Clay Bennett cares about his product. Howard Schultz never did. Maybe that's the ultimate deception in the Sonics' story: A lot of us had the wrong villain all along."
- Ricky Rubio, from a chair, practicing his shooting touch.
- Tyson Chandler is your 2012 Defensive Player of the Year. Check out the rest of the results. For my money, Joakim Noah, who anchors the second-best defense in the NBA, is a way better defender than Serge Ibaka and too far down on this list.
- John Hollinger takes aim (Insider) at the assumption that a compressed regular season schedule is responsible for all these playoff injuries: "We say this every year in the first round of the playoffs, how we've never seen anything like all these injuries. Um, anyone remember a year ago? New York lost Chauncey Billups after Game 1 and had a skeleton crew by the end of Game 2. The Lakers' Steve Blake missed Game 1 with the chicken pox. Atlanta lost Kirk Hinrich for the playoffs in Game 6. Miami lost Mike Miller for the first round after Game 2; he played a total of six minutes in that series. The Hornets lost Aaron Gray to an ankle sprain in Game 1, although he managed to gimp through. These players weren't as famous as the ones hurt this week, perhaps, but injuries make no distinction based on Q-rating."
- Valley of the Suns blogger Michael Schwartz with a smart, sympathetic look at everything that's happened to Amare Stoudemire, and the Suns, since he left the desert.
- What is the Bulls offense without Derrick Rose? A lot of pin-down screens and snappy ball movement. In the regular season, that was reasonably effective. But the 76ers absolutely demolished these sets in the second half of last night's blowout victory. Zach Lowe has the video evidence.
- R.R. Magellan of Forum Blue and Gold was pleased with Jordan Hill's effort and output last night. Hill's brightest moments as a pro are coming just as things are taking a turn for the complicated off the court.
- Watch Kyle Weidie's brief movie about JaVale McGee titled, "Can't Say I Do"
- Along with everyone else on the Bulls, Derrick Rose looked like he was having a terrible time last night. In a related story, Jrue Holiday went nuts.
- HoopSpeak's Brett Koremenos with some praise for Big Baby Davis in his keys to tonight's games: "Hibbert, who relies on deep positioning for much of his success, has found himself unable to get that prime real estate near the paint when Davis defends him. It has seemed as if moving Davis is like moving a tree stump, if that tree stump also was chained to four sedan-sized boulders. Without getting to a more favorable operating area, Hibbert has shot just 31.3 percent from the field so far this series, a far cry from his 49.7 percent during the regular season."
- The Spurs have been running this play, called "Weak," for about a decade. It still gets them easy buckets.
- Before the Magic face the Pacers tonight, they need to find an answer to a simple question.
- Keith Smart is taking suggestions on how to become a better coach.
- Milwaukee plans to re-sign coach Scott Skiles. To Jeremy Schmidt, that's a sign that the Bucks won't be looking to rebuild any time soon.
- The NBA: where large feet happen.
- Jeremy Lin has inspired myriad puns and nicknames. The Communicated Stereotype takes a look at a few that reference his ethnicity, and analyzes whether they are endearing, or "problematic."
- Lots of good points in this post, but this is what Zach Harper has to say about Andre Miller's posterior: "It’s a big man’s rear-end on a point guard’s frame. It allows him to no longer have to worry about being slow. He can move mountains to the side by shifting from hip to hip. Sometimes it looks like he has one of those flatbed carts at Home Depot and he’s going up and down the aisles with piles of 2x4s and concrete slabs on it. And the weight is just too much to handle on the turns. It’s veering right when he’s trying to stay to the left, like an out of control semi-truck. He’s bumping into shopping carts and coming close to sideswiping people in the doorbell aisle. Take your eyes off him for a second and you’ll find yourself going from hearing melodious chimes at the push of a button to shin bruises a plenty."
- An invitation to Avery Bradley's Block Party. (Side note: Bradley and Jeff Teague both made a number of thrillingly athletic plays last night, which made it a perfect game for Kevin Calabro, the voice of the Payton-Kemp era Seattle Sonics, to call on NBA TV. For the uninitiated, here's three minutes of Calabro's classic calls from the Sonics' 1996 run to the NBA Finals.)
- Down 0-2, Mavericks' coach Rick Carlisle is voicing his displeasure with the officiating. Daily Thunder's Royce Young just calls it whining.
- A few thoughts about the future of televised basketball. High quality cameras are getting tiny, and people are already wearing them while playing hoops. Wouldn't mind seeing the Kevin Durant-view of some of the playoffs' best plays. Also ... I'm willing to bet there will be cameras on remote control helicopters in NBA arenas before too long. They already fly blimps around in arenas, and they already fly little helicopters with cameras over and around snowboarders and the like. This will happen.
- Boris Diaw will once again start, in the playoffs, for one of the best teams in the game. About six weeks ago that same Diaw was let go by the Bobcats, the worst team in the history of the game. Either the Spurs are doomed, or somewhere in there is a lesson about the value of corporate culture.
- Rob Mahoney, on The Two Man Game, with props for Shawn Marion. "Marion has led the Mavericks in rebounding in both games thus far, scored 32 total points on just 23 shots, and also happens to be providing a master class on how to defend Kevin Durant."
- John Hollinger's not a doctor, but he has some smart thoughts about Ray Allen's health (Insider): "Allen is listed as day-to-day, but those bone spurs aren't going to magically go away until he gets surgery to remove them. I'm not a doctor, but I don't know what's going to change by Friday or Sunday or next week, or next month, to make his condition any different. I suspect there's a decent chance he's already played his last game this year."
- On HoopSpeak, Brett Koremenos accuses the Nuggets of stage fright in Game 1: "Kenneth Faried and JaVale McGee are experiencing the NBA’s second season for the first time while Danilo Gallinari and Corey Brewer are only on their second go-rounds. Even Ty Lawson and Arron Afflalo, while not new to the atmosphere, are experiencing it in new and bigger roles." The Nuggets can score in the paint. Also, a memo to Ty Lawson from Roundball Mining Company's Kalen: "The minute Lawson resigns as an active threat, the Lakers have won."
- The Celtics are in a pickle. On the road, missing Rajon Rondo and Ray Allen, after having been outrebounded and outplayed. There seems to be something keeping Kevin Garnett from playing anything like his best. Is this the end of an era we're sniffing? At CelticsHub, they certainly aren't sounding the alarm yet. They're still upbeat, talking about how Paul Pierce will get to the line more without Rondo. That means something.
- David West shall lead them. What a great signing that has been for Indiana.
- If Amare Stoudemire left the arena wearing a sling ... is it really a cut we're worried about? And, it wasn't that long ago Stoudemire was joking on Twitter about punching stuff.
- Chandler Parsons. Not sure what he's doing exactly. But he's doing it hard.
- LeBron's teeth know the score.
- Some very colorful new-breed boxscores show James Harden, Serge Ibaka, Tim Duncan, Reggie Evans and Nick Young have all been even more spectacular than you thought. Also, with Caron Butler injured, Young will need to keep it up.
- Are people still saying Rajon Rondo did nothing but trip? Show them this.
- Where's this HoopIdea thing headed? Hopefully not here.
- Suns fans, how optimistic are you this offseason will restore the glory, or anything like it?
- European buzzer beaters.
- A legal mind weighs in on those Jordan Hill charges.
- Some players are looking younger and fitter, now that the playoffs are here.
- Concussions are becoming a near-weekly occurrence in the NBA, with Kevin Love as the most recent victim. Will there come a time when basketball players wear protective headgear? Here's a vintage video of the inventor of the football helmet demonstrating -- rather bizarrely -- his creation.
- At Grantland, Jonah Lehrer examines Regenokine, the therapy administered to Kobe Bryant to treat his arthritic knee. A debate rages: Is "biological medicine" a game-changer or quackery?
- Everywhere Tyson Chandler has ever played, his team has improved itself defensively. There are probably 15 infields in Major League Baseball who could use him up the middle.
- Rob Mahoney of The Two Man Game on the Golden State Warriors: "In their current form, the Warriors are a perfectly miserable basketball team. There were some decent individual efforts on Thursday, but overall the team’s operation is reminiscent of a confined gas; they’re objects floating within the limits of a particular space, toward no end in particular and without any coherence of movement or purpose."
- Nate Drexler of Magic Basketball sizes up the pick-and-roll D of two possible Orlando first-round opponents -- Boston and Atlanta.
- A fun spring read for you: Neal Pollack's "Jewball," basketball noir/historical fiction at its finest.
- Devin Dignam of Wages of Win offers more evidence that tanking doesn't work though, once upon a time, it used to.
- Ian Levy wonders if the frontcourt tandem of Brandan Wright and Ian Mahinmi could give the Mavericks some juice come playoff time.
- Carlos Boozer had a standout game on Thursday night for Chicago. He's also released a new single, titled "Winning Streak." Where does Booz rank in the hierarchy of NBA rappers?
- Ray Allen's mom is fresh and ready for her third consecutive Boston Marathon on Monday. In doing so, she'll be raising money to combat Diabetes in honor of her grandson, who suffers from the condition.
- I'm willing to offer up a mea culpa on my wholesale dismissal of Iman Shumpert as an NBA player. He's a tremendous defender who has a decisive impact on the game. But he's still an offensive liability completely unaware of his limitations. Fortunately, the coaching staff in New York seems to recognize those deficiencies.
- NBA players who toil in one city, but maintain their primary residence in the other face the dreaded "Jock Tax."
- You might remember yesterday that John Hollinger (Insider) was discussing Tyson Chandler as a potential Defensive Player of the Year winner. Over at Hardwood Paroxysm, Steve Von Horn did some digging into just how good Tyson Chandler is and how much he means to the Knicks. This may surprise you but it starts with defense.
- USA Today has a fascinating account about the Gilbert Arenas gun incident that happened in the Wizards' locker room. The account comes from Gilbert Arenas himself, so it should be a pretty credible source. He's opening up about the entire incident.
- Steve Nash, Jason Kidd and Andre Miller probably don't have a lot of time left in this league. They're the veteran distributors in this league that excel at getting the ball to their teammates in spots that simply the scoring process. Brett Koremenos at NBA Playbook has a fantastic breakdown of how Rajon Rondo will be able to keep the demise of the distributor from growing.
- There are few blogs that do a post-game recap quite like Seth Rosenthal at Posting and Toasting. I recommend reading every single one of them.
- I'm not sure how worried you were about Kobe Bryant being amnestied but you definitely don't have to worry anymore.
- Ryan Weisert has a smart correlation between the decline of the traditional NBA center and the downfall of the modern rock star. Including this comparions: "Hakeem Olajuwon/Roger Daltry - Both are underrated/overlooked because of the quality of their competition. Both were undeniably talented and had great longevity. Both are still contributing in their respective fields today. Hakeem is the must-see guy for any NBA player looking to develop a post game. Roger Daltry and the Who still tour and play the intro to all the CSI’s."
- I bet you didn't think there were three positive things about New Jersey Nets basketball. Well... you're probably right. But Devin Kharpertian is trying to find some positives.
- Ian Levy at Hickory High looks into the value of clutch within a team concept. Pretty interesting finds that the first three quarters of a basketball game appear to be determined by your overall talent and skill, but the fourth quarter seems to be a chance out-perform your level of talent. If one guy is taking over at the end of games and succeeding, it's possible that he's not just carrying his own talent through the experience. He may be carrying his entire team's talent. Maybe a player really is putting the entire team on his back?
- Not basketball related but I am crushed that the existence of the Brontosauras appears to be a farce.
- Boston and Atlanta are both good at defending the pick-and-roll and Orlando runs A LOT of pick-and-roll plays. But there is a weakness in Atlanta's PnR defense that Boston doesn't seem to have. According to Nate Drexler, it's a big reason why Orlando would much rather face Atlanta in the first round.
- Remember when Ricky Rubio and Jeremy Lin were the talk of the town? Steve McPherson and Netw3rk (everybody's favorite tweeter) talk about the rise and fall of both players.
- The meaningful minutes for young players in Utah are helping to accelerate the learning process.
- And FYI: HoopSpeak Live will have Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins and Ball Don't Lie's Dan Devine on today at 3pm ET. Come check out the show.
TRUEHOOP CONTRIBUTORS
Henry AbbottTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
J.A. AdandeTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
Kevin ArnovitzTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
Chris BroussardTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
Chad FordTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
Israel GutierrezTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
John HollingerTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
Beckley MasonTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
Marc SteinTrueHoop ESPN Archive |
HoopIdeaTrueHoop @HoopIdea |
