NBA Playoffs Thread

[Sadat X]

The Lakers have a decent array of big men. The success of Suns, Mavs, Bulls etc. has proven that you don't really need a major low-post threat to be a winner anymore. It appears that the NBA is moving in a different direction.

What the Lakers really need is a solid point guard that can play some defense - possibly in the Ron Harper mold. When Jordan Farmar is your 2nd best guard, your team is in trouble. It would be nice to have D-Fish back right about now.

[gusmahler]

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Are Phoenix fans scared yet?

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I was more scared of Dallas than San Antonio. But hopefully Dallas will be out tonight.

The Suns played like crap the second half last night. But they've always had a problem with playing down to the level of their competition, so I don't think I'm too worried yet.

Didn't see the Spurs game, though, so maybe I should be scared.

[Jack of Arcades]

lol, you were doing good until you mention Derek Fisher.

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
Are Phoenix fans scared yet?

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I dunno about "scared". Just how annoyed I'll be if the Spurs win, particularly if Dallas loses tonight and the Spurs end up having a walk the rest of the way. However, this time around these things are different for the Suns:

Expectations. Two years ago the Suns were coming off a tough series with Dallas and a 62-win season that nobody predicted, so even getting to the WCF must have felt like a freeroll. Two years later that's not good enough, and also this isn't even the WCF.

Experience. At that time, only Nash had any real playoff experience among the regular rotation (I can't count Jim Jackson here). Now Marion, Bell, Barbosa, Amare and Diaw all have a lot more playoff games under their belt.

Depth. D'Antoni's 7-man rotation bites him in the ass when injuries occur. Last time around, he had lost confidence in Barbosa, and Q-Rich was a shadow of himself when the Spurs series rolled around. This left him with one bench player - a center, Steven Hunter.

Health. A common theme among all eventual champions is staying healthy. So far the Suns (and the Spurs) have been lucky. Two years ago Joe Johnson missed the first two games of the series, both Suns losses, both home games.

Defense. The Suns are clearly a better team defensively than before - that time they didn't have Raja Bell, and Amare is regarded as a much smarter/more active defender this season.

Confidence. When it came to closing out games, the Suns sucked back then. In the WCF against the Spurs, they held leads in the 4th quarter in every game but one but could only hold on to one of them - and by that time they were in a 0-3 series hole. They seem to be winning some games that previously they would find ways to lose.

I think the Suns are better or improved in all of those areas. What's better about the Spurs these days, I don't know, but hopefully the Suns can believe they're the better team this time and play that way.

[tuq]

Another thing - for all great dynasties (term needs to be used more loosely in the age of free agency, so let's apply it to the Spurs here), there come end of days. Sometimes it's obvious - when Jordan, Pippen and Rodman cleared out their Bulls lockers in 1998, or when Bill Russell and Sam Jones retired in 1969.

But sometimes it's only obvious in hindsight, like when the Celtics in the 80s eventually wore down and the Pistons became the better team, and the Pistons basically did the same thing with the Bulls. Cracks in the foundation are seen after the fact - the Lakers were supposed to rout the Pistons in 2003, instead the exact opposite happened. And then people realized the Lakers were OLD (and Malone was hurt) and the Pistons played exceptional team defense. In retrospect most of us got caught up in the 200 all-star games between their core and recent Lakers title run and equated that to steamrolling the unproven Pistons.

At some point that will happen with the Spurs. They're going to lose a series - perhaps badly - and glaring weaknesses will be exposed. I'm not saying that's this year or even next, but it will happen. People have seen or thought they saw cracks in the foundation at various points this season. I'd make them analogous to a really well-oiled machine that has about 120,000 miles on it. At some point the engine's going to quit and you're probably stuck rebuilding it from scratch. You rarely get warning about these sorts of things.

[kbfc]

This is what we've all been waiting for. God I love the NBA playoffs!

At this point, the onus is on the Suns to prove they can beat SA. I didn't watch much of the PHX-LA series, because there was no reason to, but I'm very pleased with the way SA handled Denver. They completely shut down Denver's break for 5 straight games. Denver isn't quite at the Sun's level offensively, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the same thing happen in this series.

The Spurs have consistently destroyed the great fastbreaking offenses in the NBA for the last 2 months. Phoenix is going to have to play out of their minds to change that. While I don't believe Nash belongs up on Mt. Olympus, I'll never feel safe with any lead while he's still on the floor. Amare will get his 35/game, Bell will hit a 3 here and there, and Barbosa will probably get some driving layups when Duncan is on the bench, but it really just comes down to Nash. If Nash is scoring in the mid-high 20s and dishing out 15 assists, it's going to be hard to win. As I said before, I think the Spurs have shown an ability to shut him down, but I'm not counting any chicks yet. Nash is too good to take that for granted.

Anyway, good luck PHX fans. I hope this series turns out to be everything we'd expect.

Spurs in 6!

[tuq]

Also, I look forward to this thread degenerating into really gay overanalysis of the three regular season games the Suns and Spurs played against each other.

[kbfc]

That Lakers team pissed me off. They played by far the best ball of any team all year to beat SA in the WCF ([censored] you luckbox Derek Fisher), then failed to show up at all in the Finals. The Spurs would have handled Detroit in the finals; they beat them in 7 games the next year when arguably the gap had closed.

Anyway, of course the current Spurs run will come to an end, unless by some freak coincidence history repeats itself with TD playing the David Robinson role. I don't think it's going to be as sudden as you think, though. If anything, it will come as them losing a tough series to a great up-and-coming team, and then gradually falling back into the pack, never winning another title. If they fall to the Suns this year, you could make the case that last year's Dallas series was the moment it started coming down. The Spurs were hampered by injuries last year, though, and they're healthy now, so maybe this year will be more defining.

[Huh?]

To: San Antonio Spurs

From: Phoenix Suns

[kbfc]

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Also, I look forward to this thread degenerating into really gay overanalysis of the three regular season games the Suns and Spurs played against each other.

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Nah. Once game 1 is complete, the regular season matchups are going to be distant memories.