Owners vs. Players- Not to sound like a broken record or anything but this week was a repeat of last week in that a ruling was expected on the NFL’s temporary stay but once again the courts failed to deliver a ruling leaving the league still in lockout. So once again the future of the league is in the hands of the judicial system and hopefully this week they actually will make a ruling that moves us closer to a complete NFL season. Besides the minor question about the future of the NFL there was nothing else remotely close to newsworthy in the NFL.
NBA- After a month of playoff basketball, and many tears shed about the Blazers demise, we have finally reached the conference finals and for the first time in forever (slight exaggeration) neither the Los Angeles Lakers or Boston Celtics are participating for a shot at the NBA finals. In the Eastern Conference the Chicago Bulls will be matching up against the Miami Heat and in the Western Conference it will be the Dallas Mavericks against the Oklahoma City Thunder. Before I take a stab at predicting the winners of both of these matchups here’s how we got to this point.
The Miami Heat were the first Eastern Conference team to clinch a spot in the conference finals by dispatching the Boston Celtics four games to one last Wednesday. Like many others I had high hopes for this series to be a seven game classic between two teams that really dislike each other, unfortunately the Rajon Rondo injury prevented this and the Heat advanced in five games. I think that with a healthy Rondo the Celtics would have won this series but obviously this can never be proven so it’s the Heat moving on to the horror of all NBA fans that don’t live in Miami. LeBron James carried the Heat down the stretch in game five which led to everyone instantly forgetting about his season long struggles in the clutch, which is ridiculous because the two three pointers he hit at the end of the game weren’t even what I would call good shots. LeBron for all his greatness still isn’t a good three point shooter, which makes it silly that people who criticized LeBron all season for his clutch performances are now hailing him as a clutch player due to game five. He definitely was clutch in game five but that doesn’t change the fact that he struggled all season in the big moments. I was of course amazed by his performance at the end of game five but the other thing I thought about was why was LeBron taking those shots anyway? Those shots weren’t great shots for the Heat offense, the Celtics played pretty good defense on LeBron at the end, and Dwayne Wade had been the Heat offense for much of the game so why was LeBron taking contested threes? It worked out for the Heat but I can guarantee if LeBron had missed those three pointers everyone would be crushing LeBron for taking contested jump shots. Last off topic LeBron rant of this blog post, what kind of celebration was standing in place for ten seconds after hitting that last three pointer? As for the Celtics, it was a disappointing end to the season but I’m not quite ready to proclaim that they are done contending for titles. They already locked head coach Doc Rivers up for five more years and they will once again return much of their team, basically talks about a changing of the guard in the East are a bit premature. The one thing that this series proved is that the Kendrick Perkins for Jeff Green trade was a complete failure. Perkins would have started for this Celtic squad while Green was a no-show off of the bench for much of the playoffs. Maybe Green will develop into a contributor off of the bench next year but the Celtics would have been a better team this year with Perkins, which makes the trade hard to fathom because the Celtics shouldn’t be thinking about the future when there present is championship contender. Green was added as a future piece while Perkins was a present contributor. If you’re a championship contender with a limited contention window, like the Celtics due to their advanced age, you should never give up someone (Perkins) that helps your team because of future factors (contract issues). The Celtics should have taken their shot with Perkins this year even if it meant that they couldn’t sign him to a contract extension in the offseason.
In the other Eastern semi-finals matchup the Bulls advanced past the Atlanta Hawks in six games to set up the Eastern Conference finals match up with the Heat. I’m going to keep my thoughts pretty brief on this one because the Bulls were the much better team and it should come as no surprise that they are the team that advanced. The one worrisome thing for the Bulls throughout this series was that Derrick Rose for long stretches in this series appeared to be the only Bulls player capable of scoring. As was mentioned in last weeks column Carlos Boozer was signed to be a go-to scoring option for the Bulls but for much of the series underwhelmed to the point where some wondered if the Bulls would be better off playing Taj Gibson instead of Boozer. Whenever Rose got some help from his supporting cast the Bulls beat the Hawks fairly easily. As for the Hawks, I’m not quite sure where they go from here because I think that getting this far is about there ceiling going forward. One point that the TNT announcing crew made was how good would the Hawks be if Mike D’Antoni were their coach? I think this is a valid and interesting question because looking at their roster they are filled with athletic players that you would think thrive in an up-tempo attack. Instead there offense often operates at an average pace and centers around isolating Joe Johnson. Side note after that series there is no way to justify Joe Johnson being the highest paid player in the NBA, he’s a great player but not elite by any measure. Back to the point I would love to see the Hawks push the pace with players like Jeff Teague, Josh Smith, and Jamal Crawford but they seem set on their “Iso-Joe offense” which at least to me is the wrong call but what do I know.
In the Western Conference this week it was just the Memphis Grizzlies and Oklahoma City Thunder battling it out for the right to play the Dallas Mavericks who basically enjoyed a bye week due to their sweep of the Lakers. This brings up the point of rest vs. game action as the Mavericks will be week and a couple of days removed from their last game by the time their matchup with the Thunder comes around. Personally I’ve always believed that it benefits teams that continue to play in these situations but valid arguments can be made that it favors the team (Mavericks) that is more rested. Back to the Vancouver (Memphis) vs. Seattle (OKC) series, this series will go down as one of the most entertaining series’ that I can remember solely because of the triple overtime game four. The words crazy and unreal don’t even do justice to this game, it was simply something that you had to watch because really how often do you see a triple OT game in the playoffs? Every time it seemed like OKC was going to pull it out the Grizzlies came right back with a huge shot to send the game deeper into the night. The Thunder finally pulled it off in the third overtime which changed the whole series because if the Grizzlies had somehow gotten the game four victory they would have had a commanding three games to one lead in the series. After the epic game four in Memphis the Thunder claimed game five relatively easily in OKC, there was even a Nate Robinson sighting so it wasn’t very close. A Grizzlies victory in game six evened the series at three games apiece and set up a pivotal game seven in OKC. Game seven ended up with the Thunder running away with it due to an atrocious offensive performance (it was Blazeresque, not a compliment) but it was still a great series between two upstart teams. Even though the Grizzlies ended up falling to the Thunder in seven games they were very close to making it to the conference finals as an eight seed and without arguably there best player (Rudy Gay). These teams were incredibly even matched throughout the whole series and going forward both of these teams have bright futures so expect these teams to clash in the playoffs in future years.
Moving on from conference semifinal matchups this past Sunday brought us game one of the Eastern Conference semifinals between the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat. All the major casinos and sports betting sites made the Heat the favorites in this series which is confusing because the Bulls swept the season series three games to zero and also have the home court advantage in the series. Moving on from that the Bulls dominated the second half en route to an easy twenty-one point victory. Derrick Rose as always led the way for the Bulls but it really was a complete team effort. Luol Deng, 21 points, and Taj Gibson, 9 points 7 rebounds, +17 plus/minus and a posterizing dunk over Dwayne Wade, were the real keys in leading the Bulls to the victory. At this point it really is fair to question whether the Bulls are better off starting Gibson because in the Bulls defense first scheme Gibson is a much better fit than Carlos Boozer. Boozer was decent in game one compiling 14 points and 9 rebounds but he also was the Bulls player with the worst plus/minus line of only +1. For the Heat Chris Bosh, yes Chris Bosh, was the only player that showed up as he put up 30 points and 9 rebounds. LeBron and Wade both struggled as combined they only put up 33 points on 32 shots, safe to say if the Heat get efforts like this its going to be a short series. Its only one game but if the Bulls can keep up their stifling defense and get contributions from their secondary options like Deng you have to like their chances going forward.
MLB- The MLB season keeps plugging along like always and since we’ve passed the quarter season mark it is now fair to evaluate teams and players. The most disappointing team thus far is a split between the AL Central tandem of bottom dwellers the Chicago White Sox and Minnesota Twins. In the preseason both were thought of as contenders for the AL Central crown but so far this season both have been in contention for worst record in the MLB. Continuing with the AL Central theme the most surprising team has easily been the Cleveland Indians who as of Sunday afternoon find themselves as the AL Central leaders by 3.5 games. The National League has so far played out basically as expected but the Marlins have exceeded expectations thus far with the second best record in the national league. One of the seasons more disappointing players, Jorge Posada, was one of the main story lines of the week after he asked out of the lineup on Saturday because he didn’t want to have to deal with the embarrassment of hitting ninth. I understand its upsetting for someone used to hitting fifth or sixth in the lineup to be dropped to ninth but is there really anyway Posada can argue the logic in it when he’s hitting .165 on the season? Posada has been a legendary Yankee so it is painful to see this, but you can’t really fault the Yankees for demoting one of the worst hitters in the MLB to the ninth spot? In other news the Mariners went through one of the roughest weeks I’ve seen by closer Brandon League blowing three straight games. Blowing three straight games is almost a feat in itself because good closers sometimes don’t even blow three saves in an entire season.
The Week Moving Forward-
Owners vs. Players- Another week were its up to the courts to make a ruling which leaves me wondering when NBC is going to make the Law and Order spin off named Law and Order: NFL Lockout. Admit it you would watch it. In other news the HBO show Hard Knocks is looking for another team to follow after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers declined to participate. I don’t understand why the Buccaneers declined to be a part of Hard Knocks but in their absence I would like to nominate the Philadelphia Eagles as the team to take their place.
NBA- Obviously the only thing going on in the NBA is the conference finals so its now prediction time. I like the Bulls to advance in seven games over the Heat, which may or may not be influenced by my hate of the Heat and Chris Bosh. For the Bulls to win they need Carlos Boozer to win his matchup with Bosh and to prevent any of the Heat bench players from having breakout games like James Jones had in game of the Heat vs. Celtic series. Obviously Wade and LeBron are going to get there points but the main thing the Bulls have to do is prevent both from getting in the zone in the same game. If the Bulls can take away either Wade or James, taking away both is impossible, in the games they have to like their chances. In the other matchup I like the Thunder in six games, I really believe that the Thunder are much better than the Mavericks. The Grizzlies were able to throw talented defenders (Tony Allen and Shane Battier) at Kevin Durant to slow him down and I just don’t see the Mavericks being able to do that. Along with that I don’t think that Jason Terry and Peja Stojakovic are going to shoot as well in this series as they did in the Lakers series, which leaves the Mavericks with the same problem of who else can score besides Dirk.
MLB- Its hard for me to say there is something specific to watch when there’s more than 110 games left for every team in the season.
Content note- At the end of the NBA season I will be changing the format of these articles to focus on different topics instead of recapping the weekly sports news. As a result don’t expect an article a week but every week and a half or two weeks.
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