Crazy random speculation for those with nothing better to do than think about the NBA all day. I give Google Image search, NBA.com, and Yahoo Sports all credit for any images on here.
However, Kurt from Forum Blue and Gold brought up an interesting article in his preview of tonight's Houston game. The article talks about how this kind of play is hard to judge.
"Ariza obviously made contact with Fernandez's head, but he also came reasonably close to getting a block."
Normally I wouldn't have taken exception to something like this, unfortunate accidents like this happen, look at Gerald Wallace's collapsed lung. I mean, no, this is no David West karate chop, which is much worse, despite the fact that Mike Miller was fine whereas both the cases involving the Lakers required hospital attention for the players fouled.
First I want to say, the fact that two of the instances happened to be Lakers doesn't mean I'm trying to find beef with the Lakers, however, if it's a trend it might be something that you want to look at. I'm not going to take an extremist view and say the Lakers play dirty, becuase, honestly, I don't think they do, I think they play effectively, but now am more inclined to agree with Matt Moore that it might be somewhat sloppy, reckless, and therefore dangerous to other players, this could have been anyone else.
Honestly, I think for this thing, I'm on the wagon that Ariza should have been suspended, while there was no "malicious intent" the fact of the matter, it was still a dumb play. I don't care if he's going for the ball, people look at this play and say, "oh he's going for a block, it's all good, just a hard foul" because it doesn't matter if he's trying to get the block through the other player's head? Sure a couple of inches and he might've gotten all ball, a couple inches in the other direction he could've ended Rudy Fernandez's basketball career with a hard swipe across the neck. One commenter noted that because the ball was near Rudy's head it makes it "hard to fault him [Ariza] for making contact with Rudy's head because the head was near the ball which Trevor aimed for." Again... it's ok if he tries to block the ball through Rudy's head?
Kurt mentions:
"I guarantee if Fernandez had done that to Ariza and there was no suspension, at least half this board would have flipped out."
I would've asked for Fernandez to be suspended though. Just because he didn't get one doesn't mean he doesn't deserve one. Think about it.
I was considering doing a piece on how Shaq needs to learn how to shut his mouth, but there's already a lot of literature out there on that (ok maybe not "literature, but there's a bit of writing on it). Then, I thought about maybe talking about how Celtics defense maybe isn't so much stifling as it is dirty. So I decided, to move forward with a post that I've been meaning to get to for a while, that is, a closer look at all the different contenders in the league, which I boiled down to 2 per conference with a "dark horse" type team thrown in for kicks. I've tried to get some external input on this as well, so here goes:
The Lakers are currently the best team in the league, at least record-wise. A lot of people are gearing for a rematch of last year's finals showdown (Boston and LA). Kenny Smith continually talks about how the Lakers are the only team to improve their roster from last season (it's on one of the Inside the NBA episodes, don't remember which one) significantly. I can agree with his analysis that having Gasol for a whole year and having a healthy Ariza, even without Bynum again, the Lakers are improved, yes. While the other teams in the West haven't made a significant move, but it's hard to say that other teams haven't "improved" either. I'm not going to get into that though.
Last season, the Lakers had a solid run through the Western Conference, starting with a sweep of Denver in the first round, a fairly even 6 game matchup against Utah, and then a convincing 5 game rout of San Antonio (despite some controversy). I'm sure they're looking for another run again this season, but this time, hopefully overcome the Eastern Conference team that they face. After losing to Boston in 5 games in last year's Finals, the Lakers were accused of being soft, unable to bang with the more physical Boston frontline of Kevin Garnett and Kendrick Perkins. Maybe that was the case, and they hoped that the return of Bynum would add some physicality to their game, which it did, until he got hurt, again.
One thing that the Lakers have definitely established thusfar this season is that they play very good team basketball, be it on the offensive end or defensive end. Phil Jackson's triangle offense emphasizes a lot of ball movement and when it's clicking, it's nigh impossible to stop. The offense has always been there, the defense however, is what the Lakers need. Kurt from Forum Blue and Gold says:
"When the Lakers have wanted to, they have been a very good defensive team this season, playing a much more aggressive style in the sense that there is a lot of help from bigs to keep guys from driving into the lane and getting easy buckets (think Paul Pierce in the Finals last year). The Lakers are going to make teams beat them from the outside, not in the paint. The Lakers played that system well early in the season, but since their focus and commitment on the defensive end has been spotty. It can't be in the playoffs, especially the later rounds. I think you'll see the last few weeks of the season that playing more focused defense will be something the coaching staff and players will talk a lot about."
It kind of goes without saying that one of the first priorities for the Lakers is to get Bynum back for the post-season, to get him back healthy, because the main culprits of the Lakers' interior softness would be their current frontcourt tandem of Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom. Should Bynum get back healthy, it provides a solid interior presence that the Lakers desperately needed against more physical bigs. One thing Kenny Smith notes in his preview of this Thursday's Lakers/Spurs matchup is that the Lakers have a really hard time guarding Tim Duncan. If you notice from the highlights, a lot of times it's just Duncan scoring over Lamar Odom, who isn't a great post defender. Bynum gives that big body that can press against Duncan and force him out of the paint, that doesn't completely nullify Duncan, but it does make his shots more difficult. Additionally, while Derek Fisher is a smart defender, he's also an aging player, he's not quite as fast as he once was, and so guards like Tony Parker usually have their way with him, the damage done by those kind of slashing guards is mitigated significantly with an interior help presence of someone like Andrew Bynum. Again, Kurt addresses this issue:
"They need Andrew Bynum back, not for any scoring but for the way he protects the paint on defense and grabs rebounds. Bynum also provides depth — right now the Lakers second unit is struggling because it cannot generate offense outside the fast break. So Odom or Gasol have to stay in with them, racking up a lot of minutes, to provide a good scoring option in the half court. Bynum's return will mean more regular minutes for everyone (Bynum may come off the bench, at least at first). In the playoffs, the depth matters less because the key players can and will take on more minutes, but the Lakers need that depth because it gives Phil Jackson more matchup options in the playoffs. It allows him to go big or small, to do a number of things that will frustrate opponents."
Of course, while it's certain that the Lakers will likely clinch the top spot in the Western Conference, a good regular season record isn't really indicative of post season success. However, this Lakers team does look a lot more balanced than the 2007 Dallas Mavericks did. Granted there's a little luck involved, what with the matchups, but the first round looks like it'll be against a floundering Dallas Mavericks, which I think the Lakers should take easily. However, they really can't let that get to them. For the Lakers, the talent is all there, I'm sure having been so close to winning the Larry O'Brien trophy, the desire should be too, I think the main thing is for them to focus on each game in front of them as each series progresses. If the 2007 Golden State Warriors taught us anything, it's that you can't really take anyone for granted in a 7-game playoff series. Certainly it would help if there was an upset here or there, however, and none of the teams ranked 2-7 in the West will be an easy out, since they all deserve to be there.
I think the most serious threats though that the Lakers will face would be Utah Jazz and the San Antonio Spurs. I feel like Denver, Houston, and New Orleans will falter when it switches over from one-and-done regular season games to the grueling 7-game matchups against such high caliber teams. Portland honestly, just hasn't really been there, so while that might be held against them, they are something of an x-factor. Nonetheless, I think the Blazers still have some growing so experience wins out in the end. In terms of favorable matchups, despite having homecourt advantage, the Lakers would really want the Jazz to beat out the Rockets for the 3rd place spot, so that San Antonio and Utah would play each other before facing the Lakers, instead of the Lakers running the possibility of having to play both of them (again) in the 2nd and 3rd rounds.
I personally don't think there's a team that's invulnerable to defeat, and I think the other contenders in the West have as equal a chance as the Eastern contenders to keep the Lakers from winning that championship. That being said, I think it's equally likely that the Lakers could win it all this season. There are still a number of games left in the season, and too many unknowns both in LA and on the other squads for anyone to say for sure.
Finally, I think for the Lakers taking home a championship banner, is beyond Kobe doing his Kobe thing, the rest of the players need to step it up. The entire Lakers team needs to be playing at that higher level and not have to fall back on Kobe shooting them out of holes. That means that the "gel" guys, I think namely Lamar Odom, have to be able to pick it up when their number is called. Kobe's going to get a ton of defensive attention, and to a lesser extent Gasol, which means that the reserve roles have to be willing to take big shots. Fisher doesn't have that problem, but my concern would be more for Lamar Odom, Luke Walton, and the like. While the reserves usually don't get as much burn with starters willing to play more minutes, progressive fatigue can still catch up, especially if series start dragging on to 6-7 games, so the role players really have to go out and get their own on the floor.
That was pretty dense so let me bullet point what I think the Lakers need for success, adding on a few peripheral notes while I'm at it:
A healthy Bynum to return for the post season
Focus on the defensive end, especially in the paint
Kobe being Kobe
Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom not being fatigued by too many minutes with Bynum out
Odom and Luke Walton have to step it up
Keep running the triangle
That's it for now, if you have a comment feel free to leave it, this is how I see it. I'll be posting my predictions for the other contenders hopefully soon.
So the NBA regular season is winding down, and we're all getting a clearer picture of who will end up in the playoff picture, or rather, I like to think of it more as, who ends up not in the playoff picture, as 16 of 30 teams make it and only 14 teams go to the lottery. However, that aside, the playoffs are probably the most exciting time of the season, and it's the thing that most die-hard fans are really looking forward to. Of course, in the last few weeks leading up to the playoffs we have all these teams kind of on the bubble, everyone wonders, who's going to be that 8th seed and who's going to be that 14th team in the lottery (9th)? In the Western Conference, it's come down to a two team race for the 8th spot, though it's getting clearer who's going to fall out. We're pretty sure that the Lakers and Spurs have locked up the 1 and 2 spots in the Western Conference, and we're pretty sure that the Nuggets, Blazers, Hornets, Jazz, and Rockets have the 3-7 slots taken up, we're just not sure who's in which one (currently Nuggets, Hornets, Rockets, Jazz, Blazers). So the fight for that not-so-coveted 8th spot goes to Dallas or Phoenix.
I'm gonna take a quick look at each team and what they have and how likely they are to win that spot to get trounced by the Lakers in the first round, or perhaps be that Cinderella 8th spot like the 2007 Golden State Warriors.
Dallas Mavericks 37-25 8th in Western Conference 4th in Southwest Division
Starters
MPG
FG%
FT%
PPG
RPG
APG
SPG
BPG
TO
PG - Jason Kidd
35:30
43.3%
40.5%
9.2
6.2
8.5
2.2
0.6
2.3
SG - Antoine Wright
21:41
41.6%
81.3%
7.1
2.0
1.1
0.6
0.2
0.7
SF - Josh Howard
32:42
45.8%
75.3%
18.3
5.0
1.7
0.9
0.6
1.8
PF - Dirk Nowitzki
37:42
47.3%
90.4%
25.2
8.3
2.5
0.7
0.8
2.1
C - Erick Dampier
22:41
66.3%
63.4%
5.4
6.9
0.9
0.3
1.3
0.9
Reserves
MPG
FG%
FT%
PPG
RPG
APG
SPG
BPG
TO
G - Jason Terry
33:30
46.4%
88.0%
19.7
2.4
3.7
1.4
0.3
1.8
G - Jose Juan Barea
19:11
42.6%
69.0%
7.3
2.2
3.2
0.4
0.1
1.4
F - Brandon Bass
19:36
48.6%
86.8%
8.5
4.5
0.6
0.3
0.7
1.2
F - James Singleton
13:11
54.6%
87.5%
4.6
4.0
0.2
0.3
0.5
0.6
F - Gerald Green
10:30
43.6%
82.6%
5.5
1.6
0.5
0.3
0.1
0.9
C - Ryan Hollins
7:35
52.6%
61.2%
2.9
1.7
0.2
0.1
0.7
0.6
F - Devean George
16:41
37.8%
77.8%
3.5
1.9
0.3
0.5
0.2
0.4
From what we can see initially, outside of Dirk Nowtizki, Josh Howard, Jason Terry, and maybe Jason Kidd, we're not really getting any significant production, anywhere really. If you watch Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and Charles Barkley on Inside the NBA on TNT you'll hear EJ mention an interesting quote from Jason Terry saying, "Erick Dampier makes the Mavericks go." Which is understandable, because if Erick Dampier "turns it on" then the Mavs are good. I believe what the Mavs are lacking though is an interior presence, Dirk Nowtizki, for being 7 feet tall, plays like he's 6-3. Sure he gets rebounds, but in essence the Mavs are what the Magic would be without Dwight Howard. Maybe it's not fair to Erick Dampier to ask him to be a Dwight Howard or Tim Duncan, but they need some kind of a legitimate post/defensive presence in the middle. I know that the talk has been about these opposing PGs lighting up the Mavericks:
PGs Against Mavs
GP
FG%
FT%
PPG
RPG
APG
SPG
BPG
TO
Tony Parker
4
51.6%
82.1%
31.3
3.5
7.3
1.0
0.0
2.3
Chris Paul
2
52.4%
83.3%
30.0
7.0
13.0
4.0
0.0
2.0
Devin Harris
2
44.2%
88.9%
29.5
3.5
10.0
2.5
0.0
4.0
Deron Williams
3
47.2%
92.0%
27.0
3.7
11.3
2.0
0.0
4.7
Russell Westbrook
3
37.5%
94.7%
23.0
8.7
7.0
1.3
0.3
4.3
Derrick Rose
2
42.9%
50.0%
19.0
6.5
7.5
0.5
0.5
1.5
Baron Davis
3
40.0%
77.8%
18.0
3.3
8.3
1.0
0.7
2.3
Rajon Rondo
2
62.5%
50.0%
16.0
11.0
14.0
2.5
0.0
4.0
This is just a short list of players that have overperformed whenever they're playing the Mavs, that is, they average higher averages against the Mavs than they do across the regular season (aka against other teams). People will look at this and first point fingers at Jason Kidd, who, being 35 and a step slower than he used to be, can't be as effective defensively. Most people will call him a defensive liability, which, may or may not be true. In the case of Dallas though, I don't know that you can lay the whole blame on the shoulders of Kidd. If you look at the list of PGs that do so well against Dallas, all of them thrive by getting into the lane, and honestly, none of them are really afraid of Erick Dampier. Jason Kidd ends up looking bad, because he has no one to funnel his man to, he can't trust Erick Dampier with the weak side help. Playing Dirk Nowtizki on the floor is basically playing a rebounding 3 on the floor.
Don't get me wrong, Dirk averaging 25 points and 8 rebounds per contest is great, those are actually quite phenomenal stats, but they're closer to what you want out of say Carmelo Anthony rather than Carlos Boozer, and honestly, you need Dirk to play more like Carlos Boozer. I've been saying this since they were ousted from the first round by Golden State in the 2007 playoffs, they're a shooting team with no interior presence. They got the shooters, they don't have the inside. If we compare Dampier to the average center of the Eastern Conference 8th spots:
You'll notice that Dampier, a 13 year vet, across the board, is being out performed, and he's the primary option. Behind him, you have the even worse Ryan Hollins. Honestly, the future in the playoffs doesn't really look very bright for Dallas, and after this year, Jason Kidd leaves, and I honestly don't know that Dallas would re-sign him as it didn't work out. If you notice, while Kidd has tallied off a little, he's not performing significantly worse than we'd expected, it's all the role players that are hurting Dallas. When Devean George gets serious burn off the bench and only averages 3.5 points and 1.9 rebounds per game, you know your role players aren't producing. Sure, they should be better, but honestly, I'm not too surprised by the fact that they aren't.
Phoenix Suns 34-27 9th in Western Conference 2nd in Pacific Division
The Phoenix Suns are only 2nd in the Pacific because all the other teams in the Pacific suck that much (Sacramento Kings, LA Clippers, and Golden State Warriors). Seriously.
Starters
MPG
FG%
FT%
PPG
RPG
APG
SPG
BPG
TO
PG - Steve Nash
33:36
48.4%
94.2%
14.5
3.2
9.7
0.8
0.2
3.7
SG - Matt Barnes
26:00
41.9%
74.1%
9.9
5.3
2.4
0.6
0.3
1.7
SF - Jason Richardson
34:47
47.3%
76.2%
17.1
4.3
2.2
1.1
0.3
1.4
PF - Grant Hill
28:48
51.0%
79.3%
10.9
4.7
2.1
1.0
0.6
1.5
C - Shaquille O'Neal
30:23
60.8%
62.6%
18.2
8.8
2.3
0.5
1.5
2.3
Reserves
MPG
FG%
FT%
PPG
RPG
APG
SPG
BPG
TO
G - Leandro Barbosa
24:53
47.8%
87.3%
13.9
2.6
2.4
1.3
0.1
1.3
F - Jared Dudley
15:05
46.6%
63.9%
4.2
2.5
0.7
0.8
0.1
0.4
F - Louis Amundson
12:48
57.0%
47.1%
4.0
3.2
0.3
0.3
0.7
0.7
G - Goran Dragic
12:35
35.6%
84.1%
3.6
1.8
1.8
0.5
0.0
1.5
C - Robin Lopez
9:54
50.0%
59.1%
2.7
1.6
0.1
0.2
0.6
0.4
F - Stromile Swift
10:41
60.0%
45.5%
3.8
2.2
0.2
0.0
0.3
1.2
F - Alando Tucker
10:30
42.2%
83.3%
4.7
1.3
0.4
0.2
0.1
0.8
Seriously, the only reason Mavericks are going to get into the playoffs are because this Phoenix team is worse. Losing Amar'e Stoudemire for the rest of the season hurts, losing him for the post season as well is devastating. As hard as it would have been for them to make it to the post season, without Amar'e, it kind of makes the post season not worth going to. They had a slim chance against the Lakers should they have slipped in the 8th seed, but without Amar'e they have no chance whatsoever. Despite Alvin Gentry trying to move the Suns back into their old run-and-gun form, they're just not clicking, too many new things to integrate. Shaq may be having the last hurrah of his career, but it'll be pretty disappointing should the Suns drop out of the playoffs.
Honestly, this team just hasn't found an identity, it's a random conglomeration of parts that looks good on paper but really isn't very cohesive. You have a dominant half-court oriented center who demands touches (Shaq), you have an explosive off guard that shoots threes and demands touches in isolation (Jason Richardson), you have an aging point guard and reserve off guard who thrive running the open floor (Steve Nash and Leandro Barbosa), you have a couple of role players (Grant Hill, Matt Barnes, and Jared Dudley), and you have a bunch of clueless rookies (Robin Lopez and Goran Dragic). Signing Stromile Swift in the free agency was too little too late. Honestly they're back two games and I don't think they can catch up. Neither Phoenix nor Dallas are very good teams right now, and it's hard to believe that they've fallen this far, but if you just look at the roster and what is brought night in and night out, there just isn't enough to compete with the other 8 teams ahead of them. Nash (34), Hill (36), and O'Neal (37) are at the end of their careers, and there are no youth to take the reins (Amar'e has shown he's a better support player), so inevitably there is this monstrous dropoff. Without Amar'e, they're a lot worse than their record, like, Charlotte Bobcats worse.
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