Monday, April 26, 2010

Miami 101, Boston 92

[recap] [box score]

Really, the header on this post should be "Dwayne Wade 46, Boston 92." Flash was a one-man show in the fourth quarter on Sunday, pulling his team out of a six-point hole with 19 points in the period, 17 in the first six minutes. There's not a whole lot you can do when Wade is going like that, although Boston could have done more: Getting a hand up on his three-pointers, trying Tony Allen on him instead of Ray Allen, double-teaming like they did in the second half of the quarter to good effect. Fortunately for Boston, it's unlikely that Wade, as good as he is, will be that good often enough over the next three games to steal this series.

The bad from Sunday: Something like nine first quarter turnovers; three first half fouls apiece on Ray and Paul Pierce; a second straight scoreless game from Kendrick Perkins; falling behind by 18 points in the first half; losing a fourth quarter lead after coming back from 18 down.

The good from Sunday: Being in a position to win the game despite everything in the previous paragraph.

Really, we would've been right there had Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett -- career 89.4 percent and 78.5 percent career free throw shooters, respectively -- missed five straight from the stripe in the fourth quarter, amidst a crowd of Heat fans wielding noisemakers that sounded something like cicadas. We can probably count on that not happening again.

Game 5 is back in Boston Tuesday night. Most of the country won't see it, however, as it's on NBATV. I'm not worried, but I would very much like to close the Heat out right now.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Boston 100, Miami 98

The Celtics took a commanding 3-0 lead in their playoff series with the Heat on Friday night, winning on a signature Paul Pierce buzzer at the horn.


The bucket capped a 32-point night for the captain, his highest-scoring game since January 29, a vintage Pierce performance. It came on a night in which it was sorely needed, too, a night in which Kendrick Perkins went scoreless and the Boston bench was outscored by the Miami reserves 39-10. Perhaps for that reason, or perhaps because he saw the opportunity to step Miami's throat, Doc Rivers played Pierce and Rajon Rondo nearly 44 minutes apiece and Ray Allen nearly 38. Ray hit four threes on his way to 25 points, while Rondo led the team in scoring in the first half and finished with 17/5/8.

Rondo also contributed two huge plays in the second half, the kind of plays that make a difference in a two-point ballgame. At the end of the third quarter, with the Heat trying to execute a two-for-one, Rondo rebounded a Pierce miss, preserving the last possession of the quarter for the Cs, on which Pierce promptly dropped in a three. That might have gone unnoticed had Rondo not done the exact same thing with the score tied at 95 with less than two minutes to go.

I'd caution you to read as little into this as possible, but I have to say that at no point on Friday did I think we were going to lose, even as a double-digit lead slipped away in the fourth quarter. That's a feeling I had often about the 2008 championship team, but one that I haven't had about this year's squad, which has made a habit of blowing big second-half leads. By no means am I saying that this club is as good as that one was or that it's headed for a title, but ... well, it's just an observation.

At the same time, Boston got a bit lucky. Miami had the ball with the score tied at 98, and ran a 1-4 set with Wade isolated at the top of the key, working on Ray Allen. In my estimation, in that particular situation, Wade gets a bucket or gets to the line something approaching 75% of the time there if he goes to the bucket. The officials love bailing out superstars in that situation, and Wade is one of their favorites. Instead of dropping his shoulder and going to the hole, Wade -- a 30% shooter from behind the arc who was perhaps buoyed by the three bombs he dropped in the third quarter -- pulled up for a 26-footer, missing, and landing on Allen's ankle in the process.

Given the opportunity to make sure it took the last shot of the game, Boston did just that, as Pierce dribbled the clock down. Miami had a foul to give, but didn't give it because, according to coach Erik Spoelstra, it's not part of their defensive philosophy. Ah, a defensive philosophy that does not include maximizing your chances of winning! Savvy.

In all seriousness, while I think giving a foul in most situations is overrated, you simply have to give it there. Instead of having to re-inbound the ball with a few seconds left, Pierce was able to keep his rhythm, get to his spot, and drain the game-winner over Dorell Wright -- who moments earlier, I delight in telling you, had some words for the Boston bench after draining a three to tie the game at 98.

Boston goes for the sweep Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern on ABC.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Boston 106, Miami 77

[recap] [box score]

Well then.

What do you take from a blowout like this, a game that got so out of hand that TNT switched away from the broadcast for most of the fourth quarter to show the first quarter of Portland-Phoenix on NBATV (which I'd never before seen in an NBA context)?

Mostly, I want to caution against over-confidence. Not to the team, necessarily, because they don't read me, but more to the fans. And not because the fans affect the outcome of the game, but because fans can be a little volatile this time of year, and because there are still a lot of games left in this series, and Miami isn't likely to look as bad as they did Tuesday night when they get home to South Beach. Game 2 was end-to-end domination from the second quarter on, the best we've played on both ends of the floor in quite a while, but while it was a 2008 era performance, let's wait a little while before we, as fans, re-assert ourselves as true contenders for the championship.

So what do I expect in Game 3 (Friday, 7 p.m. Eastern, ESPN)? Well, for starters, I expect Miami to go to the line a bit more (they shot 16 free throws to our 27 on Tuesday. I actually only really caught the third quarter of Game 2, so I can't really speak to whether we were getting legitimate calls and were just being more aggressive than the Heat, or if the officials were calling things our way. I can say, however, that free throw disparities do not often go unnoticed in NBA circles, so I'd expect Dwyane Wade and company to get to the charity stripe with a bit more frequency.

I don't expect Boston to go on a 44-8 -- yeah, you read that right -- run like they did Tuesday, either, although extended droughts for Miami against Boston are becoming something of a pattern (recall that they scored just 15 points in the final 19 minutes of Game 1). I don't have any more of an explanation for it than I did yesterday. I am bewildered that a team with Wade can go without scoring for as long as Miami has during some of these stretches; at some point, he's gotta just put his head down and bull his way toward the basket. (Not that I'm criticizing Wade; he's the only guy on their team who did anything yesterday.)

Anyway, the bottom line is that there's a lot to be happy about, but there's also plenty of work to be done -- and plenty to prove before I'm ready to say we have a shot at this thing.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Game 2 Tonight

Ok, gang. As was the case last year, the first couple of rounds of the playoffs coincide with my final exam period. As a result, my posting to RwH will be sporadic, untimely, and brief. Hopefully, you'll be watching the games anyway.

So, we won Game 1 against the Heat, a strange contest which saw us down 14 points five minutes in to the third quarter, then close the game on a 38-15 run -- yes, we held them to 15 points over the final 19 minutes. I was a little distracted during the game and so I can't say for sure if the Heat's extended cold-spell was a product of 2008-style defense from the Cs or just poor shooting. It's probably a bit of both, to be honest. I will point out two things, however. First, in at least one of my recaps of a regular season game against the Heat this year, I noted that Miami missed a bunch of open looks, so there's some precedent there when these two teams get together. Second, back when we were really locking people down during the championship run, the whole defense was basically predicated on making teams take jump shots, including relatively good looks for the right guys. So while Miami may have been a touch uncharacteristically cold, there are signs that our defense played a big part in that.

Boston tries to do it again tonight at 8 p.m. Eastern on TNT. Unfortunately, they'll be without Kevin Garnett, who had 15 points and nine rebounds on Saturday night before getting ejected with 40 seconds left.

Of all the reports I've read and heard of the skirmish that led to KG being assessed two techs and being shown the door, they haven't been terribly consistent, so let me try to sum up the incident the way I saw it, with the unnecessary disclaimer that I tend to view things through green-tinted glasses: Paul Pierce went down with a shoulder injury on the Miami sideline; Quentin Richardson (with whom Pierce has a very testy history) came over to the sideline; KG nudged him with an elbow; the two started jawing (or perhaps continued jawing); Udonis Haslem and Glen Davis got involved; someone (I think Jamaal Magloire) grabbed KG from behind; Garnett, with his back to Richardson, swung his arms to break free of Magloire and hit Q with the elbow that earned him a seat on the bench (or in the locker room, since KG famously hates sitting on the bench when he can't play) for tonight's game.

Truthfully, I don't have any quarrel with the suspension. I expected it, although I thought it was possible the NBA would give him a reprieve since it really didn't look to me that Garnett actively sought out Richardson with the elbow. I agree, however, that you can't swing those 'bows and then complain about the consequences when one of them lands. (And for the record, KG hasn't complained; he's seemed resigned to this fate since after Saturday's game.) I do have a little bit of beef with Magloire, mainly because wrapping up the other guy is the dumbest way to break up a fight. You want to go after a guy to calm him down, you grab the guy who is wearing the same color jersey as you are.

Garnett's getting absolutely ripped for all of this. The Bulls Joakim Noah accused him of being a dirty player. Ball Don't Lie's Kelly Dwyer all but called him a coward. It seems that Garnett's intensity, confidence, constant yapping, and refusal to back down -- traits almost everyone loved when KG was toiling in Minnesota and transforming Boston back into a championship contender --have grown tiresome now that his knees have let him down a bit and he can't always back up that talk. Frankly, this doesn't make any sense to me, but whatever. I don't really care to get into a debate at this point about Garnett. I still like him, but you don't have to like him to cheer for his team -- and if you're not cheering for his team, then I'm pretty sure he doesn't give a damn about what you think of him.

I'm going to sort of take the high road here and not go off on what a punk I think Q is. Whoops. Okay, maybe I won't. Q's a punk. Always has been. If we are down on Garnett for not adjusting his swagger to fit his declining game, why don't we hate on Richardson for always talking a much bigger game than he was capable of playing? Relative to other NBA players, he's accomplished basically nothing, but he still thinks it's cool to walk over and taunt an apparently-injured player? (I am soooooo tired of talking about the accusations that Pierce embellishes injuries -- a hot topic here in LA -- that I'm not going to address it here.) Maybe we don't say anything about Q precisely because he's not one of the game's stars, but that doesn't change the bottom line, which is that, on the court at least, he's a punk.

Anyway, the bottom line is that if we're going to preserve our home-court advantage, we'll have to do it without KG. There is some precedent here, as Boston's win in Miami in January came when Garnett was out with an injury. Rasheed Wallace started in that one, but -- at least according to Kendrick Perkins -- Davis is getting the nod tonight, probably due to a combination of his inspired play in Game 1 and Wallace's general ineffectiveness. Boston has played 13 games with Garnett this year (and, of course, they didn't have him at all in the playoffs last year) so they're used to coping without him. At the same time, this edition of the team went 6-7 without him in the lineup, so there's reason for concern. Hopefully Rajon Rondo has sufficiently recovered from whatever sickness he was battling on Saturday to bring a little bit of extra spark that we'l be missing.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Muy Beno: NBA Playoff Predictions

Last year, I went up against my buddy Kevin in a blog vs. blog, Celtics fan vs. Lakers fan NBA playoff prediction contest. I assume he won, if only because my picks were pretty bad. Time to get my revenge. Kev's picks and our scoring system are here.

Warning: These writeups are really boring and simple. I don't know what my problem is today. But a deadline's a deadline.

EAST
First Round
#1 Cleveland over #8 Chicago (4-0) - The young Bulls were the story of last year's first-round, stretching the then-defending champion Celtics to seven highly-entertaining games. These Cavs are much better than those (KG-less) Celtics were, and it's hard to see the Bulls -- who nearly blew this spot with a late-season loss to New Jersey. Derrick Rose is capable of winning a playoff series by himself, but not for a couple of years, and not as an 8 seed.

#4 Boston over #5 Miami (4-3) - Like I said in my last post, any result wouldn't surprise me here. Boston should win easily, but nothing has come easy for them the last several months. I envision a number of wins by the road team in this series, but Boston wins a Game 7 at home for perhaps the final time in the Big Three era.

#2 Orlando over #7 Charlotte (4-1) - The overmatched Bobcats get one game from me because of their 31-10 home record -- fourth best in the east and eighth best in the L.

#3 Atlanta over #6 Milwaukee (4-1) - With Andrew Bogut, the Bucks are an intriguing group. Without him, it's hard to see them making too much of a splash. They get one game because the Hawks are just so damn flaky, but really, Atlanta should cruise.

Eastern Conference Semifinals
#1 Cleveland over #4 Boston (4-2) - Cleveland's too good for Boston, though the Celtics actually play the Cavs pretty well. A split of the first four games gives Boston fans hope, but the Cavs close it out at the Garden, where the Cs have been so inconsistent this year.

#2 Orlando over #3 Atlanta (4-3) - I want to take the Hawks this series because it just seems right to have them playing in the conference finals. But Atlanta routinely got its ass kicked against Orlando this season, getting blown out three times before narrowly winning the season's final matchup.

Eastern Conference Finals
#1 Cleveland over #2 Orlando (4-2) - Shaq isn't the difference in this series, but Cleveland is the one team that has the bodies to play Dwight Howard to something approaching a draw down low. The Magic stunned the Cavs in last year's conference finals, temporarily derailing the LeBron James Championship Express, shooting ridiculously well along the way. Vince Carter in theory diversifies them offensively a bit, but they're still basically a jump shooting team, and I doubt they catch lightning in a bottle again this year.

WEST
First Round
#1 Los Angeles over #8 Oklahoma City (4-1) - The Thunder are a great young team, fun to watch, but no real threat to the Lakers. You don't win your first playoff series against the top-seeded defending champs. Originally, I thought this series might go a bit like the 2001 Finals, with Kevin Durant playing the role of Allen Iverson in leading his team to a Game 1 victory before succumbing in the next four in a row. With all the chatter between Durant and Phil Jackson, and the fact that everyone is wondering what's going on with LA, I think the Lakers are sufficiently on notice. Give OKC a game because -- yes, Phil -- Durant gets superstar protection from the refs, but LA closes it out in five, though it wouldn't surprise me if several of their wins were quite close.

#5 Utah over #4 Denver (4-2) - Hard to say what's going on with Denver, but they clearly aren't the same team right now, and they're not the kind of squad that rights the ship well on its own. Utah, meanwhile, has been one of the league's hottest teams, and are really tough to beat at home.

#2 Dallas over #7 San Antonio (4-3) - The bench makes the difference here. You can't ever really count out Duncan/Ginobili/Parker in a playoff series, especially with Popovich at the helm. But Dallas' midseason acquisitions from Washington just makes them too deep.

#3 Phoenix over #6 Portland (4-1) - Poor Portland. The injury bug, having already feasted on Greg Oden and Joel Przybilla, took Brandon Roy at the worst possible time. He may only miss a week or two, but the red-hot Suns won't give him a chance to get back in time to save the Blazers season.

Western Conference Semifinals
#1 Los Angeles over #5 Utah (4-3) - A lot of people are picking the Jazz, but a lot of people are over-emphasizing the Lakers' late-season struggles. With that said, Utah is a very good team, strong where LA is weak, and they should give the Lakers all they want.

#2 Dallas over #3 Phoenix (4-2) - I seem to remember Amare' Stoudemire absolutely destroying the Mavs in a playoff series long ago. Expect a big series from him, but stopping people is still Phoenix's problem, and there are plenty of guys you gotta stop on Dallas.

Western Conference Finals
#1 Los Angeles over #2 Dallas (4-3) - Should be a great series. The final four this year should have some really fantastic basketball teams.

NBA Finals
Cleveland over Los Angeles (4-3) - Chalk? Sure. Boring? Perhaps. Pre-determined by the basketball gods? You bet. LeBron gets his revenge and his first ring.

Playoffs Begin

Sorry for abandoning the blog for a couple of weeks; the end of the NBA season, especially for teams with no playoff spot or seeding to play for, can be kind of dull and not really indicative of anything, as stars play reduced minutes and sit out entire games to nurse injuries and rest weary legs. I've been working my ass off the last couple of weeks in school, and I just haven't found the time to watch meaningless games against the Bucks.

So, the playoffs start on Saturday (we're playing at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPN, part of ESPN and ABC's Saturday quadrupleheader and weekend octupleheader). We drew the fourth seed and the Miami Heat, who overtook the Milwaukee Bucks in the season's final few weeks after Bucks center Andrew Bogut was lost with injuries he suffered in a nasty fall from the rim in a game against Phoenix. Playing the Bogut-less Bucks would have been nice and may be the best argument for why the 3 seed is better than the 4 this year. Instead, we get Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat.

We went 3-0 against the Heat this year, though we haven't played this since February, and all three games were reasonably close. (We needed this miracle to win the game in January.) Wade is a dominating force, on the short list of the best players in the game today, capable of winning a game and perhaps an entire playoff series on his own. They have some other good players, but Wade is the Man.

But to me, for the purposes of this blog, anyway, this series isn't about the Heat. Miami's a fine basketball team, but they aren't good enough to beat the guys in green and white -- under normal circumstances. What we've seen for the second half of this season, however, is that Boston isn't playing under normal circumstances -- and by that admittedly clunky term, I mean that we aren't the team I thought we'd be and we certainly aren't the team we were when the year started. Whether we're capable of regaining that form is the big question. If we are, and we do, then Miami can't beat us.

But it's hard to be confident. Too much is going on right now. The team is basically .500 since the All-Star break. We're not guarding anyone. Marquis Daniels and Nate Robinson aren't playing regular minutes, but Rasheed Wallace and Michael Finley are. Boston's biggest homer not named Tommy Heinsohn has turned against the team, (rightfully) ripping 'sheed last week and authoritatively picking the Heat in 7 (necessarily predicting a Game 7 loss at home). There are rumors that Doc Rivers is considering leaving after the season, an indication of just how bad things must be in the locker room.

What's my pick? A very tepid Celtics in seven. But nothing - literally, no outcome from a Miami sweep to a Boston sweep - would surprise me.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Celtics Drop Two to Western Opponents

There have been a couple of games since my last post. Sunday's blowout loss in Boston to Tony Parker-less San Antonio is hardly with writing about, another of the inexplicable (though increasingly explicable as their frequency grows) all-out debacles that have plagued us this season, particularly at home.

Wednesday was an exceedingly entertaining, narrow home loss to the up-and-coming Oklahoma City Thunder. Boston lost this one despite shooting nearly 60 percent for the game, for two reasons:

1) They had no answer for Kevin Durant. That hardly makes them unique among NBA teams, of course, but it doesn't change the result of the game. The Praying Durantis had 37 points on the evening, upping his scoring average to 29.7 per game, tying him with LeBron James. And even when Durant wasn't the one doing the actual scoring, he played a major role. On the first of two late Jeff Green three-pointers, Durant's presence on the strong side led Green's defender, Kevin Garnett, to cheat off of Green, in order to be in a better position to help should Durant drive. As we are too aware, post-knee surgery KG doesn't recover quite as quickly as pre-knee surgery KG, and he couldn't recover in time to disrupt Green's shot once the ball swung to the weak side.

2) Oklahoma City shot 34 free throws to Boston's 17, with Durant nearly matching Boston's total, shooting (and making) 15 from the charity stripe. This wasn't lost on Garnett, who after the game colorfully commented that Durant was getting calls that only the game's greatest player would get. I wasn't paying close attention the entire game, and save one really bad foul that Pierce got called for stripping Durant late, I wasn't terribly upset with the fouls that Boston got called for, but upset because I felt that Boston was getting hit for stuff that OKC wasn't. In terms of averages, the Thunder shot about eight more free throws than Boston usually gives up, and the Celtics took about eight fewer than they usually do. (Hat tip, Boston Globe.) In my view, I think it's accurate to say that Oklahoma City was not 33 percent more aggressive than most opponents last night, nor was Boston 33 percent less aggressive. Clearly, the officiating had some effect on the game.

With that said, Boston still gave up better than 50 percent shooting, and themselves missed two very open looks in the final seconds. Rasheed Wallace couldn't convert a wide-open three from the top of the arc that would have cut the Thunder lead to one with 1:09 to play. Not to blame Wallace -- that shot was his only miss of the night and his 18 points were the most he's scored since January 10 -- but that was a big one. And Ray Allen missed a very good look without about eight seconds left that similarly would have made things interesting.

The Hawks, by the way, soundly beat the Lakers in Atlanta, and now are a game up on the Celtics for the third seed in the playoffs with eight games left. Frankly, I don't care -- the only way we're not going through Cleveland anyway is in the unlikely event Atlanta beats them, and while I suppose playing the Hawks is better than playing the Cavs, our results against them this year don't suggest that this would be a much easier proposition. However, some people do care, and for those that do, I'll remind you that Boston needs only to finish the regular season with the same record as the Hawks to earn the third seed, thanks to a rule that everyone hates and expects to change (the first tiebreaker is not head-to-head record, but whether one team won their division and the other didn't).

Upcoming games: Houston on Friday, Cleveland on Sunday (1 p.m. Eastern, ABC).