The Atlanta Hawks are going to lose to the New York Knicks tonight. The only question is by how much?
A victory would not be a good thing for Atlanta. They would move up to fifth place (along with a Chicago loss), and they would be setting themselves up for a second-round beatdown against the Miami Heat — if they were first able to defeat Brooklyn in Round One.
And no, the Hawks would not be the ones beating anybody down if they got past the Nets.
So all the drama Wednesday on the final night of the 2013-13 NBA regular season will be concentrated in Memphis and Los Angeles, where the only two games that will matter substantially are Jazz-Grizzlies and Rockets-Lakers.
If the Jazz lose, they are out.
If the Jazz win and the Lakers lose, Utah gets the No. 8 seed in the West.
If the Lakers win, they are in as the No. 7 seed and will face Tracy McGrady and the San Antonio Spurs (yes, the Spurs signed McGrady yesterday to fill the roster spot vacated when Stephen Jackson was cut last week).
David Stern, of course, has no rooting interest. And Dick Bavetta is working the Cavs-Bobcats game, so no worries there.
So it will be around 1:30 a.m. Eastern time when the NBA releases the full playoff schedule. All we know for sure, for now, is that there will be a Bucks-Heat series and a Celtics-Knicks series in the first round.
In the West, Oklahoma City has wrapped up the No. 1 seed but does not yet know its opponent. If the Lakers beat the Rockets, they’d have a 2-2 tie in the season series against Houston, and a better conference record is the tiebreaker that would move them to No. 7. Also worth noting: A Houston win and a Golden State loss (which is improbable, given that they are playing the Blazers, losers of 12 straight) would make the Rockets the sixth seed. Still, there is a possibility that Jan Hubbard’s Dream Series comes to fruition).
The Grizzlies still have something to play for, too, as home-court advantage in a 4-5 series against the Los Angeles Clippers is at stake. (So yes, a couple other late games actually do have some meaning: If the Clippers win at Sacramento, they get the No. 4 seed over the Grizzlies if the teams finish with the same record because they are a division winner — the first tiebreaker used by the NBA).
But the Grizzlies will be trying to win (although Marc Gasol cautioned his brother Pau, of the Lakers, that he expects the Memphis starters to play only limited minutes), the Jazz will be trying to win, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the Rockets — despite having already qualified for the playoffs) will be trying to win. They’ll do anything to enhance the chances of a) Daryl Morey winning Executive of the Year); and b) enhancing the possibility that they’ll be able to recruit Dwight Howard as a free agent over the summer.
Mitch Kupchak may feel it is a fait accompli that Dwight is staying in Los Angeles, but Mark Cuban and Morey undoubtedly feel differently.
The Rockets, FYI, are 3-point underdogs.
No line had been posted yet on Hawks-Knicks, which was understandable — especially after taking into consideration what happened in Atlanta last night, when this article went to press. But New York has since been listed as a 4-point favorite. Do with that information what you will.
The Hawks’ starters played a combined 88 minutes, the reserves played the other 232, and the Toronto Raptors walked away with a gift-wrapped 113-96 victory. ”I’m going to err on the side of caution,” said Hawks coach Larry Drew, who benched his best player, Al Horford, and used Johan Petro as his main man in the middle.
And caution, heading into this postseason, means staying out of the path of (unanimous?) MVP LeBron James and the defending champion Miami Heat, who would play the winner of the Brooklyn-Chicago series in the second round. Maybe we’ll see Derrick Rose by then. But as he said, “Only God knows.”
About the only thing the Hawks will want to accomplish tonight in New York is getting a 3-pointer from Kyle Korver, which would extend his streak with at least one 3-pointer to 74 consecutive games –15 shy of the NBA record held by Dana Barros. If Korver shoots 5-for-5 or better from 3-point range tonight, he can surpass Jose Calderon for the league lead. The again, if Korver shoots 5-for-5, he’ll get yanked quicker than a vaudeville performer on the wrong end of a hook.
This is one of those rare times when a coach can say to himself: “I can’t jeopardize a must-lose game by letting a player pad his stats.”
The scoring title will end up in the hands of Carmelo Anthony, whose late-season scoring binge has prevented Kevin Durant of Oklahoma City becoming just the third player in NBA history to win four consecutive scoring titles (Bill Russell and Michael Jordan were the others).
Dwight Howard will lead the league in rebounding for the fifth time in six years, but it is notable who will finish second — the man who replaced him in Orlando, Nikola Vucevic.
Durant (.905) should finish ahead of Stephen Curry (.900) for the best free-throw percentage, the longa-go departed Rajon Rondo will lad the league in assists with 11.1, and Chris Paul (2.43) will league the league in steals unless Ricky Rubio dubs himself “El Bandito”), gambles on every possession against the Spurs and gets at least five or six. Hey, put him as the defender on McGrady on a few iso plays, and he just might do it.
So that is what to watch for tonight, and tomorrow morning we can start looking forward to the playoff matchups and looking back on the best individual performers.
I will facilitate that with a column on who I voted for after I submit my official NBA ballot. It’ll be up Thursday morning — guaranteed. Even more guaranteed than that sure-thing loss coming for the Hawks tonight on Tank You night.
Since Danny Ferry is involved, it’s difficult to tell whether it’s tanking or just incompetence.
Did Bill Russell EVER lead the league in scoring? 😉
I agree with your assessment of the Lakers/Utah/Houston situation.
That’s useful information that Memphis starters will play limited minutes. Utah will crush Memphis if that is the case and Houston Will have motivation to beat Lakers and they have a better team if Kobe doesn’t play (and if Nash doesn’t play). Lets face it, Lakers were lucky that Spurs played awful on Sunday, with Parker injured again.
I disagree about ATL tanking. They likely value coming into the playoffs rested more than their choice of playing Brooklyn or Indiana. It was unfortunate in the schedule that they had a back to back, so they rested Horford yesterday. Still they need to have a good game before the playoffs. They likely will lose to Knicks who already rested a game, although JKidd won’t be playing tonight.
ATL would be presumptuous to be thinking past Indiana who with 95% confidence they will lose to. ATL at least had 2 of 4 good games vs. Nets (1 road, 1 home) along with the 2 bad games. ATL should prefer to play Brooklyn, so I don’t think they tanked.
a lakers win tonight would actually split the season series with the rockets, but since the lakers have the better conference record, that’d give them the 7 seed.
We can point to so many fortunate games where the Lakers barely won, and how each win could have prevented their franchise from crumbling. I recall the Dallas game where Mark Cuban suggested that Kobe could be Amnestied (giving him more desire to win). There was that crazy 4th quarter come from behind win vs. New Orleans, where the Pelicans froze.
There is still hope that the ESPN and NBA favorite team ($$$) could go down in flames if they miss the playoffs and Howard goes to Houston as a free agent.