LINE OF THE WEEK: LeBron James, Miami vs. Indiana, June 3: 41 minutes, 8-17 FGs, 1-2 3-pointers, 15-16 FTs, eight rebounds, four assists, two steals, one block, 32 points in a 99-76 win. With their season – and perhaps their future roster – on the line, James was the game’s leading scorer and rebounder and made more free throws than the entire Pacers team. Oh, yeah, and played pretty good defense, as you will see below.
LINE OF THE WEAK: Paul George, Indiana at Miami, June 3: 34 minutes, 2-9 FGs, 1-4 3-pointers, 2-4 FTs, seven rebounds, four assists, six fouls, three turnovers, seven points in a 99-76 loss. There is no denying that the postseason was the culmination of a season-long coming-out party for George, who morphed into a star over the last seven months. But this was the worst time for arguably his worst game of the playoffs.
TRILLION WATCH: Just when we were ready to put away the zeros tracker, Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals gives us extended garbage time during which Miami’s James Jones and Joel Anthony notch 4 trillions, grabbing a share of the postseason lead with Boston’s Courtney Lee (April 23) and Memphis’ Keyon Dooling (May 13).
GAME OF THE WEEK: Miami at San Antonio, June 13. Whoever loses Game 3 on Tuesday will be under immense pressure to win Game 4 and even the series. While eight teams have come back from 3-1 deficits to win a series, it has never happened in the Finals.
TWO MINUTES: In just over a month, the Denver Nuggets have shown why success in the NBA is so fleeting. The Nuggets entered the postseason with a franchise-record 57 wins, the second-longest tenured coach in George Karl and a roster compiled by GM Masai Ujiri that includes one player older than 29. But Danilo Gallinari suffered a torn ACL, Denver lost a first-round track meet to Golden State, Ujiri took a lucrative offer to become GM of the Raptors and ownership fired Karl, the Coach of the Year who was seeking an extension. Denver is now without a GM, a coach, its best shooter and possibly its best player if Andre Iguodala opt out of contract as expected. The Nuggets are not going to tumble to the lottery; they are too good for that. But it is going to take some time to rebuild chemistry between both a new GM and new coach and a new coach and the players. And unless they can entice Stan Van Gundy to take the job, there is going to be a discernible dropoff in the coaching department. … Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony played just two playoff series but was still the postseason leader in shots attempted with 310 in 12 games until Sunday, when LeBron 
James attempted 17 to raise his total to 310 in 18 games. Tony Parker is third with 295 in 16 games. … The proliferation of analytics in basketball has only made what is a somewhat generational argument louder on both sides, with the old school still claiming that numbers cannot narrowly define what is happening on the court while the new school argues that anyone not using advanced metrics is a dinosaur. Leave it to the best coach in the game to explain that there is a happy medium. “We’ve had a proliferation of geniuses who have come up with new formulae to prove what wins and what loses,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “Some of it I think is interesting and some of it is useful and should be looked at; it can give you trends. But it’s never absolute.” Popovich referenced San Antonio’s 3-point defense, which was 24th in the 2004-05 season but rose to third the following season. “I did nothing differently,” he said. “I didn’t put in one more drill. Nothing. I didn’t talk to them and say, ‘Guys, let’s get better at this.’ Nothing. And we were (third). I have no idea why. We’re still trying to figure out why. So sometimes things just happen. And you can’t explain it. It really comes down to being able to make stops when you need them, making buckets when you need them, and not being gross.” … A dozen referees – the exact number used for the NBA Finals – worked multiple conference finals games. But one of them will not work in the NBA Finals because Ed Malloy, who was part of the Game 2 crew, worked just once in the conference finals. (Malloy did officiate 11 games through the first three rounds, matching the second-highest total.) The seven refs who worked multiple conference finals games but have yet to be called for the NBA Finals are Scott Foster, Mike Callahan, James Capers, Dan Crawford, Marc Davis, Bill Kennedy and Derrick Stafford.
Trivia Answer: Lakers-Celtics in 1985 had Magic Johnson (1980, 1982), Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1971), Larry Bird (1984), Dennis Johnson (1979) and Cedric Maxwell (1981). And Lakers-Celtics in 1987 had Magic Johnson, Abdul-Jabbar, Bird, Dennis Johnson and Bill Walton (1987). … Happy 34th Birthday, Jake Tsakalidis. … Could there be a worse D-League assignment than being sent from Miami to Sioux Falls in the winter?
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je n’ai pas eu un changement de juge n’avait pas encore, mais c’est ma compréhension que le système fonctionnera toujours avec tous les onduleurs d’autres, si vous échouez. Cela signifie qu’une défaillance onduleur assommer un seul des 18 panneaux et laisser les autres 17 Arbeitstage.Ein Un autre avantage est l’onduleur le toit qu’il simplifie le câblage. Il s’agit d’un circuit simple 240V/30A sur le toit et je n’ai pas besoin d’un câble lourd pour les panneaux à courant continu. Merci pour le commentaire!
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I much prefer invromatife articles like this to that high brow literature.
C’mon, Chris. The Spurs were 1-1 in Miami with 2 poor shooting games. You had to know they would get untracked shooting the rock, and well… Game 3 happens. Manu wakes up (for at least this game), LeBron is flustered as far as figuring out where his scoring is to come from. Wade is a 1 half kind of impact player for now, and Bosh, I kinda feel bad for. Anyway, this series is going at least 6 games and I close with… Go Spurs!
That is okay…people have been writing the Spurs obituary for a long time now…no surprise here…they just keep proving the media wrong…let’s get game 3..Go Spurs Go!!!!!!!!!
cracks me up, after the first SPurs win, all the sports writers were writng “Heat in trouble”….then the heat win, and because they have to write SOMETHING….its “spurs might be in trouble”. Neither is true. I think three stragith at home is tough for Miami….unless joey crawford’s crew gets another game right away. San Antonio is the better team. But….they had miami tired, and a bit rattled at the start of the third….and they fell apart. Rarely do pop’s teams fall apart that way. I dont expect it to happen again. On the flip side..LeBron will figure to score more. A lot depends on if wade can hold up, because he is critical, as bosh is a dead loss. But…I favor Spurs in six…..these three straight are tough to imagine them losing more than one, if that.
You always are pretty on with your comments, and I know there was an overall woe-is-them tone after Game 1 but I was not among that chorus. I though the Spurs made a couple more plays than the Heat down the stretch of a close game. As for how the rest plays out, Heat don’t need two in SA. They just need one, and based on history of middle 3 games they will get it. After that, Spurs have to play Game 6 like its Game 7, because LeBron will win Game 7 on home floor. But thanks for reading as always.
forgive my snide tone……..no, the format becomes far too big an issue……..its terrible to do the 2-3-2……..and it does feel as if SA didnt really win back home court…..just how it feels. They did….but you’re quite right……..heat only need, and if they get it, they’ll feel comfortable. Im not sure they will though…..and i’ll stick with Spurs in six. No question game three means a lot.