How about those Indiana Pacers? For five straight games they have been held below 90 points — and in four of those games they were sub-80. Their last two victories have been quality wins against the Miami Heat and the Chicago Bulls, but they have lost five of six overall and are now tied in the loss column with LeBron James’ team. All in all, it is fair to call them something close to a mess as they head into Monday
The Miami Heat do not intimidate the Indiana Pacers. That much was very, very clear in their matchup Wednesday night. But you know what intimidates the Pacers? The moment. We saw it last year in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals when they looked like deer in the headlights. And we saw it again Wednesday night when George Hill went to the line with 1.8 seconds left and a chance to put Indiana ahead by 3 – and promptly missed both
Kevin Durant is going to be the MVP. There’s no stopping him, and nobody is doing anything remotely close to what he is doing on offense for Oklahoma City. He might even win the award unanimously. So that steers the MVP argument toward who should finish second, and I have been making the case for two weeks now that Blake Griffin is the most deserving candidate (although his missed FT late in regulation against the Pelicans was especially costly last night). I
Nominations for the ultimate Theater of the Absurd are now closed. It doesn’t get any stranger than it did Tuesday night at Staples Center, so nobody should even try to top it, OK? Phil Jackson’s new team allowed 51 points in the third quarter to his old team, with Jackson watching from a luxury suite where he was joined by another former Knick and Laker, Metta World Peace. Meantime, down in the second row, Jeanie Buss took it all in with a
Sunday night’s self-destruction against the Cavs was about as bad of a loss as the Knicks could have imagined, given that they had a chance to pull within two games of the Atlanta Hawks, who had lost earlier in the day. Well, to be fair, it wasn’t totally a self-destruction. Jarrett Jack was phenomenal for Cleveland on offense, repeatedly burning Raymond Felton, and Luol Deng did a terrific job on Carmelo Anthony, keeping the ball out of the NBA’s second-leading scorer
I already told you yesterday that Mike Woodson needs to lead the Knicks into the playoffs to keep his job. No easy task, but when Phil Jackson says repeatedly that he expects this year’s team to make the postseason, the bar has been set. And if the Knicks fail? Well, there will be a new coach at the helm, and since Jackson is not ingratiated with the larger coaching fraternities out there, you can cross out names such as Jeff Van Gundy, Stan Van
The readers have spoken … and the readers are thinking the same thing I am thinking: Blake Griffin is a stronger MVP candidate than LeBron James. We published a poll late last week asking readers to chime in on the question of who should be sitting in the No. 2 spot beneath Kevin Durant, and Griffin drew 61 percent of the vote. Yes, it seems sacrilegious to list LeBron third-best at anything – especially after he had another one of his freakish performances
Phil Jackson to the Knicks was definitely the story of the day. When a guy with 13 championship rings takes on a new job, there’s no getting around the importance of the moment. But there are 29 other teams making news of one kind or another, and I found time on 1280AM in Salt Lake City to deviate away from Jackson and discuss Coach of the Year, the sleeper teams in the East and the West, and the debate over whether Blake Griffin