Hey, how about those road teams in the playoffs, hunh? It was a lost weekend that would have made Ray Milland proud. I spent huge chunks of Saturday and Sunday at an AAU tournament and missed several games. When I finally got home and turned on the TV, I wished I was back at the AAU tournament. If you didn’t watch the NBA playoffs this weekend, you didn’t miss much. All eight road teams lost Game 1, the first time that has happened
What a weekend it was in New York! Two home playoff games on the same day, and we had one intrepid reporter, Moke Hamilton, covering them both. I invite you to read his first-hand column while listening to this interview with John Jastrewski of WFAN in New York. We stuck mostly with the Knicks and Nets, given the locale of the aforementioned radio station, but we hit on one other subject involving a former Knick — David Lee’s hip injury that will
Peeling oneself off the sofa was no easy task after a day and night spent sinking deeper and deeper into the upholstery. But the more you watched, the more you learned Saturday on Day One of the NBA Playoffs. Four lessons taken away: You do not want to have Draymond Green as your primary on-the-ball defender on the biggest play of the game – especially against a guy who has been in the league since Green was in diapers. You are in trouble
NEW YORK — All season long, there were questions about Jason Kidd. Was he playing too many minutes? Would he be worn out by the time the playoffs rolled around? In Game 1 of Boston-New York on Saturday, with defense dictating the fourth quarter, Kidd answered the bell tangibly, something he has specialized in throughout the latter portion of his illustrious 19-year NBA career. [Read more…]
The often monotonous 82-game NBA regular season has come and gone. The worst teams have finished playing and the best 16 teams (yes, that is being generous to the Bucks) advanced to the postseason, guaranteeing high quality, spirited basketball. The seedings and schedules have been set, and each conference has matchups that are incredibly intriguing. For each team in the first round, there is one player who has to emerge and play a key role for that club to advance. Let’s have a
Last season, the creaky Boston Celtics entered the Eastern Conference playoffs as the fourth seed, having gone 39-27 over the NBA’s lockout truncated season. They ended up just three games better than the 36-30 New York Knicks, who ended up the conference’s seventh seed. [Read more…]
The difference between talent and skill is one of the most misunderstood concepts of the NBA – and sports in general, for that matter. Talent you have naturally. Every player in the NBA has some form of natural talent. But skill can only be developed by hours and hours of working on your craft. 10,000 hours, as Malcolm Gladwell has famously professed. This is as true for individuals as it is teams. [Read more…]
Excluding the eighth seed in the Western Conference, all 15 of the other playoff spots are accounted for. Many of those teams, however, are still playing to determine their first round matchup. With the Milwaukee Bucks dropping a game to the Charlotte Bobcats—on a night that the Boston Celtics overwhelmed the Orlando Magic—the eighth seed is no longer in question, and we now have the first matchup of the 2013 NBA Playoffs. [Read more…]