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| "He guaranteed to beat WHO?" |
By Jeremy Conlin
We've played 16 NBA playoff games. At a minimum, we have 18 left. We'll probably have more than that, but first let's tackle the 16 that just happened.
New York-Boston – New York Leads 2-0
- In 48 first-half minutes, the Celtics have scored 101 points
- In 48 second-half minutes, the Celtics have scored 48 points.
- Prior to the season, if you had told me that the Knicks would be up 2-0 against the Celtics in Round 1 on the strength of home-court advantage and vastly superior point guard play, with a limited Tyson Chandler, Carmelo Anthony playing almost exclusively isolation basketball from the power forward spot, and Kenyon Martin being New York’s most effective big man, I probably would have backed away slowly before running in terror.
- Plain and simple, the Knicks have swallowed up everything that the Celtics have tried to do offensively. Boston doesn’t have anyone that can consistently create offense in the half-court, and that’s playing right into the hands of a pretty unsophisticated New York defense. The Celtics committed turnovers on 21% of their possessions in Game 1, and lost Game 2 with a hilariously bad .407 effective field goal percentage, plus doubling down on inept offense by rebounding just three of their 44 missed shots.
- Both games have been snail-paced defensive struggles, and New York has won both handily. If Boston can win that style of game, there’s really no way they can win the series.
Revised Prediction: New York in 5
Denver-Golden State – Series Tied 1-1
- I would totally buy this series a whole bunch of drinks if I saw it out at a bar one night. I would go over and talk, give it my number, and if it called me the next day, I’d take it out for a nice dinner in the North End. We would date for awhile, and after a year we’d be apartment hunting in Back Bay. We would definitely want kids eventually, but we’d probably start off with just a dog. Maybe even two. After another year we would vacation on Nantucket for the 4th of July, and I would propose to this series in between the cannon blasts of the 1812 Overture. We would get married and have two beautiful children (Nathaniel and Superfly), and we would live happily ever after. We’d retire to Cape Cod and live out our days until one of us passed.
- In Game 2, Golden State shot 65% overall, 56% from three, and 75% on two-point jump shots. If they do that in every game for the rest of the series, they'll probably win.
- Are the Dubs better without David Lee? No. They aren’t. They play lineups that have more shooters on the floor (and, subsequently, better spacing), so their offense is going to create a lot more jump shots and a lot fewer shots inside. It doesn’t make them a better offensive team, it makes them a higher-variance offensive team, and a high-variance offense is going to have games like Tuesday night. They’ll also likely have a game where they can’t hit the ocean from the beach. In the long run it evens out, but in the short run (like, say, this series), they might have some pretty spectacular shooting nights.
Revised Prediction: Denver in 7
Miami-Milwaukee – Miami Leads 2-0
- I AM LEBRON JAMES, THE KING OF BASKETBALL. YOU WILL BOW BEFORE ME IN DEFERENCE TO MY SUPERIOR BASKETBALLING. AS I AM A FAIR AND JUST KING, I WILL NOT RIDICULE MY SUBJECTS UNNECESSARILY. HOWEVER, WHEN A LOWLY PEASANT FROM THE JENNINGS CLAN OF MILWAUKEE SUGGESTS THAT HE WILL USURP THE THRONE, I WILL HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO EXTINGUISH THE UPRISING WITH GREAT PREJUDICE. MY REIGN WILL NOT BE QUESTIONED BY SUCH PUNY SUBJECTS. NOW, BRING ME ALL THE FINEST MEATS AND CHEESES FOR A GRAND FEAST.
Revised Prediction: Miami in 4
LA Clippers-Memphis – LA Clippers lead 2-0
- Eric Bledsoe has played 32 minutes of basketball in this series. In those 32 minutes, he has scored 23 points on 77 percent shooting, grabbed 10 rebounds, and dished out five assists. The Clippers have outscored the Grizzlies by 23 points in those 32 minutes.
- select * from Eric_Bledsoe where isMiniLeBron = true; SQL Jokes. Don’t worry about it if you don’t get it.
- The Clippers won Game 1 on the strength of a statistical anomaly. Their advantage on the glass (+24) was higher than the number of rebounds that Memphis grabbed overall (23). That’s just not a sustainable trend, and it proved not to be in Game 2 (the Clippers were just +2 on the boards). The real problem for Memphis is their inability to keep Chris Paul away from the middle of the floor. Mike Conley, a normally solid defensive guard, has let Paul get to the middle far too often for Memphis to have any hope of consistently getting stops. All other defensive goals are secondary to forcing Chris Paul towards the sideline on high screens. If they can’t do that, the series is already over.
Revised Prediction: LA Clippers in 5
Indiana-Atlanta – Indiana Leads 2-0
Brooklyn-Chicago – Series Tied 1-1
- I don’t have anything to say about either of these train-wrecks other than if they end up going to seven games, they might give me cancer.
Revised Predictions: Indiana in 4, Brooklyn in 7
Oklahoma City-Houston – Oklahoma City leads 2-0
- The Rockets really changed things up after getting blown out in Game 1. They sent forward Greg Smith to the bench and went super-small in their starting lineup with Jeremy Lin, Patrick Beverley, and James Harden on the court together. By swapping Smith for Beverley, Houston opened up a ton of space in the middle of the floor and got another ball-handler on the court for Houston to attack with in their pick-and-roll game. They also utilized a zone defense for stretches in the second half, a look that Oklahoma City was utterly unprepared for.
- Before the start of the series, Houston GM Daryl Morey said the best chance for Houston to pull an upset involved increasing the variance. Starting Beverley, jacking a ton of threes (they took 35 in Game 2), and throwing unorthodox defensive schemes at the Thunder are some pretty effective ways to do that. The bad news is, Houston basically threw their major curveball early in the series and Oklahoma City managed to fight it off.
- If Houston has any hope in this series, it’s that they’ve shot 71 threes in two games and only made 18 of them (25.3 percent). That number is going to bounce back up towards the mean, probably sooner rather than later. If they can maintain their level of play from Game 2 when the series shifts back to Houston, they could even the series. Then if they manage to put together a fluke shooting performance (the way Golden State did in their Game 2 win over Denver), they could steal Game 5 on the road. It’s certainly a long shot, but this series doesn’t seem to be the cakewalk for Oklahoma City that many expected a week ago.
Revised Prediction: Oklahoma City in 5
San Antonio-LA Lakers – San Antonio leads 2-0
- Manu Ginobili: Good at basketball. 38 Minutes played, 50 percent shooting from the floor (67 percent from three), 31 points, 10 assists, 7 rebounds. He’s playing on a minutes restriction in Round 1, but it hasn’t really mattered because neither game has really been in doubt in the closing minutes.
- The Lakers just haven’t demonstrated any ability to consistently defend NBA offenses this season, and that was on full display in Game 2. Their transition defense was appalling, and their half-court defense seemingly employed a scheme titled “rotations optional.” The lane was wide open, and when defenders would pinch down from shooters, nobody would rotate back to fill their now-vacated spot.
- The big man duo of Gasol and Howard has played moderately well over the first two games, and Nash, while severely limited, has provided some offensive wherewithal, but outside of that, the Lakers have had replacement-level players getting the remainder of the minutes (Steve Blake led the Lakers in minutes and field goal attempts in Game 2). You just can’t survive like that against a team as good as San Antonio.
Revised Prediction: San Antonio in 4
