- Some interesting Nuggets tidbits. One, no one is talking about the potential Melo-LeBron Finals. After they were pinned together for years, now it's all about LeBron. But having these two pitted against one another in the Finals will be interesting.
- Secondly, how about Billups and Anthony teaming together on the Nuggs? The Pistons COULD HAVE HAD THIS COMBINATION. Instead, they chose Darko Milicic over Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, AND Chris Bosh. They definitely don't get enough grief for this. WORST PICK EVER.
- The semis are looking great. Melo looked like a beast out there in Game One. Kobe definitely got some calls, but I think the series will be decided by the ability of the Nuggets to close things out at the end of games. They have some real knuckleheaded players like JR Smith and Kenyon Martin.
- If Anthony continues to play like this, he's definitely a top-5 player in the league.
- All day, I've been thinking about how the Cavs can match-up with the Magic's Alston-Pietrus-Hedo-Lewis-Howard line-up. The answer is that they can't! The Cavs have to step up and not worry about match-ups. They have some good, quick guards--Mo Williams, Boobie Gibson, Delonte West--that the Magic can't run around with all night, they have LeBron, they have some size, they've gotta play their game!
- That said, the Cavs have no one that can cover Dwight Howard (the corpse of Ben Wallace?) and no one that can cover Hedo or Lewis (at least they don't have two guys to cover those two guys).
- Thoughts on the Draft: Clippers could be a good squad if they weren't so freakin' dysfunctional. Griffin with Kaman, Camby, Baron, Gordon, Thornton, those are some young guns and some good vets. Problem is they have the Cancer: Zach Randolph who is a terrible person, doesn't play defense, and plays Griffin's position. He's got to go.
- Ricky Rubio is really the only other decent pick in this draft. Though we did say that last year, and the '08 draft turned out to have A LOT of good talent. Still, it's hard to sing the praises of a draft where Hasheem Thabeet (50-50 probability of being a complete stiff) is the slam-dunk no. 2 or 3 pick.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Playoff Thoughts
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2 comments:
I agree completely about the Magic-Cavs series.. The Cavs big match-up problem is who is going to cover the Magic's 4?
For argument's sake, we'll say the Magic's crunch time lineup is Rafer (1), Pietrus/Lee (2), Hedo (3), Lewis (4), and Superman (5). Who on Cleveland is going to cover Lewis? Their options basically consist of Varejao, Ben Wallace, Wally World, Joe Smith, or a wild card like Hickson/Pavlovic - all of these 5 players are either too small, too weak, or too slow to guard Rashard Lewis. Lewis is definitely not the athlete or dynamic scorer that he once was, however he still can definitely hit a 3 and drive to the basket for a deuce now and then.
Also Howard obviously presents a match-up problem for either the over-the-hill Ben Wallace, slow-footed Zydrunas Ilgauskas, or Joe Smith.
Cleveland still probably wins the series (and DEFINITELY game 2) but I don't know why nobody besides Charles Barkley gave the Magic any chance. The Cavs have a pretty mediocre bench, not to mention no low-post scoring outside of Lebron. Sure they play better D than Orlando - and that will probably show through in game 2 - but the fact remains that Cleveland isn't a very good TEAM. That was proven by Lebron exploding for 49 points and STILL they could barely break 100 in their last-second loss.
Yes these conference finals are great. Exciting young talent and no boring spurs are mavs to have to sit through.
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