Off the Glass

Yesterday, one of the biggest stars American sports has ever seen announced his retirement; after a 19 year career, Shaquille O’Neal will no longer terrorize the NBA. Shaq’s announcement came in typically unorthodox fashion, not with a dramatic press conference but with an amazingly brief Twitter video. The news comes with little surprise attached: the physical difficulties Shaq was forced to battle during this, his final season, prompted speculation that this would be O’Neal’s last campaign long before his abrupt announcement. Almost immediately the chatter of the sports world turned from the celebration of Shaq’s career to the contemplation of his legacy.

By any measure of accomplishments and honors, Shaq was one of the greatest players ever to play. Four-time NBA champion, three-time NBA Finals MVP, one NBA regular season MVP, named 15 times to the All-Star team, eight times to the All-NBA First Team, two times to the All-NBA Second Team and four times to the All-NBA Third Team. Shaq retires as the No.5 scorer in league history, while also placing 12th all time in rebounds, seventh in blocks and second in career field goal percentage. Shaq’s career advanced stats are even more impressive; he retires with the third best career PER ever, behind only Michael Jordan and LeBron James, and ranks No.7 All-Time in total Win Shares.

Not even LeBron can touch Shaq in the charisma department

What’s also unquestionable is that Shaq was an enormously charismatic figure whose antics stand apart from his accomplishments as a player for being memorable of themselves. His acting career, rap albums, prolific portfolio of endorsements, reality television projects and side endeavors such as his well-publicized role as a reserve police officer all contribute to his compelling mystique. If collecting nicknames were to be used as a measuring stick, I’d imagine Shaq would have to be the most colorful athlete ever. Aside from simple “Shaq” sampling of some of his more notable nicknames includes: The Diesel, Superman, Steel, Big Daddy, Big Shaqtus, Big Shamrock, M.D.E. (Most Dominant Ever), Shaq-Fu, and my personal favorite, The Big Aristotle.

Surely to a great extent the gravitational effect he has is owed to his gargantuan stature and fabulous accomplishments, but for myself, later in Shaq’s career he came to represent an old and rapidly extinguishing way of NBA life: the supremacy of the big man. Stretching back to basketball antiquity, the acquisition of the “franchise big man” was the dream of every building team. Prior to the rise of Jordan, having a not merely good, but great low post big man was considered not simply  conducive to winning, but a virtual prerequisite for an aspiring dynasty. Even Jordan winning six titles without a dominant big man failed to shatter that conception. All through the 90′s and into the 00′s, teams were consumed with grabbing that next title factory big man. Now, matters are drastically different. The three teams that seem best poised to control this decade, Miami, Chicago and Oklahoma City, don’t have a single dominant low-post player between them. Inside-out basketball, where the titanic big man gets the ball on the block and everything plays off him, has long since given way to outside-in basketball, where everything plays off the dribble penetration of perimeter players. Big men today are accessories more than centerpieces: valued for the rebounding and defensive capabilities rather than as focal points for the offense. In a way, I’m relieved to see Shaq finally retire; however dangerous he may remained up until the very end, he had become an anachronism–a dinosaur in the new world of mammals.

There is a strong current of thought that says Shaq underachieved in his career, and it is hard to disagree. By acclaim, Shaq is the most imposing physical force ever to play. His athleticism at 7’1, 330 lbs was truly freakish. He was bigger than anyone quicker than him, and quicker than the few who could approach his size (and both quicker and bigger than most of his unfortunate opponents). He had incredible feet for a man his size, surprisingly sharp court vision and a consuming need to project his dominance onto the opposing center. In all, he may have been the most naturally gifted basketball player ever, played with some of the most talented perimeter players in league history and managed to produce only four titles!

It is an inescapable irony of Shaq’s career that, as obsessed as NBA general managers have always been with building teams around dominant centers, perhaps the most dominant center ever should have spent his career as a vagabond. O’Neal played for six teams in 19 years; at one team every three years, this is not an inordinate rate for NBA players, but it is extraordinary for a legend of O’Neal’s stature. Most of the true greats played for just one or two teams. Jordan, Magic, Bird, Russell, Duncan, Kobe, Kareem, West, Olajuwon, Pettit and Robinson all played for no more than two teams. Wilt played for three.

Of course, the missed opportunity was with the Lakers. When Shaq bolted Orlando for Los Angeles in ’96, he was just 24 years old. The Lakers drafted Kobe out of high school that summer; if Shaq and Kobe are both accorded statuses as among the Top-10 players of all-time, that means the Lakers had an opportunity to develop two of the very greatest players ever together!

In that first season as Lakers, Shaq was already arguably the No.2 player in the league behind Michael Jordan. Naturally, however, it would take a few years for the 18-year-old Bryant to start realizing his vast potential. It all finally came together in ’00 when the Lakers hired Phil Jackson and won their first of three consecutive titles. But as dazzling a duo as Shaq and Kobe were, the dominance would not last. The Lakers were beat by the Spurs in ’03, then lost in the Finals against a seemingly over-matched Detroit team in ’04, after which Shaq was cast off to Miami.

The saga of Shaq-Kobe could fill a book, and this article does not have the capacity to chronicle it. Suffice it to say for now that Shaq was a big gigantic baby who refused to share with Bryant, while Kobe was arrogant, selfishly impatient and too consumed with the realization of his individual potential. I have my own personal opinion about who deserves more blame, but in truth, it doesn’t really matter here. Failing to salvage his relationship with Kobe ultimately doomed Shaq to exile. While Shaq would win a title with Dwyane Wade in ’06, he never reproduced the postseason dominance of his Lakers days.

With a better relationship, could Shaq and Kobe have won more than three titles together? I think so. The ’04 Finals against Detroit was an eminently winnable series that was in large part sabotaged by Kobe’s disdain for Shaq. The league as a whole would be somewhat weak in ’05-’07; a Wade/Shaq partnership managed a championship in ’06. There’s no reason a functioning Kobe/Shaq duo couldn’t have done the same. For the sake of argument, say Shaq and Kobe were able to iron out their major differences, and such a rapprochement allowed them to win titles together in ’04 and ’06, with Shaq winning Finals MVP in ’04 and Kobe in ’06. An additional title and Finals MVP makes O’Neal’s resume look significantly brighter.

Ultimately, I think the great lament about Shaq’s career is that his career will be forever linked with Kobe and the unpleasant demise of their collaboration. Ignoring his off the court activities, it’s hard to think of Shaq as a player and not immediately think of Kobe, and vice-versa. This is nothing new; it started right after Shaq was traded to Miami, and has been a subplot to every success and failure each player has enjoyed or suffered since. After winning his fourth title in ’06, Shaq treated Kobe to taunting rap lyrics, singing “Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes.” When Kobe pulled ahead of Shaq in the titles count after beating the Celtics last year, he couldn’t resist a stab at his old rival, declaring in an interview “Just one more than Shaq…I don’t forget anything.” The debate in the fan and analyst communities about the two players’ all-time standings is already contentious, with every accomplishment by each player after the separation being pointedly counted.

In a sense, that becomes the most damning condemnation of Shaq’s underachievement: that with all of the enormity about him, his career somehow fails to stand alone. Shaq will forever exist trapped in a binary system with his nemesis, a coupling in posterity bonded by the twin forces of all they accomplished as comrades and then as enemies. Despite all of his championships, accolades and media projects, thirty years from now if a casual NBA fan is asked the first two things he can recall about Shaq, I’d wager the first would be “he was really huge”, followed by the second: “he had a feud with Kobe.”

A year ago, when the Thunder went up against the defending champion and top-seeded Lakers, they were in essence a team of neophytes. It was the first year in the playoffs for the Thunder’s youthful but talented core of Durant, Westbrook, Green, Ibaka and Harden. There was no Perkins. It was almost like a blank canvas;  the upstart Thunder almost seemed to have no personality, obscured as it was by the dazzling glow of their stunning insurgency. They took the Lakers to six games in that series, setting the stage for this season and the increased expectations that come along with success and recognition.

Now, however, things are different. We’ve have another regular season along with 15 additional playoff games to get a clear look at the Thunder. So what do I see? I see a team that has very quickly gone from pup to big dog. Too quickly, in fact. Oklahoma City is like an adolescent boy who has just experienced a tremendous growth spurt: he has the physical strength of a young man, but the impulsive emotions of a child. To wit, the Thunder have the ability of a Finals contender, but not the emotional maturity.

Westbrook truly epitomizes the team in this regard. He already has All-NBA level ability, but he lacks control. In this way, the Thunder’s sudden success actually works against them. If it took another year to reach the playoffs, and then two years of first round exits instead of one, and then a year with a second round exit…the Thunder would surely be less sparkling, but would be more world-wise, more inured to the ups and downs of the NBA. Surely, as a price for their early success, the Thunder will certainly accept this problem, but it is a problem nonetheless.

More than ever before, this emotional immaturity was on display last night in Oklahoma City’s 93-87 Game 3 loss to the Dallas Mavericks. The Thunder came out of the gate completely lifeless, while Dallas put on a display of execution precision that a neurosurgeon would have admired. Dallas made every right decision: every extra pass, every timely cut, every seamless rotation. Oklahoma City responded with missed shots, turnovers, and a continuous display of horrible team defense. Worse, the Thunder decided to vent their frustrations by engaging in a whine war with the refs, an activity which they kept up for most of the game. Indeed, if you went only by the expressions of the players, you would have expected the officiating to have tilted generously in Dallas’ favor, but the Thunder out-shot the Mavs in free throw attempts, 36-18, despite playing very physically against Dirk Nowitzki, who shot only 3 free throws.

I’m not going to be coy here: the problems are Westbrook, Perkins, Ibaka, Brooks, and Durant. The rest of the guys are either emotionally positive, inert, or irrelevant.

I’ve already made mention of Westbook, but there are a few other points about him that I’d like to add. In all honesty, he seems to be getting worse. His temper-tantrum in Game 2 was a really stunning display that only served to cast him as an emotional liability of an entirely new dimension. There were no commensurately dramatic outbursts from Westbrook in Game 3, but he did spend basically the first three quarters bickering with refs about calls (you would never have guessed he shot a team- and game-high 14 free throws!). His behavior is hurtful for the Thunder; teams disproportionately take emotional cues from their best players, whether or not they’re the best leaders.

Perk needs to bring some "big brother" leadership, not "baby brother" whining.

Perkins is a funny case. The Thunder brought him in to be their man in the middle, helping to control the paint especially against those formidable Lakers bigs. However, Perkins was supposed to supply important intangibles to this young Thunder team: the champion’s state of mind he presumably acquired as a key member of the superb Celtics. Perkins has brought the physical toughness (along with a hostile edge that OKC otherwise completely lacks), but to my view he hasn’t supplied veteran leadership. More than any other Thunder, he regularly gets involved in distastefully acrid confrontations with refs. If they kept a stat on “complaints per minute”, I would be surprised if Perkins didn’t lead the playoffs in the category. In many ways however, his emotional immaturity shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Perkins is only 26 and was never the veteran leader before he came to the Thunder in February. For the Celtics, he could afford to be the abrasive, young intimidator — with veterans like Allen, Garnett and Pierce, the Celtics didn’t need any more team leaders. That is not the case in OKC.

Ibaka: This is just my read of his body language, but I think Serge gets too down on himself when things go against him. This should be something which will naturally correct itself with experience but, for the moment, it can really sap his effectiveness.

Durant and Brooks: Neither of these guys are emotional problems in and of themselves. In fact, neither of them seem to have much in the way of emotion at all. Brooks has a frightening cold-eyed silent aspect, and Durant often seems to be just playing a game out there (yes, how dare he!). Granted, he’s playing with exceptional personal dedication, but he’s not exuding any palpable emotion for his comrades to take cues from.  Durant needs to step up and vocally control this team. He has a very steady emotional pulse, and this is something the Thunder could stand to benefit from.

Some specific thoughts from Game 3:

• It’s rather a shame for the Thunder that they wasted a tremendous defensive performance by Nick Collison. Collison played the most effective individual defense on Dirk Nowitzki of the whole postseason. How was he able to do this? By being aggressive and physical, and here’s where the game-to-game nature of officiating really has an impact. The same defense Collison played in Game 3 would have gotten him fouled out in 5 minutes in Game 1. Physical defense pushed Nowitzki out further on the catch, made it more dangerous for him to make moves and helped buy time on moves to allow the help to get there. Now, Collison shouldn’t flatter himself too much: not all of Dirk’s 7/21 FG, 7 TO performance is his credit, but a lot of it is. In the playoffs, Ibaka is averaging 28.6 minutes per game opposed to 22.9 mpg for Collison, but in Game 3 it was split down the middle at 24 a piece. The minutes of these two are closely mirrored, so an increase in minutes for Collison will likely come at Ibaka’s expense, but Collison should see more minutes in Game 4.
• Coaches don’t like tinkering with starting line-ups during a playoff series, but if I were Scott Brooks, I’d seriously consider starting Ibaka at the 5 and Collison at the 4, sending Perkins to the bench. Perkins has generally not been effective during the entire post-season, but he’s been absolutely fetid against Dallas. In truth, Perkins’ two greatest strengths are somewhat wasted against Dallas. The Mavs have no offensive low post threat for Perkins to negate, and as the Mavericks don’t do a whole lot of penetrating off the dribble (Barea aside), Perkins value as a lane-clogger is diminished. Ibaka at the 5 would be able to cover a lot more ground than Perkins, and Ibaka’s value as a weak-side shot blocker is orders-of-magnitude higher than Perk’s. Moreover, this would allow Brooks to maximize Collison’s minutes against Dirk, which, if Collison can continue to be effective defensively, could be a huge factor in the rest of the series.
• More love for Jason Kidd. The 38 year old marvel turned in a performance that was typical in its understated effectiveness. Kidd scored 13 points with 6 boards, 8 assists and 4 steals. He was particularly key in the success of Shawn Marion, taking advantage of OKC’s tendency to help off of Marion by  finding the forward in soft spots of the Thunder’s coverage. Marion was Dallas’ most effective scorer, finishing with 18 points on 9/13 FG, with every basket coming in the paint.
• I do enjoy how a few days ago Kendrick Perkins informed the media that Tyson Chandler is just as dirty as he (Perkins) is. If this is the case, why are we always seeing Perkins initiating the extra-curricular contact? In Game 3, Perkins seemed to basically try to instigate a fight with Chandler, but the Mav’s center just put his arms up and walked away. I’d like to credit the refs here for not calling one of their spurious “diffusing” double technicals.
• The funny thing about Game 3 was how close OKC came to winning it. They were outplayed about as badly as a team can be outplayed in the first 14 minutes, but by the end of the game they had closed it to the point where Dallas felt some pressure. Even with the many respects in which their effort was poor, were it not for an epic bad 1/17 day from long range, OKC might have handed Dallas a crippling defeat. This is something Scott Brooks will surely sell to his players: look how close we were even when we played like shit! Imagine what we could do if we actually played well!
• Russell Westbrook needs to learn a runner. Forget threes: he should spend the off-season practicing runners, floaters, teardrops, etc. If he had Derrick Rose’s repertoire in the paint, Westbrook would be the rich man’s Derrick Rose.

In Part 1, we had a summarizing look at the 2011 NBA Draft Lottery, replete with some very flattering photos.

Part 2 will be dedicated to the most reasonable of the nutcase theories regarding the league’s nefarious clandestine activities: faking the moon landings…no, wait, that’s not it.

Rigging the NBA Draft Lottery! Yeah, that’s it.

As you may be able to discern, I do not hold a great deal of respect for the theory that the lottery is rigged. I’m not saying it’s impossible, just as I’d never say it’s impossible the moon landings weren’t faked. I would say, however, that it’s highly unlikely the lottery is rigged, and that very little evidence exists to support suspicion. Let’s take a look at the case in both directions.

We’ll start with the conspiracy theorists.

Their claims go all the way back to the very first draft lottery in 1985. The lottery was originally devised to combat blatant tanking. For any not familiar with the term, tanking refers to intentionally losing regular season games in order to improve your draft status. While not generally a tactic that would be employed by any team with a realistic shot of making the playoffs, if by mid-season, a team knows it’s not going anywhere, it may be to their advantage to try not to win games. This practice is to say the least unsightly, resulting as it does in a lot of spiritless competition that reflects poorly on the league itself.

The original lottery was a very simple device. At that time, there were 23 teams in the league, 16 of whom would make the playoffs. The seven non-playoff teams, hereafter known as lottery teams, take place in the draft lottery. Each of the seven teams had a single unmarked envelope, containing a card with their team logo, that went into a tumbler. The tumbler was spun several times, and then the envelopes were removed one by one. The first envelope removed is the first pick, the second removed is the second pick, and so on until all seven envelopes were drawn

The Tumbler

and thus each of the first seven picks of the draft were assigned.

It was that first lottery in 1985 that would provide the foundation for the most widely suspected conspiracy regarding the NBA, in part because of which team won, and in part because of irregularities in the procedure which some accusers claim exist. The whole ’85 lottery was televised and the clip is available today on Youtube. Unfortunately, the video quality is not very good, but by watching the video, one can readily follow the theorists claims.

1985 Draft Lotto Video

Here is a synopsis of the pertinent part: Jack Wagner, a partner of the accounting firm of Ernst & Whitney who was contracted by the league to certify the lottery, was, according to NBA Commissioner (then as now) David Stern, the sole person responsible for putting the team cards into the envelopes while in seclusion. Wagner then brings the envelopes with him to the lottery ceremony. At Stern’s signal, Wagner places the envelopes, one by one, into the tumbler. When he does so, five of the seven envelopes go in smoothly, but two experience some bumpiness. The fourth envelope placed in the tumbler gets awkwardly bounced around one of the near sides of the tumbler, while the fifth envelope gets tossed with unusual force against the opposite side of the tumbler.

Once all seven envelopes were inside the tumbler, it was sealed and then spun about by hand crank for five and a half revolutions. It should be noted that while the tumbler is spinning, the envelopes are bouncing around inside with more violence than any experienced while being initially placed inside.

The tumbler was then opened by Stern, who proceeds to retrieve the envelope which will garner the first pick. Rather than simply reaching into the tumbler and snatching the first envelope available. Instead, he grabs a clump of three envelopes, quickly turns the clump over and pulls away the top envelope (which, before he turned the clump over, was on the bottom of the three). When the camera moves in to capture the shot of Stern pulling the envelope, it is clearly seen that the envelope Stern has chosen is visibly bent on at least one corner. This envelope contains the card of the team which will select first, which, as it happens, is the New York Knicks. Stern then pulls the other six envelopes out, one by one, using a variety of pulling techniques, most of which involve some contortion, just as his first pull did. Unfortunately, most of the pulls are not captured by the camera as closely as the first pull was, which deprives us of an opportunity to review the condition of most of the other envelopes.

The fact that the Knicks won this lottery is where the trouble really begins. In ’85, the Knicks were a storied franchise that had fallen on hard times. Between ’67 and ’75, the Knicks were one of the top teams in the league, going to the playoffs every year, including three trips to the NBA Finals and two NBA titles. However, between ’76 and ’85, the Knicks only made the postseason four times, and never advanced farther than the second round. Those were some generally dark years for the league as a whole, for reasons that were largely unconnected to the Knicks sucking. Still, the Knicks occupied America’s largest media market, and conventional wisdom says that successful teams in big markets is a boon for the league.

The Prize of '85: Patrick Ewing

Not every draft contains a guy who looks like a sure-fire superstar, but the ’85 draft did contain such a prospect in Georgetown center Patrick Ewing. While nothing is certain, it seemed very likely that whichever team drafted Ewing was going to be getting a bonafide superstar. When the Knicks came away with the pick rather than one of the less attractive markets in the draft, suspicion was going to be pretty much unavoidable. The suspicion seemed to be lent some credence by what theorists claim to be two supporting pieces of evidence:

1. The envelope which is eventually revealed to belong to the Knicks  is clearly bent on one corner.
2. That rather than simply take the top envelope, Stern made a deliberate and somewhat convoluted motion to select what turned out to be the bent envelope.

The particulars of their theory go like this: Jack Wagner intentionally threw the envelope which he knew to be New York’s up against the tumbler wall, bending it noticeably in one corner. This was a prearranged mark to Stern, denoting which envelope belonged to New York. Later, when Stern went to pull the envelope out, theorists claim that he seeks out the bent envelope, using the fact that Stern’s selection was not a straight-forward “reach, grab, take” motion.

What are we to think of elements of this theory? Let’s take it piece by piece.

• The damaged envelope: Yes, Wagner throws the fifth envelope in with more force than the others, but this alone proves nothing. Unless Wagner was an accomplished envelope-thrower, there was no guarantee that he would be able to damage the envelope my doing so in a distinctive enough fashion that Stern would be able to easily recognize the envelope with only a brief, stolen glance. This would have been a remarkably poor and uncertain arrangement for a conspiracy. Besides, the fourth envelope also gets put in roughly. They may both have been damaged? Both of these possibilities are, however, pretty much irrelevant in light of…
• The damaged envelope, continued: Once the tumbler was activated, all of the envelopes went flying about with at least as much force as Wagner seemed to throw the fifth envelope in. Unfortunately, we do note get to see the condition of each envelop: there is a close-up shot of the first envelope Stern pulls out, but the camera zoom on most of the others is less generous. It could have been that several of the envelopes were bent as a result of their time in the tumbler. Indeed, at the 5:50 mark of the Youtube clip, when there are only four envelopes remaining in the tumbler it appears that one of the two remaining envelopes is slightly bent on at least one corner, while another envelope has a corner which seems to be noticeably twisted.
• Stern’s “slight of hand”: The technique Stern chooses to use to grab the envelopes is, according to theorists, further damning evidence. Rather than simply grab the first envelope, they believe the fact that Stern roots through for one of the envelopes on the bottom indicates that Stern could have been searching for New York’s allegedly marked envelope. Of course, if Stern grabbed the top envelope and it was New York’s, they would probably say the fact that he grabbed the top envelope instead of one of the back ones demonstrates he was looking for a particular envelope. Stern goes on to use the same flourished technique to grab envelopes #2 through #7, but of course this could just have been cover, right? Unfortunately, as the camera is zoomed in on Stern’s hand when he takes the first envelope, we can’t see his face. When he opens the tumbler, naturally he is looking toward it, but when he puts his hand into the tumbler to retrieve the first pick, he is looking away from the tumbler. Even assuming that New York’s envelope was identifiably damaged (which is doubtful), if Stern continued to look away in that manner, it is highly doubtful that he would have had enough time to visually locate the damaged envelope.
• The Pre-fabrication Theory: There is another theory of the damaged envelope which says that New York’s envelope was marked before the lottery ceremony even began, either with by bending the corner or by another sort of signal. One suggestion was that the envelope was frozen, in order to make it easily identifiable to Stern whether he could see it or not. Obviously, this theory is impossible to prove or disprove by a visual inspection of the video.

That’s pretty much their whole case, as far as ’85 goes. Most of the foundation supporting the charge stems from the fact that, in their first lottery, the result was what would have been most desirable for the health of the league: New York gets Ewing. Everything else rests on suspicious interpretation of what is probably innocuous conduct. Was the envelope system a bad idea? Yes. Were there other systems which were more tamper-proof? Certainly. Does any of this establish guilt? No.

The envelope system would persist until 1990, when the process evolved from a straight lottery, where every team has the same chance of winning, into a weighted lottery, where team’s probability of garnering the top pick was connected to how many games they had lost, such that worse teams had a greater chance of getting the top pick.  In the concluding part of our story, Part 3, we will take a close look at the modern lottery system, as well as review some of the more recent rigging accusations, including ones from this year.

Yesterday before the Mavs-Thunder game, ESPN televised the NBA’s Draft Lottery program. For anyone who’s never seen it resembles a game show: a bunch of guys representing NBA teams sit at funny looking tables while the draft order, which was determined earlier in seclusion, gets revealed one-by-one through the opening of completely superfluous envelopes until we reach the Top-3 picks. Then, the remaining three contestants stand up, line up and stare into the camera as #3 and #2 are eliminated, leaving only the jubilant #1. The ostensible purpose is to allow all to bask in the suspense of the draft order, but the hidden value comes from the performance of the representatives, and this year was no exception. Allow me to narrate the event for you:

[Note that by the time the process begins, the reps have been sitting at their tables for twenty minutes; at this point, it has began to dawn on the more intelligent of the herd that their participation in this pointless exercise is pointless.] Read more »

Last night, Dirk Nowitzki opened the Western Conference Finals by dropping 48 points on 12/15 from the field and 24/24 from the line in Dallas’ 121-112 Game 1 victory over Oklahoma City. It was an unconscious display of precision by one of the greatest shooters ever to play the game, not only in his shooing, but in the crispness of his technique. It genuinely seemed as though Dirk could do this in his sleep.

I bet Dirk never falls when he leans back in a chair.

Contrary to what one might assume, the Thunder didn’t play terrible defense on Nowitzki. With only a couple of exceptions, his shots from the field were not open looks; there was always a contest, either against the shooting arm or with a hand covering Dirk’s face. Even the fouls were generally not bad defense. Ibaka got caught reaching once and jumped into a pump-fake, as did Harden, but for the most part the fouls came through just trying to be physical on Dirk’s body. It wasn’t outstanding individual defense, but in a technical sense it was certainly adequate; the resulting 48 points were just the ordinary outcome of when fair defense meets extraordinary offense.

The truth is, when Dirk isn’t having an off-night with his shot and he gets the body contact calls, he cannot be guarded. The kind of fouls the Thunder were getting repeatedly whistled for last night were the calls Dirk has been unable to consistently get his whole career: the call on the contact by the defender between the entry pass and the shot. Both the history of the Mavericks franchise and Dirk’s personal legacy would be radically different if he had consistently gotten these calls in the ’06 or ’07 playoffs. Read more »

Finally, 11 days after the Mavericks swept the Lakers, the Western Conference Finals are here. I, for one, am very excited for this series. It presents such a fun contrast to the trench warfare of the East Finals. I appreciate hard, defensive basketball, but just like any other fan sometimes I just want to see a series where the stars are set to shine.

Dirk against mini-Dirk

The West Finals shall be to the East Finals as Waterloo was to Verdun. It will be quick and electrified, with dramatic swings of fortune common within games. Dirk and Durant are arguably the two best half-court scorers in the NBA (it’s only too bad they don’t play the same position), and I anticipate this series will be an exhibition between the two, filled with 30 point games and huge shots down the stretch.

Expecting as I do that both Nowitzki and Durant will excel, this series to a large extent is going to be decided by other aspects. Here’s how I see some of the relevant factors shaking out:

1. Russell Westbrook vs. X/Y/Z: Officially, the starting point guards in this series are Westbrook and Jason Kidd, but I expect that Westbrook will face a diverse cast of defenders. Kidd, Stevenson, Terry and Barea all figure to see minutes against Westbrook, and none of them should have a prayer guarding him. Does that mean that Westbrook figures to run wild in this series? No. Although Westbrook should be able to penetrate liberally, Dallas has some of the best help defense in the league; Tyson Chandler especially will make finishing at the rim very challenging for Westbrook. What Westbrook is going to need to do is repeat his Game 7 performance and look to pass first. Will he do it? I don’t know, but I don’t think so. Read more »

Miami has looked spectacular all postseason long. They were dominant in their first round

Gut check time for the Heatles

series, brushing aside Philly with perfunctory ease. Then, they exorcised their Boston demons in convincing fashion–best yet, they came up with all the clutch plays in that Celtics series to close games out. The Heat’s success in the opening two rounds was enough to convince Vegas bookies to favor them over Chicago 2:1.

Yet, after all the talk about how the Heat have grown and coalesced, the dynamic between the two teams looked much the same yesterday night as it did months ago: neither got good opportunities against the other’s half-court defense, but the Bulls murdered the Heat on the glass (45 total rebounds for Chicago vs. 33 for Miami, 19 offensive boards against 6). Miami threw in the extra injury of frazzled turnovers yesterday, committing 16 of them. The combination of turnovers and offensive rebounds allowed Chicago to shoot 19 more times from the field, even while shooting five more free throws. Read more »

Anyone who watches Russell Westbrook play, even for just a few minutes, cannot help but

There's no denying it: the man's got skills

notice his extraordinary athleticism. There are a couple of point guards in this league who can surpass Westbrook’s quickness, and a few more who can best his strength, but no other point guard in the world can match his explosiveness–that combination of speed, quickness and strength that permits him to blitz right past the on-ball defender, get to the rim in two steps and elevate 40″ in the air to finish over a shot-blocker.

This may seem like a stretch to some (particularly Derrick Rose fans), but Westbrook is the best athlete at the 1 in the league. When you combine that physical ability with his innate thirst to produce, you have an unusual agent indeed. However, I’ve believed for some time now that the ease with which Westbrook beats his man off the dribble has been a dangerous seduction for him. It presents itself like this: if you can penetrate almost at will, why not do it every time down? Yet being a young player with a scorer’s background, Westbrook’s instincts are to use these opportunities at breaking the defense apart as scoring opportunities for himself. This is how we get these too frequent possessions from the Thunder where no one touches the ball except Westbrook, robbing his team’s offense of rhythm, and leaving sympathetic to shrug and sigh, writing it off as the affordable price of having access to such a luxuriant talent. Read more »

I can’t wait until the Hawks are eliminated. I hope it happens tomorrow.

My dislike for them is nothing personal; there isn’t a single player on that team I more than mildly dislike (and there aren’t a lot of teams you can say that for). Maybe Pachulia, but even then, a large portion of his irritation factor comes from him doing his job. He’s supposed to get on people’s nerves. Like Matt Barnes, Tony Allen or Raja Bell; if you don’t come to find them at least a bit dislikable, you’re probably either fans of their team or they aren’t doing their job properly.

I just think Atlanta plays ugly basketball. They play with a fairly high level of effort and the ball moves around on

Can I really be blamed for not wanting to look at this face any longer?

offense better than on most teams, but everything is so hard. Unless they’re out on the break, everything is an uphill climb for them. Even their best player, Josh Smith, can be painfully difficult to watch at times. He’s a great defender, (although there’s something unappealing about watching him have to guard guys who are bigger and stronger than he is every single game) and has great creativity on the break, but is often just a train-wreck in half-court sets. Because their offense sucks so bad, many of their possessions end with Joe Johnson or Jamal Crawford throwing up contested pull-up jumpers that just want to make you, well, throw up. Their most talented offensive player, Al Horford, is under-utilized, underused, and under-performing. Jeff Teague is intriguing with his quickness, ball-handling and that sharp running floater, but he’s essentially worthless outside of 8 feet from the rim right now. Read more »

In order for this to make sense, I must explain something about exactly how I tend to watch NBA games. My

Guess I'd better start setting the recorder for 1.5 hours extra

preferred method of watching them is by recording them first, so that I can conveniently fast forward through commercials, halftime and dead time during games. Being an intelligent person who always* plans ahead, I usually set my recordings to run a half hour longer than usual, just in case the game runs into overtime. But being so super smart, I set playoff games to record a full hour longer, just so there won’t be any complications.

With that extra hour, I got all of the first overtime of the thrilling Game 4 of the Thunder-Grizzlies series.

Heh.

Figures. The game of the year, and I miss the 2nd and 3rd OTs. Well, I’ve irritated my friends on plenty of occasions, with my insistence on not going anywhere that might be running ESPN before I’ve seen the game just in case they show highlights, or the score flashes across the ticker. If this is the karmic price I must pay to watch in my preferred manner, well then so be it.

I did manage to see 53 minutes of action last night, and it was still a heck of a game. Some thoughts: Read more »