Andrew Upshaw
A week in the playoffs and a lot of crazy ish has happened. Last year’s MVP went down with a torn ACL which dashed the Bull’s chances of winning the title. The D Rose-less Bulls are struggling to beat the eighth seeded Sixers and are now down 3-1 in the series. Sucks. The defending champs are also out of it getting swept by the Thunder. The Mavs loss reminds me of the Laker’s loss to them last year. The first couple of games were games they should have won and after they got down 2-0 they just didn’t have anything left in the reserve tank. They didn’t take their game to another level during “winning time”, unlike the Thunder who were ready and motivated. If the Thunder meet the Lakers in round 2 it will be interesting.
The Heat have a chance to knock the Knicks out in a few minutes. It’s been a disappointing series form an entertainment stand point. The Heat are just better, which we already knew. The hope was that Melo would put the Knicks on his back a win a game or two for them. He had a good game 2, but the Knicks lost anyway and he’s been terrible in the other two Knicks losses. I think he’ll show up big in game four, the thing is, the Heat might still win because they’re better. Melo and people’s negativity toward him are starting to become Lebron-like, I’ve been hearing a lot lately about him being overrated and people have mentioned that he has one of the worst winning percentages in the playoffs. There’s enough to write an entire post on it but in regards to THIS year’s Knicks team it’s not fair. In many people’s eyes Amare Stoudemire fucked up breaking his hand and really hurt the Knicks. The thing is, he’s fallen off hard this year. We don’t know if it’s because he’s been banged up or out of shape or if he’s just not as good as he used to be. We won’t really know until next year. Then theres Jeremy Lin, if he hadn’t gone down this Knicks team would be more equipped to win in the playoffs. But STILL, they’d lose to the Heat. Next year if Melo plays to hits potential all year, Jeremy Lin continues to be an above average point guard, Amare finds his game, and Chandler and the role player roll then the Knicks will be a very good team. But that’s NEXT year.
Their opponents the Heat have the best shot in the East and now won’t have to play Chicago. On paper, their path the Finals will be easy. They’ll probably face Boston next round who might challenge them. I just don’t see Indiana or Philly challenging the Heta and I don’t see anybody in the East beating them. In the finals, though the Heat will be tested and my not even be the favorites depending on who they play. They’ll want to be playing their best ball in those finals so who ever they play on the way they’ll be going extra, extra hard. I’m waiting for the Boston-ATl and the Indiana-Orlando series to be over already. The Boston -Atl series hasn’t been bad, I just feel like Boston should beat Atlanta easily with Josh Smith hurt. I refuse to watch any of the Indiana-Orlando series.
The Lakers play game 4 against Denver later tonight. In the first two games the Lakers looked as good as they have all season. In the first quarter of game 3, they looked as bad as they have all year. Denver is not a joke, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they made this series competitive. I still expect the lakers to win the series though. There’s been a lot of talk about Kobe and Bynum and whether or not Kobe shoots too much and if Bynum should get the ball more and such. While I do think that Kobe has a tendency to shoot too much (he’s been like that his entire career) I’m not sure if Bynum really needs the ball more. Bynum’s scoring at the same rate he did in the regular season and the lakers’ offense has been great in their wins. As great as Bynum is he not only has to share the ball with Kobe, he also has to share the ball with Gasol, who by the way is a great, unselfish player. Ramon Sessions is pretty good too. The focus on Kobe and Bynum is dumb, the Lakers are a better team when their big men and role players are involved offensively. In game 3 Kobe started out hot and was the only Laker doing anything. The Lakers got back in the game thanks to their big men and couldn’t get over the hump as Kobe missed a million shots in a row. For the Lakers to win the title they’ll need Kobe to know when to get his big mean involved and when to take over. Kobe’s been doing this a while so chill out.
A quick note on Bynum: Grantland did great profile on him earlier this week. The main theme is that Andrew Bynum is the realest NBA player in the game. He doesn’t spit out cliches or kiss ass, he tells it like it is. He admitted to the LA Times that he didn’t try very hard in game three, which is hilarious or troubling if you want to look at this in a simple minded way. Most pro athletes don’t try hard all he time they get tired and lazy from time to time. When Bynum doesn’t try you can really tell and if you can’t, he’ll tell you himself. Kobe tries hard to score but he definitely does lag on defense form time to time and gets little to no flack from the media because of his rep. So the simple-minded shouldn’t judge Bynum too harshly for being real, but the lakers are way better team when he tries hard he whole game.
4 HOOPS HEADS 