Posts for category ‘nba finals’

In early mid-April (the 12th to be exact), when asked as part of an ESPN.com 5-on-5 roundtable which NBA star would have his legacy enhanced the most in the 2011 Playoffs, I wrote:

“The health of Andrew Bynum won’t affect Dirk Nowitzki’s hunger, but Nowitzki’s stomach did just growl. One could argue that Dirk’s legacy has the deepest hole from which to climb. Since blowing a 2-0 series lead on Miami in the 2006 Finals, the Mavericks have been bounced in the first round of the playoffs in three of the past four seasons. A championship isn’t wholly necessary to repair Dirk’s playoff legacy, but if Dallas fails to make the Finals, he may have to live with the label of a regular-season MVP who can’t come through in the postseason.”

Now, I’m not here to exactly toot my own horn as a prognosticator of all things basketball — seeing as I predicted last year’s Wizards to achieve 34 wins (only off by 11 wins), and the bastardly 2009-10 Wizards to achieve 55 wins (yes, I was off by a whole 29 wins here… like I said, “bastardly”) — however, in the same ESPN poll, in reponse to a query on the most surprising thing that would happen in the Western Conference playoffs, I wrote:

“It won’t be surprising when each of the top four seeds in the West move into the second round with relative ease. Nor will it be surprising when the conference semifinals and finals all get pushed to seven games. What will be surprising is when the Dallas Mavericks come out on top in the West and Mark Cuban holds a party for all his friends in the media.”

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{image via Internet/Aaron Josefczyk – Reuters}

The Miami Heat may very well win the 2011 NBA Finals, but regardless of triumph or defeat, LeBron will still be the villain. It’s OK.

Washington Wizards fans almost like to gloat that they were amongst the first to whom LeBron exposed himself to — the epitome of privilege that always asks for more and will resort to less-than-savory tactics to get what it wants. So what.

LeBron is a villain, and I’ve spent a lot of pixels communicating this. And I will continue to do so. LeBron is a fact of life.

Of course he’s making you love him as a basketball player, passing exuberantly, rebounding above all, defending with no restraint, astounding with power that compresses rim paint to the point of cracking. He’s no basketball dummy. The only thing that really dwarfs his instinct for the game is what he can do with that freak of a Karl Malone-sized body that he’s in.

Yes, we know LeBron seemingly “checked out” of game four, according to DeShawn Stevenson at least, but does that mean all other memories of amazing are stricken from the record? In a contribution regarding LeBron on HoopSpeak.com (last entry at the bottom), I essentially opined that the hubbub over game four might be a tad premature. But if the Heat don’t win the championship, memories of LeBron’s basketball excellence will certainly be vastly muted.

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["What he did? Told them he cut his eye ... in sparring." -Wu-Tang Clan, Bells of War]

I kept telling myself, even Tweeting, when Miami was looking like unstoppable beasts for all but about seven minutes of NBA Finals game two, “Is Dallas the type of team you don’t want to let hang around?”

Of course they are. The Mavs are a unit well-versed in veteran composure, lest they would have had a seven game series with the Oklahoma City Thunder. But Miami isn’t Oklahoma, in so many senses.

Late in the game, after countless amazing dunks with little defensive resistance, Miami finally pulled away and took an 88-73 lead on a Dwayne Wade three. After nailing the shot near Dallas’ bench, Wade held his follow through and slowly walked toward his own bench, as Mavs coach Rick Carlisle had called a timeout. LeBron came over to give Wade celebratory chest jabs.

At that point, we all thought it was just about over… and I’m taking the entire series, not just the game. I wasn’t quite traveling toward the doomsday scenario of the Heat shutting down league competition (lockout and team parity be damned) with unforeseen future domination, but figured that they were the scariest, most unimaginable basketball animals alive and the Mavericks were simply prey in their territory.

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[Ex-Wizard Brendan Haywood is heading to the NBA Finals, and now he's finagled two hats to prove it.]

The last ex-Washington Wizard* to appear in the NBA Finals used to be Larry Hughes. Not anymore. Hughes, a Wizard from 2002 to 2005, played for the Cleveland Cavaliers in game one of the 2007 Finals against the San Antonio Spurs. He scored two points on 1-5 shooting with two fouls and three rebounds in 23 minutes; the Cavs lost 85-76. In game two, Hughes missed all five of his field-goal attempts, didn’t score a point, and tallied two turnovers, two assists and two rebounds in 20 minutes; the Cavs lost 103-92. Dealing with foot issues pertaining to his plantar fascia, Hughes didn’t play in games three and four as the Spurs swept LeBron James in his only Finals appearance to date.

Now that the Dallas Mavericks have beaten the Oklahoma City Thunder for the right to represent the West in the 2011 Finals, three more ex-Wizards will be playing for the Larry O’Brien Trophy. Antawn Jamison, who always kept a picture of the NBA’s championship trophy in his Wizards locker (now it’s John Wall’s locker), is probably really happy for his ex-teammates, but most certainly in a ‘I wish it were me’ kind of way. And if you want even more of a storyline as Brendan Haywood, DeShawn Stevenson and Caron Butler (okay fine, I’ll include Brian Cardinal, another former Wizard (2002-03)… so, four ex-Wizards), head to championship holy ground with Dallas, consider all the history those three most recent Wizards have with one potential opponent, the very same LeBron James, this time of the Miami Heat.

All but calling him a cry-baby, Haywood once led to LeBron being labelled “They trying to hurt me” James. With Stevenson, you can pretty much begin and end with him calling James overrated, and then Jay-Z coming to James’ rescue with a blown whistle on a diss track. Oh, and there’s also that back-and-forth gossip girl thing between the Stevenson and James, thanks to Drew Gooden’s loose lips. So yea, DeShawn and LeBron pretty much hate each other. Butler mostly aimed to remain neutral through the familiarity the Wizards used to have with James’ Cavaliers via first round playoff matchups in three straight seasons from 2006 to 2008.

But the Heat are not there quite yet, they have to finish off the Chicago Bulls first. The Dallas Mavericks are your Western Conference champs. So congrats goes to Stevenson for the duration of his NBA career, going from potential high school-to-pros bust to staying relevant with hustle work, defense and knowing his role (for the most part … surely DeShawn’s collection of busted threes don’t fall into an “ideal” role; he was 5-21 from deep in five games versus the Thunder). Congrats goes to Haywood, the warmth of whose body eats up a majority of his 6-year, $55 million compensation. But hey, Dallas wasn’t going to get to the Finals without two serviceable bigs in Haywood and Tyson Chandler. Congrats goes to Butler, currently recovering from knee surgery, for being around — decent work in the regular season, and thanks for your positive attitude, but let’s be honest, the Mavericks are probably better if you remain out due to injury for the rest of the season (unless someone else gets hurt). And finally, congrats goes to Cardinal. Thanks to Trey Kerby, you will always be the most dad looking dad in the current NBA.

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Yes, this is going to be hyped all over the internets. And yes, I couldn’t resist.

The NBA playoff drool of “Glen” Big Baby Davis is as epic as Stephen Strasburg’s debut … and it occurred in the NBA Finals.

Also check:

Dictionary Definition: The Step-Back Corner Three Point Jumper by Kobe Bryant

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Who will get to the 2010 NBA Finals and who will win?
That’s the question I posed to several Wizards on the last day of the season. One player wants to see Antawn Jamison get a ring. Another surprisingly chose the Orlando Magic to win it all because, he says, “Vince [Carter], he picks and chooses when he wants to play, but I think in the Finals he’s going to be up for it. I think he’s going to be the difference maker.” Interesting.

Out of 10 players polled, four ultimately picked the Cavaliers, three the Lakers, and as mentioned, one went with the Magic. Two players declined to make a choice. Time to watch…

Everyone is talking about Courtney Lee’s missed ‘layup’ that would have won the game for Orlando. Some even compared it to Nick Anderson missing four late free-throws  in game one of the 1995 NBA Finals, also played on June 7th  [via Slam].

Mentioning Nick Anderson sounds very “woe is us” from Orlando. Thing is, true fans aren’t making the association, rather some professional MSMers.  These hacks need to be called out:

1) D-bag from the AP [via Sports Illustrated]:

A shot that couldn’t have been much easier.

Uh … no, a-hole. If you’ve played basketball before, you know how difficult Lee’s shot was — to time his jump, catch the pass, be concerned about an oncoming Pau Gasol, while slowing down uncontrollable momentum to lay the ball softly off the glass … exactly.

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The Lake Show is in DC tonight, and I’m afraid that Laker Nation posers will be dominating the Verizon Center. I’ve been called a Laker-Hater in the past, and yes, this fact forced me to root for another team I dislike, Boston, in last year’s Finals (just like the damn Super Bowl when I had to root for the Giants over the Patriots). Oh well, what’s a sports fan to do?

It is what it is. Thankfully, someone who is a real Lakers fan, Kurt from the Forum Blue & Gold, has been kind enough to take time to answer some questions I had about his team. Read on…..

[UPDATE: Head to Forum Blue & Gold to check my return answers about the Wizards]

1) In the olden days, when it came to Phil Jackson, I was like “meh…..he’s a convenient opportunist and I’m not buying his Zen B.S.,” but more and more, I’m beginning to like Phil because of his snarky sarcasm that screams, “Will you baby NBA millionaires just grow up and be men?” Plus, the realistic side of me knows that he’s always been a damn good coach.

That being said, what’s to make of the latest with Andrew Bynum? To me, what amounts to about a half an NBA season (last year and this year) does not make a boy a man. So, is he really a kid who doesn’t know better, or should he be in at the end of games for boards? And why do the Lakers do so much communicating in the press anyway?
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• From ABC’s report….Kevin Garnett got all of the Celtics (including Ray Allen who seemed to be the biggest surprise) eating PB&Js before games? I wonder which Celtic wears the banana suit?

  Ahh…peanut butter and jelly, more American than apple pie….as I doubt GI’s in WWII had time to bake a damn pie.

  I’ve got one friend/co-worker who eats pre-made PBJs, as an afternoon snack, out of the cooler from the little store on the first floor of my work building in downtown DC…..and I’ve got another friend I’ve known since ten who claims to have never eaten a PBJ.

• Poor Rajon Rondo……each one of his layup misses hurt a little more. But I must give him a ton of credit…..he made damn sure that he did whatever else he could to contribute to victory. Six steals, eight assists, seven boards….who cares if he got 21 points on 8-20 shooting. Dude is the Kyra Sedgwick of the NBA.
• Ray Allen…..and the several reports on his eye from Michele Tafoya and her lettuce-doo….I couldn’t help but think about what happened to Allen Ray (who was a Celtic last year) and his eyeball.

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