NBA Playoffs 2007

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

They *barely* won on their home floor.  The Warriors should wrap things up in Oakland.

I hope the Lakers don't play their last game today. 

[Krispy Kreme]

I'm still expecting the Mavs to come back, but it won't matter in the long run because after a 7-game series, no way they have enough left in the tank to get past both the Spurs and the Suns.

The whole point  of being seeded number 1 is that you don't have to play both  the Suns and Spurs. In fact, if the Spurs and Suns  win  their respective series, they will play each other. If the Mavs win, they play the  winner of the Utah-Houston series.

[GeorgeSteele]

I'm still expecting the Mavs to come back, but it won't matter in the long run because after a 7-game series, no way they have enough left in the tank to get past both the Spurs and the Suns.

The whole point? of being seeded number 1 is that you don't have to play both? the Suns and Spurs. In fact, if the Spurs and Suns? win? their respective series, they will play each other. If the Mavs win, they play the? winner of the Utah-Houston series.

^That's right, for some reason I thought SA was the 4 seed.? In any case, to beat a ridiculously hot team 3 in a row will be draining.? If they get through this, I guess they'll hope that the Suns and Spurs beat each other to death when they play next round.?

[D]

Dirk is back, those shots will make him go back to the old Dirk and GS blew their chance.


They dont win tonight and it is over.

IT is SOOOOOOO hard to close a team out and GS blew their chance. Dallas will win the next two. Guarantee it.

[Chief]

really now D?  i believe what we had here tonight was an old fashion Ass Kickin!!!!!!!

mavs really really really choked it this series!!!

Dirk is back, those shots will make him go back to the old Dirk and GS blew their chance.


They dont win tonight and it is over.

IT is SOOOOOOO hard to close a team out and GS blew their chance. Dallas will win the next two. Guarantee it.

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

So Golden State will face the winner of the Houston/Utah series.

[tim_m]

Well i admit it. I was wrong i thought no one would beat Dallas.

[Krispy Kreme]

Well i admit it. I was wrong i thought no one would beat Dallas.

You and the rest of America. This was  a major collapse--the first time a #1 seed lost to a #8 seed in a 7 game series.
The Mavs choked, and it all started  when Johnson felt  the need to adjust his starting lineup in game 1, instead of sending a signal that the Warriors had to adjust to the Mavs. I simply am unable to explain the outcome. I watched the first half of the Utah-Warriors  last night, and Utah did exactly what the Mavs should have--attack the basket and get the ball down low in the paint where the Warriors are weak. Why the Mavs thought that they could win a 3 point shoot out is beyond me. Just stupid.

[Eazy E]

Ouch!!  What a crazy first round... Miami and Dallas both get knocked off!  I really hope we don't end up with a boring as hell San Antonio vs. Detroit final, I won't even bother to watch.

I just finished reading the Slam magazine with the 3 Suns on the cover... They had their "NBA Finals predictions" and underneath the headline "Last year none of us suspected the Miami Heat would take the NBA Championship, this year we've done a little bit better with our predictions".... and 6/8 of them chose the Mavs!!  I got a kick out of that.

[Malcolm]

Kobe says he wants Lakers to trade him

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Kobe Bryant asked to be traded from the Lakers on Wednesday, a day after calling the team's front office "a mess." He said there was nothing the Lakers could do to change his mind.

"I would like to be traded, yeah," Bryant told ESPN radio. "Tough as it is to come to that conclusion there's no other alternative."

Bryant, who helped the Lakers win three consecutive NBA championships, has four years left on the US$136.4-million, seven-year contract he signed July 15, 2004. That was a day after Shaquille O'Neal was traded to the Miami Heat.

Bryant became infuriated Tuesday when a Los Angeles Times columnist quoted what he called a Lakers insider as saying it was Bryant's insistence on getting away from O'Neal that prompted the trade to Miami.

The Lakers did not immediately respond to a message left by The Associated Press.

 

Bryant, an 11-year veteran who turns 29 in August, urged the team at season's end to do whatever it takes to get back into championship contention. He essentially repeated those comments last weekend in an interview with the Los Angeles Times.

On Sunday, he suggested former Lakers general manager Jerry West should return to the team. West left the team in the summer of 2000 and was succeeded by current GM Mitch Kupchak.

West, an employee of the Lakers for some 40 years as a player, coach and executive, is under contract as the Memphis Grizzlies' president until July 1. He turned 69 this week and has remained a close friend of Kupchak's. West said in a statement he has "no plans to seek employment with any other organization."

On Tuesday, Bryant did a series of radio interviews bashing the Lakers. He contended owner Jerry Buss misled him three years ago, saying the team would try immediately to rejoin the NBA's elite.

Bryant earned $17.72 million last season and is owed $88.6 million over the next four years. He can terminate his contract following the 2008-09 season.

He would obviously waive his no-trade clause, but he has a trade clause in his contract that is believed to add about $13 million to his total contract value, a cost to be absorbed by any team that acquires him. The money would be paid like a signing bonus and would not count toward the salary cap. The Lakers had to pay a similar fee to Lamar Odom when they acquired him from Miami three years ago, paying him about $8 million.

With O'Neal and Bryant leading the way, the Lakers won championships from 2000-02 and reached the NBA final again in 2004, losing to the Detroit Pistons in five games.

The team was broken up at that time, with O'Neal traded, coach Phil Jackson leaving and other stalwarts - Karl Malone, Gary Payton, Derek Fisher, Robert Horry and Rick Fox - going elsewhere or retiring.

The Lakers failed to make the playoffs the following season. With Jackson returning, they finished seventh in the Western Conference in each of the past two years but were eliminated by the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the playoffs.

[Mal Brossard]

As posted to my sports blog...

Wednesday, May 30, 2007
E=MC^2: Odds on winning the NBA East

It's hard to come up with odds for sporting events. Some can do it by analyzing stats. Some do it by analyzing history. Some just randomly pull numbers out of thin air.

WhoWins.com has a full historical analysis of every MLB, NHL, and NBA playoff series, including records of how often a team wins a playoff series for each possible record (1-0, 2-0, 3-0, 1-1, 2-1, 3-1, 2-2, 3-2, and 3-3). So taking a look at each of these, here are the odds on the Cavs managing to take the Eastern Conference title.

Before the series started: 1.18-1 for the Cavs taking it. Teams playing a conference rival and have a 3+ game lead over them are actually 11-13 in playoff series! Advantage: Cavs

After Game 1, 79-76 win for Detroit: 5.8-1 against. Ouch. The odds have gotten worse for the Cavs!

After Game 2, another 79-76 win for Detroit: 22-1 against. Yeah, looks hopeless, doesn't it?

After Game 3, a Cavs' 88-82 win: 5.72-1 against. Still not the best, but better than that ugly 22-1.

After Game 4, a Cavs' win 91-87: 2.5-1 against. Now here are some odds I can live with! I still wouldn't bet a dime on the Cavs winning since I know way too much about Cleveland sports to ever bet on one of our teams. But things are looking better. By the way, the Cavs are 5-0 all-time in Game 4's when they're down 2-1 in a best of 7 playoff series. I'm not sure what to make of that, but it's an interesting number nonetheless.

Game 5 will be huge. It's in Detroit, where the Cavs are 0-2 in the postseason, and 1-1 in the regular season: a 1-3 record. Last year, including the Playoffs, the Cavs were 1-5 in Detroit. All told, things do not look good for the Cavs. They've already used up their one victory in Detroit for the year. Though again, looking at history, last year the Cavs dropped the first two in Detroit, won two at home, then won Game 5 in Detroit. Can it happen again? We'll see. Just remember these things going into the final two to three games of this series.

1. To quote the band Split Enz, "History never repeats."

2. Within a week, you could hear the following phrase: "In two of the most incredible upsets in NBA history, the Cleveland Cavaliers will face off with the Utah Jazz, in Carlos Boozer's boo-filled homecoming to his former city of Cleveland."

3. If you lose it, LeBron will come. And he has.

4. If the situations were reversed, Cleveland would be bracing themselves for another typical "Cleveland Loss," you know the ones like The Drive, The Shot, the 1997 World Series, and the 2003 playoff game against Pittsburgh, where Cleveland leads and blows it. Instead, we're preparing for the other type of Cleveland Loss: The Fumble, where the team mounts a huge comeback to give themselves a chance to win, and blows it in the end.

5. Only two NBA teams have ever faced a 2-0 deficit without home court advantage and managed to come back and win. If it happens this year, this Cavs squad will be only the third, and placed into the annals of history. Maybe I'm stretching a bit here, but I still feel it's worth mentioning.

6. The non-shot in Game 1 did expose one flaw: LeBron James isn't Michael Jordan. But it will come with time. He's only in his fourth season and 23 years old, while it took MJ 7 seasons to win an NBA Championship, at age 27. Additionally, it took Jordan 5 years to get to his first Conference Championship, something LeBron has done in 4 years. Don't expect immediate results: even the greatest player in the past 20 years wasn't perfect when he first played. I'd still be happy if the Cavs lost. Sort of.

7. Rasheed Wallace is only two technicals away from a suspension. Should he get T'ed up on Thursday and Saturday, he'll be out for Game 7.

8. The Cavs have a record of 4-2 in Game 5's when tied 2-2, and a 3-3 record for series' when tied 2-2. Meanwhile the Pistons have a 10-7 series record and an 8-9 Game 5 record. In a similar situation last year, the Cleveland Plain Dealer asked us, "Do You Believe?"

9. If the Cavs manage to pull off the upset and beat San Antonio or Utah, you'll never have to hear me complain about the cursed state of Cleveland sports again.

10. Read that last sentence again.

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

Kobe doesn't want to be traded anymore.

[Axl4Prez2004]

Kobe doesn't want to be traded anymore.

Oh boy, wouldn't ya love to be one of his teammates?  "This team is a mess." -Kobe.

"Oh yeah, uh, hey guys!  I, uh, I must have been misquoted."   

[CheapJon]

i've hated kobe since he fucked away shaq from LA



lebron on the other hand, my gawd, i hope cleveland takes it all this year

[Eazy E]

10. Read that last sentence again.

How are the odds looking after Game 5?   

Holy SHIT!  That was one of the best basketball performances I've seen in my life... with about 6 minutes left in the game my friend said "If Lebron ever wants to be like MJ, he needs to start stepping it up in the big moments"... 2 OTs and 25 straight points later he was a little bit shocked.   

[Mal Brossard]

10. Read that last sentence again.

How are the odds looking after Game 5?   

Holy SHIT!  That was one of the best basketball performances I've seen in my life... with about 6 minutes left in the game my friend said "If Lebron ever wants to be like MJ, he needs to start stepping it up in the big moments"... 2 OTs and 25 straight points later he was a little bit shocked.   

The odds are now approximately 2.28-1 in the Cavs' favor now.  Honestly, I've never been a big basketball fan (being from Cleveland, I had my reasons not to watch from 1998-2003), but I'm finding myself watching again.  Last night, holy shit.  Yeah, it's not 69 points or a series-winning over Craig Ehlo, but it was still amazing.

I produce and co-host a sports show on the local AM radio station, and last week, the other two guys were already handing this series over to the Pistons.  I will take up the full 30 minutes this week shaming them into admitting they were wrong and singing the praises of LeBron James.

Posted to SportsFansOnline.net, Simply Drew...

Friday, June 01, 2007
"It seems the tables have turned, Mr. Powers"

What can I even say after that game last night? Will I even be able to hold all my emotions together as I write this? (NOTE AFTER FINISHING: I was. Barely.)

This is the first time I have ever sat down to write on sports and had writers' block set in.

LeBron James. 48 points. Scored the Cavs' last 25 by himself. Two overtimes. Playing on a gimpy ankle in the final few minutes.

The odds have moved from 22-1 against the Cavs winning the series to 2.28-1 in favor of them winning.

All those times I could have seen the guy play at Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary high school, I'll be kicking myself for years for not doing it. I saw him dominate SVSM's football games, but never got to see him on the court. Want to know what he could have done in football? Picture this: my school leads SVSM 12-0 at halftime. LeBron hasn't played yet. Finally he shows up and puts on the pads. 24 minutes on the clock later, SVSM wins 28-12. LeBron caught 6 passes for 132 yards and 2 TD's being covered by our best corners. Yes, corners: two of them on him the entire time.

It's gotten to the point where I don't care if he plays just this contract in Cleveland and then moves on to the big money in New York or Los Angeles, as long as he can take the Cavs all the way this year. And as with every year, I believe. The entire city of Cleveland believes.

But then again, we've believed in the past.

We believed when Brian Sipe called for Red Right 88. And when John Elway stepped under center at the two. And when Earnest Byner took the handoff. When Tim Couch was called to the stage. And when the Browns led the Steelers 24-7 in the third.

We believed when Vic Wertz pounded the ball to center in the Polo Grounds. When a young pitcher named Herb Score was ready to take baseball by storm. When Kenny Lofton sprinted in to score from second in the 1995 ALCS. And when Jose Mesa was called in from the bullpen in 1997. We believed when a fly ball was hit to Grady Sizemore in 2005.

We believed after the Miracle at Richfield. And when Craig Ehlo went in for a layup and the lead. When Mark Price, Larry Nance, and Brad Daugherty came together in the 1991-92 season.

And then the faith disappeared. Into the hands of Mike Davis. And Mark Jackson. Jeremiah Castille. And Hines Ward. Into the glove of Willie Mays. Off Score's eye. Under the glove of Tony Fernandez. Into the sun for Sizemore. And when Michael Jordan got an inbound pass.

By now, I should just learn not to believe. It only ends in heartbreak.

But then you figured that the one time it doesn't end that way is the one time you didn't believe.

It's hard, but I can't not believe this time around.

Bring it on home LeBron, you've got an entire city behind you.

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

i've hated kobe since he fucked away shaq from LA



lebron on the other hand, my gawd, i hope cleveland takes it all this year

As it turns out, it was all of managements doing.

(I still don't really care for Kobe though, I just want the Lakers to do well.)

As for King James...I've seen a lot of basketball games in my day, and that had to be one of the greatest performances I've ever seen.

I'm still not gonna get my hopes up.  Cleveland had a 3-2 lead in the series last year and found a way to blow it.  Keep your fingers crossed.

[Mal Brossard]

So... Cleveland vs. San Antonio.

I'm being a total homer here, but I like Cleveland's chances in this one.  2-0 against the Spurs in the regular season.

[CheapJon]

I sure root for cleveland in this finals.. it's their time now.. duncan has his rings already

[Eazy E]

I think almost everyone is backing the Cavs at this point... including me.  I would find another SA championship incredibly boring... the league NEEDS Lebron to take this one.