Playoff Reflections
by Dave on Apr 29, 2008 11:13 PM PDT
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PrintWe're going to take a brief break from the player recaps today to allow you more time to read Ben's excellent interview with the Columbian's Brian Hendrickson below and also to give some brief relfections on the playoffs. To wit:
--We're seeing a classic story in the West, one that's repeated almost every year: there are teams that look good and then there are good teams. I've told the story before of the scary teams in the Western Conference back in the early-90's Drexler days. San Antonio and Phoenix looked intimidating on paper. Every pre-season you'd say, "We could have real trouble with them. How are we going to manage that?" When it came down to an actual seven-game series paper didn't matter. Portland was a superior team, well-rounded and hardened. It didn't matter how many boxscore heroes were on the other side. This year we're watching teams like San Antonio and L.A. prove the same thing, as indeed the Spurs have shown for most of the last decade. There are probably 5-6 good playoff teams in the West right now. I would say two of those are probably championship-level. This is part of the reason it's possible that Portland could crack the seemingly-tough Western seeding next year. It's also why I'm confident that the Blazers will be upper-echelon throughout the coming decade. This team isn't being built to impress, nor to head people's fantasy squads. It's being built from the ground up to win.
--I'll admit that the Hawks winning two games against the Celtics is a moderate surprise, but I don't think it's nearly as big of a deal as the national media seems to be making it. For one thing the Celtics, despite the fanfare, have not yet been tested in a long series. This really is a different setup than the regular season. These guys have been through zero playoff series together. Of course you expect them to beat the Hawks, but a cakewalk is a little much to assume. Second, certain things make NBA teams dangerous at any given moment. Athleticism like the Hawks have is one of them. Also they have talent, but not selfish talent. That helps. Over time the Celtics average more wins in a head-to-head matchup than Atlanta does. But in any given game you have to think the Hawks' ability to bum rush you gives them a chance.
--The second round in both the East and West should be interesting. It'll probably be Boston, Detroit, Cleveland, and Orlando plus San Antonio, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Utah. You wouldn't be completely surprised to see any of those teams in the Finals. The ones that you'd suspect least are also the ones that made it farther than you thought they would a year ago. Fair warning though: this is where you're going to see the small cracks in some of these teams exposed and exploited. You better be able to D-up individually and as a team. You also better be ready to leave your hearts out there on every play. If a seven-game series in general is tough, a seven-game series against the best in the league is murder.
Enjoy watching!
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)
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Light being shed on West
Interesting points Dave. Many of the teams we may have worried about before the season, or even doubted ourselves against heading into the playoffs, are not proving to be very resilient. I’m thinking solely Western Conference here, those are obviously, Dallas, Phoenix, and Denver.
It will be interesting to see how all three of these teams decide to go forward. I think this could open up the West a bit for the younger up and coming squads!
PSU Roots Festival, May 22nd! FREE! www.roots.groups.pdx.edu
by courtsideerrandboy on Apr 29, 2008 11:45 PM PDT reply actions
Nate as our coach
I’m confident of our chances in a 7 game series. I’m always impressed by his ability to understand how the game was won and lost. Considering our impressive record in close games, I believe Nate can make the right adjustments in games and between games as well.
While I believe personnel talent alone can achieve success in the regular season, the coaches separate the pretenders and the contenders in the playoffs. Nate did a great job when the Sonics made it, getting past the first round and giving the Spurs a run for their money. I’m looking forward to seeing how Coach Nate does in the playoffs with the Blazers.
BINGO, BANGO, BONGO
And an added note:
All of the first-round losers so far are looking like their coaches are in trouble: Toronto, Phoenix, Denver, and Dallas.
You can say that Detroit and Boston WILL advance, even though they haven’t; well, why haven’t they?
Guess what: For all their great records, Doc Rivers and Flip Saunders entered the season on questionable footing.
The teams that are struggling in the first round (be it losing or just underachieving as a top seed) all have coach-team insecurities.
And the two series I HAVEN’T mentioned, matchups still in progress, include one where neither coach is impressive (Cavs-Whizz)
and one where I both coaches clearly have their team and coach well (Sloan-Adelman).
The obvious lesson: When the coach doesn’t have the full confidence of his team (players and/or organization),
that team underachieves in the playoffs, no matter the talent level, and even if they were dominant in the regular season.
And thats why the whole we-have-Nate thing you mention is so huge.
Blazers have a five-on-three...and they pull it back and wait for help.
spell check
“built from the ground up”
I don’t want to be a spelling freak, but for the front page, I thought you might want to fix that one. You can zap this comment if you want—won’t further the conversation.
Other people don't have as much practice at being wrong as I do -- HT, timbo
I was built
From the groin up.
I'm a man without a signature. Like a cassette without a player.
by tominhawaii on Apr 30, 2008 12:23 AM PDT up reply actions
PS
My TiH stats sure junked it up in the west. Junk I tell ya, junk!
I'm a man without a signature. Like a cassette without a player.
by tominhawaii on Apr 30, 2008 12:23 AM PDT up reply actions
Not if
Not if you meant for the lower number to be the winner. If so, Oden’s #56 is gonna hurt us next season…
Morty-purr
Well
I don’t know. I tried to only apply it to the playoffs. Since I thought was working, I didn’t want to tweak it too much. I think we’ll be fine, all the guys that KP is trading for will fix the roster. He’ll only trade for low number guys next season.
Mahna mahna, (ba dee bedebe), mahna mahna, (ba debe dee), mahna mahna, (ba dee bedebe badebe badebe dee dee de-de de-de-de)
(repeats)
mah mama na mahna mah namwomp mwomp, ma mo mo mana mo, mahna mahna, (ba dee bedebe), mahna mahna, (ba debe dee), Mahna Mahna! (ba dee bedebe bedebe badebe debe de-de de-de-de)
(long pause)
...mahna mahna?
Yeah
I saw that. It made it work better. I think it’s something that will warrant a discussion after the playoffs. If I’m gonna tweak them, I’ll need an excuse. It can be a lame excuse, but I’ll need an excuse, just the same.
Mahna mahna, (ba dee bedebe), mahna mahna, (ba debe dee), mahna mahna, (ba dee bedebe badebe badebe dee dee de-de de-de-de)
Boston
Boston dropping 2 in Atlanta is every bit as much of a surprise as the national media are making it. Experience in the playoffs is overrated. Ask the New Orleans Hornets or Dallas Mavericks how much experience meant in that series. The better team tends to win playoff series regardless of experience.
Boston win the next 2 but if they manage to lose the series it will be a bigger shock than GSW over Dallas last year.
Boomshakalaka
Big time shock
Atlanta basically backed their way into the playoffs, making it by default because everyone else was so awful in the East. Boston is built for a championship RIGHT NOW and anything else is a failure. Dallas was a favorite to win it all last year also, but they had known holes in their game and weren’t seen as dominant in any one aspect of the game. Because of how the regular season series went and the history with Don Nelson, many even predicted the Warriors causing problems for the Mavs. Boston’s defense was supposed to be playoff ready and the key to them cakewalking to the Finals… now here they are, struggling with a team that didn’t even win 40 games. This was supposed to be the most boring series in the first round.
It’s awesome.
I don’t know what I’d do if Boston lost. My schadenfreude would be so amped I’d worry that the Blazers team plane would crash to teach me not to savor other’s misfortunes. If Boston loses in the 1st round, I hope they cut to that lame Boston fan with the backwards baseball cap at the draft lottery last year, shocked his team didn’t tank it’s way to Oden. I love that guy. “HEY BUT WE’RE BOSTON WAHHH”. Hee hee.
I wonder if fans will show up in ATL next season now?
Mortimer
BTW
D’Antoni and Avery Johnson have both been fired as of last night.
If anyone suggests we should replace Mac-10 with either of them, I am going to slap the living-you-know-what out of their various cavities.
Pritchard, for the love of everything sane, DO NOT hire either of those two as your head coach.
Damn
I guess it isn’t a huge surprise, but it sure didn’t take long. Maybe the coaches can just switch jobs?
I wonder if Larry Brown is kicking himself for already taking the Bobcats job.
We gotta stick with Nate, he’s awesome. He’s more all-round than D’Antoni and less hard headed than Avery. Nate is perfect.
Mortimer
I dunno, I still am not sure
whether I see Nate as the coach of a championship team. It’s kind of hard to say until you see someone in the crucible of tough playoff series, but he’s definitely not infallible.
BTW, last three COY winners, in order: Dantoni, Avery, Sam Mitchell. Sam just got renewed but it wouldn’t be crazy to think he’s kind of in the hot seat with the way the Raps played the last two postseasons. Have there ever been an offseason where the last 3 coys all got fired in the same summer?
by howlingfantods on Apr 30, 2008 8:05 AM PDT up reply actions
Nate's shown real growth
The worry at first was that Nate might be too much of a hard ass, which is fine at first but like with Skiles and Avery, the players tune the coach out after a while. Nate even said he felt like this happened in Seattle. From my outside status following the team closely, he has really seemed to loosen up with how he deals with the players and worked on forming close relationships. I think he has already shown to be a great coach in close games, and he did well in the playoffs before with a way over achieving Seattle team.
Even in our awful 21 win season, Nate has us overachieving. His teams play better than they should.
I think Nate is our coach for the long term. I don’t see our Big Three ever having a problem with him, nor he with them. It’s a perfect situation. Lucky for him, those three are a coach’s dream.
Nate has been much more introspective than I thought he’d be. Usually the Tough Guy coaches are ‘my way or the high way’ dudes. Nate is reportedly stubborn, but he’ll change his mind when evidence points elsewhere.
COY is like the NBA Live or SI curse. I’m glad Nate wasn’t even close to winning! How many coaches has Kidd gotten fired now?
Like I mentioned in another thread, D’Antoni will be a catch for some lucky franchise that wants to have a fun team. I prefer who we have though.
Mortimer
Yeah, but there's a difference
between coaches who get a lot out of their team (like Adelman) and a coach who can guide their teams to championships (like Phil Jackson and Pops). Basically it’s things like making adjustments in game, recognizing what’s working and what’s not very early within the game, knowing how to set your team up during the regular season for what they’re going to be doing in the playoffs and so on.
Like I said, it’s hard to know without seeing the coach in the playoff crucible. But I dunno, Nate just doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in me, there’s been too many games where he went with a Frye/Trout frontcourt too long, or went away from a zone that was working, or relied overmuch on the everyone watch Trout go one on one offense in crunchtime. That kind of stuff can work in the regular season, but destroys you in the playoffs.
by howlingfantods on Apr 30, 2008 8:31 AM PDT up reply actions
I'm optimistic
Some of those lineups are forced on him; Frye/Trout is a horrible rebounding lineup but you gotta find minutes for those two somehow and LMA and Pryzzle can’t play 48 mins.
I thought we used the zone great usually, which was nice because we needed it with our lack of one on one defenders. Everyone watching either Roy or Trout work in the 4th is more player inexperience than coaching; when we moved the ball and hit the open man (like during the 13 game win streak) seems more like what the coaches are looking for.
Any problems I see us having this past season can be chalked up to injuries, youth, and inexperience. The only mistake I think Nate made was not playing Joel more early in the year.
Nate has been in the playoffs a few times, and he and his staff have been known to make nice adjustments. I’m not sure why you don’t got much confidence in him, but who knows what the future holds. I like Nate, and I hope it works out.
Mortimer
Ohhh, I had Charlotte as my pre-season dark horse.
Obviously, I was WAY off, but I was also way off with my dark horse last year: Hornets.
Charlotte may be much closer to really good than their record and history look.
That’s a fine collection of young talent, with more on the way this year.
I’m not saying they’ll do next year what the Hornets did this year (or what we’re doing over the course of several years),
but at the very least, I’d say Atlanta’s a fine comparison for what Charlotte could do in a year’s time.
Larry Brown is set up well there.
Blazers have a five-on-three...and they pull it back and wait for help.
this was a reply to Mortimer's "Larry Brown kicking himself" post
even I can’t tell that right now just by looking
Blazers have a five-on-three...and they pull it back and wait for help.
Don't sleep on Houston.
If they manage to win another in Utah in game 6, they can close out the series at home. Worse than even odds on that but not farfetched either, since Rafer returned, the team has clearly been better than the Jazz. Too bad they spotted them two games at home.
I dunno howling
I agree that the Rockets have looked a lot better than the Jazz lately…but even if they improbably win this series in seven, they’ll still get sliced to pieces by the L*kers (I feel dirty just saying it, but it’s true). Kobe > T-mac, Kobe’s Supporting Cast > T-mac’s Supporting Cast, Phil Jackson > Rick Adelman (showering now…). I might just keep sleeping on ‘em.
by BlazersOrBust on Apr 30, 2008 8:39 AM PDT up reply actions
Houston is amazing defensively.
They were ranked #2, but I actually think they’ve gotten better with Yao out and are maybe the best defensive team I’ve seen in a while.
Yeah, Lakers looked like the greatest team ever against the Nuggets. But there’s no D in Enver, everyone looks great against them.
Still, point taken - when I say “don’t sleep on Houston”, I meant that just for the first round, with most folks assuming Jazz will win. You can continue to sleep on them for winning it all - they won’t, it’s still Spurs, Lakers, Celts, Pistons. My bet is still Celts beating the Spurs, fwiw, if Doc can ever extract his head from out of his ass.
by howlingfantods on Apr 30, 2008 8:56 AM PDT up reply actions
Dave: You describe the West as having two "championship-level" teams.
I’m assuming you’re talking about the Spoors and L[xxx]rs.
Are you sure the Hornets aren’t championship-level? You DID say definitively TWO teams,
not “two, maybe three”, even though you give that leeway on “5-6 good playoff teams”.
I’m not sure the Hornets are made of championship stuff, but I’m not sure they’re NOT, either.
(We’ll probably find out in round 2 though, won’t we?)
Blazers have a five-on-three...and they pull it back and wait for help.
when will the spurs decline?
We may be looking at really only two rapidly ascendant powerhouse teams in the West besides the Blazers: the L*kers and the Hornets. Aren’t the Spurs going to face decline within the next couple years? Duncan is no spring chicken and Ginobili is bound to wear out his body because of the way he plays.
Where have all the flowers gone?
by bilingual octopus on Apr 30, 2008 1:22 PM PDT reply actions
You're being suckered
by all of his flopping. Ginobili’s no Gerald Wallace, he doesn’t take nearly as much contact as you think, he just falls down on his own a lot. He’s got at least a couple of good years left, especially with the low mileage Pops uses him for and the lower wear and tear in the start of his career in the euroleagues.
by howlingfantods on Apr 30, 2008 1:50 PM PDT up reply actions
With Bowen's age, Manu won't be able to go easy minutes much longer.
He’s going to have to join the starting line-up, and play MAJOR minutes, alongside Parker and Ime in the backcourt.
Blazers have a five-on-three...and they pull it back and wait for help.
Ime replaces Bowen
and if Ime doesn’t continue to improve, they’ll find another SF who can hit open threes and be their go-to wing defender. Manu splits his minutes with Brent Barry & Michael Finley. I think the Spurs will be able to find vet sgs who can step in for them two guys pretty easily, some oldsters hunting for a team to piggyback on for a ring.
by howlingfantods on May 2, 2008 10:55 AM PDT up reply actions
Hrmm
Our story with David Lord on the "trust issue’’ (and how Avery broke it) is, with all due humility, dead-on, as it relates to the Mavs’ thinking on new head coach Rick Carlisle."He’s a quality person,’’ a Mavs staffer says. "He’s not perfect. But he’s not a back-stabber.’’
"Meanwhile, look what Avery did.’’We are told that Donnie is "quite upset’’ that Avery left town with some final jabs at Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd.
From one locker-room confidante: "He turned on Kidd a while back. Not a big surprise. But why go after Dirk? How stupid is that? What did Dirk ever do wrong to Avery?’’
From one front-office confidante: "It’s not just the (backstabbing.) It’s the lying. It’s going to end up hurting Avery.’’
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