If you thought things would shake out by now, you'd be wrong.
If the Hornets win tonight(vs Clippers) and the Rockets(vs Clippers), Jazz(vs Spurs) and Suns(vs Portland) win Wednesday, there would be a four-way tie with the Jazz, Rockets, Spurs and Suns.
A 4 way tie!!!
The Jazz have the tie-breaker against the Rockets and Suns.
The Rockets have the tie-breaker against the Suns and Spurs due to conference record.
The Suns have the tie-breaker against the Spurs.
In that case, the Jazz move up to the third seed.
The Rockets become the fourth seed.
The Suns go to fifth place.
The Spurs fall to sixth place.
So, the Spurs game against the Jazz could either swing them to 3rd place or 6th place! That is totally nuts! And this isn't even because of the divisional stupidness.
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Maybe I've got some pistons-itis in that I'm not comfortable being the frontrunner but is it crazy to anyone else that the Lakers are getting all of this love in being called the 'favorites' when they're only going to finish 1-2 games ahead of the next 5 teams?? They're young and play inconsistent defense (and as injury-prone as almost anyone has been). Both usually go hand in hand and also typically equate to failure in a 7 game series against a veteran team. Are they just defaulted now that SanAn has faultered recently? I would bet that the West champ would come from one of the three following teams: Phx, Dal, or San depending as much on match ups as anything. They all have a better mix of veterans that know how to close. How many years will pandits keep making too much of regular season success when predicting post seasons?
It was kinda buried in a few posts back but I find it so amusing I must post it again. Hollinger's SOS rankings: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/powerranking
Easiest 15 schedules=East
Hardest 15 schedules=West
I mean, it seems obvious but you'd think there would be 1-3 stragglers there in the 12-18 range. Also, as of today at least, BOS has the easiest in the entire league and HOU/LAL have the 2nd and 3rd most difficult in the entire league.
couldn't agree more. pundits are dumb (see paragraph 3). i think phx and sas are contenders if only because of their veteran closers, and i think it's folly to not take them seriously just because of some tough stretches recently. we all know that sas is dangerous regardless of what they've done in the last 20 games.
but even with their veteran closers, i've been thoroughly unimpressed with dal. i do get the sneaking suspicion that i'm committing the same crime as these pundits though, and putting too much weight on their poor reg season performance (which i think we can all agree has been poor, especially after the kidd deal), but i haven't seen any really great ball from them in months. i dunno. their talent level is way higher than their performance level so far, but maybe i should heed my own (and jer's) advice and ignore reg season.
as for SOS, it's bonkers to me that the pundits haven't jumped all over this. shasher called bos out for a weak schedule (correctly) months ago, and i still haven't heard any of the 'pro' analysts talk about it. what gives? i feel like most of these guys aren't real fans, and don't really look at anything but the Ws. except stephen a smith that guys a genius. i like when he called out the nuggets to win it all at the start of the season.
I definitely hear where you're coming from. I had the exact same view for DAL and PHX just 3-4 weeks ago. I've seen 2-3 games of each team over that span though and both have impressed me in the exact same way: defense.
Before, I would have said the SAN, BOS, & DET had the market cornered as far as defensive prowess goes but PHX and DAL have both shown me stretches of superb defensive energy. If you been around me for more than 5 minutes, I've probably mentioned my full fledged faith in defense. What's great about a defensive minded team is that your offense doesn't need to average 100 pts/game. They just have to be competent enough to score at least 1 more point than you've held your opponent to. That usually means they have to have the patience/collectiveness to put in a basket or two in the final few minutes of a game.
I do think that CLE, LAL, & NOH are all wildcards in this arena. I mean CLE was successful enough last year to make it to the finals by playing defense and telling LBJ to score 2 more during crunch times.
http://www.nba.com/playoffs2007/series/index.html
along the DAL note... we won't know until later tonight but it'd be a shame to see them play NOH in the first round. I think it'll be a great series but I also think both teams are so well matched (and very talented) that the loser may even have been able to advance to the conf. finals themselves.
agreed. i'm a D guy too. phx has had some incredible defensive quarters, and even a few halves. but i still haven't seen them string together more than that at a time, so my faith that they will do it 20 games in a row is kinda flimsy.
to be honest, i haven't watched too much dallas, but they were solid in that noh game the other day. still though, i have even less faith in their defense, just due to the lack of it i've seen in most of the minutes i've watched since the kidd deal.i mean, its almost as if they just didn't care until now (oh god am i buying jer's conspiracy theory?!) but that noh game was the first time i've seen em really light up. of course, it helps that j terry couldn't miss. i think that's the best shooting game i've seen him play. anyway, F dallas.
F the Cs
and F the yanks
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