'09 NBA Playoffs: Western Conference Finals Analysis/Predictions

It is really nice to see that the Orlando Magic finally played up to their skill level for a full forty eight minutes last night in game seven against the Boston Celtics.
Why did I pick the Celtics to win the series? Well, the one and only reason is not because I thought the C's were a better team without Kevin Garnett to beat the Magic but rather because Orlando is much like the Los Angeles Lakers in the sense that they both have a Jekyl and Hyde complex to their overall team personality. Both are very good teams that are stacked and should be putting other teams like the Celtics (sans KG) and Rockets (sans Yao Ming) away relatively easy. But for some reason they (Magic and Lakers) have been displaying a tendency to play horribly at times.

I find it utterly amazing that the four remaining teams in this years playoffs can be paired up in twos when it comes to their playing personalities. I have already alluded to the fact that Lakers and Magic are similar with their off and on play. The Cleveland Cavaliers and the Denver Nuggets are quite the opposite of them. Cleveland and Denver have relatively played at a consistent level so far. The Cavs swept the Atlanta Hawks (their second sweep in a row), while the Nuggets disposed of the Dallas Mavericks in five games. Both teams have been able to impose their will on their opponents and have won most of their games by double digits.

With the Conference Finals about to start on Tuesday, the question I have is, which team tendency/personality will be most dominant. Will the Lakers and Magic continue to play poorly at times. Will they turn it on just enough to win a series, much like the game sevens last night in which they both played really well. Will Denver and Cleveland be dominant in their respective series against the inconsistent two?

Here's what I think will happen in the West. My Eastern Conference analysis/prediction will be out by Wednesday morning.

WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS
1. Los Angeles vs 2. Denver
In the back of my head, I am thinking that it would have been a better situation for the Denver Nuggets if the Lakers had won their series in five or six games. The fact that Kobe and his team mates had to dig deep in order to put the Houston Rockets away, means the Lakers have woken up and realized how good they are when firing on all cylinders. We all know that fear and a good kick in the butt can motivate us to take a step back and re-evaluate our approach to our situation. After cruising by the Utah Jazz in five games, the Lakers became lackadaisical in their approach against the Rockets. When the Rockets lost Yao Ming at the end of game three, a game in which they took bad shots and did not play good defense. The Lakers performance in the next game was absolutely bizarre for every one that was watching it. Their loss in game four was the much needed kick in the butt. They woke up for game five by blowing out Houston with a forty point margin. Fortunately, they lost game six......yes, I said fortunately!!! I say this because their inability to close out the Rockets in game six resulted in their elevated play in game seven.

Will game seven be the launching pad that the Lakers need in order for them beat the Nuggets?

Carmelo Anthony is flat out the best scorer in the league. I will give you guys a little while to let that sink in.............I hope that was enough time. I did not say best player. I said best scorer. Kobe can knock down his shots when he needs to. Lebron can simply out muscle almost anyone to get his shot. D-Wade does too much dribbling to get his shot and is still not much of a shooter. Carmelo Anthony is way more smoother and polished as a scorer than his counterparts. Nobody uses the jab step better than he does. His elevation and point of shot release is near perfect. If you have been paying attention like I have; you will notice that he almost never fades away for his shots. He simply uses his dribble to effectively create space and then just goes straight up for his shot.

This is not about Carmelo though. The reason I seem to be pouring out adoration for him has a more to do with how his team is a lot like him in the scoring department. The Nuggets score effortlessly against most defenses. The efficiency of Melo's Jab step brings to mind the efficiency of his supporting cast of players. Chris "Birdman" Anderson, J.R Smith and Anthony Carter are about as efficient as it gets. They play with high intensity at all times and have caused havoc on both sides of the court. Nene and Kenyon Martin are two of the most physical post defenders in the league. Dahntay Jones has surprised many people with his shooting but it's no surprise that it's his defense that will earn him the task of guarding Kobe in this series. Jones is very athletic and a good defender but the possibility of going head to head with Kobe is a daunting task. Good luck Dahntay!!!

The Lakers might have gotten the rude awakening that they needed and they will be determined not to play like they did in the Houston series. Denver has had problems with defense in the past but they have always been a good offensive team. So far, in this years playoffs, they have been tough on all facets of their defensive game. If Martin can make Dirk Nowitzki work really hard for every point that he gets, then how in the world is Pau Gasol (who is not as polished offensively as Dirk) going to be able to help the Lakers in the post. Andrew Bynum can't seem to stay out of foul trouble. Although he is much taller than Nene, I think that Nene's physical style of play will render the young Bynum helpless for the Lakers cause. Chauncey Billups is way too savvy and way too good at his job to let the recent success of the Nuggets to get in their heads. He will make sure that they are well prepared for this battle. I know Kobe is great and the Lakers "can" be explosive but the Nuggets are almost always explosive. Scoring comes naturally to the Nuggets and defense is finally something they pay a lot of attention to.
My Prediction: Nuggets win series 4-3

Sportacularly yours,

The Vicarious Athlete

Sam No More!!!/MVP-DS Part 3 of 14

I would like to start by conjuring the spirit of Boyz II Men past and sing an oldie but a goodie. This is dedicated to you, Sam Mitchell.

How do I say goodbye to what we had?
The good times that made us laugh
Outweigh the bad.

I thought we'd get to see forever
But forever's gone away
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

I don't know where this road
Is going to lead
All I know is where we've been
And what we've been through.

If we get to see tomorrow
I hope it's worth all the wait
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday.

....Okay, that's about enough of that song. I find it interesting that the words of the song fits perfectly to how most Raptor fans are feeling today after the "semi-shocker" that was when Bryan Colangelo decided that it was necessary to relieve Sam Mitchell of his duties as the coach of our beloved basketball team.

It's hard to say goodbye because we have all fallen in love with Mitchell's character and his coaching style. Now we are left to wonder what the future holds with the new bench boss; Jay Triano. I must be honest with you all. I saw this coming and I am pretty sure that a good number of people also knew his days were numbered. If I may tap into the feelings of fans in this great city of ours, I would say that the sadness is not because we thought it's a bad move that Mitchell got fired but rather because we liked his honesty and sound bites. I always look forward to watching Raptors T.V the morning after a game to see him surrounded by media scrums, picking on them, making fun of them and their sometimes ridiculous questions. Sam Mitchell was not a bad coach but he was not good enough for this team. He needed to be fired for his own personal growth as an NBA coach.

When I heard the news yesterday, I was in my class and my initial reaction was....YES!!!. Yes because I love my Raptors more than the person coaching them. Like the Cliche goes, "nothing personal, it's just business." A couple of good friends kept texting me while my class was going on and I replied every time simply because this was an important issue that needed to be bantered about. My friend Zu really liked Sam and he felt that it was basically a knee-jerk reaction to the loss in Denver that resulted in his firing. I responded that even though Sam was a good coach, he was not an X and O's type of coach. Aside from high and low pick and rolls that consisted of the majority of his play calling, it was evident that he was being out-smarted by most other coaches on both the offensive and defensive end. Sam had no set defensive schemes and after five years it just seemed as though he wasn't going to be able to make the right defensive adjustments; from a game to game basis.

I got home from my class around 10:30 pm and the first thing I did was make a call to another good friend. Howell (or as I'll refer to him in future postings: A-Ho) was the other one that had been texting me and actually called a couple of times when I was in class. Now, it's important that I mention that A-Ho is a crazed Raptor fan just like I am. We were on the phone until almost midnight. Naturally we started with the Mitchell firing and then we talked about Stephon Marbury and how it would be a good thing if Colangelo made a move to get him. If and when he gets his buyout from the Knicks.

There is one topic that A-Ho and I talked about but not in great length. It was the fact that Colangelo probably had in mind to fire Mitchell when he came over from the Pheonix Suns. Colangelo couldn't fire Sam after he was honored with the Coach of the Year award for the 2006-2007 season and thus he rewarded Sam with a 4 year contract. This eased the media pressure on Colangelo that kept questioning if he planned on bringing in another coach that he personally selected. The new contract for Mitchell made it seem that his job was safe but the truth is that coaches get fired all the time. It does not matter if a coach signed a lucrative mutli-year contract because as soon as the team starts to struggle and in the Raptors case; underachieve. The first person that gets made as the scape goat is the coach. I think it's a PR move by most GM's. It's an attempt to put out a small fire before it becomes a forrest fire. GM's make moves like this to make it seem that they are not sitting on their hands while the team is potentially tanking the season. I think Colangelo partially did this but also thought it was the perfect opportunity to make the change he wanted to make from the day he got the gig in Toronto. The unfortunate thing is that we won't know if this is a great move until we find out whom Colangelo will replace Jay Triano with. Triano will be the interim coach for the rest of this season.

IMPORTANT NOTE: CONGRATULATIONS TO JAY TRIANO FOR BECOMING THE FIRST CANADIAN BORN NBA HEAD COACH. I HOPE THIS WILL OPEN MANY OTHER COACHING OPPORTUNITIES IN THE NBA. KUDOS AND WELL DESERVED!!!

My parting statement on this is that even though Sam Mitchell was not the right coach, he was the "right-now" coach. The team is currently 8-9 and have seen their best post rebounder and defender miss five of the last seven games because of an injury. Even though Mitchell had his coaching shortcomings, he was not an incompetent bench boss and by all accounts he still had the ears and trust of the players. Colangelo is one of the best GM's in the game and I am sure that this is not the last of the moves he will be making this season.

NBA tidbit for ya'll: With all the economic down turn that is going on right now, it is amazing that NBAstore.com has just reported a 70 percent increase in sales from last year at this point of the season. I guess this is a nice transition into my MVP-DS voting......

..........according to reports, the main reason behind the seventy percent increase in overall sales is the actual sales of Chris Paul jerseys. Wow!!!

My MVP-DS is shorter because of the Mitchell firing. Here are my votes for the last six games that were played in the association:

Chris Paul gets a vote. He deserves one just for carrying the NBA in merchandising sales but the real reason is because he has been playing a phenomenal brand of basketball in the past six games. He is five games away from breaking the league record of consecutive games with a steal.

Lebron James gets back into the votes here. His team went 6-0 during the voting stretch and his numbers were simply out of this world. It's almost as if LBJ read my last blog entry because he has averaged a blocked shot in 5 of the last 6 games. Keep it up King James!!!

Dwayne Wade stays on course here by carrying a team that does not deserve to be 10-9. His stats are still outstanding and his team went 3-3 in the last six games. Including victories in Pheonix, Golden State and Utah.

Kobe Bryant finally gets on here. He deserves it because he is finally trusting his team mates and he is sacrificing his stats in order to get more wins and hopefully a championship. His stats aren't bad either. His 25ppg places him in the fourth spot in league scoring.

Vote totals:
Chris Paul - 3 votes
Dwayne Wade - 3 votes
Chris Bosh - 2 votes
Lebron James - 2 vote
Dwight Howard - 1 vote
Kobe Bryant - 1 votes

Sportacularly yours,

The Vicarious Athlete

MVP-DS Part 2 of 14

First things first, I refuse to comment or blog on the dismal performance of my Raptors against the New Jersey Nets a couple of days ago. Hurts too much! Way too much!!!

Lebron James is not getting a vote in this installment of my Most Valuable Player-Decider System. I know his numbers are great. His numbers will always be great and his team has a 10-3 record but as I stated in the first installment of the MVP-DS, team record will not be a factor until the end of the season.
I'll briefly revisit it for you. If a players team does not make the playoffs or has an horrendous team record close to the end of the season, then he loses his votes. Obviously if a player has astronomical numbers but his team goes 0-6 during a voting stretch, then the result is no votes. What I am using as a main criteria for getting votes is the players stats and also the amount of supporting cast that the player has. LBJ is averaging 29ppg, 8rpg, 7asg and 1spg. Yeah, I know those are great numbers but the reason he gets no votes is that fact that his team can survive a bad game from him. Also important to getting left off this list is the fact that he is not filling the stats sheet in the blocks department. At 6'8, I guess I expect more from him in that department. You will see as you read this blog that a close friend of LBJ whom is way shorter is filling up the stats in the blocks department.

I think I have spent enough time on someone that's not getting a vote. On to the candidates.........

Is there anyone at this junction into the 08/09 NBA season that's more valuable to his team that Dwayne Wade. The simple answer is no!!! The Miami Heat should not be 7-6 and sitting in third place in the southeast standings. After seeing D-Wades performance in the Olympics, I was convinced that he would be unstoppable this season. I figured he would score a ton of points but the fact that he is currently averaging a career high in three categories is the main reason why he is the first on the list of candidates. Twenty-nine points per game seats him in the second spot for the league lead but the shocking stat is the 2bpg. At 6 foot 4 and being a shooting guard, the blocks are a revelation that his resurgence as an elite player, after an injury filled 07/08 season, is complete. Wade has also upped his steals(2.4) and assist(8). He goes to the charity stripe at a clip of eight times per game. I admit that he could improve on his ft percentage from seventy seven to around eighty percent but there is no other player in the league that is doing more for his team at this juncture in the season.


The second player to get a vote is Chris Paul. Lets talk about efficiency for a second here. CP3 is averaging three less shots per game this season but has managed to maintain his 21 point average from last season. He is currently shooting 53 percent from the field and is leading the league with averages 12 assist and 3 steals per game. CP3 has averaged in double digits in the assist department in every game except for two and has had a steal for the 96th consecutive game, this is only nine short of the NBA record of 105 set by Alvin Robertson. Paul had a triple-double for the first time this season in yesterdays win over the woeful Oklahoma Thunder.

The best power forward in the game right now is Chris Bosh! I'm not going to make the mistake of leaving him off the list this time. How could I anyway. The proof is in the pudding......and CB4's game is nice like chocolate pudding. Ahem, I know that was lame but I don't care. Tell me of any forward in the game right now that has the arsenal of offensive weapons that Bosh possesses. I say he edges even Kevin Garnett by a small margin. A career high of 27 points and 11 rebounds per game makes him one of the best players in the game right now.

I am going to go off the MVP rant a little here. A couple of days ago, while watching the half-time show on NBA TV, former Raptor Jalen Rose made a bold statement that he claims was provided by "some very credible sources." He stated that Lebron James and Chris Bosh are going to sign with the New York Knicks in 2010. He repeated it several times and got even more confident each time he said it. I am left with this conclusion that Rose is either trying to establish himself as an NBA insider a la Peter Vescey, so he is throwing out bold but baseless statements or he actually has managed to get an inside scope on this matter. Ever if it's fact or fabrication, it's not something that I am pleased to hear. After the Knicks traded Jamal Crawford, Zack Randolph and Mardy Colins a couple of days ago, New York has now cleared around US$27 million in salary-cap space for 2010. Folks, that is enough to sign both LBJ and CB4. Now consider how much they will have when they finally trade or buy-out the problematic Stephon Marbury. As a Bosh/Raptor fan, this worries me, BIG TIME!!!

Back to the votes. The second installment votes go to Dwayne Wade, Chris Paul and Chris Bosh.

Here's the tally:

Chris Paul - 2 votes
Chris Bosh - 2 votes
Dwayne Wade - 2 votes
Lebron James - 1 vote
Dwight Howard - 1 vote
Kobe Bryant - 0 votes

Sportacularly yours,

The Vicarious Athlete