10 Worst Performances from the 2012 NBA Playoffs Weekend

Well ladies and gentlemen, the past two days is the reason why the NBA Playoffs are as exciting, if not more exciting than every other sport out there.

We saw one of the most important players in the NBA tear his ACL, we saw a game winner from one game, a record-tying triple-double in another game, and the biggest comeback in the history of the NBA playoffs in the final game last night.

If you're not satisfied with the weekend's lineup of games, then you're never going to be satisfied with some good, hard-fought NBA basketball.

Some teams are going into the second game of their series with their head held high, while others are going to need to reevaluate what went wrong and figure out exactly who they need to play better.

There are quite a few players out there who had a terrible Game 1, and these are the guys who need to step it up a notch for the next game of their series.

Tyson Chandler

I'm not going to be too rough on the guy because he has the flu, but the game that Tyson Chandler played on Saturday against the Miami Heat isn't one that's going to do much good for the New York Knicks.

Chandler missed all three shots he took, going scoreless for the game, but more importantly he was getting boxed out and harassed from every angle, grabbing just three rebounds and turning the ball over an ugly seven times.

Chandler is going to need to get healthy soon or take a game off, because he's not helping his team by playing sick.

Joe Johnson

I was skeptical as to whether or not Avery Bradley could hold down Joe Johnson, a guy who is a good four inches taller than him at the least, but he did quite well with the bigger man.

Johnson, although his team won, played an ugly game, making just three of his 15 shots and scoring just 11 points. He was, however, able to grab four rebounds and dish out five assists.

The Hawks went home with a win, and that was with Johnson struggling on the offensive end of the game, which has to make their fans optimistic for the rest of the series, at least for now.

Carmelo Anthony

Right now it's seeming like nobody on the New York Knicks played well, and with Iman Shumpert out for the rest of the year with a torn ACL, you have to imagine that they're a bit more than concerned.

After taking over the team offensively over the past month or so, Carmelo Anthony had a terrible game yesterday, scoring 11 points on 3-15 shooting to go along with four turnovers, although he did pull down 10 rebounds.

Carmelo was hassled by LeBron James the entire game, and it showed that he wasn't ready for the physical nature of the game from the superstar. Perhaps he'll come back in the Knicks' next game ready to throw his body around in the post a bit more.

Hedo Turkoglu

I can recall watching the Pacers-Magic game with great interest, impressed that the Magic were playing as well as they were, but one thought constantly crept into my mind. "Why do they keep trying to get Hedo involved when he's this cold?" I thought.

Hedo made just three of his 10 shots, scoring nine points in the process to go along with three rebounds and three assists. To top it all off, Hedo played terrible defense.

It has to be promising to Magic fans, however, to think that they had a guy play as bad as Hedo did and still come out on top of a great Pacers team on the road.

Arron Afflalo

Arron Afflalo was one of those guys that everyone kind of expected to have a breakout year back in December. Well, he's played well enough so that nobody calls him out on his stagnant season, but he didn't exactly improve much over the past 66 (well, 67 at this point) games.

Yesterday against the Lakers, Afflalo had the task of tracking down Kobe Bryant for a good chunk of the game, and he didn't do a terrible job as Kobe didn't score an eye-popping number of points, but he did end up with 31 after a mediocre shooting night.

Offensively, Afflalo was painful to watch as he made just three of his 11 shots, giving his team nine points and not much else. If he can turn it on he could be the key to this team stealing some wins, otherwise they can kiss this series goodbye.

Ty Lawson

As the starting point guard of a fast-paced offensive juggernaut, you would think that Ty Lawson would either come out of Sunday's first game against the Lakers with a bushel of points or a bundle of assists. Well, he ended up with neither.

A poor shooting night was all he could come up with as he made just three of his 11 shots, scoring just seven points to go along with his measly two assists.

If Lawson isn't going to be able to score, the team might as well just have Andre Miller in as their primary guard, he's at least better at controlling the tempo of a game and keeping it up Denver's alley, something Lawson failed miserably at on Sunday.

Zach Randolph

Egregious collapse aside, the Memphis Grizzlies played pretty good last night against the Los Angeles Clippers. In fact, for 40 minutes they were the best team of the entire weekend.

However, one player stood out above the rest on Memphis as the guy who's going to need to step up over the rest of this series if they want to keep this series from being remembered for that collapse.

Zach Randolph scored just six points on three of 13 shooting while grabbing eight rebounds. His defense was good enough at times, other time it seemed like Blake Griffin was just stepping over him.

In all, Randolph looked lethargic and just unable to keep up with the rest of the squad when he had been in for too long. Perhaps they should think before bringing him off the bench again.

Amar'e Stoudemire

It was crazy to see just how invisible Amar'e Stoudemire was in the first game the Knicks had against the Heat.

Statistically he was bad, scoring just nine points on 2-7 shooting and grabbing just five rebounds, but that was only half the story.

Amar'e was rotating poorly to help on defense, he wasn't getting out to the three-point line in any kind of respectable time to help contest shots and he just didn't look like he was ready for the increased intensity that the Heat brought. He better be ready for Game 2, otherwise he's going to have to be ready for an early start to his summer.

Lou Williams

The way Lou Williams played in the first game is enough for me to think that the Bulls will still have no problem getting out of the first round, even without Derrick Rose.

Williams, Philly's leading scorer during the regular season, was absolutely shut down by the corps of point guards in Chicago, scoring just nine points on 1-6 shooting to go along with just two assists.

He did little to get himself involved and he did little to get his teammates involved, and if that continues then Chicago can go ahead and start to figure out how to get along without Rose in the second round.

Devin Harris

Devin Harris almost had me convinced that he was going to be back near the level that he was at back when he was running things with the New Jersey Nets. Almost.

After yesterday's game against the San Antonio Spurs when he went out and laid an egg, completely unable to run any kind of offense or keep up with Tony Parker even for a second, I remembered that he was Devin Harris.

His stat line of seven points on 3-9 shooting, accompanied by just two assists, three rebounds and an atrocious five turnovers is enough to make anyone doubt his resurgence. 

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