NBA Playoffs 2011: 7 Most Important Facts from the 8 Weekend Playoff Games
The first eight games of the 2011 NBA Playoffs are in the books and history was made as for the first time in NBA history (since the playoffs expanded) we saw both a one and two seeded team drop their opening games.
Additionally, we saw in all eight contests the lower seeded team get out to leads by the end of the first quarter or at the half. In several games it took ferocious second half comebacks for the home team and higher seeded club to pull out the playoff victory in these series openers.
Four of the eight games were decided by less than five points and all eight of them were decided by less than 10 points. This is playoff basketball and this weekend’s action was a tasty appetizer for what is sure to be a five-star dinner of playoff excitement.
While some of these tight battles were expected, several of them came seemingly out of nowhere—teams that nobody was giving a realistic shot to win in these series—and not only showed up, but showed they are here to win games and move on in these playoffs.
The intensity level is raised and the tremendous athletes that comprise the NBA are showcasing their abilities at the highest level of competitiveness.
It is a beautiful show to watch when these hardwood gladiators are fighting with all that they have, defending their season, trying desperately to win and stay alive for another battle.
The teams that were able to not only elevate, but maintain and finish games with this heightened level of intensity and effort, were the teams that succeeded over the weekend.
For the clubs that lost, they will now need to dig deep and find ways to match the intensity of their rivals so they can avoid the season threatening 0-2 deficit in their respective series.
Here are the seven most important facts NBA fans can take home from this weekend’s contests.
No. 7 – The Orlando Magic Must Make 3-point Buckets to Win
The Orlando Magic have been built around being able to dump the ball into their All-Star center Dwight Howard and when he is doubled or unavailable, the rest of the Magic team has been able to knock three-point baskets down at a high rate.
For the season, the Magic as a team shot 37 percent from three-point range. Saturday, in their first-round playoff game against the Atlanta Hawks, the Magic mustered just 27 percent.
The Magic got everything they wanted and more from the Olympian Howard, who put up vintage Shaq-like playoff numbers, with 46 points and 19 rebounds.
Had you told Magic fans that Howard would have such a dominating performance, most would have been comfortable in saying the Magic would be easy victors over the Atlanta Hawks.
Not so fast. The Magic—with exception of Jameer Nelson—got almost no productivity out of the rest of their perimeter oriented team. Nelson was awesome, scoring 27 points while hitting 4 of 7 shots from beyond the arc.
Unfortunately for Howard and Nelson, who combined to score 73 of the Magic's 93 points, the rest of the Magic decided to wear blindfolds while playing and combined to make just 2 of 15 shots from downtown.
This Magic will be bounced by the Atlanta Hawks in this first round series if they don’t find a way for Hedu Turkoglu, Jason Richardson, JJ Redick and even the once feared scoring machine, Gilbert Arenas, to fill up the basket from three-point-land.
No. 6 – D-Wade Is the Closer for Miami
In one of those classic "It should have never been this close" type of games, the Miami Heat both overcame an early double digit deficit and then nearly gave away their own double digit lead only to hold on to the series opener against the Philadelphia 76ers.
For the Big Three it was a big relief to get this game; had they lost the weight of the NBA world, the pressure from Miami Heat fans and the media scrutiny would have been more suffocating. Honestly, it may have been too much to overcome for this already highly analyzed group had they been beaten in Game 1 at home to .500-club.
Fortunately for the Big Three and Miami Heat fans around the world, Dwayne Wade was there to seal the game late for Miami.
It wasn’t so much that Wade had a classic MJ or Kobe-like fourth quarter where every possession was his to have. The fact is Wade only managed five points in the quarter. But what was telling about Wade’s fourth quarter performance was the fact that all five of his points came in the final 1:34 of the game and helped preserve and extend a tense one-point lead late.
Additionally, it seemed as though Wade’s teammates looked to him to lead. They wanted Wade to have the ball late. It was evident that it was going to be Wade’s game to win or lose down the stretch in that fourth quarter.
The Heat had let a 13-point lead at the 6:39 mark evaporate down to a one-point game with around two minutes to go.
Somebody had to step up. LeBron James had played an outstanding all-around game, but he only scored two points in that final quarter. Chris Bosh also had played a terrific ball game but he is not a closer. So the Heat turned to Wade.
It was near this point when each Heat possession became Wade’s to decide what to do with. On Saturday afternoon in Miami, this formula worked. Going forward in these playoffs, look for the Heat to count on Wade to be the man with the rock in his palm as the clock ticks down.
No. 5 – Derrick Rose Is the MVP
Not that Derrick Rose needed to put anymore stamps on his 2011 MVP campaign, but just in case there were some voters out there that were still unsure if the 22-year-old Chicago native and All-Star Bulls point guard was deserving of the honor, examine Saturday’s first-round playoff game against the Indiana Pacers as evidence.
Now I know the MVP decision is based on regular season play, but you can be sure the voters were watching the playoffs closely this weekend. In case you missed it, Rose put the explanation point on his regular season MVP campaign by carrying the Bulls to a playoff victory with a dominating 39-point, six-rebound, six assist, three-block game, pulling the Bulls back from defeat in the last three minutes.
Rose was so dominant that Indiana Pacers head coach Frank Vogel had this comment when asked about Rose: “He (Rose) has Allen Iverson quickness, Jason Kidd’s vision, Chauncey Billups' shooting and Michael Jordan’s athleticism—how do you defend that?”
Good question Coach Vogel, I don’t know how you defend Rose—I haven’t seen anyone with the ability to slow Rose off his dribble. As a result, teams are forced to sag off Rose and allow him jump shots. This formula has not been effective this year, largely due to the fact that Rose has dramatically increased his shooting ability, especially from beyond the arc (although Saturday, none of Rose’s 39 points came off three-point baskets) where Rose increased his production from 16 made three-pointers in 2009-10 to 128 made three-pointers this season.
Derrick Rose is the league MVP and the Bulls will need to continue to see Rose perform like an MVP if they want to realize their title aspirations.
No. 4 – Boston Can Still Play Defense
The Boston Celtics-New York Knicks first-round playoff series was one of the most anticipated first-round matchups in recent playoff history.
This series features the aging, yet star-studded, defensive-minded defending Eastern Conference Champion Boston Celtics against the one of the league’s most prolific scoring machines in the New York Knicks.
The Knicks, through a highly publicized midseason trade, acquired one of the NBA’s top scorers and perennial All-Stars in Carmelo Anthony. Along with obtaining the great scorer, the Knicks also acquired the former NBA Finals MVP point guard Chauncey Billups.
The addition of Billups and Anthony to go with All-Star forward Amare Stoudemire suddenly made the Knicks a threat.
After Boston made a far more dubious midseason trade, sending defensive stopper Kendrick Perkins to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Celtics actually looked vulnerable. The Celtics stopped playing that smothering defense and their offense became stagnant.
The Celtics dropped from atop the Eastern Conference and looked as though their dominance in the East may have been slipping.
Through one half last night that trend continued with the Knicks holding a 51-39 advantage at half, but then it happened—somehow, someway, the Celtics began to get stops.
In fact, the Celtics began to get stops in bunches, holding New York to one field goal in the first six minutes of the third quarter. The Celtics only allowed 13 points in the entire third quarter and just 34 in the whole second half.
The Celtics had just enough offense from Ray Allen and Paul Pierce to complete the come from behind victory.
The Celtics proved they are still capable of shutting down an opponent and may not be quite ready to relinquish their tag as the best team in the East.
No. 3 – Durant and Westbrook Are the League’s Best Duo
Throughout the regular season only LeBron James and Dwayne Wade were a statistically better duo than Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. However, statistics alone don’t always tell the story and many began to openly wonder as the season drew to a close if Durant and Westbrook were the better duo.
Sunday night in Oklahoma City you would have been hard pressed to find anyone that wouldn’t agree that Durant and Westbrook are the NBA’s premier one-two punch.
The dynamic duo combined for a ridiculous 72-point, 15-rebound, nine-assist night and obviously were instrumental in preserving another one of the weekend's come from behind wins.
While it is only one game, this duo has been consistently punishing teams together throughout the entire season. Consider the season numbers put up by Durant and Westbrook: The two combined to average 49.6 points, 11.4 rebounds and 10.9 assists.
Staggering, especially considering they are both under the age of 23 and the fact that the two were only 2.6 points, 2.5 assists and 0.7 assists away from meeting the averages of LeBron James and Dwayne Wade.
What jumps this duo above the razor-thin statistically better duo of James and Wade is the dynamic ability of Durant to close out games down the stretch in the fourth quarter. Durant is widely considered the league’s second best closer. Durant has won the last two scoring titles and has shown the ability time and again over the past two seasons to be a stud closer in the NBA.
Durant’s closing ability was shown again in the victory over the Denver Nuggets last night as he scored 11 of his team's 21 fourth quarter points.
No. 2 – The Lakers Can’t Simply Push the "On-Switch"
The two-time defending NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers have long been accused and guilty of playing with less than their best effort at points during the regular season.
If fact, some may even go so far as to say the Lakers simply play with a lack of effort, focus and intensity during large stretches of the regular season.
Yet like clock-work, when the calendar turns to April, May and June this All-Star bunch finds the proverbial "on-switch" and away they go, playing fundamentally sound, crisp, enthusiastic basketball as they march towards another championship.
Yesterday, the Lakers either couldn’t find that "on-switch" or the fuse was blown.
The Lakers, besides the "Black Mamba" Kobe Bryant, played with the same general apathy and lack of effort that they displayed over the last seven or eight or games of the regular season.
The defensive effort, especially the transition defense, was plain awful for the Lakers. Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum were routinely out-hustled down the court, leading to easy baskets for the Hornets. Additionally, the Lakers have no defensive answer for Chris Paul who looked every bit like the player who two years ago was the runner-up for the MVP award.
The Lakers will need to find answers defensively as this series and the playoffs unfold. It will start with the defensive effort of the Laker bigs getting in defensive position, which will hopefully allow the perimeter defenders a better shot at containing Paul.
The switch the Lakers need to find is one that correlates to more defensive focus, intensity and effort.
No. 1 – The NBA is Talent Rich, Deep, Full of Parity and the Title is Wide Open
The number one fact we learned from watching eight outstanding and entertaining basketball games over the weekend was that NBA is far more complete and deep than just the Lakers, Heat, Celtics and Spurs.
There were eight games involving 16 teams this weekend and all 16 teams had a chance to win the game in the fourth quarter.
Even the sub-.500 Indiana Pacers held a lead over the league’s winningest club, the Chicago Bulls, at the three minute mark of the fourth quarter.
In all eight games the lower-seeded team held leads, and in many cases, held those leads by double digits.
In three of the eight games, the lower-seeded team won; including both the seven and eight seeds in the West knocking off the one and two seeds respectively. That was the first time since the playoffs expanded nearly thirty years ago that both a one and two seed lost their playoff series opener.
The NBA is deep, talent rich and the title chase is wide open. Legitimately eight or nine teams have a shot at the NBA championship this June.
This type of parity brought on by talent makes the NBA incredibly enjoyable to watch. The competitiveness, the defensive pressure, the big shot making ability, the dazzling plays and the overall intensity that oozes from the playoff games has me hungry for more action.
