Erick Blasco's Sunday Review, Dec. 28 Edition

Of the six games on Sunday’s NBA slate, there were a pair of matchups that offered barometer tests of each team involved: New Orleans and Indiana and Miami at Cleveland.

But even though Indiana lost their game to New Orleans 104-102, and Miami fell to Cleveland 96-83, the Hornets are the team that appears farthest away from achieving their ultimate goals, while the Cavs, Pacers, and Heat are right on schedule.

Hornets Lacking West’s Stinger

New Orleans got off to a sluggish start and fell behind Indiana by twelve points early in the third quarter before rallying behind Chris Paul and getting a David West 20-foot jumper with two seconds left to escape with the win. Despite the victory, though, New Orleans is having problems in their frontcourt, and on the defensive end of the floor.

Last year, aside from being a lethal 17-foot jump shooter, West would score in the post when his team needed baskets, was a terrific and powerful rebounder. This season, West hasn’t been the same. His scoring, rebounding, and blocked shots are all down, each being the problem of less inspired play. His midrange jumpshot has been a crutch, and he’s been too reluctant to back down players—even small forwards and guards—preferring instead to shoot over them.

He’s been worse at defending his man, and has been less likely to dominate the rebounds. Lost in his mediocre 7.1 rebounding average, is the fact that many of his games played have come without Tyson Chandler in the lineup. When the Hornets needed rebounding in games Chandler has missed, West has failed to deliver. That, and an offense overly reliant on Chris Paul, are the main reasons why the Hornets have only scored more than 90 points (Cleveland Nov.1) once against any of the league’s elite teams that play defense, like the Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, Rockets, and Magic.

LeBron, Defense, Make Cleveland Legit

The other three teams that played are all meeting their preseason expectations.

The Cavs have been involved in some closer than desired games recently, but they’ve prevailed in each of them. They struggled for three quarters against Miami before roaring back behind LeBron and pulling away in the fourth. They didn’t play particularly well offensively, but their defense was rock solid as it has been all season.

Cleveland held Dwyane Wade to two points and no assists over the final six minutes of the game and shut down most of Miami’s other options. They got physicality and activity from Anderson Varejao (12 PTS, 10 REB, 2 BLK) and Ben Wallace (14 REB, 3 BLK). And Mo Williams provided just enough scoring (seven of his 20 points came in the fourth) so that LeBron James didn’t have to do everything himself (33 PTS, 6 REB, 9 AST).

Even though James and Wade battled to a near draw, the Cavs played tougher team defense, and had better scorers than their opponent—traits that will serve them well in the postseason.

Records Can Be Deceiving

While the Pacers and Heat lost, they shouldn’t hang their heads. The Pacers execute well, attack the glass, set solid screens, play unselfishly, and play with much more passion than they did when Jermaine O’Neal was hobbling around and Jamaal Tinsley was looking out for himself. Plus, Danny Granger has evolved into a bonafide All-Star.

They were two seconds from forcing overtime against the Hornets until Troy Murphy sold out on defending a potential Chris Paul 20-foot baseline fadeaway, allowing David West to slip open and knock down a 20-footer. If Murphy stays home, the Pacers go to overtime.

Still, Indiana shouldn’t feel too bad about their losses since they’ve played the NBA’s toughest schedule, including Boston three times, Cleveland twice, Detroit twice, Orlando twice, New Orleans, Phoenix, Houston, the Lakers, Miami, and Atlanta once, while playing Atlanta again New Years Eve.

If you argue the Suns as a top six team in their conference, the Pacers will have played over half of the 2008 portion of their schedule against the six best teams in each conference, an absurdly bad scheduling break.

Plus, they’ve already beaten the Lakers, Celtics, and Rockets, and have lost games in Detroit by six and four, in Cleveland by four, against Philadelphia by two, against the Magic by two in overtime, in Dallas by three, against Charlotte in overtime, against Boston in overtime, against the Clippers in overtime, against the Hornets by two, and against the Nets by one on Devin Harris’ buzzer beater.

While wins are wins and losses are losses, the point is that the Pacers have lost in the final minutes in an incredible number of games, most against top-tiered teams. They lack talented defenders to get important stops late in games, and they miss Mike Dunleavy’s playmaking abilities desperately at the end of games. That has been the entire difference in so many of their close losses.

But watch them actually play and you wouldn’t recognize that their record is only 10-20.

Rekindling Their Flame

The Heat have gone from last place to the middle of the Eastern Conference playoff in no time. Part of it is the obvious return to brilliance of Dwyane Wade who’s going to be on everybody’s short list of MVP candidates. Part of it is Shawn Marion’s rebounding and defense being a better fit in Miami than an aging Shaquille O’Neal. Part of it is young unheralded players like Daequan Cook, Mario Chalmers, and Joel Anthony playing in over their heads.

But the most impressive thing is Miami’s commitment to defense. Udnois Haslem has always been a championship-caliber grunt at the power forward, and Dwyane Wade and Shawn Marion are each above-average defenders for their position. But Joel Anthony’s been a find for them, giving them size and depth up front, while moving Haslem to his natural position at the four. And Chalmers has played defense as well as you can ask a rookie to defend.

Rookie head coach Eric Spolestra’s played hard ball too, sending rookie wunderkind Michael Beasley to the bench because of his inability to defend as well as Spolestra would like. Though to Beasley’s credit, he’s worked hard in practice and hasn’t griped once.

What’s been going on is actually remarkable. For such a young team to play defense with passion means that they all buy into their coach, especially Wade who’s backed Spolestra from the get-go.

They held the Cavs to 41 percent shooting, limited them to 17 assists, and were only outrebounded by three. The Cavs simply had a bigger front line, and more playmakers than Miami did.

Still, while not a championship contender, the Heat are making clear progress for a bright future. As the youngsters grow up, and more talent is added to the roster, the Heat can find themselves contending in the East as early as next year. Considering how they were the worst team in the NBA last year, the turnaround is remarkable.

Notes

• After the Celtics lost to the Lakers and were emotionally drained against the Warriors, and after the Lakers saw what happened to Boston against Golden State, each powerhouse came out incredibly focused in wiping away their overmatched opponents. Boston suffocated Sacramento 108-63, and the Lakers ran away from Golden State 130-113.
• The Mavericks proved that they could win without Dirk Nowitzki by beating the Clippers 98-76. The Mavericks held the Clippers to 38 percent shooting, and outrebounded the Clips 53-38. I might be tempted to argue that the Mavericks might be physically tougher without Dirk, but then again, the Clippers were without Zach Randolph, without Chris Kaman, and stink regardless.
• Its dangerous for the Knicks to play teams that run their run-and-gun style better than they do. Even though the Nuggets are nowhere close to as helter-skelter as they were with Allen Iverson, they have so much individual talent that they light up bad defenses in early offense. They shot 57 percent and got 32 points from Carmelo Anthony to beat the Knicks 117-110.