Hope you weren't hoping for a sequel, boys and girls. This just in: your defending champions of 2006 have just been exposed as a fraudulent act of smoke and mirrors in 2007. What's worse? Their righteously vanquished opponents on the grand Finals stage are currently being upstaged by the little Oakland team that could. After four games, the champs have now been swept and the number one contenders are staring at a 3-1 hole. How did this happen?
Ben Wallace
Again, the numbers will not reflect this, as Wallace is not a numbers player. However, take a look at this Chicago team now with Big Ben in the middle, P.J. Brown and Luol Deng at the forwards, and Kirk Hinrich and Ben Gordon at guards. Throw in Andres Nocioni and Tyrus Thomas off the bench, and you have not exactly an impressive roster by any stretch, but one that has found balance and chemistry throughout. And yet Deng, the pleasant surprise, and Gordon, the Bulls' reliable scorer, have carried the load offensively doing whatever has to be done, pretty or otherwise.
Now what does this have to do with Wallace? Well, the team blueprint is not too far off from the one he left last summer in Detroit. No superstars, just a solid balanced team that understands its role in the system and each other, while lulling everyone else to sleep with its lack of a big-name star. Ben Wallace did exactly what Chicago fans hoped he would and provided that cornerstone toughness to transform this already playoff-tested team. Oh, and he blocked Shaq in the lane ... again!
Miami's Lack of Intensity
You've heard the whisperings: they're not a good regular season team. The old, cagey vets know how to "pace themselves" for 82 games and then step it up in time for the playoffs. They will rise to the occasion when it counts. While it is a common and understandable offense, what it boils down to is this: the Heat are like any normal high school or college student with a big project or test two weeks on the horizon. They are procrastinators, personified by Shaq himself, who once went through the whole 2000 playoffs by punctuating every ugly Laker playoff loss (always games in which the Lakers already led in the series) by saying things like "We didn't bring our 'A' game today."
Despite the presence of coach Pat Riley, who generally gets the most out of his players at all time, this team seemed too concerned about wasting unnecessary energy rather than trying to put their opposition away while they still can.
Perhaps it was even a championship hangover. If you put enough veteran guys searching all career for their first title (Gary Payton, Antoine Walker, Alonzo Mourning) and they finally win and then opt to stay together rather than retire, what's left to do next year other than subconsciously let down your competitive willpower just a shade? While Shaq can perhaps be accused of general laziness, he cannot be charged with not wanting to win another ring as badly as the past four, as the man still proved he could carry a team with Dwyane Wade hurt.
Ever notice how Wade started trying to take over those Chicago games only after his team was significantly behind in the final minutes? It worked pretty well in last year's Finals, he may have thought. And it looked so convincing; often, we watched at home thinking he would pull it off single-handedly like we had seen so often before. But the Bulls were too resilient to let him steal the show. Deng and Gordon would come right back on the offensive end and quietly and consistently counteract Wade's one-man show.
Matchup Problems
The Heat had nobody who could run with and defend Luol Deng and Ben Gordon. They were two agile, speedy guards who never hesitated to run the floor and dared the opposition to slow him down with the ball. Perhaps Eddie Jones in his prime could run them down on the fast break, but not Jason Kapono, Jason Williams, James Posey, or Antoine Walker (quite possibly the slowest non-center in the league), and certainly not Gary Payton. Both also showed enough dexterity in mid-air while driving to the basket at top speed, befuddling even top defenders Shaq, Udonis Haslem, and Mourning en route to tantalizing layups. The half-court Heat, being a year older and a year slower, could not run with the Baby Bulls.
The end of this series has actually made me want to look back into my archives and figure out how this tired old team actually won a title last year.
And what of the promising Mavs? They are also looking tired, old, and slow these days, thanks to a team with a style of play as electric and energetic as the yellow thunderbolts on their jerseys would imply. By winning their final game of the regular season, the Golden State Warriors have turned the hungry and bitter 2007 Mavericks quest of vengeance into an early nightmare.
Suddenly, the Mavs are looking more and more like the 1994 SuperSonics, a supreme top-of-the-line team that knows they should win, yet playing scared and back on their heels. The Warriors are a team we have seen before, too. Think Sacramento from 1999-2004: raucous, overbearing home crowds, fearless style of play, always on the run, unafraid to hoist any jumper at any time from any spot, and no matter how improbable or how poor the selection, they always seem to find nothing but nylon.
B-Diddy and J-Rich
Oh, we knew he was good if we recall the fuzzy memories of Baron's days leading the Charlotte (yes, old-school I know) Hornets through a few playoff series in '01 and '02. But has Davis ever played at this level before in any four-game stretch in his life? Had he not been ejected for essentially clapping at the referee in the third quarter of Game 2, we might be talking about a four-game sweep for this series, as well.
Jason Richardson was the player we originally thought was the star of this Warrior team, while it now appears to be Davis. Yet Richardson has put on a show of his own, at one point making a crazy no-look reverse lay-up very much reminiscent of Dwyane Wade's on-a-chair-in-mid-air Game 4 shot against the Pistons last year. The man who seemingly could only make his name in slam dunk contests in February was now proving himself in April. Who knew the two-time dunk champion could drain dagger threes, as well? Certainly not the Mavericks.
Mavericks' Awful Defense
The swiss-cheese tactics of the Mavs without the ball are reminiscent of the days when Don Nelson was coaching on the other side. Dallas coach Avery Johnson has prided himself on the gritty toughness and defense he instilled in his team. This has seemingly disappeared as the Warriors have had their way with the Mavs, whether it's driving and making the pass inside for easy and emphatic dunks, or firing the three with room to spare on a tentative defender.
Nothing/Everything to Lose
The end of Game 4 proved this point perfectly. While the Mavericks had worked hard all game to keep the suffocating Oakland crowd out of it, they just about fell apart on the offensive end near the end of the game. While generally pinpoint shooters, this Dallas team was firing air-balls wide of the rim with the game on the line, and they were doing it repeatedly.
How else can this be explained other than tightness, mentally and emotionally? The Mavs know they can't be losing to an eight-seed that should never have even made the playoffs. They know they never should have even had to deal with the likes of Golden State, one of those pesky under-the-radar lottery teams that always seemed to have Dallas' number. Only now we know that the regular season contests were not a fluke.
Golden State's young team has no reason to believe their helter-skelter style won't work in the playoffs since they've never been there before. They seem to play without a fear or a care in the world and it shows. This team has excelled in the clutch rather than cowered and the contrast between the two teams' mindsets came to a head Sunday night as the team from the Bay took a 3-1 series lead.
On paper, it does seem as if the Mavs should be able to make the 3-1 comeback, which has been difficult, but not insurmountable over the years, especially with Games 5 and 7 at home, but the Warriors have won two games (Games 1 and 3) convincingly and one game (Game 4) in the final minutes while taking Dallas' best effort. Most likely, the series will end before getting to a Game 7, and the Warriors will be licking their chops as they look forward to the mediocre Rockets and Jazz pounding on each other in the 4-5 matchup. Who knows how far this firecracker of a basketball team can go?
As far as the teams the overachieving Bulls and Warriors have left in their respective wakes? Well, it looks like it's time to forget everything you thought you knew about last year's playoffs. The two championship-caliber teams in last year's main event have proven unworthy of the crown. The NBA's late-June throne is now vacant and up for grabs.
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