That was the classic Wizards that I know and understand. “We’re not uptight about being in the playoffs; we’re going to play like the game doesn’t even matter!”
Tell me about it. I’m watching the Failblazers tanking their 3rd straight.
Interesting second-round Sunday. Both games looked to be rather boring blowouts well into the second half, then ended up being close and fun. I was rather surprised the Clippers ended up winning their game, but I wasn’t surprised Indiana won theirs – Hibbert might still be up and down, but as a team the Pacers are pretty close to back on track.
I don’t remember Paul Pierce ever looking as happy as he did when the Nets beat the Heat on Saturday. Miami will surely win that series (duh), but it’s fun to see Brooklyn grab a game. I attended a game there (Brooklyn’s nice new Barclay’s Center) back in December, and was not impressed with the fans (seemed like they were too cool to cheer, or an I just imagining Brooklyn hipsterism infusing the crowd?), but it seemed like they managed to make some noise toward the end of Saturday’s game.
I’ve attended a few games there, and I think many of the “fans” are like me: Knicks fans who live in Brooklyn who figure “hey, why not attend a few Net’s games since it’s so close?” But hopefully the playoff crowd is more “real” Nets fans.
I’m sad that the Blazers are putting up no fight in their series. The 2nd round has been a real downer after that spectacular 1st round. The teams are better, but the matchups just seems to favor one team over another.
I think the Spurs sweep tonight and Miami’s lost their 1 game before the conference finals, they won’t lose again. I was really bummed that the Wizards lost, that could have been an interesting series but now I don’t think they have a chance even with the Pacers recent fumbles.
Nice job to the Clippers, that seems like the only series worth watching. Gutsy desperation coaching by Rivers, putting Paul on Durant. It seems that every story I read about that game makes Durant taller and Paul shorter. As Charles Barkley said, Chris Paul is 5’11 in heels 
But Brooks needed to draw up better plays for Durant to be open. They tried to do the right thing which was post up, but Clippers were sending double teams from every direction and Durant had 3 turnovers in that 4th quarter. And why wasn’t he demanding the ball for that last shot?? He’s the damn MVP!
I was high on the Blazers, because I was impressed by how they handled Houston (while not forgetting that Houston is young and very inconsistent on defense). But the Parker-Lillard matchup hasn’t been close. Now we’ve all been reminded that Lillard is only in his 2nd year, and he needed to go through this.
The Spurs…they’re a freakin’ machine.
Well, my guys at least won a game. Heading back to Indiana, Hibbert’s back on track and Paul George is setting career highs, I think it’s all over for the Wizards. They blew a 19 point lead, then couldn’t come up with a big shot to win or tie at the end. Not looking good for Washington.
However, they weren’t supposed to be competitive in the first round, let alone get through to the second, so frankly they don’t really have anything to hang their heads about. They could have played better during the regular season, but still would have ended up in this same place anyhow. It’s forward progress, and after how completely terrible they’ve been for years, I’m happy with where they are.
Looking ahead, I’m not sure there are a lot of moves to make this offseason to try and improve. They traded away their 1st round pick for Gortat (which was worth it, IMO) and they have a decision to make whether or not to keep Ariza; sooner or later they have to find out if Otto Porter can play.
To summarize, I congratulate the Wizards for a respectable season, and I preemptively wish the Pacers good luck with Miami.
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John Wall is having a pretty terrible series.
Wall’s not been great, no. While he’s always been laser-fast, and his shot has drastically improved since he came into the league, he’s still not a clutch scorer, but he seems to desperately want to be. Someone needs to make him realize that he’s just not that guy, and furthermore, he can still be great without being that guy. I think he knows deep down that he’s not that guy, but the desire to want to be that guy is pretty hard to fight, and that’s kind of been killing them against Indiana. He’s still young. He’ll get it eventually, just not in the next 24 hours.
Well, the Blazers staved off a sweep by playing the brilliant ball they are capable of. They’re still going to lose the series, but at least they gave the home crowd a good show and managed to contain Parker for the most part. I wish Batum was more consistent; he’s been asleep up until now.
The last two Clippers-Thunder games were perfect mirrors of each other – final-minute-or-two comeback wins, after being way behind for so much of the game. Fun.
Even when the Wizards don’t win, I love how they play lately. So fluid and confident on offense, and so alert on defense and rebounding. Are we witnessing the rise of a major contender for the next several years, or is this their glory moment?
When they’re playing well, when Wall is hitting his shots, and when someone besides Beal comes to play, they’re unbeatable. Unfortunately, they only play that way a little over 50% of the time.
This should be the start of something good for them. Wall is 23, Beal is just 20, so barring major injury, they’ll be a fearsome backcourt for the next decade or so. What they need is some youth up front; Nene is 31 and fragile as ever, and Gortat is 30 and while capable of monster games (see last night), he’s not a reliable force on his own.
If Otto Porter turns out to be a good player, they could be the Pistons circa early 00s.
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Doc Rivers complaining about that play costing them the game is pretty ridiculous. Yeah, it was a bad call but so was not calling a foul on them in the first place, if that play had been called right then OKC would have been shooting free-throws instead of getting the ball out of bounds.
Naw, those officials are among the leagues worst. Bill Simmons tweeted before the tipoff:
“Bennett Salvatore, Tom Washington, and Tony Brothers reffing a genuinely important NBA playoff game - what could possible go wrong?”
Called it.
Salvatore just sucks. Not to lean on Simmons again, but his classic 2008 NBA Finals rant pretty much says it all:
Remember, Salvatore is the guy that inspired the first time analytics was used to judge a games referees (again, game 5 of Heat/Mavericks) NBA Finals Game 5 Officiating breakdown -- from 82games.com
So, sorry - Doc has every right to complain because the refs (especially Salvatore) have a history of blowing it more often than a $5 whore.
I wasn’t saying they didn’t blow it, i said they blew it in his favor.
Even if the officials were bad, LA still had a chance to win it at the end and blew it. 6 seconds is a lifetime in basketball, they had the ball in Chris Paul’s hands and they couldn’t even get up a shot?
That out of bounds non-call was terrible, as was the call on Chris Paul on Westbrook’s 3 point attempt. How can the refs justify handing a team 3 free throws when they’re down 2 on such a dubious call? Terrible.
On a related note, Barkley and Kenny Smith were giving the players some well deserved criticism for their sloppy play, and how there has been something like 60+ fouls committed on 3 point attempts. Granted, teams are shooting the 3 a lot, but quit fouling!
And my fascination with Indiana, possibly the worst 1 seed ever, continues. At home in an elimination game, and they get out-rebounded 62-23. They should all have to run the stairs in the gym after that kind of performance.
That Indiana game was just…its hard to describe. If they make it to the next round, there’s a good chance Miami sweeps them or takes them out in 5. No heart, no toughness, no sense of urgency. WTF??
And that Clippers loss…wow, tough. It was a good game though, but man it must be hard to lose like that
The Clippers bought and paid for that loss. OKC should have never gotten back into it, let alone caught them, but LAC fell asleep when they should have been most alert.
The Blazers game should either be extremely tense or a complete blowout. I’m betting on SA, as they’re going to want to close this out in front of the home team. But I really hope Portland makes a game of it.
More specifically, Chris Paul made some really bad plays in that last minute which trump anything the refs did.