NBA Playoffs 2007: Round 1

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Above-average sounds about right. He isn't one of the elite players YET, but "at best"? I don't think we've seen him peak yet. Gordon and Hinrich though? Probably. I'd go as far to say the best player for the Bulls right now and for the future would probably be Luol Deng.

 

edit: Oh and go Bulls! I know the Heat will downplay it, but being down 0-2 has gotta hurt for them heading back home. They were probably expecting a split series at worst heading there.

[Kurt Angle Mark 0]

Hope the Bulls can pull this out.

 

with each day that goes by with the Heat still as Champions a little bit of me dies . Worst Champions ever

[Ripper 0]

...

 

fucking Deng.

 

I think the Suns got a future conditional 1st round pick and Jackson Vroman for him...

 

*sighs*

[Ripper 0]

This has a chance to turn into something very ugly very quickly if the Lakers don't step up the D.

 

The shooting stroke for everyone is back tonight. Except James Jones of course. Because he is only useful on offense for 3 months a season

[Guest Vitamin X]

This is ugly already. My god, the Lakers are terrible.

 

They need to keep Maurice Evans out of the rotation, too. Totally useless. And Farmar looks invisible once Kobe has the ball. They're terrible coughing up the ball, too. Christ.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Massive "holy shit" to Nash's half-court alley-oop to Marion. That was fucking fantastic. Barbosa's going insane again, too. I love this.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Suns in 4, unless the referees step in and give a game to the Lakers in LA, then Suns in 5.

[Ripper 0]

Ew. Fucking ew.

 

One turnover. 57% from the field. The Lakers only hope is that Halftime cools them off. Otherwise....EW

[Kurt Angle Mark 0]

...

 

fucking Deng.

 

I think the Suns got a future conditional 1st round pick and Jackson Vroman for him...

 

*sighs*

 

I wonder how the Spurs feel about trading Barbosa.

 

Sucks for me that the season wasn't a week longer, Clippers would be in playoffs instead of Lakers

[Guest Vitamin X]

Kurt Angle Mark has a point. The Clippers certainly look like they deserve to be in a hell of a lot more than the Lakers do.

 

What happened to the Lakers after February??? They started off the season so well! You can't just blame it on injuries, they're healthy now and they're still terrible.

[Just John 0]

Was that a 2/3 court alley oop from Nash? Good God. And great call by Kevin Harlan: "FLIGHT 31 IS CLEAR FOR LANDING!"

 

The Lakers are being exposed as the mediocre team they are. Same thing would've happened last year if Amare was around.

 

Finally, did anyone else catch the Hardy Boyz theme in that Suzuki motorcycle commercial?

[Guest Vitamin X]

To add insult to injury, Kobe goes down and the Suns' fans go wild.

 

EDIT: Nevermind, it wasn't serious. Looked a lot worse initially.

[Guest]

Kurt Angle Mark has a point. The Clippers certainly look like they deserve to be in a hell of a lot more than the Lakers do.

 

What happened to the Lakers after February??? They started off the season so well! You can't just blame it on injuries, they're healthy now and they're still terrible.

No commitment on the defensive end. Nobody wants to play defense, so they won't win any games. The Clippers didn't deserve to get in though, they blew so many opportunities late and early in the season. You want to get in, start well or finish great.

 

When you don't try to play defense, it's BAMBAM and a sweep. The lack of defense has been a problem all year, but Phoenix didn't put up a ton of points in any particular game this year. The Lakers have enough offense to win games, but no defense that can keep them around long enough to beat the Suns.

 

Before someone mentions the Lakers lack of points, when you play such bad defense you have to take quick shots, and usually they're bad ones. Thus the low FG percentage. Will never understand why Kwame and Bynum aren't both starting...

[starvenger 0]

What a friggin game that was. The Raps played poorly, but the momentum swings and drama made for a great game. Hopefully this win loosens them up so they start playing to their abilities.

Don't know if they showed this, but Mitchell made his Coach of the Year photo a team photo with the trophy. Nice touch.

 

Was at the game live. Ugly first half from both teams. Momentum swings were killing us up in the nosebleeds. Especially whenever Nachbar had the ball.

[Ripper 0]

Kurt Angle Mark has a point. The Clippers certainly look like they deserve to be in a hell of a lot more than the Lakers do.

 

What happened to the Lakers after February??? They started off the season so well! You can't just blame it on injuries, they're healthy now and they're still terrible.

No commitment on the defensive end. Nobody wants to play defense, so they won't win any games. The Clippers didn't deserve to get in though, they blew so many opportunities late and early in the season. You want to get in, start well or finish great.

 

When you don't try to play defense, it's BAMBAM and a sweep. The lack of defense has been a problem all year, but Phoenix didn't put up a ton of points in any particular game this year. The Lakers have enough offense to win games, but no defense that can keep them around long enough to beat the Suns.

 

Before someone mentions the Lakers lack of points, when you play such bad defense you have to take quick shots, and usually they're bad ones. Thus the low FG percentage. Will never understand why Kwame and Bynum aren't both starting...

 

 

there has been nothing bad about the Suns D in these two games. they are playing great D. Outside of Kobe hitting some impossible shots in game one, they have been in lockdown mode.

[Brett Favre 0]

Kevin Harlan is severely underrated.

 

"RIGHT BETWEEN THE EYES!"

[Guest Vitamin X]

Kurt Angle Mark has a point. The Clippers certainly look like they deserve to be in a hell of a lot more than the Lakers do.

 

What happened to the Lakers after February??? They started off the season so well! You can't just blame it on injuries, they're healthy now and they're still terrible.

No commitment on the defensive end. Nobody wants to play defense, so they won't win any games. The Clippers didn't deserve to get in though, they blew so many opportunities late and early in the season. You want to get in, start well or finish great.

 

When you don't try to play defense, it's BAMBAM and a sweep. The lack of defense has been a problem all year, but Phoenix didn't put up a ton of points in any particular game this year. The Lakers have enough offense to win games, but no defense that can keep them around long enough to beat the Suns.

 

Before someone mentions the Lakers lack of points, when you play such bad defense you have to take quick shots, and usually they're bad ones. Thus the low FG percentage. Will never understand why Kwame and Bynum aren't both starting...

 

 

there has been nothing bad about the Suns D in these two games. they are playing great D. Outside of Kobe hitting some impossible shots in game one, they have been in lockdown mode.

 

I don't think he mentioned anything about the Suns D, Rip. He's talking about how bad the Lakers' D has been.

 

Last night post-game interviews were interesting. Really weird interview with Odom, he said something along the lines of that the team isn't as together, "cohesive" as it should be, and that's why they got their asses kicked. He was really pissed, I mean the guy was literally just wiping the sweat off his forehead and putting on his shirt when the cameras got to him. He was like "oh man, it was just layup after layup after layup after layup.." he definitely looks like he's shell shocked, and if that's indicative of how the rest of the team outside the ex-champs in Kobe and Phil feel, that's scary news. Barkley basically said it's about time to break out the brooms.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Why is that scary? Who really thought Los Angeles had a shot against the Suns?

[Guest]

I thought they would play a hell of a lot better defense than that, even if they didn't win games. They're basically shouting ole! and just letting the Suns run by them.

 

And yeah, I was talking about the Lakers D. The Suns have played perfect in both games. One can say that their shots weren't falling in the first half of Game 1, but they were still getting great looks. When you get that many long-range shots, some of them are going to miss.

[Ripper 0]

Yeah, i misread you. And coupled with some article I read where the guy was saying it is tough to play a bad defense like the suns because it makes you take shots you wouldn't normally take and kill the offense and that is what is happening with the Lakers. Which was ridiculous.

[Guest]

He's right in theory, but it has nothing to do with the Suns defense. It's that you have to take quick shots because you get so far behind and then you get sucked into the up and down game, where the Suns punish you.

 

And that is the exact reason why most Laker fans that wanted to play the Suns were on drugs.

[Precious Roy 0]

I think people looked at the Lakers taking the Suns to 7 games last year and assumed they could do it again, but the reason the Lakers did so well last year was that Odom was able to dominate inside. The Suns were playing f'n Tim Thomas at center!

[Ripper 0]

I thought Kobe would be able to will them to at least 1 or 2 wins and the Suns would take it in 6, but moving James Jones to the starting lineup and allowing Diaw to come off the bench as the playmaker with Barbosa in the second unit was a move a genuis by D'Antoni (even with Jones shooting like shit). That changed pretty much everything.

 

Plus Phil still refuses to play Turiaff who plays the pick and roll well and stays with Amare better than anyone else on the team.

[Guest Vitamin X]

One other thing I've noticed is the amount of times that a Suns shooter has been left wide-open because the Lakers are being too quick in trying to double team someone, then that someone like Nash or Bell will just toss it to a wide open guy like Diaw, or especially Barbosa, or Stoudamire and get a clear shot on the perimeter and inside.

 

The only solution I can see to that is to have Brown-Odom-Walton/Turiaf-Kobe-Farmar starting and playing iso, with Brown and Turiaf sharing duties on Amare. I don't think they need to worry about Nash as a shooter as much as they need to worry about him passing the ball. While Nash can still shoot, it's Amare, Marion, and Barbosa they have to worry about more on defense, because those are who are killing the Lakers right now. They need to play Phoenix as physical as possible, especially on their homecourt now that the calls will be going their way there.

[Bored 0]

Didn't Baron learn anything from the Tim Duncan incident? I'm still not sure what he or Jackson did to get their first technicals, if anything it should have been Barnes. Oh well at least they get the split.

[Just John 0]

Warriors having some serious problems in this game. First of all, they haven't been running nearly enough to be successful. Dallas is controlling the paint with ease. Then tempers flare and B. Diddy gets tossed. If GS doesn't win Game 3, there's no hope. Not like there was that much to begin with, but you'd like to see them show some heart after Game 1.

[bobobrazil1984 0]

I saw Baron's ejection coming a mile away, i'd been expecting it ever since Baron started barking after getting his first Tech during the skirmish.

[Mr. S£im Citrus 0]

Anybody else notice how quick Jackson was to get in on that scrum?

[Ripper 0]

Come on now. He didn't get into the scrum. He broke it up and he clearly broke it up. Him getting a tech there was bullshit. THe techs should have been on Barnes, Terry, and Diop, but some how it became Davis and Jackson thus setting them off.

 

But Baron was trying to get ejected after his 4th foul when he got directly in the refs face and screamed "WHO FOULED HIM!!!!!" so big deal. Jackson also was going to foul out, like Davis, so no big deal.

 

I thought Dallas was going to win game 2, and they did. Now I think the Warriors will take the next two. This is a game that was closer than the score said. The Warriors were right there until a run in the 4th. Dallas still hasn't done anything to suggest that they can dominate the Warriors.

[Coffin Surfer 0]

Yeah, Dallas still wasn't very convincing. I don't think they'll drop both games at Golden State as I'm sure they have some confidence back, but they still aren't playing that great. Again, I'm puzzled as to why they don't better utilize Dirk on the inside and make them pay for the double/triple teams. Dirk seems to be a more than capable feeder when he has somebody to dish to, why nobody is spotting up or cutting to the basket is a mystery to me.