The best series in the West and the worst series in the L-East, both came to an end today. More on the best later, but the Nets lost today at home to a Cavs team that might be maturing right in front of our eyes. The Cavs kept pace with the Pistons by closing out on the road. The Cavs came out on fire and scored 32 in the first quarter and held the Nets to 15. If you thought 15 points was bad, even more ugliness showed up in the second half. just like it did in game 5. Not sure what the Cavs drank or ate at half-time, but they came out and scored just 8 points in the third quarter. So their 15 point half-time lead dropped to 1 as the Nets got back in it, but then the Nets scored just 12 in the fourth to lose the game by 16 points at the end! If you were watching this game, you had to go what the hell is going on here?
Impressive win for the Cavs nonetheless, as the King had a 23-8-8 night with some foul trouble. LeBron started this season slowly and heated up in the second half. He was also criticized for just sleep-walking through the first half of the regular season. His playoff performance has been similarly up-and-down as well. He has had some good games, but not many spectacular ones. He has also had some brick-fests. Basically he seems to be getting more inconsistent with age and thats not good. Also the Cavs play an ugly, defensive style and I think it's hurting his star power. I feel like Cavs games are not as big a TV event as they used to be even last year. He needs to step up now and thats the only way the Cavs might have a shot against the strong Pistons team. He did get good help from Donyell Marshall who hit 6 3's for 18 points in this game. Gooden had 16 on 8/11 shooting.
For the Nets, Kidd had 19-12-8 and ended up with a triple-double average for the playoffs or something like that. Amazing numbers, but the Kidd still can't shoot on some nights and this was one of those nights as he shot 1/7 from 3. Vinsanity was awful shooting 4/11 for 11 points and getting booed on what could be his last game for the Nets. Mikki Moore scored 14 and RJ 16. I think it's time to blow this team up and rebuild it around J-Kidd. On further thought, it might be time to blow up the entire L-Eastern conference and re-build it from scratch.
Phoenix @ San Antonio - 106-114
Cleveland @ New Jersey - 88-72
Playoff schedule for 05/19/2007
No games. It's conference finals time on Sunday.
Playoff schedule for 05/20/2007
Utah @ San Antonio - Should be a good ice-breaker for this series. Will be interesting to see if the Spurs suffer any letdown after that dramatic Suns series.
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