Law of enlarging returns.

There is always great expectation before the start of all playoffs, especially in the NBA. But once it starts, you always feel bit of a letdown. It's only natural as nothing in life is as great as we expect it to be before it happens. Except for LeBron James' career that is. The law of diminishing returns eventually kicks in. So, every year, I get jacked up before the NBA playoffs and then when it starts, it is usually great and I enjoy every bit of it. But I do feel just a little bit of a letdown in the early rounds. I call it human nature. But there is nothing "human nature" about the early rounds of this year's playoffs. It's been truly disappointing and a blowout-fest to the point that even Charles Barkley, who works the TV shows covering these playoffs and has every incentive to keep our collective butts in front of the TV, calls it the worst playoffs ever.  There has been several reasons for this. Number one, the dominance of the Cavs and the Warriors in either league and the inability of any team to even come close to challenging them. They are both sitting pretty at 8-0 going into the conference finals. But it's more than just the sweeps.

Typically, playoff games are competitive. I remember several sweeps even going back to the Michael Jordan years where the team will win the series 4-0 but every game would be a 2 to 5 point nail-baiter. This year is exactly the opposite. Not only are the Dubs and Cavs winning their games by 20 points, even closer series that take 6 or 7 games are featuring a bunch of blowouts. I blame it on the 3-point shot. There has been a lot of talk about the pros and cons the 3-point shot and how it is changing the game. I like the new NBA. But the underrated aspect of the 3-point shot might be the impact it has on victory margins, especially in the playoffs.  Somebody will study this soon. While the 3-point shot makes it easy to mount a 26-point comeback like the Cavs did against the Pacers in round 1, it also inspires a lot of 26 point blowouts. I was really excited for OKC-Houston and even the Portland-Warriors round 1 matchups, but both were duds. Portland never really challenged the Warriors after a half and Houston won easily in 5. The Boston-Washington series in round 2 is giving us a game 7 tomorrow, but they have only given us 2 good games out of the 6 so far. No complaints though since those 2 games were terrific and probably the best in these playoffs so far.

As the field narrows, the dominance of the Cavs and Dubs is expected to continue and the inevitability of their finals matchup looms large with a threat of the Dubs crushing the Cavs in the finals. Basically, there are 2 great teams, out of which one is a historically special team. That skews the whole setup. But fear not. I expect the conference finals to be competitive. Boston or Washington will have something to offer to the Cavs, whether its Boston's defense and toughness or Washington's speed and athleticism. The real story though is in the West. We have been waiting for and even ridiculously blaming the Warriors for missing the Spurs in the playoffs the last 2 seasons. They lock horns starting today. The Spurs are no match to the Dubs in terms of talent on paper, but you know Pop and Kwahi won't go down easy. They will show us new wrinkles and expose hitherto unknown weaknesses in the Dubs to give us decent theater. At least, it will be different from watching the Rockets go down to the Dubs again in the playoffs. If the Cavs stay the course in the East and meet the Dubs in the finals, that will be competitive too despite the Dubs being the better team. Look where that got the Warriors in last year's finals! And even if the Celtics get past the Cavs (and the Wizards), they are one of the few teams that give the Dubs some trouble.

Long story short, playoffs are going to get better and give us better returns starting today. I don't think the Dubs go 16-0. They go 8-3 the rest of the way to win it all. I will leave it to the reader to decide which series goes 4-2 and which one goes 4-1 :-) Hint: look at the order in which I mentioned 4-2 and 4-1. A record of 8-3 doesn't scream exciting basketball, but better than what we have seen so far in these playoffs. I will gladly take it and so should you.

Did the "evil" NBA mess this up?

The Los Angeles Lakers won the 2002 NBA championship. But they were not the best team that year. That was the Sacramento Kings. The Western conference finals that season was between the Lakers and the Kings and that was the de-facto finals. A statement that seem to ring true for the Western conference finals about 9 out of 10 seasons. The East was represented by Jason Kidd's NJ Nets who were eventually swept by the Lakers in the finals and would probably have been swept by the Kings too if they had made it. The Kings had home court against the Lakers and they actually lost game 1. It was one of the rare occasions where a team, the Kings, seemed to be headed towards a so-called gentleman's sweep in 5 games despite losing game 1 at home. They won game 2 at home and game 3 at Staples. They were really the better team in game 4 and it took a couple of offensive rebounds and a buzzer-beating 3 by Robert Horry in Lakers' final possession for them to win and tie the series at 2. Kings were still fine since they had 2 of the 3 remaining games at home and were really playing well. They won game 5 easily at home and then there was the fateful game 6 at Staples.

That game 6 in the 2002 WCF was one of the worst officiated game in the history of the league - a league that is constantly under scrutiny for bad officiating. It was so bad that former presidential candidate and consumer advocate Ralph Nader called for a formal investigation. This game later came to be known as one of the Tim Donaghy games as the disgraced and corrupt referee made some accusations about how the league wanted to give that game to the Lakers and extend the series. That news came out years later. But even as I was watching the game live, I could tell something was really messed up. Back in the day, the Lakers-Kings was THE rivalry. It had Shaq, Kobe, and Phil Jackson on one side and Chris Webber, Mike Bibby, and beautiful basketball on the other. That Kings team was almost as much fun as the 7-seconds or less Suns teams and the current Warriors squad. Everybody knew the TV ratings for the finals against the Nets would come nowhere near the ratings for this series. And a game 7 would be just what the doctor ordered for the NBA and the TV networks. 

So it was petty obvious to me watching that game 6 that the NBA was engineering a game 7 by favoring the Lakers and punishing the Kings. Kings fans would tell you that the NBA also wanted the bigger market Lakers in the finals and I don't blame them. I tend to give the benefit of the doubt to people and I always assumed the NBA just wanted a game 7. They didn't care who won game 7, though they obviously didn't mind the Lakers winning. I thought the league's evil thinking was that the Kings deserved to win, and since they have a game 7 at home, let's give game 6 to the Lakers and call a fair game 7, which the Kings should win anyways. They did call a fair game 7, but the Kings just could not handle the pressure of a game 7 and lost in OT. They couldn't hit free throws and barely shot 50% from the charity stripe and were much worse than even Shaq, a notorious free throw shooter. It was a shame as the NBA got it's game 7, but the Kings were innocent bystanders who paid dearly. That Kings team never sniffed the championship thanks to that game 6. 

Fast forward to this year's finals and you can see where I am going with this story. The NBA reviewed the LeBron-Draymond incident from game 4 and assessed a flagrant 1 to Draymond knowing fully well that Draymond will be suspended for game 5 because of that. While Draymond does seem to unfailingly connect with opponents genitals with his flailing arms and legs, his reaction when LeBron stepped over him was not that egregious. The NBA could have easily let it slide. I do understand that Draymond's history does matter, but thats the only thing that seemed to have mattered in this case as what he did was  definitely not a flagrant foul if viewed in a vacuum. This is what happened in my opinion. NBA basically looked at the 3-1 series score and decided to look principled and strict. They figured Warriors should win this series anyways and didn't mind if the series got extended a bit. So they decided to punish Draymond and teach him not to flail all the time and make sure he kept his hands and legs tight. This is all good theoretically, but just as in 2002, man proposes and God disposes. You can't play God and neither can the NBA. 

NBA's actions resulted in the dubs losing game 5 at home. Now the dubs still have 2 more shots, but only one of it is at home. Also, Bogut got hurt in game 5 and is now out for the series. So the NBA basically made this series a lot harder for the dubs. Cavs have a good shot at winning game 6 tomorrow at home and then we are down to a 1 game series where anything can happen. What if Kyrie or LeBron goes crazy like they did in game 5? What if the Warriors are hit with more injuries? Even if the NBA thinks they are not be altering the course of the series or history with such actions, they could be doing exactly that. They can't assume anything. They have to work with a clear conscience and act pure. Sneaking in an extra game here or there for TV money and hoping the series plays out the same way is too dangerous and 2002 showed us that. If the dubs lose this series, the NBA also loses a good story around this 73 win dubs season as their season will be unfulfilled. But I guess it all pales in front of the almighty dollars. I am not saying Draymond is an angel and his repeated genital connections must be ignored, but NBA could have assessed him a technical instead and taken him closer to a suspension given the circumstances. Instead, the league suspended him, scored some extra games, and now runs the risk of messing with history. 

I do hope for the sake of the 73-win dubs team and their fans that 2002 doesn't repeat itself. The dubs better wrap it up tomorrow on the road much like they did last year. They can and I sure hope they do to avoid what could become a major self-inflicted controversy for the NBA. The dubs are the better team, but the team that plays better wins the game. Those are 2 slightly different things though the better team has the higher probability of playing better every game. But better teams can play bad and inferior teams can play great. Thats exactly what that happened on both sides in game 5. Kyrie played way above his norm and even LeBron, who is great almost always, shot way better from range than he has done all year long. Dubs on the other hand had a sub-par outing, especially Stephen Curry. Sometimes experts and players just say "shots didn't go in" or "shots went in." It sounds too simplistic and even cynical, but thats just another way of saying you are playing better than your norm or worse. When you play better, that means you are making shots, grabbing rebounds etc. When you are playing worse than your talent and skill level, shots you usually make aren't going in. Thats the situation Curry is in right now. In a seven game series, the better team typically wins because the better team is more likely to have more better games than the inferior team. If you believe in regression towards the mean, dubs should win this series because they are the better team. But Curry has to hit his mean streak soon for that to happen.

Drub Nation

The dubs were punched in the mouth today. This has never happened to the Steve Kerr era Warriors in the playoffs and in this magical season, not even in the regular season. The closest game that comes to mind is the 32 point drubbing they suffered at Portland right after the all-star game. Of course this game today carried way more gravitas than that mid-season contest. Not only was this a playoff loss, it was game 3 of the Western conference finals with the Warriors having split the previous 2 home games. Dubs need a road split to restore home court and they got the exact opposite tonight. They weathered the storm in the early first quarter and handled the energy boost OKC enjoyed being in front of their crowd, which is typical for home teams in such situations. They played decent defense, though the Thunder kept making shots and on offense, they had their opportunities and converted a good portion of them. They admirably tied the game at 40-40 in the second quarter and the game looked set for a fantastic finish, even a victory for the defending champs.

And then the bottom underneath the Warriors caved in and the game got out of control in a hurry. Ron Burgundy's "that escalated quickly" is the best line to describe what happened. Thunder ambushed the dubs and the champs looked rattled and helpless for the first time all season. Thunder defended better, ran faster, shot better, dunked more ferociously, and you could see their confidence was growing with every possession. All you need to know is, Dion Waiters was unstoppable and he was probably the 5th best Thunder on the floor. To be fair to Dion, he has had a great playoff run and the Thunder seem to go as he and the other role players go. There is no stopping Durant and Westbrook most of the time and the Thunder are unstoppable if some combination of Waiters, Roberson, Ibaka, and Foye are hitting 3s. On the other side, Kerr said Draymond is the heart and soul of the Warriors sometime last season and is still very true. They do not do well when he has a bad game and when they don't play good defense. Those two things are usually related since he is also one of their best defenders. Tonight, Draymond had a horrible game and their defense was impotent to say the least. This combination resulted in a serious drubbing.

But Draymond stole the headline for one big, wrong reason. He was fouled on a drive to the hoop by Steven Adams and he ended up kicking Adams in the groin as he was flailing and throwing his leg around. The score was 48-40 when that happened and seemed to ignite the 32-7 run to end the half and basically the game. More importantly, the key question now is, is Green going to be suspended? That leg kicking is a common move by guys to attract the attention of the referee to call a foul. But in this case, I did feel like his leg went a little higher and looked slightly unnatural. But I have to agree with Draymond in that it looked to me like he didn't even knew what went down and seemed to just walk away without even looking at Adams. So I am not sure how intentional it was. But the impact was a painful blow to Adams' privates and a similar incident caused Cleveland's Dahntay Jones' suspension. A Green suspension will definitely put the Warriors behind the eight ball in a series where all of a sudden, they look like the inferior team even with him. It's amazing how quickly perception changes and a poll on ESPN tonight places the dubs in the third place to win the championship after the Cavs and the Thunder.

As a long-suffering Suns fan who lost a real shot at championship in 2007 when Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw got suspended when they left the bench, I would hate a playoff series to be decided by suspensions. Also, this is not a cut-and-dry situation that David Stern wanted the "leaving the bench" scenario to be. There is some wiggle room here for the league to not suspend Green for this. But they are in a tough spot too because they just suspended Dahntay Jones and this is the second time in 3 games Green has connected with Adams' privates. It's going to be very interesting and Green's suspension is the last thing the dubs need. They are already looking very vulnerable with the drubbing they received today which was very reminiscent of how they usually beat other teams. Steven Adams has been a key in this series for the Thunder, actually throughout these entire playoffs, and he changes a lot of the Warrior shots and passes in the interior. But they also outplayed the Warriors in small ball during that avalanche of a run in the second quarter. Experts are now saying the Thunder basically looked like the better team with their athleticism and speed even against the so-called death lineup.

When you see something you have not seen all season, you wonder if this is something different, special, and more indicative of a larger trend or problem. Game 1 was about the dubs having a sub-par fourth quarter and missing 9 out of 10 threes. They still were just down by 3 in the final minutes and you figured if they shoot better and fix a few things, they will be fine. Thats exactly what happened in game 2. But this loss was different from that game 1. The dubs were down by 41 at one point and looked completely outclassed at both ends of the floor. This game can only boost OKC's confidence ad drive them to greater heights even if the champs are strong enough to not let this plant doubts in them. They have been down 2-1 in the past, but it looks different this time because this Thunder team is better than any other team the dubs have played over the 2 playoff runs. Last year's Grizzlies and Cavs team lost the next 3 games to lose the series after owning the aforementioned 2-1 lead. It's highly unlikely this Thunder team is headed in that direction. Warriors need Green in game 4 to have a shot. If not, they may be playing to avoid a 3 game losing streak themselves soon. At the end of the day, it is just one blowout and the series is just 2-1, but it does feel more dire now. Can't wait for game 4 so we learn more about these two teams.

Up north, the Raptors will show us tomorrow if they are for real or if they are just setting us up for one of those typical 5-game sweeps with a token home win that we see all the time in the NBA playoffs.

NBA's final four

NBA's final four is an interesting mix of small market teams and LeBron James. I am not sure how much Commissioner Stern is going to like a Memphis-Indiana finals and what kind of TV ratings that would get, but it's a slight possibility. At least last year, he had the big market Boston and a super star in Kevin Durant still balling at this point of the season. This year, America has to get to know Paul George and Mike Conley if they want to enjoy these conference finals. Paul George helped his own cause quite a bit today. The lanky and talented George put up 27 points and hit a game tying 3 to send the game to overtime, where he shot 3 clutch free throws to put the Pacers ahead with just 2.2 seconds to go. He defended LeBron well for long stretches as well. But his youth shows up here and there and he does make mistakes befitting a 3-Rd year player that he is. In regulation, he threw the ball away in one of the key possessions towards the end. And in OT, he over-committed on defense and got stuck at the perimeter trying to chase LeBron and let him drive right by him to the hoop. It was too easy for LeBron.

There seems to be a lot of games going to overtime this playoffs and thats a good thing. Most of the chatter after this OT game though was about Indiana's coach Frank Vogel putting Roy Hibbert on the bench during 2 late possessions in OT, both of which ended in LeBron James layups. I would like to have Hibbert in there as well, but the match-ups usually dictate these things. Miami is a small team and having Hibbert in there can be a liability sometimes. There is no guarantee he is going to be close enough to contest the shot anyways. The Heat have the shooters and athletes to pull him out. It's not like Hibbert contests and blocks every single layup when he is in there. I am sure Vogel won't pull him out in similar situations in future games and he admitted as much, but I won't blame him for what he did today. He had to make a decision based on match-ups. He is still a young coach himself and hopefully, he learned something today. The whole Indiana gang needs to grow up fast if it wants to win this series. They have a shot and this series might go 7 either way.

In the West, I was hoping for another great series with Memphis and San Antonio, but Memphis has not really joined the series quite yet. They did come back from way behind to force OT yesterday, but they need to get in the game from the beginning to have a shot against a great team like the Spurs. They go back home now and have to win both their home games to make a series out of this. They have the talent to beat the Spurs and more importantly, I want Memphis to win because they have the talent to beat Miami. But they need to get to the finals first. They will be the tougher match-up for Miami if they ever figure out a way to stop Tony Parker in this round. Zach Randolph is yet to really show up in this series. Coach Pop is so good he is going to take something or things away from Memphis. So Conley, Gasol, and Z-Bo have to collectively bring their A-Game to get it done. I still don't know what Pop really did to Golden State, but he sure took both Curry and Klay away after they both had amazing starts to that series. I don't mind Pop and his old guys from Texas getting to the Finals one more time, except for the fact that I feel the Grizzlies will give the Heat the most trouble. May be Indiana will make that point moot. But then again, they probably blew that chance today. Too many possibilities and angles, but we can only watch and enjoy.