It's all over! - Suns playoff notes - 05/18/2007

This fascinating series came to a heart-breaking end in game 6. The once promising season for the Phoenix Suns ended today in San Antonio in near-tears for MP3 Steve Nash. In all honesty, this series ended a few days ago when the Commish and Stu Jackson decided to suspend Amare and Boris for game 5. I was just wondering watching this game how life is all about timing. The Suns could have easily handled those suspensions if only it had happened a game later and they didn't have Amare for game 6 on the road. It would have still been a different series if the suspensions had happened for the road game instead of the home game. But now it has become the biggest story in the history of Phoenix sports and it will be that way until the Suns win one. I don't think David Stern can ever go into Phoenix without getting booed. This pretty much establishes a "curse" for the Phoenix Suns. All thats missing is a name for the curse and I am sure someone will come with it pretty soon.

This game started as all the other games did in this series as "both teams played hard", to borrow a phrase from Rasheed Wallace. But it was obvious early that it was probably not going to be a "god blessing good night" for the Suns (to quote another Sheed phrase from the same press conference). The game was too close, too physical and played too much at Spurs pace for the Suns to feel comfortable. The 3's were still not falling for the Suns, LB was missing in action and so was Boris. The Suns were basically riding Amare who was playing real well. Nash was finding people though he was being harassed by Bruce and took very few shots. On the other side, you could see that the big 3 were ready today. Timmy, Tony and Manu were on fire. Parker decided to take a lot of shots for some reason and a lot of them went in for him in the first half. Suns alternated between doubling and singling Timmy and it didn't seem to bother him either ways. The guy was amazingly efficient as always, but more importantly was dominating the defensive end. He had like 5 blocks in the first quarter or something and was bothering everybody in the paint including Amare. Duncan dominated this game on the defensive end from the opening whistle to the buzzer.

All of this resulted in a 53-51 half-time lead for the Spurs. The Suns were still in a great spot. They were scoring well despite Timmy's D, but you could see 2 issues. First, not all the Suns were contributing and secondly, they couldn't stop the Spurs as the big 3 was rolling. Manu continued his great game 5 performance with another strong, all-around game and that spelt trouble for the Suns. Then came the third quarter when things got ugly for the Suns. They just could not stop the Spurs as Manu hit some clutch 3's and the other Spurs joined him in the fun. Timmy had to be double-teamed every possession and he found the right guy and the ball moved around the perimeter as the Spurs found the best shot every time. The Suns got cold at the same bad time and they also had to rest Nash at the end of the 3-Rd. Quickly and suddenly this game got out of hand. The Suns just scored 16 as they ended the third trailing by 14. The game was almost over.

Jeff Van Gundy joined the ESPN crew for this game and made several insightful observations. One of the things he pointed out during that second half Spurs run was how coach Pop adjusted to the Suns leaving open Jacque Vaughn as they went to double-team Timmy. Vaughn can't or didn't want to shoot the perimeter jumper. So the Suns left him open, but Pop made him the cutter to the hoop when Timmy had the ball. This meant the Suns had to respect him since you can't leave anybody open 2 feet from the hoop. This opened up the 3-point shooters on the perimeter. The ball went from Timmy to Vaughn to the perimeter. Great coaching by Pop and great point by Van Gundy.

The pain continued for the Suns in to the fourth as the lead ballooned to 20. Then Nash came in to the game and started playing crazy. They got in to this frantic, desperate pace and nobody plays better and more under control in that mode than Nashty. It's amazing to see him dominate stretches of games like this despite the great D by Bruce Bowen. He scored 15 points in the 4-Th and didn't miss a shot as the 20 point game became a 6 point contest. Once more, the Suns showed just how tough and how unbelievably determined they are. But the problem was, as always, getting stops. Timmy, Tony and Manu on offense could pretty much get what they wanted. The Suns tried hard and played tough, but they felt a little short again. Amare and Nash were amazing in this game. Amare had 38 reminding us of his series against the Spurs 2 years back.

The season is now done and Nash looked really despondent and couldn't stop talking about the suspensions. It should be really disappointing to a determined guy like him who has worked like a dog for 8 months and all that has gone down the drain now. He is focussed on one thing and thats a championship. He is 33 years old with 2 MVP trophies in his shelf and has nothing else to play for. A ring will absolutely cement his legacy. Unfortunately the stupid suspensions came in the way this year.

Now it's all about the off-season. First off, we hope this team is not broken up because of luxury tax reasons. Thats the biggest fear for the Suns fan. Next, they have a pick or two coming in this year's draft that they have to use smartly. But the real question is, how do they get past this dreaded Spurs team? This series made it obvious that the Spurs are better and their style wins in the playoffs hands down. I hate to admit that defense wins championships, but it just does. Look at the Spurs and the Pistons. They are built for the playoffs. Mike D'Antoni better accept the reality that the Suns have to get better defensively. They just have to do what the Spurs did a couple of years back, but in the reverse. The Spurs were always awesome defensively, but when Sean Elliott retired and David Robinson slowed down, and the Lakers got Kobe and Shaq going, the Spurs actually hit a speed bump. Thats when they got Tony Parker and Man Ginobili and got some athleticism and offensive creativity on the perimeter. Defense was still their calling card, but they got good offensively to continue their dynasty. They also got young guys who they coached to play their style of defense which Pop was never going to compromise on.

This is why the Spurs win against the Suns so easily. Manu and Tony can kill the Suns because they can play that style as well as the Suns. In addition, Bowen and Timmy also stop the Suns at the other end and thats how they beat the Suns. The Suns have to do the same in the reverse. They don't have to change their philosophy or give up on their style, but they need to get some players who can defend and block shots in addition to playing their offense. They can't get over the Spurs with this team. Van Gundy made this point that the Suns are a great team, but they may be stuck in the wrong time-frame in the NBA when the Spurs dynasty is firmly entrenched. I am afraid about this too. Malone, Ewing and Barkley had a MJ to deal with and I don't want these Suns to have the Spurs in their way forever. Bill Simmons on ESPN suggests that the Suns should trade Amare for KG. His point is, KG is hungry, very good defensively and is the only guy in the league who plays Duncan to a draw. I think it's an interesting idea, though John Gambo in the Arizona republic called it the worst idea ever. All these wild ideas apart, the Suns need to respond quickly and effectively to this Spurs threat.

Teams 1 2 3 4
Phoenix 23 28 16 39 106
San Antonio 23 30 28 33 114

Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Shawn Marion 5-12 1-2 0-1 5-11 1 2 1 4 2 11
Kurt Thomas 2-6 1-2 0-0 2-3 3 2 0 0 4 5
Amare Stoudemire 14-28 9-10 1-1 5-12 0 0 0 4 2 38
Raja Bell 5-9 2-2 1-4 0-4 1 4 1 1 6 13
Steve Nash 7-10 1-2 3-4 1-6 14 5 1 0 3 18
Leandro Barbosa 5-15 3-4 0-5 0-5 3 2 1 0 3 13
Boris Diaw 0-1 1-2 0-0 0-1 0 2 1 0 1 1
James Jones 3-4 0-0 1-1 0-1 0 0 0 0 2 7
Jalen Rose - - - -
Pat Burke - - - -
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Marcus Banks - - - -
Eric Piatkowski - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 41-85 18-24 6-16 13-43 22 17 5 9 23 106

FG %:.482; FT %:.750; 3PT %:.375
Points of TO:18
Team rebounds:11
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

San Antonio
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Bruce Bowen 3-10 0-0 2-7 0-6 3 2 2 0 2 8
Tim Duncan 11-19 2-6 0-0 8-13 1 4 0 9 3 24
Fabricio Oberto 1-1 0-0 0-0 1-3 1 0 0 0 4 2
Michael Finley 3-6 4-4 1-4 0-3 1 0 1 0 2 11
Tony Parker 11-27 8-11 0-3 0-2 6 1 0 0 0 30
Francisco Elson 1-3 0-0 0-0 3-5 1 2 1 0 4 2
Manu Ginobili 11-17 7-9 4-7 4-11 6 3 4 0 4 33
Brent Barry 0-2 0-0 0-1 0-0 1 0 1 0 1 0
Jacque Vaughn 2-3 0-0 0-0 0-0 2 0 0 0 1 4
Matt Bonner 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Melvin Ely - - - -
Jackie Butler - - - -
Robert Horry - - - -
Beno Udrih - - - -
James White - - - -
TOTALS 43-88 21-30 7-22 16-43 22 12 9 9 21 114

FG %:.489; FT %:.700; 3PT %:.318
Points of TO:17
Team rebounds:7
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

Suns and Nets are done - NBA playoff notes - 05/18/2007

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.

Detroit closes the deal in style - NBA playoff notes - 05/17/2007

I have always thought that one of the signs of greatness in a team is closing out a playoff series on the road though they have one or more opportunities at home coming up. One great example of that were MJ's Chicago Bulls who closed out many of their championships on the road. The Baby Bulls are not there yet, but the Detroit Pistons are pretty close. They showed it today by winning this series at a tough place like Chicago. This team seems to lose focus at times and let up mentally a little bit. You would hope they had more focus and killer-instincts at times, but you know they will always come around when it mattered most. May be this is where the fact that they don't have a dominant super-star affects them because number-23 will never let his team lose focus in games like that game 5 they lost at home. So the Pistons let up when they were up 3-0 and Bulls got to 3-2, but today they wrapped it up on the road in style.

Pistons started strong and as always won it defensively in the fourth. They held the Bulls to 16 points in the 4-Th. The games in this series have gone to the guards who have played well and this one was a little different. Both the guards had OK games. For Detroit, Rip was good with 23, but Billups shot just 3/12. For the Bulls, Hinrich had 11-3-11, but shot only 3/13 and Deng had a good game with 17-5-4 on 7/14 shooting. Ben Gordon had a 7/18 night for 19 points. Not enough juice for the Bulls to win this one. Detroit got good work out of it's front court to help their guards as Sheed had 16-13 and Tay had 17-9. One of the stories of the game was P.J.Brown for the Bulls having a huge first half with 20 points, but he ended up with just 20 for the entire game. Detroit did what it had to in the second half and put the Bulls away.

Good playoff run for the Bulls. Talented, young nucleus with Hinrich, Gordon, Deng, Nocioni, Thabo and Tyrus Thomas. They have everything except a reliable low-post scorer and that weakness was exposed by Detroit in this series. They might still need that do take the next step and this where they may have over-paid Ben Wallace for his great, but one-dimensional defensive game. This might come back to bite them in a year or two. But they should be a playoffs regular for a long time to come.

Detroit @ Chicago - 95-85

Playoff schedule for 05/18/2007

Phoenix @ San Antonio - This one is a BIGGIE for both teams.

Cleveland @ New Jersey - I doubt if Cleveland is good enough or mature enough to close the series out on the road.

Valiant Suns play hard, but fall short - Suns playoff notes - 05/16/2007

The Suns and the Spurs walked in to an highly charged atmosphere at the US airways arena as the home fans were ready for this game in a state of extreme anger. The suspensions were still the biggest story in all of sports and I am sure it caused a huge blow to the collective civic psyche of Phoenix. The Suns came out and it was clear they were not going to lie down and just die in this one. They came out swinging and played real hard. They started Barbosa and except for Kurt Thomas on Duncan, they were real small. It was working fine in the first quarter as Shawn Marion went nuts. He always does well when he plays 4 instead of the 3 and he is defended by big, slow guys. This is exactly what happened as the Spurs bigs couldn't hang with him and he scored 20 in the first half. The Suns led by 11 after one and at the half and they were even ahead by 16 at one point in the second quarter.

The story of this game I thought was the Spurs scoring just 13 in the first quarter. Not sure if this was great defense by the Suns or was it just the Spurs didn't come out with any kind of edge and almost played with a sense of guilt over the suspensions. This is what gave the Suns a great shot in this game. Suns offense was struggling at times as expected without the finisher Amare, but they rode Marion and the horrible first quarter by the Spurs in to the half-time with a decent lead. But then the adjustments came. Pop went into Timmy every time in the third quarter and almost erased the 11 point lead in a few minutes as Timmy went nuts. Kurt was doing a great job on Timmy in the first half, but he was no match for Timmy in the third. The other adjustment for Pop was to go small and negate any mismatch Marion had against the Spurs bigs. Now Marion was a non-factor on offense.

I thought this was one of the best coached games I have seen in a long time. Mike D'Antoni hit back with his own adjustment as he suddenly started doubling Timmy halfway through the third. This derailed the Spurs on offense as the guards could not hit open shots on those kick-outs. Suns rotated well at times as well. This kept them in the lead though their offense was still struggling. The Spurs win on their defense and this game was no different. They tightened up the D and the Suns had a basic problem. What do they do on offense? The bread and butter for them is the pick-and-roll, but without Amare, it was just not as effective. Nash ran it time and again with Kurt and Kurt can't roll and finish quite like Amare. He can spot up and pop an open jumper, which he did several times, but you can't live off of Kurt Thomas jump shots. Ideally I would have liked them to run the pick-and-roll with Nash and Marion, but with Pop going small, there was no mismatch here. They would just switch and Bowen can stick with Marion and Finley would stick with Nash and even if Nash drove on Finn, there's Timmy waiting for him in the paint.

So the Suns had only one play in the half-court and that was the partially effective pick-and-roll with Kurt. And when things got switched up, it's not a great mismatch anyways because Nash can't do much against Timmy despite the speed advantage. It's just amazing how good Duncan is. Bill Simmons on ESPN once wrote that Kobe might be unstoppable and LeBron might be a lot of fun to watch and Wade scores in bunches, but nobody dominates every possession of a game like Tim Duncan. You see him in EVERY play, especially on the defensive end. I can't even tell you how many times Nash ran the pick-and-roll probed the paint, found nothing, dribbled out and set up the pick-and-roll again, only to find nothing again. The other big problem for the Suns is how the Brazilian Blur has been taken out of this series. Again, it's Timmy stopping him from getting to the rim on those drives. Every time Timmy goes to the bench, Spurs still play good D, but you can see Marion and LB get to the rim a lot easier. It's all about Duncan.

With all that said, the Suns fought hard in this game and would just not give up. For the first time, they tried to win a game purely on their defense because it was obvious they can't score a whole lot on offense. They defended hard and those double teams on Timmy worked. But Manu Ginobli was real good in this game. He hit some big shots and kept the Spurs in the game. He did throw away the ball twice and helped the Suns, but he shot real well and made some 3's that would have been bad shots if he missed. But he didn't. The Suns still hung in there and somehow managed to lead by 5 with 3 minutes to go and this is where things started unravelling. Spurs started hitting the open shots out of Timmy double-teams and the Suns offense had nowhere to go. Nash and gang tried and scratched and clawed, but it just was not there. Finally the Suns fans had to suffer the ignomity of seeing public enemy no-1 Bruce Bowen hit the game winning 3 with 30+ seconds to go. On further thought, as much as the Suns fans hate Bruce Bowen, he is just enemy no-3 after Robert Horry and David Stern after these suspensions.

The Suns still had 2 looks at a game-tieing 3 that Marion and Nash missed. A tough loss for the Suns on this emotional day. Crushing defeat for some fans as the Suns played so well all night and actually built some momentum in the mid fourth quarter only to lose it at the very end. Marion, Bell and Nash, all played more than 45 minutes and may be they just got tired. May be they couldn't hit those 3's or rotate quick enough because of fatigue. Nash played real hard, but was just stymied by the Spurs D. I am his biggest fan, but I thought he made some critical mistakes in this game. His foul on Ginobli's 3 with 3 mins to go was a crusher. He jumped in to his body and it was not even a touch foul. Again, may be he was just tired. Nash probably also helped off of Bowen on that game winning 3. Though Nash got back to challenge it, Bowen had already made up his mind to shoot it, and it was too late. Steve Kerr on the TNT telecast kept making this point that the Suns cannot rotate off of Bowen at the corners and they should always leave him open at any other spot. But he was open in the corner in that play. Also Nash didn't take a good shot for 3 at the end as he tried to engineer a weird foul on Duncan. Let me stop as I might be nit-picking here.

Great effort wasted and now the Suns go on the road trailing 3-2. The concern now is, are they do tried now after this game? The suspensions are still the story in Phoenix and a fan-base is still agitated. Apparently old ladies were flipping Brent Barry off in the pre-game warmups. Awesome!

Teams 1 2 3 4
San Antonio 13 20 23 32 88
Phoenix 24 20 18 23 85

San Antonio
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Bruce Bowen 3-10 0-0 3-6 0-7 2 1 4 0 4 9
Tim Duncan 7-14 7-11 0-0 2-12 2 1 1 5 3 21
Fabricio Oberto 2-2 2-2 0-0 1-1 1 1 0 0 3 6
Michael Finley 4-10 3-4 2-6 0-3 1 0 0 0 0 13
Tony Parker 5-13 1-2 0-0 0-2 5 3 1 0 3 11
Francisco Elson 0-1 0-0 0-0 1-3 0 1 0 0 3 0
Manu Ginobili 7-15 9-9 3-8 1-10 3 5 2 1 4 26
Jacque Vaughn 1-4 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Brent Barry 0-2 0-0 0-2 1-1 1 0 0 0 1 0
Matt Bonner 0-1 0-0 0-1 0-0 0 1 0 0 0 0
Melvin Ely - - - -
Jackie Butler - - - -
Robert Horry - - - -
Beno Udrih - - - -
James White - - - -
TOTALS 29-72 22-28 8-23 6-39 15 13 8 6 21 88

FG %:.403; FT %:.786; 3PT %:.348
Points of TO:16
Team rebounds:9
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:1

Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Raja Bell 4-11 0-0 2-5 0-4 0 4 0 0 5 10
Shawn Marion 9-16 4-4 2-4 4-17 1 2 1 1 4 24
Kurt Thomas 5-13 5-5 0-0 3-12 3 1 0 2 2 15
Leandro Barbosa 3-12 2-2 0-1 1-4 2 4 1 0 6 8
Steve Nash 6-19 4-4 3-7 1-2 12 3 1 0 2 19
James Jones 4-6 1-2 0-1 0-3 0 1 0 0 1 9
Pat Burke 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 1 0
Jalen Rose - - - -
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Amare Stoudemire - - - -
Marcus Banks - - - -
Boris Diaw - - - -
Eric Piatkowski - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 31-77 16-17 7-18 9-42 18 15 3 3 21 85

FG %:.403; FT %:.941; 3PT %:.389
Points of TO:8
Team rebounds:6
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

Ugly L-East - NBA playoff notes - 05/16/2007

Just when you thought the L-Eastern conference playoffs can't get any uglier, it just did today as New Jersey and Cleveland combined to score 19 points in the 4-Th quarter - 6 for Cleveland and 13 for New Jersey. It was a brick-fest in the 4-Th as these teams bricked shot after shot against decent but not spectacular defense. One team shot 1/15 and the other shot 3/17 and it doesn't even matter which team was which. Surprisingly, the Nets players didn't have bad shooting percentages despite the horrible 4-Th because they were actually decent in the first 3 quarters. They led by 18 going in to the fourth and then scored 6 and still won the game by 11. What in the name of Larry Bird and Dr.J is happening in the L-East? While the Suns and even the Warriors are dazzling the NBA nation with highly entertaining and stunningly dramatic stuff, these guys in the L-East are taking the game to new depths.

Even LeBron couldn't salvage this game as he had a 20-9-5 night shooting just 5/14. He also banged his knee a little bit at the very end and sent shock-waves through the Cavs fan-base, but he says he should be fine for game 6. Kidd had 20-9-6 with 8 turnovers and Vinsanity had 12-6-10. Cavs couldn't close it out and now they have to go on the road. Lets hope they don't give us another 4-Th quarter like this.

Suns lost a tough one and I am still trying to digest all of it.

San Antonio @ Phoenix - 88-85
New Jersey @ Cleveland - 83-72

Playoff schedule for 05/17/2007

Detroit @ Chicago - Whichever team's guards show up will win this game.

NBA kills the Suns, but Bulls stay alive - NBA playoff notes - 05/15/2007

NBA suspended Amare and Boris Diaw as expected and the Suns are now in a deep hole. Instead of going back home tied 2-2, they probably have to go to San Antonio trailing 3-2. The Suns can still win game 5, but it's going to be hard. They'll play hard and the home crowd will be there, but so will the Spurs defense and it's going to be tough to beat them with a bunch of smalls and Kurt Thomas. There was some hope for the Suns for a while when some people pointed out that Tim Duncan actually stepped on the court earlier in game 4 when Elson and James Jones were involved in a minor incident. Bruce Bowen went in as well to get Duncan and drag him back to the bench and some people claimed both of them should be suspended as well. But Stu Jackson was very clear on this point. He said Timmy was on the court, but it was not an altercation and hence wouldn't be suspended. Since the Horry incident was an altercation, he said the rule is clear on this and Amare and Boris had to be suspended. He even said something to the effect that it may not be fair, but it is the correct call based of the rule. I sure hope they change this stupid rule next year, but who cares now? The Suns have been punched in the gut anyways.

Utah as expected closed their series out today against Golden State. They are a tough team and they showed it today. The Warriors played hard and stayed close. They even led at the half, but Utah bottled up Baron again. This started in game 4 and Baron's fatigue might have become a factor in this series as it played out. The second half was not kind to the W's. All the banging and scrambling took it's toll as they just scored 33. Thats what they usually score in a quarter, sometime more. But the 3 was not falling. They shot 6/30 from 3 and Jackson was horrible from the floor shooting 3/17. He lost his composure as always and took some bad shots in that second half. Davis shot 5/16 and ended with 21-2-8 in this game. There were some hard fouls and the W's complained a lot. Barnes fouled Matt Harping hard and was involved in some arguments with the refs. Utah kept missing their free throws and kept the W's in the game, but their offensive execution was awesome.

Utah has been so consistent for 8 quarters now. AK-47 had a great game again with a 21-15-1 game with 3 steals. This guy is now fully back. Boozer had 21-14 and Okur had 14-10 to complete a total front-court domination for the Jazz just like coach Sloan drew it up. Another 59-35 rebounding advantage for the Jazz. But the real stud today for them was D-Fish. What a dramatic series for this guy? He is now not just playing, but dominating games. He hit 4/5 3's and scored 20 to cover for the horrible 1/11 shooting by Deron Williams. All in a all, an efficient series for the Jazz. As the Chuckster pointed out on TNT, they have now beat a slow-paced, defensive team in Houston and a up-tempo team in Golden State. He says they should be able to give both the Spurs and the Suns a tough series and I agree.

As for the Warriors, a fantastic run has come to an end. They ended their 13 year playoff drought in style and they are now a story in the NBA. They should be on national TV a lot next year with their fun style of play. One bad note for them is they got a little bit of a bad rep due to all the complaining, technicals, ejections etc and a lot of it is justified. Everybody says "they are an emotional team, they play on the edge" and Nellie even says he wouldn't change anything. But that should not be an excuse for anything. The W's did go over the line many times in this series and even some Bay Area fans are upset at their behavior. Utah fans just thought they were thugs. Though some of it is due to the bad image of Jacko, he does do some things that kind of re-inforce that image. I think Nelly has to rein in Jacko and Baron next year. Nelly says they are his team leaders and they are actually being a bad influence on Barnes, J-Rich, Monta etc - guys who don't mis-behave usually. Anyway, the Bay Area got it's money's worth from these dudes and it was a fun run.

In Detroit, Chicago came through big time and took this series back home. Suddenly, Deng can't miss a shot and Ben Gordon finally joined them in game 5. He had 28 to go with Deng's 20. Hinrich had a great game with 17 and 13 dimes and played some good D as always. Rip Hamilton had 16 on 5/14 and Billups 17 on 5/12. That has been the story of this series. Good guard play means victory. The Pistons guards have had bad games in game 4 and 5 and the Pistons lost as the Bulls guards played better in those games. This series might now come back to Detroit for a game 7. Pistons are playing with fire here. They should have closed it out in game 5.

Chicago @ Detroit - 108-92
Golden State @ Utah - 87-100

Playoff schedule for 05/16/2007

San Antonio @ Phoenix - No Amare, no Boris, probably no victory for the Suns. Tough one to take.

New Jersey @ Cleveland - Cleveland better close this one out.

Best of times and possibly worst of times? - Suns playoff notes - 05/14/2007

What looked like the best day in the 3 year run of this era's Phoenix Suns, now is in danger of becoming their worst day. If you are a Suns fan like me, you should be shaking at your knees now because of the Horry incident. It was late in the game and the game was pretty much over except for the customary "foul and extend the game" strategy when Robert Horry body-checked Nash into the stands instead of just grabbing him for one of those typical fouls. Nash was driving hard and fast and he went flying into the side-boards. Raj Bell immediately jumped into Horry's face and the situation was diffused fairly quickly with Horry's ejection. But the real problem was, Amare was on the bench at that time and he and Boris Diaw made a move towards the "crime scene" and actually stepped on the court. The crime itself happened just up the Suns sideline, but both these guys stepped on the court as they walked towards the scene. The Suns coaches were just a second late in restraining them. If the NBA sticks to the letter of the law, these 2 should be suspended.

That makes it a real sad day for a Suns fan. Finally, the Suns break through against the Spurs and are now in a 3-game series with 2 games at home. No guarantee for a series win, but they have never had this kind of a performance against this Spurs team. And I strongly believe this is the de-facto NBA finals. These are the 2 best teams in the NBA and the only way either of them lose to either Utah or Detroit will be because they are mentally and physically exhausted in this series. So if the Suns win this one, they may have the best look at a ring in 3 years, actually 14 years since the 1993 finals. Check that - make it 40 years. Suns are actually going through a mini-curse with no championships in 40 years. Now, we have to deal with this suspension? Are you kidding me? There's already talk about how they may be forced to break this team up next year due to luxury tax constraints and now this?

The only hope I have is, the incident was along the sidelines and I would say Amare and Boris just walked up the Suns bench and just stepped on the court because there's no space on the sideline anyways. I don't think anybody will buy Amare and coaches excuse that he was just running to sub in to the game! Charles already said on TNT that he tried the same excuse when he was going to be suspended and it didn't work. The rule is fool-proof, but is also definitely foolish. How can Suns pay such a high, potentially history altering penalty for what Robert Horry did? That too when Amare and Boris were restrained long before they got anywhere near the crime-scene. Makes no sense. Say it ain't so Commish! Say it ain't so.

As for the game itself, it was one of the finest nights in recent Suns playoffs history. Nash came back strong from the poor shooting night and he was his usual self. Amare stayed out of foul trouble, at least until late in the game. The Suns were still struggling with the pace as the Spurs didn't let them run and didn't let them shoot the 3's. The Spurs actually took and made more 3's in this game. Suns scored just 40 points in the first half and it looked like the series was over. It looked like the Suns cannot de-code this Spurs team, not with this cast. The third quarter was even worse as the Spurs scored at will and took a comfortable lead, though not a big one. They got a lot of open threes and the Suns just couldn't rotate fast enough to prevent anything. Finley and Brent Barry were killing them. The only good news was, the Suns also scored 32 in the quarter and that was good news.

The fourth quarter was no different as the Spurs kept playing their style and the Suns stayed close, but couldn't tie and take the lead. Then Timmy and Amare got in to foul trouble. Suddenly the Suns defense started playing desperate and they toughened up right in front of our eyes in the second half of the 4-Th quarter. They got some stops and they even ran off of those stops and got easy baskets. Nash had 2 horrible, back-to-back turnovers and it seemed like it was just not the Suns night. But the defense was there and Spurs did not capitalize at the other end. Thats when Nash came back with made 2 spectacular behind-the-back passes for Amare finishes in the lane. Once again the MP3 comes through big. Of course the 5 fouls on Timmy forced him to defend very tentatively and Amare took full advantage. Suddenly Suns were leading and the Spurs still could not score. The quarter ended with a 32-18 edge for the Suns and they won it in style at the end.

This was a tough, hard-nosed, championship caliber win on the road at a tough place against a veteran opponent. The Suns spoke about toughening up mentally and physically and they backed up all that talk by doing just that in the 4-Th quarter. Steve Kerr was alluding to it even in the third quarter as he suggested this could be a defining stretch for this Suns team. If they had lost a low-scoring, slow-paced, defensive game against the Spurs again, even ardent Suns fans might have started questioning everything about this team, their coach and his style of play. Now those questions are on cold-storage, at least for another 2 days. The only question now is will Amare get suspended? I have always hated Horry since the day he threw the towel at the then Suns coach Danny Ainge's face. Now I just hate him even more.

Teams 1 2 3 4
Phoenix 24 16 32 32 104
San Antonio 22 23 35 18 98

Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Shawn Marion 4-8 3-4 1-2 2-12 0 1 2 2 2 12
Kurt Thomas 5-10 4-4 0-0 2-5 1 0 0 2 3 14
Amare Stoudemire 9-18 8-8 0-0 3-9 0 3 3 1 5 26
Raja Bell 5-11 0-0 2-4 1-4 1 1 0 0 0 12
Steve Nash 8-12 6-8 2-3 0-2 15 8 0 0 2 24
Leandro Barbosa 4-13 2-5 0-4 1-7 0 2 0 0 5 10
Boris Diaw 2-6 0-0 0-1 2-3 2 1 1 0 0 4
James Jones 1-1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Jalen Rose - - - -
Pat Burke - - - -
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Marcus Banks - - - -
Eric Piatkowski - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 38-79 23-29 5-14 11-42 19 16 6 5 17 104

FG %:.481; FT %:.793; 3PT %:.357
Points of TO:17
Team rebounds:12
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:1

San Antonio
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Bruce Bowen 1-3 0-0 1-1 0-0 2 0 2 0 3 3
Tim Duncan 9-14 3-4 0-0 3-11 2 6 0 3 5 21
Fabricio Oberto 3-4 0-0 0-0 1-3 0 0 0 0 3 6
Michael Finley 5-12 3-3 4-10 0-5 1 1 0 0 2 17
Tony Parker 9-19 5-5 0-1 1-6 7 5 2 0 4 23
Robert Horry 0-1 0-0 0-0 0-1 5 1 0 3 1 0
Manu Ginobili 3-14 2-2 2-7 0-4 4 0 3 0 3 10
Brent Barry 5-8 0-0 2-4 0-1 2 1 0 1 2 12
Jacque Vaughn 2-4 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 2 1 0 1 4
Francisco Elson 1-1 0-0 0-0 1-1 0 0 1 0 2 2
Matt Bonner 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Melvin Ely - - - -
Jackie Butler - - - -
Beno Udrih - - - -
James White - - - -
TOTALS 38-80 13-14 9-23 6-32 23 16 9 7 26 98

FG %:.475; FT %:.929; 3PT %:.391
Points of TO:15
Team rebounds:4
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

King comes through - NBA playoff notes - 05/14/2007

It should be playoffs time now since we see a couple of hard fouls and "incidents" every day it seems like. Today there were hard fouls and physical stuff in both the Suns and the Cavs game. More on the Suns incident later which could be a huge story tomorrow, but the Cavs used Mikki Moore's hard foul on Sasha Pavlovic as motivation and played real well after that. It was a close game, but the King was on point today. He shot 9/16 for 30 points to go with 9 boards and 7 dimes. Nets didn't get a triple double from Kidd and it showed. Kidd still had 17 boards, but just 5 points and 7 dimes. RJ shot 3/12 and Vinsanity shot 6/23 for an all-around sucky night for the Nets. Still Vince had a chance to tie it or win it at the end, but Snow forced him into a turnover. Mikke Moore had a great game with 25 points and he kept the Nets alive. For the Cavs, 13-11 for the Z-man and 19 for Larry Hughes.

Cleveland @ New Jersey - 87-85
Phoenix @ San Antonio - 104-98

Playoff schedule for 05/15/2007

Chicago @ Detroit - Should be fishing time for Chi-town.

Golden State @ Utah - The only way this Warrior story gets better is if they win this one and send it back to Oakland. Tall order though, pun intended.

Warriors get Boozed - NBA playoff notes - 05/13/2007

The great home court "juice" that the Warriors have been drinking from this entire playoffs finally ran out today as Utah figured out what they have to do. They probably figured this out after game 1, but just didn't implement it in game 3 on the road. The foul trouble for the point guards being the main reason for that mishap, but coach Sloan came out in the post-game presser and said if we don't get the ball to our bigs I might as well not play them. Message sent! Can you imagine Boozer, probably the best player on either team, sitting on the bench for 48 minutes?

So Utah went to Boozer early, went to him late, went to him often, pretty much kept going to him all night. Warriors' swarming, scrambling defense has bothered a lot of bigs in the past, but Boozer is not really having much problems. This guy is very talented and crafty in the paint and since he prefers his left hand on a lot of shots, it's hard to defend him. He had a 34-12 night. The Warriors stayed close in this game, but they just could not step on the gas and run and gun like they often do at home. Part of the reason is, the threes didn't fall tonight. The W's shot 12/39 from 3. 39 of their 84 shots were 3's. Thats way too many 3's. I hate to say this as a Suns fan, but you live by the 3, you die by it. Also, mental and physical fatigue finally set in for the W's after this impressive playoff run. Baron was off tonight as he had just 15 points today. The Jazz have started bodying him up pretty tight. He shot just 2/8 from 3. Al Harrington had a good game with 24 points and the rest of the W's were so-so.

With all that said, the game was still close as the W's entered the fourth quarter leading by 3. But the Warriors disintegrated a little bit and Utah ran away with the game. D-Fish hit some huge jumpers late as he had 21 points with 2 big 3's. This guy is clutch and killed the Warriors at critical points. The game ended ugly as the frustrated Warriors committed a couple of hard fouls with Baron just leveling D-Fish and J-Rich pulling Okur down on a late dunk and getting ejected. Baron might even get suspended for the cheap shot which went unnoticed during the game, but replays caught it later. The Warriors are probably done now. I can't see this series coming back to Oakland. It was a fun run though.

I am sorry. The Eastern playoffs are just not that interesting. Today the Bulls played for pride and actually won one and avoided a sweep. Deng finally came alive and had a 25-13 game on 10/15 shooting. Ben Gordon was still off shooting just 4/11 but the other guys were good. For Detroit, it actually seemed like they might come back like they did in game 3, but the Bulls held on. The Pistons back-court didn't shoot all that well and that finished them off. They should wrap this up Tuesday at Detroit.

Detroit @ Chicago - 87-102
Utah @ Golden State - 115-101

Playoff schedule for 05/14/2007

Cleveland @ New Jersey - Pivotal game 4 in this series. This will define how the rest of the series goes.

Phoenix @ San Antonio - I expect a great game here. Suns need this one real bad.

Heart-Break in Alamo - Suns playoff notes - 05/12/2007

This game reminded me of game 3 from 2 years ago in the Western Finals when the Suns and the Spurs played a similar Saturday night game. The Suns were trailing 0-2 in that series and just got harassed in to a really ugly defeat in San Antonio. This one was not that ugly but the result was the same. They lost another tough one at San Antonio with the Spurs dictating everything in this game, especially late. It's amazing how robotic this Spurs team is. They just strangle you to death with their defense, make the game boring, take you out of your rhythm, make you shoot badly, and finally win. Sometimes you watch the Spurs game and you can't help but think you have seen this game before. Same script, same players, same plays and mostly the same result.

This game started OK for the Suns, but Nash was really off. He missed his first 9 shots, which is unheard of for this guy. He was actually scoreless in the first half. Amare was in foul trouble all night and he also had to deal with "dirty" chants from the crowd in response to him calling the Spurs dirty. Still the Suns scored 30 in the first quarter, but the Spurs took control of the game after that. They won the second quarter and throttled the Suns completely in the third with the Suns just scoring 19. Raja Bell shot 4-4 from the 3-point line in the first half, but never got a touch after that. He was not happy about it after the game.

All along Timmy was on fire. There are a lot of people who say this guy should be a MVP every year and there's some truth to it. He is not even a top candidate these days because his scoring numbers are down with the development of Parker and Ginobli. But you could argue that the fact he accepts a lesser scoring role in the regular season should only add to his case for a MVP because he steps up every time in the playoffs the last couple of seasons. The Spurs know where their bread is buttered and thats in Duncan's kitchen. They turn to him in the playoffs when games become tougher, the tempo slows down, possessions become more important and the jumpers don't always go in. Thats when he shows us what he can do scoring wise if and when they want him to. Of course he always dominates the other parts of the game with his defense and rebounding.

This game was one of those classic Tim Duncan games. He had 33-19 with 3 blocks. After all that talk about how Kurt Thomas stopped him last game, he showed it was all a mirage. Nobody can stop this guy and even in game 3, he shot a very high percentage. It's just that Kurt didn't foul out and he played him one-on-one protecting the other Suns. But no such benefits in this game as Kurt couldn't stop him and Amare got into foul trouble anyways. Amare had 21 points in just 21 minutes that he managed to stay on the floor. The Suns need him on the floor for them have a shot in this series. For the Spurs, Ginobli got going big time as well as he got poked in the eye by Marion and still ended up with 24 points. Some people expected Pop to start him. That didn't happen, but he got going finally. More problem for the Suns now.

Nash turned it around in the second half and tried to keep the Suns in it. The Spurs gave the 3 to Marion and he shot well to score 26 in this game. Nash played real well in the 4-Th, but it was too little too late. The Suns cut it to 6 a couple of time late in the game, but they just could not get the stops with Duncan scoring at will. Nash went 6/8 after starting 0/9 and had 11 assists as well, but still took responsibility for the defeat.

In any case, it feels like deja vu for the Suns though they just have to win the next game, one game, and they are back in it. Entirely possible as they have been close in both the games they lost and blew the Spurs out once. But it still feels uneasy because these are the Spurs and vast stretches of this series are played at their pace and their level of physicality. Nash got kicked in the groin today by Bowen and there were a lot of talk by the Suns about just toughening up after this game. The Spurs seems to be in their heads right now and D'Antoni seemed pissed that the NBA lets a different style of play in the playoffs. He seems to suggest that it's just too physical and it cramps his team's entertaining style of play that the fans enjoy if only they are allowed to play it. Interesting thought for the NBA, but the Suns and their fans have more immediate concerns.

Teams 1 2 3 4
Phoenix 30 23 19 29 101
San Antonio 25 30 25 28 108

Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Shawn Marion 11-21 1-2 3-6 1-7 0 2 2 4 1 26
Kurt Thomas 3-8 2-2 0-0 0-12 1 1 1 3 5 8
Amare Stoudemire 7-11 7-11 0-0 3-5 1 1 0 0 5 21
Raja Bell 4-6 0-0 4-4 0-2 0 1 0 1 5 12
Steve Nash 6-17 2-3 2-5 0-8 11 5 0 0 3 16
Leandro Barbosa 2-6 2-3 0-2 0-2 4 3 1 1 1 6
Boris Diaw 4-7 2-4 0-0 1-3 3 3 0 0 4 10
James Jones 0-0 2-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 2
Jalen Rose - - - -
Pat Burke - - - -
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Marcus Banks - - - -
Eric Piatkowski - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 37-76 18-27 9-17 5-39 20 16 4 9 24 101

FG %:.487; FT %:.667; 3PT %:.529
Points of TO:16
Team rebounds:10
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

San Antonio
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Bruce Bowen 3-6 2-2 2-4 1-9 2 1 4 1 2 10
Tim Duncan 12-19 9-14 0-0 5-19 0 0 0 3 4 33
Francisco Elson 1-1 2-2 0-0 0-1 0 3 0 0 1 4
Michael Finley 2-10 3-3 2-5 1-2 3 2 1 0 2 9
Tony Parker 7-18 2-4 0-2 1-4 5 2 0 0 0 16
Manu Ginobili 8-19 7-7 1-3 0-2 4 1 3 1 4 24
Robert Horry 1-5 4-4 1-3 1-5 1 1 0 0 4 7
Jacque Vaughn 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Fabricio Oberto 1-1 0-0 0-0 2-2 2 0 1 0 4 2
Brent Barry 1-3 0-0 1-3 0-3 2 0 0 0 1 3
Melvin Ely - - - -
Jackie Butler - - - -
Matt Bonner - - - -
Beno Udrih - - - -
James White - - - -
TOTALS 36-82 29-36 7-20 11-47 19 10 9 5 22 108

FG %:.439; FT %:.806; 3PT %:.350
Points of TO:23
Team rebounds:5
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

Kidd rocks - NBA playoff notes - 05/12/2007

The Nets came back home and won today to put some doubt in to the Cavs. They controlled this game from the start and it didn't look anything like the first 2 games. The stud once again was J-Kidd. Another monster triple double with 23-13-14. How awesome is that? Between Nash, Kidd, Baron and Deron, we might be seeing some of the best point guard play in these playoffs in a long time. It's like everyday you watch one of these guys and you go "Nash is the best PG in the league" and the next day it's like "Baron is the best" and today it was "Kidd is still the best". The big 3 for the Nets all had a symmetric 23 points, but Kidd shot better than Carter and RJ going 8/12. It was Kidd's 11-Th triple double in the playoffs and it broke the tie with Larry Legend. He was the one and the only story of this game as he dominated every aspect of the game. As for the Cavs, King had a bad shooting night, but had a near triple-double himself with 18-6-12. None of the other Cavs were particularly good either. So they need to show up for game 4.

More on the Suns later as they had another one of those heart-breaking losses to the Spurs.

Phoenix @ San Antonio - 101-108
Cleveland @ New Jersey - 85-96

Playoff schedule for 05/13/2007

Detroit @ Chicago - Bring out your brooms for the sweep.

Utah @ Golden State - This one should be a dandy. I don't think Utah will get blown out again, but you never know with these Warriors :-)

The Dunk! - NBA playoff notes - 05/11/2007

Bay Area is home to a lot of special sports moments refereed to by single words - Dwight Clark's "The Catch", Terrell Owens "The Catch 2" etc. Add to that list "The Dunk". Baron Davis threw a monster facial on Andrei Kirilenko of all people to pretty much bring the roof down at the Oracle tonight. There are way too many dunks these days and though they are all good in their own ways, it is over-played and just not as exciting as they used to be back in the day when only a few ballers could dunk. But this one from Baron was special. He is a good dunker, but he can't consistently get up there because he is usually hurt. Even in this game, he had an earlier dunk where he barely got over the rim to drop the ball in. Not sure what got in to him late in the 4-Th. He beat Deron Williams off the dribble and he saw AK-47 get there to help. Once he saw AK-47, I guess he decided to do something special. He just rose up, hung in the air, cocked the ball one-handed, used the other hand to stiff arm AK in his face, and threw down a thunderous jam.

The crowd spontaneously jumped out of the seat and roared in awe as this was one of those truly "jump off your seat" moment. Fans and media has been talking about this dunk ever since for a day and a half now. AK-47 has had 16 blocks in 3 games and this was a strong message sent to him. Not that AK-47 is going to stop doing his thing, but this was a pivotal play at least for the fans. People are saying this is the best play of these playoffs to this point and may end up being the defining play if the W's go any further. The fans were already at their usual "Oracle Arena" level in this game, but this play gave them another reason to go nuts. ESPN instituted the decibel meter for Oracle Arena as these fans are still the story of these playoffs and I don't remember seeing the decibel meter since the heydays at Arco Arena in late nineties. Warriors rode the crowd for another impressive win in this game.

The game itself started well for the W's. Deron Williams was in early foul trouble again. He has been in foul trouble in all 3 games with Baron being in trouble himself in game 1. I thought Fisher would guard Baron mostly, but Sloan used both of them on Baron and both of them had 3 fouls in no time. Thats a huge problem. I still thought Sloan should have played Fisher through it and risked him fouling out rather than let AK-47 run the point and let the W's go up by 20. Boozer took just 4 shots in the first half and thats just bad offense by the Jazz. They need a PG on the court especially with the swarming half-man, half-zone defense the Warriors play. What's the point of protecting the team from foul trouble if you are out of the game by the second quarter?

Warriors started hot and went up by double digits before Utah came back to tie it up. But then the Jazz offense sputtered and the W's went up big in the second quarter. They made an amazing 11 threes in that first half as they scored 70 and the game was pretty much over. Well, except for The Dunk I guess. J-Rich and Baron had fantastic shooting nights, but everybody hit 3's in that first half as they always seem to do at home. J-Rich had 25 points in this game shooting 5/9 from the 3. He is shooting with confidence these days. Warriors got production from everybody including Pietrus who scored 14 on 8/9 FTS after missing the 2 in game 2 that would have won the game for the W's. Monta had 10 and AL had 15. Al also started instead of Matt Barnes, another great adjustment by Nellie. But the story of the day was Baron. He shot 12/20 for 32 points to go with 9 dimes. He made one jaw-dropping move after another for either baskets or pretty assists. He is operating at whole another level (HNL as I like to call it) right now and the Warriors are riding him as far as he can take 'em.

As for the Jazz, Boozer shot 8/10 shots for 19-11, but they need to get him the ball more. AK-47 was amazing in the first half as he was all over the place. He single handedly brought the Jazz back in that first quarter. He also did well at the point, but they need more than him at point if they want to win. They need to find a way to keep Deron on the floor at all times much like the Warriors do with Baron. AK had 15-5-5 with 3 blocks and 5 turnovers. Jazz out-rebounded the W's again, but the margin came down drastically to 44-32. Warriors can live with that. Nellie also played Biedrins for 38 minutes and he responded with a 13-13 night. Now both teams have to get ready for the pivotal game 4.

Utah @ Golden State - 105-125

Playoff schedule for 05/12/2007

Phoenix @ San Antonio - Amare has upped the ante by calling the Spurs and Bruce Bowen "dirty". The Suns better be ready for this one.

Cleveland @ New Jersey - Can the Cavs do to the Nets what they did to the Wizards in the first round? Probably not, but they at least need a split in these 2 road games.

Roger "The Mercenary" Clemens

I am amazed at the whole Roger Clemens deal the last couple of years. Why is this dude the only guy in sports who gets to do what he wants, when he wants and where he wants and he names his price for all this. How does he get away with all this crap that nobody else even try to pull off? If teams are willing to give him all this, of course I don't blame him for taking it, but where's the media here? The same media thats quick to criticize every little mis-step in sports. Why is ESPN covering this guy like he is Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi rolled into one? I don't get it. I am sick of people like Chris Burman just sucking him like a hoover vacuum cleaner for basically making 28 million a year for pitching once in 5 days and not even showing up the other 4 days. He stays with his family in Houston even on game days, travels in private jets to games and nobody says anything. But how dare Barry Bonds has a leather recliner in his locker room? Just for the record, Clemens has enjoyed all of this the last 3 years though I am not sure what exact deal he is getting this year.

Race is an integral part of our lives here in America and often times I feel like we are just way too sensitive when it comes to race. We over-react when something even slightly offensive is said about blacks sometimes. Everybody jumps on it if the issue is something sensational like the Imus issue or the Rush Limbaugh issue couple of years back with Donovan McNabb. I hate Rush Limbaugh, but I thought he got a raw deal there though I do think Imus deserved to be fired. But my point is, there are a lot of subtle instances in our lives, sports or politics that are more symptomatic of racism in our society than these sensational issues. To me Clemens issue is one of them. I can't imagine a black athlete ever getting this kind of a deal in any sports. Only some white guys can get away with this. There's some talk about how Barry can't get away with it but Clemens can and thats all about race. I totally agree, though there's a message here for Barry too. I hate Barry and if he was not such an A-Hole to media and fans, may be he can get away with a a little bit more. Still, black athletes can't do what Roger is doing here.

Also there are talks about how Clemens might be on HGH or steroids and he retires, stays away from the game for 2 months extra and un-retires to basically cycle these drugs through his body while avoiding the MLB drug tests. There was also some talk last year about how he probably tested positive and got suspended for 50 games without the league telling us anything. I wouldn't put anything past either Clemens or this sham of a league. Any and all of these stories could be true.

Talking about race, here's another instance of sub-conscious racism. This is some reader's e-mail to Bill Simmons I couldn't agree with him more. He talks about sports, but just replace it with "race".

"Does the coverage of the Josh Hancock accident perfectly illustrate the double standard we have with different sports? If a tattooed, cornrowed NBA player had been been in a fatal, single-car accident with a BAC level twice the legal limit, allegedly on the phone with a woman arranging a hookup and with a stash of weed in the car -- he'd be posterized as everything that's wrong with the NBA. Since it's a clean-cut white guy, he's being treated like Barbaro."

Awesome Pistons - NBA playoff notes - 05/10/2007

I was genuinely blown away by Detroit today. They showed us today why they are one of the top contenders in these playoffs though they play in the L-East and these Pistons are as good as they were 2 years back when they won it all. They go into Chicago and the Bulls came out with all the energy in the World to erase the memory of those 2 embarrassing defeats in Detroit. On the other hand, Pistons just had a horrible second quarter and scored only 10 points. All this amounted to a 16 point half-time lead for the Bulls. 44-28, Pistons scoring just 28 in the entire half.

So you would think it's time for Detroit to mail this game in and get ready for game 4. All they need is a split in Chicago and they can finish it off in Detroit. But the Pistons came out of the half on fire. They erased 15 of those 16 point lead in the third quarter. They scored 32 in that quarter like they were the freaking Phoenix Suns after scoring just 28 in the entire first half. Chauncey Billups might still be one of the more under-rated players in this league. He was amazing in this second half. This guy might be as critical to what the Pistons do on offense as Nash is to the Phoenix Suns. Billups pretty much controls the flow for the Pistons and when they are in a soup, he can just raise up and shoot the 3.

So all of a sudden, the Bulls had a battle on their hands and they were crushed. They were not ready for it in the fourth to fight this thing out. They thought they were going to blow the Pistons out and suddenly they got blown out in the third. As always it's the Pistons defense that wins them games. It was impressive to see them defend the Bulls in the second half. They defend everything and rotate beautifully to bother the shooters. Just talk to Ben Gordon. He is one of the most prolific scorers in this league and he can't do anything in this series. He shot 4/16 today for 16 points and Deng's 8/22 wasn't much better either.

All in all a great game for the Pistons and now it's just a formality. Billups had 21, Tay had 23-22 and Sheed had 16-11 in this game. A rare bad game for C-Webb as he went scoreless in 23 minutes.

Detroit @ Chicago - 81-74

Playoff schedule for 05/11/2007

Utah @ Golden State - Oracle arena should be a sight to behold for this one.

High drama in Utah - NBA playoff notes - 05/09/2007

The Warriors are becoming the story of these playoffs. I hate to say this as a Suns fan since the Suns have been the best show in all of basketball for the last 3 years. They still are the best runners and gunners in the association, but now that they are proven winners, most of the surprise element is gone. All of their underdog sentiment and the notions of an upset are also gone. For instance, they were expected to win the first round series against the Lakers rather easily and they did. This is where the Warriors come in. They are the new kids on the block playing the Suns style, but they are the 8-Th seeds who beat the top seed. They are the underdogs trying to upset everybody in their way. On top of that, they have a tough never-say-die attitude that has captured the nation's attention. Plus a superstar Baron Davis who has been as good as any one player in these playoffs.

All of these factors were on display today again in game 2 against the Jazz. As if thats not enough, this game took the dramatic element to whole another level with the whole D-Fish story. More on that later. This game started real bad for the Jazz with Deron Williams picking up 2 quick fouls. Boom-Dizzle was on fire and then Dee Brown hurt himself real bad falling on Okur and he had to leave with a bad neck or spinal injury. Through all of this, Utah was playing very well and again scoring at a high pace to keep up with the W's. They scored 63 in the first half and led at the break. The W's were playing their game, shooting 3's and making enough of them to stay in the game. It was clear the W's were not going to just go away. These guys can play, they shoot the 3's without any conscience and they are tough. Plus Boom-Dizzle was dazzling in this game. This guy is in a zone right now. He had 36-3-7 in this game.

For the Jazz, they were once again dominating the boards and it felt like Boozer and Okur were going to get every rebound in this game. On top of that, Okur seemed to hit every open 3 he got though he only shot 3/7 from 3 and had a total of 23 points to go with 18 boards. Booze had 30-13 game on 9/14 shooting. Deron was in foul trouble, but AK-47 was having a big game as he also played some point with Dee Brown out and Deron on the bench. This is when the dramatic happened. Derek Fisher, who missed game 1 with some issues with his kid, came to the arena very late in the game. He then changed and showed up in the third quarter to a huge ovation. Jerry Sloan put him in the game directly before he could even sit on the bench and the crowd went nuts. They needed D-Fish to play the point and though he didn't shoot, he did the other things.

The game was a see-saw battle and the W's stayed in it behind some good shooting by Baron and J-Rich. Jacko was having trouble shooting. That could have something to do with AK-47 defending him, who had another 6 blocks today. AK-47 is amazing. As a Suns fan, I always wonder how good he'll look in a Suns jersey and I know it'll be spectacular! This is very ironic because the Suns actually have one of the few players in the league who has a similar game to Ak-47 in Shawn Marion. But still I love Ak's defensive game and the Suns sure can use that.

Coming back to this game, the Warriors were right there for most of the game, though they had trouble containing or boxing out the Jazz. And then suddenly they hit a shot or two and now were leading by 5 late in the game. They had almost won it. Thats when bad things happened for the W's with less than a minute to go. First, D-Fish played great D on Baron and he stepped out of bounds to turn the ball over. The Jazz still didn't capitalize, but then W's started missing free throws. First Mikael Pietrus missed both with the W's leading by 3 and that gave the Jazz an opening. Then Baron got the ball for 2 freebies with 5 secs remaining and the W's leading by 1. He missed one and that meant the Jazz just needed a 2 to tie the game. They got that easily as the whole world knew Deron will drive and shoot or dish and still nobody could stop him. He just got close enough and took a jumper to send the game to OT. This guy is a stud. Al Harrington says he is the only guy he has seen who can post up Baron Davis!

The Warriors have been horrible free throw shooters the last 2 years and it finally bit them in the butt. It didn't hurt them in the first round series because most of the games were not that close. But this one was and the W's gave it away. Once it went to OT this way, they had no energy in them to fight back. Baron was visibly tired even in the 3-Rd quarter as he is getting knocked down on every drive to the hoop and he has to do so much for the W's on both offense and defense. So in OT, the Jazz won easily and fittingly, D-Fish hit a 3 to ice it, his only shot of the game. Tough loss for the W's, but something tells me they will tie it up in Oakland. The home crowd is going to be crazy. And these guys just don't quit. They know they could have come back home up 2-0 instead of down 0-2.

The story of the game was D-Fish though. He spoke after the game and said that his baby daughter had a cancer surgery in her eyes and asked everybody to check their kids out for this rare disease. Thats very thoughtful of him to say that under such stress. People say this guys is a true gentleman and he proved it today with his message and you could also tell from how even his ex-teammates from the Warriors were genuinely friendly to him after the game as they hugged him and wished him well.

Just another side story to an already fascinating series.

Golden State @ Utah - 117-127

Playoff schedule for 05/10/2007

Detroit @ Chicago - This series is pretty much Detroit's. This game is Chicago's last and only chance to change our mind.

Suns right back on track - Suns playoff notes - 05/08/2007

Great win for the Suns tonight in a must-win game. This game had a very un-Suns feel to it at times as it happens every time against the Spurs. But the good thing is, this Suns team is a good team and is not really limited when it comes to playing in the half-court. It's amazing how good Steve Nash is. This guy makes everything go for the Suns in the half-court (and the full-court) and he has clearly improved this season after winning 2 MVPs the last 2 years. Bruce Bowen's defense seems to hardly bother him and he just finds a way to create baskets for himself and his team. The TNT guys repeatedly said today that he willed this team to a win today. He came out aggressive and though he missed a lot of shots early, he did set the tone. The Suns got their offense going early, but couldn't knock down shots. So they actually trailed after 1 scoring only 19 in the first.

But then they got on a roll little bit in the second quarter. Shots started falling for Nash and the gang and the most important thing was, for whatever reason, Tony Parker was not killing them. I think it was part good D by Marion, part good team D because they started Kurt Thomas to defend Timmy and that changed the way the paint was patrolled and it was also part Tony just missing shots. In any case, he was not killing the Suns and Manu was still bottled up. So it was basically Timmy's offense. Kurt played him well and more than anything, it allowed the Suns to play him one on one and also kept Amare out of foul trouble. But Timmy was still being Timmy. He had 29 on 12/20 shots and 11 boards. The bank was open all night and it was amazing how easily he scores off the glass from all kinds of angle and trajectory. I thought the Suns could have still sent another body at him, but D'Antoni played it right and sent the message it's Timmy V our team and with the Suns offense doing well, he didn't have a problem letting Timmy get his.

Amare and Shawn didn't do much in the first half, but Amare came alive in the third. He was unstoppable for a stretch and that put the game away from the Spurs. The Suns didn't even need him in the fourth as they quickly built a huge lead behind Nash, Kurt and the gang. Diaw had a decent game tonight and his no-look pass to Amare in the third was just spectacular. Nash had 20 and 16 dimes. Thats how the Suns win. Amare ended with 27 big ones and the solid mid-range shooting from Kurt was as invaluable as his defense on timmy.

All in all a great win for the Suns. The Suns lost both home games 2 years back in the playoffs against the Spurs and if they are really better now, they should have won both, but they'll take a split given they lost a tough game 1. The good news is, they have looked good in both games. Spurs are going to be tough for them, but at least they showed us they are very capable of beating them at home. Now they go on the road, and thats a whole different story. I think they can get a split. Nash is playing so well right now that the contrast between his performance and how bad Nowitzki was in his playoffs is just too obvious to everyone. Nowitzki might have stolen Nash's 3-Rd MVP trophy and everybody can see it now.

Teams 1 2 3 4
San Antonio 25 17 22 17 81
Phoenix 19 30 22 30 101

San Antonio
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Bruce Bowen 5-10 0-0 3-6 0-2 0 1 1 0 2 13
Tim Duncan 12-20 5-7 0-0 2-11 1 2 0 2 4 29
Francisco Elson 2-3 1-1 0-0 1-4 0 1 1 1 2 5
Michael Finley 4-9 0-0 3-6 0-3 2 3 0 0 1 11
Tony Parker 5-14 3-6 0-1 0-2 3 4 0 0 0 13
Manu Ginobili 3-9 0-0 0-2 1-5 5 2 3 0 1 6
Robert Horry 1-1 0-0 0-0 2-4 0 2 2 1 2 2
Jacque Vaughn 0-3 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0 1 0
Fabricio Oberto 0-1 0-2 0-0 2-4 1 2 2 0 3 0
Brent Barry 0-2 0-0 0-2 1-2 1 1 0 1 2 0
Matt Bonner 1-2 0-0 0-0 2-2 0 0 0 0 0 2
Beno Udrih 0-3 0-0 0-1 1-1 0 0 0 0 0 0
Melvin Ely - - - -
Jackie Butler - - - -
James White - - - -
TOTALS 33-77 9-16 6-18 12-40 14 18 9 5 18 81

FG %:.429; FT %:.563; 3PT %:.333
Points of TO:13
Team rebounds:6
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Shawn Marion 2-4 0-0 1-2 0-10 1 1 1 3 2 5
Kurt Thomas 6-7 0-0 0-0 0-4 0 1 3 0 3 12
Amare Stoudemire 10-16 7-8 0-0 1-9 0 3 2 0 3 27
Raja Bell 6-9 5-6 1-3 1-3 0 4 1 0 2 18
Steve Nash 7-17 5-5 1-2 0-1 16 3 0 0 0 20
Boris Diaw 3-9 0-0 0-0 2-7 5 2 2 1 1 6
Leandro Barbosa 6-13 0-0 1-3 2-3 3 2 0 1 1 13
James Jones 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-2 0 0 1 0 1 0
Marcus Banks 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0
Pat Burke 0-1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 1 1 0
Jalen Rose - - - -
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Eric Piatkowski - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 40-76 17-19 4-10 6-39 25 16 10 6 14 101

FG %:.526; FT %:.895; 3PT %:.400
Points of TO:24
Team rebounds:4
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

King comes through - NBA playoff notes - 05/08/2007

Spectacular night for King james as he had 36 points to go with 12 dimes. He dominated this game late to put the Nets away. The Cavs have now won 6 straight playoff games. Cleveland out-rebounded the Nets big (49-32) once again and also forced the Nets in to 16 turnovers, with Kidd accounting for 8 himself. Gooden had a great game with 10-14. This guy has quietly had a good season, especially on the boards. Z had 13-9 and Sasha had 17. But this was king's game through and through. He took control of this game and carried the Cavs home. The game was close until very late and the Nets did well to stay in it. As always, Vinsanity took far too many jumpers and he missed a few crucial ones late. Vince had 26, but on 10/26 shots. The Nets are now hoping some home cooking will send those jumpers in. Kidd had 17-10-8 and RJ had 22 on 7/11 shooting. King also had a funny moment or two in the post-game presser as he could not say something, calling it a tongue-twister and saying it was OK because he didn't go to college. The Cavs should now at least get a split in New Jersey.

The Suns won a big one in Phoenix today.

San Antonio @ Phoenix - 81-101
New Jersey @ Cleveland - 92-102

Playoff schedule for 05/09/2007

Golden State @ Utah - Warriors will stay in this one too. The question is, can they finish?

Big win for the Jazz - NBA playoff notes - 05/07/2007

Great game in Salt Lake today as the Warriors brought their run-and-gun style to town and put on a good show. The Warriors, also known as Suns-lite, are slowly and surely becoming "must-see TV" much like the Suns and todays game was fun to watch. The surprising part was, Utah played right with them and they showed that they have the athletes and the offensive talent to play this style for stretches if need be. I love watching good coaches and Jerry Sloan is definitely one. He let his guys run in this one and let them play in a good rhythm to keep up with the W's. Both teams scored at will except in the 3-Rd quarter and the point guard match-up was just special.

Baron Davis is one of the elite guards in the league, but he is playing another big, strong guard in Deron Williams who is like a younger Baron Davis. This matchup was just awesome in this game and is something to watch this entire series. Deron had 31-5-8 and Baron had 24-3-7 and they are both just getting started. They also kind of cancelled each other out, which is a win for the Jazz because the W's depend on Baron a lot more than the Jazz depend on Deron. Just like if Tony Parker cancels Steve Nash out, the Spurs are happy. If Baron is neutralized, then the Jazz bigs can put them on top. The W's play small and they couldn't defend Boozer or Okur. Boozer had 17-20 with 10 of the 20 boards coming on the offensive end. Thats ways too many offensive boards. Fittingly, the Jazz won the game on an offensive board and put-back by Boozer with the score tied at 112.

Jazz are a lot different from the Mavs and the W's are realizing that. They are bigger, stronger, tougher and they have a great point guard and a great low post scorer. Baron just ate up Jason Terry and Devin Harris against the Mavs, but Deron is punching him right back. This should be fun. The Jazz front-line is a load to handle. Okur hit 3 triples to total 21 points and AK-47 had 7 blocks to go with 13-7-4. He is back and the W's have to account for him now.

In Detorit, the Pistons shocked the Bulls again with another strong performance. The baby-Bulls are getting exposed in this series as nothing is going right for them. They shot 34% today with Gordon shooting 3/7, Hinrich 0/7 and Deng 4/12. It was one thing for Deng to out-athlete the old Heat team, but if Tayshaun Prince is in your way, it's a whole different ball-game. The jump-shooting Bulls are in trouble in this series as the Pistons can do everything well and the Bulls guards are stretched trying to defend RIP and Chauncey. C-Webb had a monster game shooting 10/11 for 22 points. This team is on a roll right now. Geame 3 should be interesting only because it's in Chicago.

Golden State @ Utah - 112-116
Chicago @ Detroit - 87-108

Playoff schedule for 05/08/2007

San Antonio @ Phoenix - Must win for the Suns. Something tells me they will.

New Jersey @ Cleveland - Can the King elevate the quality of play in this series?

Spurs bring the pain in game-1 - Suns playoff notes - 05/06/2007

If you are a Suns fans, nothing makes you sadder than the sight of the San Antonio Spurs team executing like a machine. Thats exactly what we saw in game 1 as the Spurs were just as efficient as ever. The playoff intensity, tough in-game situations, challenges of playing on the road, nothing seems to really bother this robotic Spurs team. They have had the Suns number the last 3 years and the Suns just can't figure them out. They can't run at them and sometimes they can't even run with them as the Spurs have no problems scoring on the Suns. Tim Duncan is unstoppable across the NBA, but he is just a little bit more effective against the under-sized Suns.

But the Spurs real match-up edge comes not from Timmy, which is something the Spurs have against every team, but it's Tony Parker. This guy kills the Suns and exposes the MP3's one weakness, defense. Also he gets more of a green light from Pop against the Suns because of the style of the game and that lets him do more and make it harder for the Suns. This guy can probably dominate a lot of teams, but he gets the chance against the Suns. This game started off just as the Suns had feared with Tony on fire. The Suns strategy on him is to play Marion and also give him the jump shot. The problem is, this guy has gotten better as a jump shooter every year and is now a pretty good one. But the Suns can't defend the paint and they have no choice but to give him the jumper.

Nash started well himself with Bowen's defense on him not bothering him all that much. But the Spurs stuck to their guns. They stay home on the 3 point shooters, defend the paint with their bigs and let Nash enjoy more opportunities to score. It's interesting how they think cutting off the 3 kills this team more than shutting Nash on his pick and rolls. This is one of the rare situations where a team, especially a great defensive team like the Spurs, worry more about stopping the 3 than potential layups. Thats just a great coach understanding what drives this Suns team. So the Suns did not get open 3 point shots and they just rode Nash's back in this game. Barbosa was good in spots and the rest of the team was not really effective.

Suns actually scored enough to win this game. They did take the lead in the second quarter, but then the third foul on Amare derailed them. The call was a bad one, but the Suns over-reacted. Clearly this changed the way Amare played, but more importantly the Suns got all agitated and they started focussing more on the refs than the game itself. They gave most of the lead back and went into the half just leading by 2 and that was cut to 1 as Marc Iavaroni got a T to start the third still arguing about that Amare call.

It was clear by now the Suns were in a dog fight. Tony was having his way and by now Timmy was getting in the game too. The Suns put Marion on him to protect Amare and that opened the game up for Timmy. The Spurs went to him consistently and when they didn't, Parker was always there to hit the wide-open jumper. It felt like the Suns had to score just to keep pace as their defense could not stop the Spurs and if they did stop them, then the Spurs were there to get the offensive board. But still the Suns were very much in it.

The see-saw battle went in to the fourth and then late in to the fourth when Nash kept them alive on offense. They scored on 4 consecutive pick-and-rolls late in the fourth. Once with Amare, twice with Marion and the fourth time, Nash took it himself as the defense shaded towards Marion. But they couldn't get stops at the other end. By now Amare was back on Timmy and he actually played him real well. But Timmy showed why he is a hall-of-famer as he made some tough shots.

This is when the big event happened. Nash reached in and fouled Tony Parker and they butted heads. Parker fell on the ground in a heap and Nash looked OK. He checked up on Parker and then suddenly Nash started bleeding as his nose was cut open. Both of them were fine, but the problem was they couldn't stop Nash from bleeding. He came back in and hit a ridiculous 3. I can't believe how tough this guy is. Just imagine the pressure of a second round playoff game against your rival. You are late in the fourth quarter and are bleeding from your nose. How do you have the composure to take and make a 3? He is just special. But the blood kept pouring and they had to take him out per NBA rules. The Suns actually got a couple of good shots even without Nashty, but just couldn't finish. Amare could have actually dunked on a drive to tie the game late, but he took a tentative shot that rimmed out. It's both a tribute to Timmy's defense who was right there to scare him though he didn't want to foul, and also a case of that 3-Rd foul making Amare tentative the rest of the game. Suns never scored after Nash went out and the Spurs closed it out.

Both Amare and Barbosa had a horrible 4-th quarter and if they had made a few more shots, the Suns could have actually won. Luckily Marion came alive in the fourth to help Nash out. In any case, tough loss for the Suns. The good news is, they could have won this game and they did score enough to win. Nash is playing well and the others might follow soon. The bad news is, they can't stop Timmy. They still can't stop Tony. They can't clear the boards and the real bad news - Ginobli had a bad game. This guy once scored 50 on the Suns and that can easily happen again. Now the Suns have to come back in game-2 and play with effort and energy. They have to somehow get their running game going. I don't know how, but they have to do it.

As a side note, one of the most amazing things you'll ever see on the court is Shawn Marion guarding Tim Duncan on one play and guarding Tony Parker on the next. How this guy not win the defensive player of the award and didn't even make it to the first or the second all-defensive NBA team is beyond me. Marion says that's BS and me think he is right.

Teams 1 2 3 4
San Antonio 27 24 26 34 111
Phoenix 26 27 22 31 106

San Antonio
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Bruce Bowen 1-2 0-0 1-1 1-7 1 1 0 0 4 3
Tim Duncan 12-24 9-15 0-0 8-16 1 1 0 3 2 33
Francisco Elson 1-3 0-0 0-0 0-2 0 2 0 1 3 2
Michael Finley 6-11 4-5 3-7 0-3 1 1 0 0 2 19
Tony Parker 14-22 4-5 0-1 0-1 8 6 3 0 2 32
Manu Ginobili 2-9 3-6 1-3 1-9 4 0 0 0 4 8
Robert Horry 3-5 2-2 2-3 2-7 1 0 1 2 2 10
Jacque Vaughn 1-3 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 4 0 0 4 2
Fabricio Oberto 1-2 0-0 0-0 2-2 0 0 0 0 1 2
Brent Barry 0-1 0-0 0-1 0-2 1 0 0 0 1 0
Melvin Ely - - - -
Jackie Butler - - - -
Matt Bonner - - - -
Beno Udrih - - - -
James White - - - -
TOTALS 41-82 22-33 7-16 14-49 18 15 4 6 25 111

FG %:.500; FT %:.667; 3PT %:.438
Points of TO:10
Team rebounds:13
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
James Jones 0-2 0-0 0-1 0-0 0 0 0 0 2 0
Shawn Marion 7-12 1-2 1-2 0-6 1 0 0 0 3 16
Amare Stoudemire 6-19 8-11 0-0 5-18 0 1 1 5 4 20
Raja Bell 3-8 2-2 2-4 1-3 3 0 2 0 6 10
Steve Nash 11-18 7-7 2-4 0-3 8 3 0 0 2 31
Boris Diaw 3-5 1-1 0-1 1-2 2 2 0 0 2 7
Leandro Barbosa 7-17 3-4 1-2 0-1 3 1 0 0 4 18
Kurt Thomas 2-3 0-0 0-0 1-2 1 0 1 0 1 4
Jalen Rose - - - -
Pat Burke - - - -
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Marcus Banks - - - -
Eric Piatkowski - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 39-84 22-27 6-14 8-35 18 7 4 5 24 106

FG %:.464; FT %:.815; 3PT %:.429
Points of TO:16
Team rebounds:5
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

Ugly win for the Cavs - NBA playoff notes - 05/06/2007

I'll talk about the Suns-Spurs game later, but the day started with the Cavs-Nets game. It featured some big names like The King, The Kidd, and Visanity, but the quality of game-1 was pretty bad. Both teams had trouble shooting the basketball and barely hit 40% from the floor. At least LeBron had the excuse of a cold, but not sure what happened to Kidd and Carter as they shot a combine 9/34 from the field. That'll not work in this series. Kidd ended with 7-10-9 and Carter with 21-13-6. For the Cavs, King had 21-11-7 and Gooden had a 14-14 game and hit some big shots. The play of the game was when Sasha Pavlovic tracked down Kidd to block his fast-break layup after Kidd stole the ball and ran down for what he thought was a wide open layup. Sasha also scored 15 to help the Cavs. King had a block of his own at the very end to finish off the Nets. For the Nets, RJ shot well to score 16 points, but nothing much from the other guys.

New Jersey @ Cleveland - 77-81
Spurs @ Suns - 111-106

Playoff schedule for 05/07/2007

Golden State @ Utah - Should be a good one. Golden State has to steal one of these 2 if they want to win this series and game 1 might be their best chance.

Chicago @ Detroit - The Bulls will try to keep this one close.

T-Mac left speechless - NBA playoff notes - 05/05/2007

They say a NBA playoff series doesn't start until a road team wins. If thats the case, this series started and ended today. Utah won on the road to shock the Rockets and after 6 games of great home cooking in this series, Houston picked the wrong time to struggle. The Jazz started quick and pretty much led this game for the most part. The Rockets finally closed in and got going in the fourth and even took a decent lead. But C-Booze was just too good in this one as he had a 35-14 game and had some key offensive boards at the end. AK-47 and Okur, the 2 guys who started the series struggling mightily, hit big 3's in the last 5 minutes to first tie and then to take the lead for good on Okur's 3. Deron Williams had 20 and 14 dimes as he and Boozer clearly established themselves as the new Stockton-Malone combo. And thats no hype folks. These 2 new guys are real good. This Jazz team will be good for a long time. For now, they are going to face the Warriors in round 2 in their first playoff since 2000 when they still had Stockton and Malone.

As for the Rockets, another crushing first round elimination for T-Mac. It was really sad to see him at the end truly despondent. There's all these talk about how millionaire athletes these days, especially of the NBA variety, don't care about the game and they are all about the money and the posse etc, but then you see a sight like this and wonder where all that garbage is coming from. T-Mac looked truly hurt as he couldn't even talk at the post-game press conference and none of that is an act. Now there are huge question marks for the Rockets with Van Gundy and also where this team goes from here. As T-Mac said, they do need more athleticism.

In Detroit, the Pistons whooped the Bulls so hard it would take them a couple of days to just get back to their senses. The baby-Bulls looked truly young and inexperienced as the Pistons ran circles around them at both ends. Their back-court led all scoring with 20 each for Rip and Billups. For the Bulls, nothing went right except for Hinrich's 15 on 6/7 shooting and Deng's monster dunk en-route to his team leading 18. They have to now regroup and at least give the Pistons a fight in game 2. I am not sure how a jump shooting team like the Bulls beat the defensive minded Pistons who are also athletic enough to stay in front of the baby-Bulls unlike the Heat.

Utah @ Houston - 103-99
Chicago @ Detroit - 69-95

Playoff schedule for 05/06/2007

San Antonio @ Phoenix - The real NBA finals starts here.

New Jersey @ Cleveland - Cavs better keep the pressure on these Nets by winning this one. The Nets have some life after that series win.

Heart-breaker for Toronto - NBA playoff notes - 05/04/2007

Tough one for the young Raptors as they lost an one point elimination game on the road. This series surprised me. I had picked the Raptors to win in 6, but I totally under-estimated the experience factor. The Raptors inexperience and the Nets experience has been on display the entire series with this game 6 being no different. The Raptors played well enough to win and take this show back home, but the Nets finished this thing strong. Another bad shooting night for half-man-half-brick as Vince had 21, but Kidd and Richard Jefferson had good games with 18-8-15 for Kidd and 24 for RJ. Kidd averaged a triple double in this series, but RJ was the story in this game. He had a great move at the end to score the go-ahead basket right at the rim and he stole the ball at the other end as Jose Calderon tried to force a pass into C-Bosh. Bosh would have had a great shot if only this pass was a little higher, but RJ jumped high to steal it. Another critical mistake by a young team and that ended their season. The Raptors have a great future and there's talk that they may even replace their "Coach of the Year". That would be odd, but I wouldn't put anything past this league. As for the Nets, they get the Cavs and The King in round 2. I am sure it's a little tougher than the Raptors.

Toronto @ New Jersey - 97-98

Playoff schedule for 05/05/2007

Utah @ Houston - The only game 7 of round 1. I expect Houston to get the job done at home.

Chicago @ Detroit - Game 1 at Detroit. Should be a good one.

Warriors show the Mavs the door- NBA playoff notes - 05/03/2007

The best first round series this season (may be ever according to some experts) came to an end today at Oak-town as the W's rode their home crowd one more time to frustrate Nowitzki and the Mavs. This series had captured the nation's imagination with the whole 8-v-1 upset angle plus the crazy crowd syndrome. The Oakland crowd is getting rave reviews all over the NBA and experts say it's the loudest and the most energetic they have seen in a long time. I am surprised that people say it's even better than crowds at the Arco arena when the Kings were good. ESPN's Bill Simmons says the best NBA crowds are at MSG in New York and Oakland. Looks like all the pent-up frustration from 13 years of playoff extinction is coming out now in a big, loud way. This crowd is so good there were many people who thought there's no way Dallas wins one on the road in this series. As expected, the Mavs collapsed in front of what one writer called "Raider fans under a roof".

The game started off with Mikale Pietrus leading his team out holding a "We Believe" yellow jersey and driving the fans into a frenzy. Avery said they W's will have 10000 pounds hanging off their right arms, but actually they came out loose and scored at will. The Mavs stayed in the game purely on 3's. Dallas' first seven made field goals were 3s, 4-of-6 from Stackhouse in the opening period, and the Mavs were 0-for-14 from 2-point range before Jason Terry's jumper at the 11:22 mark of the second quarter. It was a weird start, but the Mavs were in it. Then Boom Dizzle left the game with a sore hamstring and it looked like the W's were in deep trouble. Baron kind of slipped out and it took a while for the crowd to realize what happened and they were still loud and cheering wildly for their team. Then Baron came back in a la Willis Reed and the crowd went crazy. But Baron was clearly hobbled and couldn't drive to the hoop. The Mavs also went at him at the other hand with J-Terry and Devin Harris.

Baron hit some long threes to keep his team going though he clearly couldn't drive to the hoop. The W's stumbled in that second quarter without him, but his lucky 3's kept them in it. They went in to the half leading by 2 with Baron's hammy being the biggest question mark. Nowitzki was struggling all along as he finally figured his only option in this series was taking jumpers and he took a bunch of them, but none went in.

Then came the third quarter and before you know it this game was over. Boom-Dizzle came out looking a little more comfortable and the W's started running their offense. Jacko went nuts. He hit 7/8 3's for a total of 33 points in this game with most of the 3's coming in that third quarter. The W's outscored the Mavs 36-15 behind a raucous crowd and the game was over. The crowd just enjoyed this game the rest of the way as the Mavs looked clueless, discombobulated, flustered and rudderless. Nowitzki ended the game with 8 points on 2/13 shooting with 10 boards and he was the topic across the NBA world as people called him all kinds of names from No-wins-ki to No-nuts-ki. Poor guy is getting killed and his MVP trophy is going to be one of the most hollow wins ever.

The W's are now on to the second round. This series was just special and even though they are now in the second round, I think that series would not have the same juice as this one. This series had everything from a 8-V-1 to Nelly-V-Cubes to Nelly-V-Avery to the whole matchup edge for the Warriors against the Mavs. It will be interesting to see how the W's crowd react to the second round. They will be loud, but not this loud I suppose. Speaking of Nelly, he made another money move in this game as he started Matt Barnes ahead of Monta basically saying I'll go with the best 5 guys I got. Worked beautifully as Barnes had 16-11-7 on a sore hammy. Not bad for a free-agent training camp pickup.

In the "other" game, Utah won at home to setup a game 7 in Houston. Yao had 25 and T-Mac had 26-10-3 on 8/23 shooting, but the home team won again in this series. For the Jazz, there was balanced scoring as AK-47 had another strong game with 14-5-4-3(steals)-5(blocks). Thats the stat-sheet filling AK-47 we all know about. Houston will be at home for game 7 and they hope that doesn't end up being the first game in the series with a road team winning.

Dallas @ Golden State - 86-111
Houston @ Utah - 82-94

Playoff schedule for 05/04/2007

Toronto @ New Jersey - Elimination game for the young Raptors.

Efficient Suns - Suns playoff notes - 05/02/2007

An interesting thing is happening to the Phoenix Suns this season. They are getting to be be very methodical and efficient at times. This team has given us some of the most fun and exhilarating basketball over the last 3 years, but now they are taking that next step where they execute to a script and put teams away. Thats what the "boring" Spurs do, but then again who's complaining if you win 3 championships over the last 9 years. The Suns are not at that "boring" level yet, not even close, but you can clearly see the evolution of this team as a true contender. They got Amare now in the middle and there was just no doubt that they would win this game and close out the Lakers. Believe it or not, more experts doubted if Spurs will close out at home than the Suns. Of course part of that is because the Lakers are not as good as the Nuggets, but still this Suns team means business and is working like a machine right now.

The Suns came out firing and took a 9 point lead into the second quarter and extended it to 12 at the half. The only black spot in the script was when the Lakers actually came back to within 2 in the third quarter. The Lakers made the run behind a monstrous quarter by Lamar Odom. He was tremendous in this game and had a 33-10 night on 21 shots. Kobe hit some big 3's in the fourth to engineer another mini-comeback as the Suns pulled away again after the Lakers got to within 2, but his night was up and down. He had 34 points on 13-33 shooting against the new dad Raja Bell. The Suns kept their poise through both the Lakers run in the third and the fourth and closed this game out behind some solid interior play by Marion and Amare. Amare had a monster series and todays' 27-16 was just an icing on the cake. If you are a Suns fan, this is exactly the Amare you want going into the Spurs series. Marion had 26-10 as he had a good series as well. His playoff performance is always a hot topic in Phoenix and he shut his critics up at least till the second round starts.

As for the Lakers, Kobe said it best with a "do it and do it now" ultimatum to the front-office. All of a sudden, the talk of Kobe running out of his "prime time" is coming up all over the place. It looked like this was a young and improving team just 2 years back, but now it looks like all this youth is just wasting Kobe's great talent. Kobe has a lot of miles on his body and he has just 4 years of his prime left. He'll still be good at 33, 34 but probably not this good. So the Lakers better do something soon. I would say they trade Lamar Odom to get someone who fits Kobe better. Lamar is awesome, but not with Kobe.

The Suns now have to play the Spurs in the second round. This is a matchup nightmare for the Suns. For some reason, the Spurs always handle the Suns well. Two years back, it was because the Spurs could run with the Suns with Tony and Ginobli when they had to and of course they out-executed the Suns in the half court when they want to. It feels like they have gotten even better this year with this matchup. They don't even run as much and just slow down the Suns to their pace. The Suns have home court and they better put it to good use. All the games this season between these two were won by the home team and the Suns fans hope that trend continues in this playoffs. It would be interesting to see how this series starts off on Sunday in Phoenix.

Teams 1 2 3 4
Los Angeles 23 29 33 25 110
Phoenix 32 32 27 28 119

Los Angeles
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
Lamar Odom 13-21 6-9 1-1 5-10 2 1 1 1 6 33
Luke Walton 1-3 0-0 0-1 1-4 0 2 1 1 6 2
Kwame Brown 2-4 0-1 0-0 2-7 0 2 1 0 3 4
Kobe Bryant 13-33 6-7 2-8 0-4 1 6 1 0 2 34
Jordan Farmar 4-6 3-4 0-1 0-5 2 1 3 0 2 11
Maurice Evans 2-4 0-0 0-2 0-1 0 0 0 0 0 4
Andrew Bynum 1-1 0-0 0-0 1-2 0 1 0 0 1 2
Shammond Williams 1-3 0-0 0-1 0-0 0 1 0 0 1 2
Ronny Turiaf 4-10 4-6 0-0 6-10 1 0 2 0 4 12
Brian Cook 2-3 1-1 1-2 0-1 0 0 0 1 4 6
Smush Parker 0-2 0-0 0-1 0-1 0 1 0 0 3 0
Sasha Vujacic 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0 0 0
Aaron McKie - - - -
Chris Mihm - - - -
Vladimir Radmanovic - - - -
TOTALS 43-90 20-28 4-17 15-45 7 15 9 3 32 110

FG %:.478; FT %:.714; 3PT %:.235
Points of TO:17
Team rebounds:7
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

Phoenix
SHOOTING REB
name fg ft 3pt o-t ast to stl blk pf pts
James Jones 2-5 1-1 2-5 0-0 0 2 0 0 2 7
Shawn Marion 11-21 3-3 1-5 3-10 2 0 3 2 5 26
Amare Stoudemire 6-16 15-21 0-0 4-16 1 2 2 0 5 27
Raja Bell 3-7 0-0 2-4 2-3 3 0 0 0 3 8
Steve Nash 5-15 7-8 0-2 0-2 10 7 0 0 1 17
Leandro Barbosa 6-12 3-4 3-7 1-1 1 1 3 0 3 18
Boris Diaw 3-4 2-2 0-0 2-5 4 1 2 0 3 8
Kurt Thomas 4-6 0-0 0-0 0-3 2 1 0 1 1 8
Jalen Rose - - - -
Pat Burke - - - -
Jumaine Jones - - - -
Marcus Banks - - - -
Eric Piatkowski - - - -
Sean Marks - - - -
TOTALS 40-86 31-39 8-23 12-40 23 14 10 3 23 119

FG %:.465; FT %:.795; 3PT %:.348
Points of TO:25
Team rebounds:17
Technical fouls:
Illegal defence:0

Spurs and Suns advance - NBA playoff notes - 05/02/2007

Both Suns and Spurs won and advanced as expected. Nothing spectacular in either game as the Spurs got a flashback night from Michael Finley. Finn-Dawg had 26 on 8/9 shooting from beyond the arc. Poor Brent Barry. Finally he got some consistent playing time this season and then got injured only to see Finn-dawg sitting firmly at the starter spot. Timmy had 23-12 to guide this team as always. Denver actually led at the half, but the Spurs bottled them up in the third and the fourth. 21 each for Melo and AI but just 8/20 and 6/22 shooting respectively. I guess defense does win championships. Denver will come back next year with an interesting team plus an expensive K-Mart. A high-salary team that has to win now or be broken up soon.

Suns kept pace with the Spurs and won against the Lakers to set up a Sunday matinee against the Spurs. Should be a great series, but the Suns probably would rather have a boring one in the second round. Too early to meet a great team like the Spurs.

Denver @ San Antonio - 78-93
LA Lakers @ Phoenix - 110-119

Playoff schedule for 05/03/2007

Dallas @ Golden State - This should be a fun, fun game. The crowd will be nuts once again.

Houston @ Utah - Utah should win this one at home.

MP3 in da house! - NBA playoff notes - 05/01/2007

One of the best games of this playoffs to this point was played at Dallas. Golden State went in their with a 3-1 lead and Dallas had to come out firing in their elimination game at home. Dallas did just that and pretty soon they were leading by 21 points in the first half. The game seemed over. It looked like Dallas did what it had to and the W's have to just wrap it up, go home and try to win the series at home. This is where this Warriors team is different. They have that over-used term in sports - heart. They fight, they never give up and they can shoot their way out of such big leads much like the Suns.

The W's were not always like this early in the season as they were one of the worst road teams in the league. They never showed any heart on the road until January or so. Then they had to go on their run to just get in to the playoffs and thats where something special happened to this team. They played hard every night because they had to. They gelled, they started believing in themselves and they started playing hard on defense. So they played hard and shot well to get back into this game they were trailing by 21 in a very hostile environment. By half time, the lead was already down to 7 and the fans were shocked.

Then came the second half, where the Mavs fans worst fears came true. The resilient Warriors got all the way back and tied it up. And then unbelievably, they actually took the lead. Baron Davis was once again unstoppable and just superb. Matt Barnes, J-Rich and Jacko were not far behind shooting 3's and making things happen for the W's. Suddenly the Mavs were in a battle of wits and this little down-trodden 8-Th seed would just not go away. There was a stretch in the second half where this was a 3-point shooting contest as both teams played at a very high level. They created and made several open 3's back and forth.

Austin Croshere was huge with the 3's and Josh Howard was reliable as always. Nowitzki was having a tough time as usual though he was doing better than the previous 4 games. All of a sudden the Warriors hit a few more shots in the 4-Th and they were leading by 9. That was shocking to anybody who was watching this game. A 8-Th seed on the road engineering a 30 point turnaround as they came back from 21 down to 9 up. The series seemed over with 3 minutes to go.

Then something special happened with the MVP. Just as in game 4, he hoisted a desperate 3 and made it. Then he blocked a potential layup by Barnes. Dirk then hit another 3 and suddenly this was a game again. The Mavs also started trapping and D'ing up Baron and the Warriors didn't know what to do. With the ball out of Boom Dizzle's hands, the Warriors took a couple of bad shots and Devin Harris tied it up with a 3-point drive at the other end. He had 16 and has been unstoppable this game. The Warriors just couldn't score the final 3 minutes and the Mavs took the lead and held on to it for an impressive win behind Nowitzki's clutch free throws.

Suddenly, the MVP looked like a MVP. For a 3 minute stretch, he was unstoppable. Dirk ended with 30-12. This coupled with Avery's strategy to trap Baron finished off the Warriors. Ironically, the Mavs seem to have the momentum now since the W's pretty much choked away a late 9 point lead. The W's could have actually been blown out and everybody would have said they'll just win at home. But now they are saying the W's are under pressure and the Mavs have the edge because the way this game ended. Avery added on to that notion by saying the W's will have 10000 pounds weight hanging on their right arms in game 6. It's interesting how these things work. For the W's Baron had 27 and J-Rich 23.

Sorry, but the New Jersey - Toronto series is just not as interesting as this Mavs-Warriors series. The Raptors won at home today to force game 6. They almost lost a 12 point lead in the fourth, but they held on to win by 2. The Raptors lost T.J.Ford early in the game to an injury and Jose Calderon did a tremendous job of leading his team to that promised land. He led them with 25 points before he turned his own ankle late in the fourth. Luckily it didn't hurt them. Bosh had a bad game again with 11-8, but Jose was the boss today. Carter had 30 and he drove the lane and kicked the ball out to Nachbar for what could have been a game winning 3. But it didn't go in and now we have game 6 back in New Jersey.

Dallas @ Golden State @ Dallas - 112-118
New Jersey @ Toronto - 96-98

Playoff schedule for 05/02/2007

Denver @ San Antonio - Denver should get ready to go fishing here.

LA Lakers @ Phoenix - Phoenix better close this out here to keep pace with San Antonio.