The Spurs, Hornets, Jazz, Magic, and Cavs are all up 2-0. The Wizards can pretty much get their passports stamped, and get those vacations started. They have nothing with which to stand up to the defending conference champs. The Magic and Raptors I'm not concerned about right now, so I'll move into bigger target areas....Dallas, Houston and Phoenix are all facing mental giants in this 1st round. Dallas is being used as dvd highlight material for the next CP3 release...Houston (T-Mac in particular) has yet to make it out of the 1st round. Phoenix has yet to figure out how to beat San Antonio. In all 3 cases, it's time for them to put tough study habits in effect, or run the risk of repeating the grade.
The Suns's have many things to look at right now; After all these years, when will they come up with a scheme to stop Parker and Ginobli from violating their middle? when will they logically approach the defensive deficiency they have in Steve Nash? when will they realize that in order to beat the Spurs, they have to not only raise the level of intensity, but maintain it for an entire series? To this point, D'Antoni is being severly out-coached by his opponent, and unless they pull off BOTH wins in Phoenix, his questionably limited rotation will be severly scrutinized once they start their summer vacation...and make no mistakes, that's where they're headed, courtesy of the defending champion Spurs.
T-Mac and Houston....see you in August for summer camp LOL (i couldn't resist)
Dallas....your swiss cheese defense is not going to contain the newest BEST point guard in the NBA. Stop the double teams and start counting the cost of that mega-stupid trade, where you swapped your future for New Jersey's past. Marc Cuban....you ARE the biggest loser!!!
I'm going to spare Detroit, pending the results of game 2. I know this much, they better get it together and right now, because the Lakers, Spurs, Hornets, Celtics, and Lebron are not playing around.
Proof that D'Antoni has absolutely no clue how to use his talent in the playoffs (Notice the downward trend):
2005-06: Lost to "swiss-cheese" Dallas in Western Conf. Finals with the MVP and the most explosive lineup in the NBA
2006-07: Lost to Spurs in semifinals with the most explosive lineup in the NBA.
2007-08: About to lose in the first round with three MVP-caliber players (Nash, Amare, Shaq) and a roster that includes six players that could play on any Olympic team (Nash, Amare, Shaq, Hill, Diaw, Barbosa).
Each year, the Smurfs are getting worse. It's obvious that D'Antoni cannot handle the pressure and that has rubbed off on his players.
I love Shaq since he's an ex-Laker, but I have no sympathy for the Suns. I hope they get swept on their own home floor so Suns fans can finally admit they never had a championship contender all along.
I've always said, once a loser always a loser.
There are only four franchises in the last 10 years that really know how to build a championship contender from scratch - LAL, SA, DET, and UTAH. Boston and NOH is getting there.
Teams like DAL, PHX, HOU, GS, CLE, DEN are nothing but pretenders.
