The inclination has always been that the NBA regular season doesn’t mean much to the top teams. It’s nothing more than a warmup for what can be more than a 25-game second season through the Finals.
But however much or little you want to make of regular-season games, they are barometers that physically and psychologically have an impact on the rest of the season.
Take the past week for the Detroit Pistons. They won their 11th game in a row last Friday at Toronto before coming home for a second showdown with the Boston Celtics, whom the Pistons had defeated at Boston last month. The Celtics handled them, much to the dismay of the Palace fans. It was a bigger game for the Celtics than the Pistons, who were headed out on a tough Texas trip anyway. Realistically, these are by far the two best teams in the East; short of some serious injuries, it’s just a prelude for the postseason.
So the Celtics went home happy just long enough to lose at home to the struggling Charlotte Bobcats. It was one of those setup games that come along after a big win and a team gets a little fat and happy at home. Realistically, it meant nothing to the Celtics other than a reminder to Kevin Garnett and Co. that any NBA team is capable of an unlikely performance on a given night. And it gave Bobcats coach Sam Vincent something to hang his hat on as his young team moves forward.
Meanwhile, the Pistons left home after the loss to the Celtics and showed up in Dallas just in time to get smacked by the Mavericks, 102-86, for Detroit’s worst loss of the season.
In this case, it was a big game for both clubs, probably bigger for the Mavs. Not only was it their league-high fifth win in a row, but it moved them to within a half-game of the Suns for the best record in the West and left them alone atop the tough Southwest Division.
That doesn’t minimize what it meant to the Pistons either. It’s one thing to lose at home to the Celtics, somewhat of a must-win for the Celtics. But to get manhandled in the first game of a road trip like that shook them up, with the possibility of their first three-game losing streak of the season a real possibility as they swung over to San Antonio on Thursday night.
Instead, the Pistons jumped the Spurs in the first quarter and never trailed after that on the way to a 10-point win, allowing the Mavericks to pull ahead of the Spurs. This one was a great gut-check for the Pistons, but perhaps even more a concern for the Spurs. After a great start in which it looked like they were going to dominate the West while defending their third NBA title in five years, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili suffered minor injuries that essentially threw the team out of whack. Now they’ve lost four of seven.
But the way the West looks, it’s going to be a long season anyway. The Suns have had a chance to put some air between themselves and the rest of the West, but they’ve just been too erratic. In fact, they continued their struggles by getting crushed at Utah by 22 Thursday night. To say that isn’t significant is just a state of denial. The win gave the Jazz a little bit of hope after they had virtually fallen off the map for the past month. Meanwhile, the Suns fell to 12-9 in the Western Conference (compared to 13-2 against the East.).
To emphasize how close the West has become, the Suns, Mavs, Spurs and Lakers have 11 losses, the Hornets have 12, with the Blazers and Nuggets at 13. Indeed, just 1.5 games separate the top six teams, and the Nuggets are 3.0 back of the Suns.
One look at the weekend schedule doesn’t cause the blood pressure to rise under any particular circumstances, but that’s only because the upset hasn’t happened yet. And it will. The favorites just don’t dominate for an entire weekend. But look a little closer and you’ll something of interest.
It’s that third team in the East, the Orlando Magic. The started 14-3 and have been 9-11 since. The Magic plays at Denver on Friday and at Utah on Saturday, which under normal circumstances would probably mean a split. But the Magic is no normal team. They are 16-6 on the road and an inexplicable 7-8 at home, so they could realistically cause damage to the causes of both the Jazz and the Nuggets.
And that’s just the point we’ve been trying to make all along. On the surface, these games may not seem to mean much to teams destined for the playoffs anyway. But they do. They produce matchup situations that carry over to the playoffs as we saw in the dramatic Golden State upset of Dallas. They create enough confidence that maybe an upstart team like Portland knows it can accomplish certain things against a playoff team every time they play.
It’s about knowledge, momentum and consistency. All of that is created or lost during the regular season – and that’s assuming a team makes it to the postseason at all.
Your wrong in that the Suns played without 3 (Nash, Hill, Marion) starter against the Jazz ment something. Take any 3 starters off any team, on the road, and see how they do. What exactly were they suppose to prove? They knew the Spurs had already lost so the game had nothing to do with the standings.
D'Antoni got a chance to evaluate some game time with his bench and they played a close game through the 3rd quarter, but as with any team with 3 starters out, couldn't sustain coming off a back to back with overtime in the first game.
I am always amused at the "does the regular season mean anything" argument. A lot of people say that the Spurs just coast until the all star break and then turn it on.
That is not exactly how it works. Yes, the Spurs usually do pick up the pace after the all star break, but it is not a matter of just turning it on.
Pop uses the first part of the season like a long training camp. If you really watch Spurs games during that stretch, you will see that he plays deeply into his bench.
He tries out different combinations of players on the floor. You seldom see the Spurs blow out a team. You will often see the Spurs get a huge lead and Pop will pull his starters early. The lead will begin to shrink and sometimes Pop will leave the bench out there almost too long.
But he is going to play the bench even if it costs him a few games.
And Pop and his staff are masters at managing the players minutes especially those of the older players. So they are not worn out when the grind of the playoffs comes along.
Also he does not rush players back after injuries. True the injuries to the big three have really affected the Spurs rhythm this season.
But their success before the injuries should show the ability is still there. It is just a matter of getting their edge back. It will come.
The West's top teams are very close right now. And there are some great young teams in Denver, Utah, and Golden State. And the Lakers are coming on strong.
The top three teams of the past few years have been the Spurs, Mavs, and the Suns. I feel they are still the top, but that could change as the season progresses.
For several years now people have been talking about the Spurs' age. Well, their big three is no older than the Celtic's big three. But still that is why Pop works so hard to develope a strong bench, to give the older players meaningful rest time.
This time last year, most people have written the Spurs off as old, slow, and past their window of opportunity. We saw how that turned out. Of course they were already saying it in '05 and '06, and those years ended in a championship and a trip to the western conference championship series.
Don't cout the Spurs out too soon. They made that mistake last season.
I agree that the Spurs will be there at the end. For a seasoned veteran team like them the 82 game season is a long grind. Injuries have hurt them early on but watch what happens with them after the all-star break. Popovich will tighten up his rotation, they will start to exert themselves more defensively and slowly start to polish their game as the playoffs come closer. I am not a Spurs fan but this is a normal pattern for them and for any great team. The year after winning a title everybody is gunning for you and you have to be able to absorb every teams best effort every night. The Spurs understand the saying.."steady wins the race". Come playoff time they will be well rested and healthy for the Real Season. I am not sure they will win it all again but I would have a hard time betting against them. The west is a strong conference. I really like the Lakers chances of making some serious noise in the playoffs. They are the deepest team in the league,Bynum is a force in the middle,D Fisher has made a HUGE difference and Kobe has matured into a team first player. He is really starting to trust his teeammates and the Lakers are not so easy to defend anymore. It used to be Kobe might go off for 40-50 but if you shut down the others you could beat them rather easily. Kobe is averaging a modest 26 and the rest of the team is much more involved. They are athletic,big inside,deep, well coached and have the best player in the league. They are going to be tough in a series. I would not be suprised to see the Lakers and Spurs in the west finals. The Suns are in trouble!!! They are t
How about eliminating playoffs and having the team with the ebst regular season record get the trophy. Then we'd have 82 meaningful games for each elite team. That's better than 82 semi-relevant games and 25 relevant games.
A 4 game lead over the 8th spot is not a sure thing in the west by any means even if you are the spurs. Teams out west need to take every game seriously, There are more than 8 good teams and somebody will not make the playoffs. I'm not saying the spurs will not make it but you never know.
Probably fortunate for the Pistons that they were playing SA. The Spurs haven't beaten a team with a wining record since beating Denver on 12/15 and have lost 7 of 8 to teams with wining records since 12/11
The three division leaders are are the top three seeds no matter what the records. It is not unusual for a second place team in a division to have a better record than a division leader.
That even happens in football. Think it did this season, in fact.
Kahn is an #### Laker fan. The Suns were without three starters against the Jazz. What a Duffus!
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With the Spurs Pop is always looking for improvement with each game. As Spurcse stated, Pop regulates minutes and looks at all his players. He is bring in players from the developmental league for experience and playing them. I think pop is not overly concerned with the team's final record other than making sure they are in the top four to get home court advantage in the first round.
As for how the Spurs do vs the East or specific teams I think its irrelevant as long as the Spurs keep improving. Look at last year...the Spurs were 0-2 vs the Cavaliers yet we all know what happened in the Finals...a 4-0 blowout.
As was mentioned earlier...the Spurs are a patient team and for whatever reason...maybe a comraderie during the long Rodeo Roadtrip at the end of January seems to pull the team together and they start playing like a championship caliber team.
