While NBA big-wigs and their corporate partners froth at the mouth over a possible Lakers-Celtics meeting in the Finals for the first time 21 years, there's that other possibility they don’t want to see.
You know what I’m talking about … Spurs-Pistons.
Of course, everyone has their eyes on the top-seeded Celtics. It has been an amazing transformation after falling off the map for so long. This had to be their year. President Danny Ainge took his young roster and high draft choices, turned it upside down, shook it out and presented All-Star Paul Pierce with brand new teammates Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen. Girded by Garnett, coach Doc Rivers turned them into a defensive-oriented unit (2nd in points allowed, 1st in defensive FG%) and they’ve rolled to the best record in the NBA with ease.
And the Lakers have come together in stunning fashion for coach Phil Jackson. Obviously built around MVP-favorite Kobe Bryant, the return of Derek Fisher at point guard, the theft of Pau Gasol from Memphis in February, and Lamar Odom becoming the versatile force up front everyone expected him to be, they have weathered the knee injury to young center Andrew Bynum. With the Pacific Division in their hip pocket, they are on the verge of the No. 1 seed in the West.
Always lingering, though, is the potential rematch of the 2005 Finals, a defensive struggle between the Pistons and the Spurs. In this era of rejuvenated offenses, that is not high on the NBA agenda for postseason drama – particularly on the heels of the Spurs sweeping the helpless Cavs last spring. Granted, the Celtics have really been the best defensive team, but they are a fresh look -- especially with a popular superstar like Garnett finally on course for a legitimate shot at his first title.
In the West, all anybody has been talking about is, well, everybody. For virtually the entire season, nine teams have been on track for 50 wins and none will reach 60 -- that's how close it has been. Heck, the Warriors are going to be in the lottery with 48 or 49 wins. For varied periods of time, the Spurs, Hornets, Rockets and Lakers have held the conference lead and even today, only two games separate the top six seeds.
And yet the Spurs are the defending NBA champs, with three titles in five years and four in the past nine. Their terrific trio of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili are still arguably as effective as anybody when healthy. Health has indeed been an issue because their depth has aged rapidly, and at the moment, their major concern is the groin strain that Ginobili is dealing with on a daily basis. On the other hand, young Ime Udoka has come on as a young version of Mario Elie with great toughness on the defensive end and clutch shots. Plus they received the gift of veteran Kurt Thomas from Seattle at mid-season for depth up front defensively, rebounding and a deadly mid-range game. Clearly, their consistency and ability to turn up the heat defensively down the stretch will be a factor come playoff time.
The same goes in the East. Despite the omnipotence of the Celtics over the past six months, the Pistons still loom. They've made six straight Eastern Conference finals, twice winning the conference. They won the 2004 NBA title. Although they have not seriously threatened the Celtics for the top seed for months, they still enter these final days with the second-best record in the league for coach Flip Saunders. They still have Mr. Big Shot - Chauncey Billups – running the point, with Rip Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, Tayshaun Prince and Antonio McDyess forming the most experienced and consistent starting lineup in either conference.
The question is whether or not reduced minutes across the board and more production from the bench this season will prevent the postseason burnout the Pistons have suffered the past few seasons. Billups, in particular, hasn’t been as sharp, and were it not for the broken hand suffered by top draft choice Rodney Stuckey during the exhibition season that set him back significantly, Billups would have been even fresher. Still, Stuckey has come on strong late as both a backup point and shooting guard, while Jason Maxiell and Jarvis Hayes have also been solid contributors all season. Youngsters Aaron Afflalo and Amir Johnson also play, although not as consistently, and can help in the long run.
What we won’t know until it happens is how deep Saunders will go into his bench for the long playoff haul because if we’ve learned anything about these guys the past couple of years it’s been that they did get tired and became vulnerable late in the second round. That has been the issue since he became coach in 2005, but there are plenty of people who believe they’ve still got the goods to halt the Celtics' march.
And even if the Spurs look old and slow so often, particularly against the Lakers and Suns, they are still in the foreground as that mountain that must be climbed before reaching the next level.
So while the NBA front office, the networks and a large portion of the sentimental NBA fans would love to see the Celtics and Lakers back at it again to rekindle history, the Spurs and Pistons haven’t left the building … yet.
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.
Last season they became the first team in 14 years to reach the conference finals for the fifth consecutive season. This time around, and after an early stumble, they are on track to be the first NBA team in 35 years to make it six in a row.
If you guessed the San Antonio Spurs, you’d be wrong.
We’re talking about the Detroit Pistons, who after losing three of four to close out a Western Conference swing in November, have won six in a row and 15 of 18 to solidify themselves at 21-7 and remain in close pursuit of the Boston Celtics for the top seed in the East.
It doesn’t get much more consistent than that, regardless of what you think of the rest of the conference. The last team to make the East finals five years in succession was the Bulls (1989-93) – although the Pistons (1987-91) also did it in that era as well. But to do it six years in a row, you have to go back to the Los Angeles Lakers (1968-73), when there were just nine teams in the Western Conference as opposed to the 15 in each conference today.
The strange part is, three of the first four seasons the Pistons got to the conference finals it was with three different coaches – Rick Carlisle, Larry Brown and incumbent Flip Saunders. Generally speaking, that sort of revolving door is relegated to the league’s bottom-feeders, but in this case there were extenuating circumstances for president of basketball operations Joe Dumars, the rock of the franchise.
Only Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton and Tayshaun Prince (then a rookie who played sparingly), are still on the roster from Carlisle’s 2002-03 team that ascended so quickly. And were it not for a personality conflict with owner Bill Davidson’s president of business operations, Tom Wilson, Carlisle may been around a lot longer. Otherwise, they may have avoided Brown’s bizarre but predictable cameo appearance that did happen to include the NBA title in 2004.
Nonetheless, Saunders is in his third season as coach since coming over from Minnesota, and to say the Pistons have lost their focus as a great defensive-oriented team would be woefully misleading. They’ve held their last seven opponents to less than 87 or fewer points, and with the trio of Billups, Hamilton and Prince still the core, Rasheed Wallace and Antonio McDyess complete one of the most consistently effective starting lineups in the game today.
Even more impressive is how they’ve blown open the last three games against the Nets, Rockets and Grizzlies by coming out of halftime with an offensive eruption while holding their opponents to under 20 points in the third quarter.
"Our defense is getting to be extremely solid,” Saunders said. “We’ve turned it up in the third quarter and we’ve been doing that a lot lately.”
What’s different about this team is the bench, with Dumars pushing Saunders to cut down on the minutes that the starting five have logged – more than any other group in the league the past three-plus seasons. It isn’t easy as they have gradually brought some youth into the mix, but starters’ minutes are down. Forward Jason Maxiell, while raw offensively, is a classic rugged rebounder with exceedingly long arms and blocks nearly 1.5 shots a game, while shooters Jarvis Hayes and Flip Murray have combined for nearly 15.0 points a game from the wings, and rookie guard Aaron Afflalo figures to make more of an impact scoring as the season progresses.
What’s even better news is they just got heralded No. 1 draft choice Rodney Stuckey back, who fractured his non-shooting left hand in the last preseason game. After missing the first 25 games, he also figures to gradually make an impact the second half of the season in the backcourt.
And while athletic young forward Amir Johnson continues to disappoint by his uneven play, Dumars just recently unloaded the big contract of Nazr Mohammed to Charlotte and added the big body of Primoz Brezec. If nothing else, he’ll relieve some minutes from Wallace and McDyess in the post and provide salary cap relief for the coming offseason.
Already they have dominated the improved Eastern Conference, beating the Celtics in Boston and winning 13 of 15 so far. The irony is both losses have come at the hands of the Bulls and their former Pistons teammate Ben Wallace, but that may just have been a coincidence as the Bulls are obviously mired in their own mess.
More to the point about the Pistons is the focus on their late playoff fades the last two seasons. They have certainly appeared to be a result of exhaustion – Billups and Prince in particular. Then again, we won’t know until we get to the spring and see what gives. Nonetheless, ‘Sheed came to camp in the best shape in years, and there is no more solid guy in the league than McDyess, who missed the 2004 title – coming a year later – and was so emotionally shattered by their seven-game loss to the Spurs in 2005.
But as much as the NBA world is enthralled by the new Celtics and their return to grace, and the love so many seem to have with all the runners out West, chances are these Pistons have the experience and versatility to unsettle the Celtics in a best-of-seven series, with the Spurs inevitably waiting again.
And considering the past five years, who in their right mind would underestimate De-troit basketball?
Shots from the perimeter
Meanwhile out West, the Warriors continue to make noise behind their superior point guard Baron Davis, and the obvious infusion that Stephen Jackson – Captain Jack as it were – has brought since his suspension at the beginning of the season. Since their 0-6 start, they are 17-6, but it is the consistent production and leadership of Davis that has been rock solid. Averaging 21.9 points, 8.0 assists, 2.52 steals and 4.9 rebounds, if he can stay healthy, they will be a factor this season without the unflattering Cinderella moniker.
Just consider:
They’ve already had two five-game road trips, and they were 4-1 in the first one and 3-2 on the second. That’s the first time since the 1973-74 season they’ve had winning records in back-to-back five-game trips.
They are 9-7 on the road, that’s the first time they’ve begun a season better than .500 since they were 10-6 during the 1975-76 season.
And their 17-12 start is the best they’ve had since they were 21-8, some 16 years ago with the “Run TMC” crew of general manger Chris Mullin, Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond.
That’s not to say Davis, Jackson and young Monta Ellis are or will be as effective as those guys were by the end of this season, but they may. And perhaps more importantly is Mullin has put together a better group around this explosive trio than he had with his partners a generation ago. Not surprisingly, the most obvious thing they have in common is coach Don Nelson’s presence and his love for the unorthodox.
Just as it was then and holds true now, it also makes their greatest strength their most obvious failing – speed and recklessness.
For the first time since LeBron James was a freshman in high school – in March of 2000 – the Cavaliers won in Dallas. James had 24 points, 8 rebounds and 7 assists to lead the Cavs to their 88-81 win Thursday over the Mavs despite getting battered and bruised along the way. The win was the Cavs second in a row (after beating the Heat on Christmas Day) and it’s the first time they’ve won two in a row since November. But more important to them is the win moved them into the eighth seed in the East and climbing. Once Sasha Pavlovic and Anderson Varejao get into sync following their contract delays, they should gain some momentum and play more consistently as a team … until general manager Danny Ferry opens the door to make a deal for a point guard.
While we’re mentioning the Mavericks, they have lost two in a row after seemingly getting back on course with a five-game winning streak. In the loss to the Cavs, Dirk Nowitzki had 20 rebounds for the first time in nearly five years, but he’s got problems with his heavily taped shooting hand. But at least he’s got an excuse. The always streaky Jason Terry has been on a down cycle again – making just 3-of-22 shots from the field the past two games. That, along with the inability to defend big guards is the reason why the rumors about Jason Kidd returning to the Mavs won’t stop.
The Celtics have taken their road show West for the first time, ripped the Kings by 20 on Wednesday, then Ray Allen struggled in his return to Seattle with just 10 points, but it didn’t prevent a 104-96 win over the Sonics. Paul Pierce responded to Allen’s woes with his first breakout game of the season and 37 points, while the unwaveringly consistent KG kept things together with 23 points and 14 rebounds. To put things in perspective for the improvement of the Celtics and the reason Danny Ainge is a lock for executive of the year … they are now 24-3. Remember, they finished last season with 24 wins – the second worst record in franchise history.
And finally, it now appears official that Bulls general manager John Paxson will stick with career assistant Jim Boylan as coach for the rest of the season after firing Scott Skiles on Christmas Eve. Whether or not the Bulls quit on Skiles, he quit on them, or both isn’t as relevant as the obvious factor that this team is a mismatched set and Paxson has plenty of work ahead of him. Both Luol Deng and Ben Gordon are having sub-par seasons after turning down contract offers, Kirk Hinrich is having his worst season, they’re stuck with Ben Wallace’s bloated contract, and they still don’t have a dependable go-to guy or a low-post threat.
In other words, he still has a ton of work to do and the Bulls are a classic of example of a how much easier it is to take a horrible team and make them competitive, then take a competitive team to the next level and make them elite. They’re stuck in neutral and there is no track record that says Paxson has the wherewithal to straight things out.
