NBA Second Round Review 2013

I had a few more things to do than expected, so I'm a day late in editing and posting this.  I am not certain, but this is quite possibly the longest blog post I have ever posted.  It at least cracked the 4,500 word count anyways.  Since the Oklahoma City Thunder were knocked out of the playoffs, I spent a lot of time focusing on that series.

1 Miami vs 5 Chicago

Predicted Miami in 5, actual result was Miami in 5.

If Chicago had won game 3 instead of game 1, then nothing unexpected happened in this series.  However, the Bulls did actually win game 1, which was a bit surprising to me.  The Bulls played a tough series against the Heat, they were just severely undermanned.  Since February 1st the Heat have lost to just two teams: NY one time (when the Heat were playing their bench and Carmelo scored 50) and Chicago twice.

Near the end of the regular season I was quite impressed by the Heat's bench, the Heat's 2nd squad, somehow keeping the Heat's record close to pristine.  Not many (if any), teams could simply take out their best players and still compete and beat both the dregs and the elites of the NBA.

Back to the one surprising thing about this series..  While I did not get a chance to watch game 1 or much of the other Bulls-Heat games. I kind of wonder if Coach Spoelstra either intentionally lost this game, or simply did not put his best effort into this game.  Curious.  After game one, a news clipping came out about LeBron guarding Nate Robinson....  Just wondering here, but why would LeBron not have guarded Robinson in game one?  

I think there is something to be said for having this thought as a coach in the NBA:  What person or players on the other team am I worried about, because they can beat us?   (I applied this thought to the GS vs Denver series two posts ago.)

And.. To be honest, there isn't a person on the Bulls that should be a threat to most good NBA teams.  So no one officially makes the list, but the closest person to making it is Robinson.  Hence, Lebron should be on Robinson.  Not exactly rocket science, but it is effective.  Maybe a little bit unfair to Robinson to be guarded by the best NBA athlete on the planet who happens to be 6ft 8', but I don't think a coach should really care about what is 'fair' to the other team.

The only game in which Nate Robinson really went off was game one when he shot 50% from the field, after (I assume) the Heat made the switch so that LeBron would generally guard him, Robinson's shooting performances were awful, with an exclamation point marked for him at game 4 in which he shot 0-12 from the field.  I would think that it would not be very difficult to decide to put your best defender on their best scorer.  Still though, it's understandable why the Heat 'lost' game one (with a wink and a nod to Coach Spoelstra).

2 New York vs 3 Indiana

I predicted Indiana in 6, the actual result was Indiana in 6.

I have something earth shattering to say..  Inefficient scorers do not beat good defenses!  (A real shocker I know..)  If I would have had a game by game prediction before the series, then I would have (effectively) almost perfectly predicted the series.  Like much of the Heat-Bulls series, nothing really out of the ordinary for this series.

You can have your Carmelo's and JR Smith's of the world, I'll take the James Harden's and Chandler Parson's in the league.  Let's see who wins..

Also, if Carmelo would ever want to lose his mindset of 'I'm the best __ player in the world, so I'll just shoot any time the ball is given to me.'  And instead adopt some sort of mix between KD and Lebron, in terms of passing and shot efficiency, then Carmelo could become a very dangerous player..  And get this.. He might even be able to advance past a team with a positive point differential in the playoffs..  Something that he does not like to accomplish.

Quick aside, I kind of wonder why it is so much more natural to say Carmelo and LeBron, both first names, while with a name like Kevin Durant, I naturally want to say Durant, the last name.  Anyways, however, on to the one series which did not make any sense.

1 Oklahoma City vs 5 Memphis

To borrow a line from a Wages of Win article, there was too much Perky Fish.  'Perky Fish' being Kendrick Perkins and Derek Fisher.  I like Fisher as a person, the guy is a Christian and seems like a fairly nice person.  However..  He is 38 years old, and should probably.. not be getting serious minutes on a championship level contending team. A little bit flabbergasting to see him get 31 minutes in game 5 and many minutes throughout the other games.

His mental lapse turnover near the end of game 4 (I think it was) was unfortunate, but I don't hold it against him.  Also Fisher was certainly playing better than he had in the regular season, so I don't have a huge problem with Coach Brooks playing him many more minutes in the playoffs.

On to the 'other' guy.  Kendrick Perkins.. Oh how I like him, let me count the ways...  Hmm.. This is difficult.

Okay, forgetting that relatively impossible exercise..  (joking, joking)  I think it is fairly well documented on this blog that I do not like Kendrick Perkins game.  He might be the 'king' of the illegal screen, (although he is only called for it occasionally).  His defensive game is poor against agile and crafty opponents, and slightly below average against 'general' bigs such as Marc Gasol.  His offensive scoring game is ugly, to put it kindly.  And as an added bonus, he has more /facepalm turnovers than I even have.  It's like he's trying to catch the basketball with iron hands or something, the ball simply bounces off of his hands half the time.  (slight exaggeration obviously).  And his passing???  Perkin's Fail  yeah, that was one of Perkins' best passes, it's just too bad it was to the wrong team.   At least he apparently takes responsibility for his mistakes Perkins' Mistake (Although I don't know why coach Brooks is talking about bets.  Just kidding.) it's just that he should not be in a position to make them with a championship-level team.

However, on the bright side.   Perkins did set a new record.. In futility.  Somehow, he managed to set the all-time playoff record in horrible PER (for those qualified), his PER was -0.7!  I don't even know how you achieve a negative PER!  (though I probably should look into that sometime)  That is insane.  Perkins wasn't just hurting the Thunder, he was actively helping the Grizzlies!

And, to be fair, while Perkins did also put out far and away the worst WP48 on the team, Nick Collison also had a negative WP48 against Memphis. Though that still means that Collison, or anyone else, should have been playing over Perkins.

So the Thunder effectively tossed Harden to keep Perkins, instead of amnestying him??  Whhhat?  Didn't make very much sense then, makes even less sense now.

It turns out that Vegas (odd how they tend to be this..) was accurate in saying that Memphis was the favorite.

If the Thunder had to lose a series at some point in the playoffs, then at least they lost the way they did..  Kevin Durant had a very ugly shooting performance in game 5, 5 for 21, and overall performance, 7 turnovers.  I would imagine, that he will be one of the hardest working NBA players in the off-season.  Scarily enough, he should be even better next year.  Maybe not by matching or improving on his 90-50-40 performance (since that is extremely difficult to do), but I think he can be better defensively, and at creating shots for his teammates.

Didn't catch all of this game, but the lack of movement for the Thunder offense especially in connection to get Durant open was fairly disappointing.  I was fine with Coach Brooks experimenting for a short while with Hasheem Thabeet against the Grizzlies for the first 2 games.  Thabeet is (I think) the only player on the Thunder who would actually beat the Randolph and Gasol in height while also effectively matching them in weight.

The Foul Fallacy.
 Did you know that when a player fouls out, that player is not only lost for that game, but also for the next game as well?

At least that is what it feels like (practically) whenever a player gets a couple quick fouls..

Somewhat typical coach speak.  Oh blah has 3 fouls and we're only 2 minutes into the second quarter?  That must mean that I should bench blah until the second half starts.

If there are certain matchups which perpetuate quick fouls against blah, then yes, you should consider benching blah until the other player creating the matchup problem leaves the court.  All minutes are (theoretically) not created equally in basketball.  Most coaches would prefer to have a superstar level player for the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter, rather than 5 random minutes in the second quarter.  So I suppose, that for some coaches it can make sense to bench a player if he is in foul trouble.

Also when you are giving your player rest on the bench, your player will be more rested.  And when a player is rested, then your player will tend to make less mistakes. (which I would mostly agree with this logic)

Overall, I think coaches make too many changes to basic rotation based on fear.  If I leave blah in, then it is nearly certain that the other team will perpetually attack blah until he fouls out of the game!  As I said before, 'all minutes are not created equally', however a coach cannot always accurately predict the future, so yes the other team might attack blah more often (which might be a less efficient offense for them), and yes he may eventually foul out.. But, he also might not.  And in the meantime, you just got the 'relative' maximum number of minutes from him.

While relative is usually relative.. It's even more relative than usual here..  If that made sense.  To try and elaborate on this point..  Assume that blah, if left in the game during his normal rotation stints, will only be able to play an average of 22 minutes, while if a coach takes him out, then he will be able to play for an average of 25 minutes, but he will sit on the bench for 5 minutes of his normal rotation spot.  (assuming that all fouls were created somewhat equally.. Which they are not.)  The thing is in this situation is that most of the time this player would only play 23 minutes more of rotation time..  So in essence you are trading one minute of crunch time playing for three minutes of 'regular' playing time.  Imho, that doesn't sound like a fair trade to me.

I would tend to think that, even though it is not in the forefront of their minds, most referees do not like to eject players.  Random beyond insignificant small sample size point, in the last 4 games for the 4 different series, there were 5 players with 5 fouls and one player with 6 fouls.

Other than game 1 (in which the Thunder won the TO battle by one possession) the Thunder lost the TO battle in each game and somewhat directly lost each game.

+- is (obviously) not the only or necessarily the best statistic in basketball.. But, listen to this..  (or read as the case happens to be)  Surprise-surprise, Perkins tied for the worst +-.  He tied with Reggie Jackson.

Other +- notes.  Sefolosha had games where he was +10 and other games where he was -10, so a bit random for him.  Ibaka had a very low deviation game by game.  Last note.. While Martin was decentish in +-, I think the winner was Derek-38 years old-Fisher.

I think that overall the Thunder losing the series was just randomness..  5 toss up games, but they only managed to win one of them.  However, there may have been a bit of a snowball effect in the series. Also as a hint to the Spurs.. Don't lose a game to Memphis and you should win the series.  In Memphis' first series they lost two to the Clips, then won 4 straight, then they lost one to OKC and then Memphis won 4 straight..

Sefolosha was kind of a liability on offense, he never scored double digits in the series.. (Partially because the Thunder don't let him shoot all that often)  I think he should have played a lot more than he did.

Kind of curious... But, KD progressively shot worse from game 1 to game 5.  FATIGUE anyone?  I don't want to mention any names, SCOTT BROOKS, but KD is not LeBron James.    He can't be playing 44+ minutes while guarding any and every position!  Would anyone want to guess how many minutes of rest KD got in the series?  (not counting TV commercials, because those things are long.. heh, just kidding - sort of)  16 minutes.  SIXTEEN MINUTES!  GOODNIGHT.  Why didn't the Thunder just forfeit the series beforehand?  Sixteen minutes..  (Could have slightly misleading data.. I heard different minutes rest for KD, but I'm just going off of KD's minutes played on ESPN) I don't care if Durant wants to play every minute or if he wants to get 10 minutes of rest.  The coach makes the decisions.  The coach, not the player..  (I think Coach D'antoni just called and he said that Coach Brooks had some weird rotations and that he didn't know how to stand up to his superstar player.)

If anyone thinks that fatigue doesn't affect players at least to a certain extent, then I've got a 2013 OKC championship to sell you.. No, actually I do not, because for some reason Scott Brooks believed that fatigue does not affect players.

It would be interesting if there would be a correlation between rest and shooting % for superstar players.  I'll hopefully look into that a little at some point, it's possible that I'll find some good stuff, but I kind of doubt I'll find very much.

It had to be the defense that caused
 Durant to struggle.  Actually, Coach Brooks,
 your offensive sets lacked creativity and you
 played Durant far too many minutes.

I was quite fine with the mostly open KD jumper to attempt to tie the game in game 5.  Unlike Coach Brooks I would not have taken it 100 times out of 100 times..  Normally I would say that I'm fine with that play call and result about 75% of the time..  However, circumstances demand that be about 15% lower.  Kevin Durant was having (I'm fairly certain) the worst playoff game of his career.

So while I was fine with the call, I would have also been fine with (and to a certain extent preferred) to have KD off ball, while Jackson dribbles up top.  Then, Ibaka and Collison set a double screen on Prince to create some space for Durant, who then (provided there is space) receives the pass and either takes the quick shot, or takes either Prince or whoever has switched on to him to the hoop.  On the off chance Durant can't receive the pass, then Ibaka comes up top for a pick and roll with Jackson.

I think that my play-call is a little better than Coach Brooks iso call. How imaginative can you get?  I know.. Let's call an ISOLATION WITH KEVIN DURANT!  That will certainly catch them off guard.  (though the funny thing is, since it was actually defended poorly by Memphis, KD [on an off night] got a very good look anyways).

(Originally I was doing this meticulously through ESPN... Lots of fun.. But, then I remembered Basketball Reference [And I don't know why I forgot about them in the first place] and that helped a lot.)

The results  that I saw in which KD played 48 minutes or more in any regular or playoff season game, he shot 245 of 537 for .456%.  Not an amazing set of data to compare to his career average, plus there are other factors to consider so the results were effectively, completely inconclusive.  KD's career average is .475% so only .019% higher, or 2% better.  And while 2% isn't anything to sneeze at, I would imagine a portion of that can be explained by the relative fact that Durant would be facing tougher teams when he plays 48 or more minutes per game, hence generally better defenses, which would obviously correlate to a lower shooting percentage.

So it is somewhat possible that KD's shooting performance as the result of fatigue was simply a flawed data set, especially because in the 22 sets of games in which BR found 48 minutes or more playing time for KD, the two most recent Memphis games were numbers 19 and 22.

However a rebuttal to that is this, the other 48 minutes or more were somewhat random and spread out in between other games in which he played closer to 40 minutes, But in this series he was playing about 46 minutes per game.  So the effects of playing a greater than average MPG combined with playing a physical Memphis defense and combined with playing some time defensively in the post would certainly tend to equate to a lessened shooting percentage.

This season Durant had one other occurrence of a back to back 48 or more.  It occurred in mid January against (@ in both cases) Denver and Dallas, both games were very competitive of course.  Durant shot effectively his average in one and way below his average in the other.  The Thunder's record is only 12-10 when Durant has 48 or more minutes in the game.  (Though this is over a span of a few years when they were a poorer team, and again, the Thunder would be  slightly more likely to be facing tougher competition)

Lebron James didn't have an easy time carrying the Cavs.  And while KD only had around 3 weeks to actually have his 'own' team...  He found out that it is not an easy job to carry a team.

I went ahead and mostly gave Coach Brooks a pass last year in the Finals.  But this time he certainly deserves a good portion of the blame.

Russell Westbrook is obviously the reason the Thunder lost the series, Kevin Durant could do almost nothing by himself!!  Ha.  I got a few chuckles when experts or the common folk made comments such as that.  So you're telling me that KD and the Thunder are much worse without Westbrook because they lost a highly competitive series against the Grizzlies, in which KD in 4 consecutive games struggled to finish the game for the Thunder?  Assuming you're counting the Houston series, then you're saying that the competitive 4-6 record the Thunder had against two quality playoff opponents is somehow indicative of any performance without Westbrook?  You're telling me that 10 games is enough evidence to somehow support your theory?  Do you seriously believe that?  You're saying that the Thunder coaches and players somehow had enough time to completely reform their offense?  That the coaches and players could somehow  miraculously adjust to around 32% of the team's usage, in the form of Westbrook shots and assists, suddenly disappearing?  That the Thunder could suddenly adjust to their PG, their leader, their quarterback, their floor general, a player who hadn't missed a single game in his pro career, unexpectedly going down with an injury!?

So in case you couldn't get the gist of my comments... I'm just wondering here... What in the world are they thinking?  Do they ever happen to think of alternative reasons to their hypothesis being false, or do they simply speak whatever they desire to say from their mouths?  Okay.. Obviously the latter, and I think I've had enough of this angle for the Westbrook injury topic.

Westbrook did bring passion.  And that was possibly an underrated aspect of his game (by me at the very least).  The Thunder started out flat in at least two games in the Grizzlies' series.

In my list of top six reasons as to why the Thunder lost the series against the Grizzlies, Westbrook being gone  is #6 (gone and not injured is an important difference in this context.  By 'gone' I mean the actual ability of Westbrook to outperform Jackson or Fisher.  As opposed to 'injured' in this context, meaning that that the Thunder coaches and players have to completely redefine what they do.  If you actually understood what I just said, then congrats, because I did not state the last few sentences very clearly and I even confused myself.).

#1  Coach Brooks and the rest of the coaching staff not revamping and reforming the offense to a level in which it is at least semi-semi competent.

#2  Coach Brooks playing Kevin Durant far too many minutes, while also asking him to occasionally guard the post.

#3  Coach Brooks playing Kendrick Perkins 18 minutes per game, which is around 15 minutes more than he should be getting.  (That number might be going off the entire playoffs and not just the Grizzlies series)

#4  Kevin Durant either not having the energy to finish games, or simply not having the right 'lucky' bounces to finish games 2 through 5.

#5  Serge Ibaka mostly losing the ability to hit shots outside of 8 feet.

#6  Westbrook not being able to play and outperform Jackson and Fisher at the position of PG.

Derrick Rose was out with an injury for parts of last season, during which time the Bulls were decentish without him.  And as such, comments were made about the team being better without him.  While I am not a huge fan of D-Rose, and kind of see him as a leaner-meaner Carmelo Anthony version 2.0, I did think that he was better than CJ Watson at playing and leading the Bulls.  In the playoffs the Bulls lost Rose to an injury and then lost to an inferior Philly team (which stunk this year, though their best player, imho, Andre Iguodala left) in 6 games.  

     This year, despite suffering injury after injury, the Bulls managed to upset the Nets in 7 games and also 'win' a single game against the rusty Heat.  How could they have managed to win a series without D-Rose, despite all of their injuries (and sicknesses) this year while last year they couldn't even beat the 76er's?  It's fairly simple really.. The coaches and players had time to adjust to life without D-Rose.  The coaches had time to experiment with different combinations of players, different mixing and matchings. While a few of the players also had time to learn to accept greater responsibility within the offense.

(I'm kind of repeating myself here, but it's so that I can continue on with the point in regards to the Thunder.) The 2013 Bulls, even with various injuries and diseases, were a better team than the 2012 Bulls.  Simply because everyone involved had time to adjust to life without D-Rose.  If Westbrook would have had an injury which would require him to sit out most or all of next season, then the 2014 Thunder (ALTHOUGH, part of this is assuming that Coach Brooks would make coaching decisions at least somewhat comparable to Coach Thibodeau) would have been a much better team as compared to the 2013 Thunder.

Maybe it was just because a good portion of people from ESPN like the Bulls, but I did not understand all of the love that the Bulls were receiving after losing in 5 games to the Heat...  I mean, credit to the Bulls for getting one game, but they never had any sort of chance at this series.  But, some of the podcasts I was listening to were praising the Bulls on how they played, and that the Bulls would be an absolute force to be reckoned with once D-Rose comes back next year.  (They must be remembering a different D-Rose than I am)  If I remember this, then I'll bring this up again after the Bulls are knocked out of the playoffs next season.  [Editor's note: I did remember this, but it didn't actually prove to relevant since D-Rose was injured once again.]

Another annoying Bulls' talking point to me was the D-Rose, 'is he coming back' or 'when will he be back' 'is he a coward' 'does he have no toughness'?  Etc, etc.  They were all extremely silly talking points then, and they are all still extremely silly talking points now.  First of all D-Rose is tough in terms of being able to play through physical pain, mental pain is unknown.  He's not a 'coward'.  And finally the discussion about when D-Rose would be coming back was insanely silly.. Think about this.. I'm guessing, (Pretending to be telepathic alert..) that D-Rose was partially thinking something along the lines of this, 'Should I come back against the Nets or Heat and either possibly injure myself once again, or simply play poorly and ruin some of my cache?'  (because it's awfully silly that anyone seriously thought that he could make a serious contribution when he's been [more or less literally] on ice for the last year and hasn't participated in an NBA game type environment)

2 San Antonio vs 6 Golden State

Immediately after game 1, when SA took 2 OT's to beat GS, I thought that I should have picked SA in 6 instead of 5.  So a very slight miss for this series.

This will be my least talked about series.  Other than Curry's 44 point barrage in game one, Danny Green did (as expected) a very decent job guarding Curry.  Although, Curry's ankle was probably part of the reason for that.

Overall

I think I did a decent job this round. (while proportionality it's actually somewhat similar to my 1st round). The Thunder losing in a toss-up 5 game series was a little bit stinging (And there aren't many toss-up 5 game series), but otherwise I nailed three series. A solid B.

One last note about the Thunder coaching staff. While it's possible that I, or another random NBA fan, may know certain things which the Thunder coaching staff is ignorant about, overall I'm (fairly) sure that that the Thunder coaches are very competent at their jobs and deserve to be in the NBA.  They're all good coaches.  I wasn't trying to be too much of a stereotypical random fan sitting on your couch pretending you can coach and I wasn't trying to be too hard on Coach Brooks, since dealing with the loss of your floor general is a huge loss, but certain problems, especially continuous ones like Coach Brooks playing too much Kendrick Perkins, should not be entirely ignored.

Even though I talked about the Thunder for a long while, I still have more to pontificate and may possibly have another post about OKC's series with Memphis at some point. Thanks for reading.  Hope you enjoyed the very long post, feel free to comment and subscribe.

Preview of the NBA Conference Finals 2013

Miami vs Indiana

Two of the most used Pacer and Heat lineups.

Hill-Stephenson-George-West-Hibbert

Chalmers-Wade-James-Haslem-Bosh

I would assume that one of the 'Georges' should be on LeBron most of the time, so that should be an intriguing matchup.  

I think this series has more of a potential than SA-Memphis to be an interesting series.  But, at the same time, the best case scenario I saw for Indy (barring Lebron or Bosh suffering an injury) was to lose in a competitive seven.

My pick is probably about average as compared to the general public.  I have Miami winning in a fairly entertaining 6.  

SA vs Memphis

What is a greater determining factor in a
player's career?  Coaching or just general
hard work and the athleticism of the athlete?

The answer is mostly unknown, but the
three pronged attack of Popovich, Parker,
and Duncan have made the question irrelevant
in SA and have been a dominating force.

Conley-Allen-Prince-Randolph-Gasol

Parker-Green-Leonard-Splitter-Duncan

Memphis is extremely good defensively. No weak links, they are all B or above type defenders.

SA may have a few matchup problems against Memphis, but their bench is leaps and bounds better than the Grizzlies' bench.

No offense to Zach Lowe and the other fine folks in the world who picked Memphis,..

Side note..   Zach Lowe  is a fantastic writer who provides some great NBA analysis and discussion, and I kind of hope {though, I and many other readers would miss the articles} that he's picked up by some team in the NBA within the next couple years.  He swears every once in a while, but otherwise I have very few problems with his writing and would recommend reading his articles.  It is fairly rare for his articles to have 'fluff' talking points that do not actually add to some NBA discussion.  Also, while it is sort of his job to write articles on Grantland, it's still quite impressive the amount of material that he provides during the NBA regular season and especially during the NBA playoffs.

Anyways, back to my point..

but they are wrong. (as I was wrong to a much greater extent about the LAL vs Spurs series)  It's kind of obvious that Popovich and the Spurs have been in this situation before, while the Grizzlies have not been, and while I think the whole 'veteran team' vs 'young team' argument (or whatever you want to call it) is a bit overused and often irrelevant  I do think that it is very relevant in this situation.  The Spurs' coaching should be able to (effectively) run circles around the Grizzlies.

As I talk about at length in my recap of the Thunder's series, coaching certainly matters in the NBA.  (And all sports..  Which is something that I, for some reason, keep underrating.)  While Lionel Hollins is a decent coach (who should keep his job), Gregg Popovich is the best coach in the NBA.  That is one of the major reasons I am going a little bit against the grain and going with the Spurs to be somewhat dominating.  (I am posting this after game 1, but that's irrelevant, because I already had most of this written before, and also, Memphis lost game 1 in each of the previous 2 series, so game 1 hasn't really mattered to them so far.  And besides I already locked in my picks at wagesofwins)

I would say that a small plurality of the general public consensus is that the Spurs will win in 7, while the next most popular pick is probably Grizzlies in 6 or 7.  I see a much quicker series.

Spurs in 5.

I'm still working on a vaguely long piece to review round 2, which I will hopefully be able to get around to editing and posting possibly by Wednesday or Thursday.

NBA Second Round Predictions, 2013

'Normally' (based on the one season I've done this blog for the NBA) I wouldn't do a round by round prediction in addition to my original predictions.  However, I am participating in a Wages of Wins bracket contest, so I figured I might as well post my new round by round predictions on my blog and post a couple very quick thoughts about the series.

1 Miami vs 4 Chicago

I am still having a tough time deciding on whether this series will be a 4 game series or a 5 game series.  I'll go ahead and lean to the Bulls toughing one game out.  Miami in 5.

2 New York vs 3 Indiana

I still feel fairly good about this series going to Indy in 6 games.

1 Oklahoma City vs 8 Memphis

No offense to the Clippers, but I think that the Clips would have been fairly easy for OKC to beat with or without Westbrook.  The Grizzlies, on the other hand, should provide some fairly tough competition.  And I am actually glad that the Thunder are facing the Grizzlies instead of the Clippers.  Because, I would prefer to work through more roster issues against Memphis rather than the Heat, and I think that the Heat and Grizzlies play somewhat similar brands of basketball.  Weirdly enough, Memphis is actually the somewhat heavy favorite in this series.  I don't understand that.  I thought about OKC in 5, but I went with OKC in 6.

2 San Antonio vs 6 Golden State

In my original second round prediction I did not have either of these teams reaching the second round.. That worked out well. In the new matchup I have SA winning in 5.

NBA First Round Review 2013

Eastern Conference

1 Miami vs 8 Milwaukee

Predicted Miami in 4, actual result was Miami in 4

To sum-up this series, I'll describe a play. (though not very well, since I can't remember who the Buck's player was)  Lebron is guarding a random Buck player and he purposely lets the Buck player drive past him to attempt the easy layup..  Then Lebron leaps and gets one of his 'trademark' blocks.  As expected this series might as well have been called after game 1.  The Heat didn't mess around with the Bucks, they simply took care of business.  I don't really know if there was a lot to predict this series, so B.

2 New York vs 7 Boston

Predicted NY in 6, actual result was NY in 6

Who was the bright person who decided that it was a good idea to wear 'funeral black' to the Celtics game 5? And even more importantly (in my book), why did no one stop the Knicks from wearing black?  I don't really think it's completely classless or anything like that, I just don't think it's a very bright idea to give your opponent more motivation.  The funny thing is, I think the Celtics would have won the series if it had gone back to NY.  However, that did not happen so my prediction came through. A little more variation for this prediction then the Heat series, so I'll get an A-.

3 Indiana vs 6 Atlanta

Predicted Indiana in 5, actual result was Indiana in 6

Indiana did win some games convincingly..  But, some small credit should go to the Hawks for showing up in their first two home games.  Didn't get to watch any of this series.  B-

4 Brooklyn vs 5 Chicago

Predicted Brooklyn in 6, actual result was Chicago in 7

Probably would have been correct about this series, if not for Nate Robinson deciding to have one of the most impressive 4th quarters in the history of the NBA.  I thought that the Nets were playing decent defense on him, he was just hitting extremely difficult shots.  In the end the Bulls end up getting the chance to get stomped by the Heat.  This was a very competitive series, as evidenced by this being the only series in the first round that went 7 games   C-

Western Conference

1 Oklahoma City vs 8 Houston

I said OKC in 5, actual result was OKC in 6

I didn't watch very much of this series.  I caught the 4th quarter of game 6, and honestly, the Thunder looked extremely good.. (though it was probably just bad timing on my part, since they dominated that quarter)  Coach Brooks was actually not playing Perkins (stunner!), but instead played Collison.  So that was nice to see.  Also, while I wasn't completely in favor of it, (and possibly I am mistaken) but it felt like Coach Brooks had the same lineup in for almost the entire 4th quarter.  Almost the entire 4th quarter.  Even in the playoffs, that is not often done.  I didn't really mind the move (or lack there of), since he had a good lineup on the court: Durant, Jackson, Fisher, Collison, and either Martin or Ibaka.

Here's my semi-obligatory anti-Perkins comment.. In the pieces of the other games I saw, Perkins was generally in..  And to say he was confused on defense would be quite a compliment.  I don't understand why he gets any more than 10 minutes of playing time a game.  Collison consistently outperforms him basic and advanced stat-wise, it's more or less a tie on offense, defensively he obliterates Perkins.  If Collison has a slight defensive flaw it's that he helps too much.. Which isn't really much of a flaw in my book.  And finally, eye-ball wise, it  is again no contest.  It'll be interesting to keep tabs on each person's playing time through the playoffs.

In the 4th quarter I saw last night, Durant dominated the ball.  Probably at least 60% of possessions were facilitated in some way by him.  It was fun to watch.  I like iso plays even less than the next guy..  But.. I can occasionally make slight exceptions.  The, off the top of my head, list of players who can occasionally have an isolation play called for them and I would generally be somewhat fine with it are as follows:  Kevin Durant, James Harden, Lebron James, Chris Paul, and Tony Parker.  Other players can occasionally make the list if they're hot, but in general, besides a serious mismatch like Carmelo Anthony vs Jason Terry, no team should run isolation plays.. They simply are not as effective as other offensive plays and schemes.

Kind of got side tracked there..  Anyways, in my opinion KD dominating the ball and him being the Point Foward at times is certainly not a bad thing.  No offense to Russell Westbrook, but I think that the Thunder are in some ways a better team without him.. (though his fire/competition, and speed are great attributes.  He just takes way too many low quality looks.  If he wants to change that, and if he could become an efficient player, something like a slightly better version of Ty Lawson, then I would be a supporter of Westbrook.)  But, didn't the Thunder just struggle with the Rockets some, and now they're somewhat likely to not reach the NBA Finals?  Technically, yes..  However, I'm going to crazily guess that the playoffs are not the best time to lose one of your top players, and then attempt to figure out the new rotation you are going to use.

As a semi-Rockets fan, I was vaguely happy with the way they played.  I thought that Harden should have driven more.  Though, if Harden would drive 30 times in a game, I still might say that he should have driven more.. I think that him driving is an extremely efficient offense for Houston. And advanced stats, and my personal stats, say that his PPP (points per possession) is effectively off the charts.  He tends to take quality shot after quality shot.  Oh, he also occasionally flops and nets two free throws.  I don't really understand how some 'experts' thought that he wouldn't even be a quality starter (much less All-Star to MVP type player) in Houston.  Houston is in a very good situation with Harden, Lin, Parson, etc.  They should be a force to be reckoned with in a few years.

I think my prediction would have been accurate if Westbrook had not been injured, (though the Thunder weren't completely dominating when he was there) however, the Thunder were forced to redesign their straightforward one-two attack of Westbrook pick and rolls, and KD ISO's and spot ups into a one dimensional attack of KD ISO's and spot ups..  Just kidding.. kind of.

While I think that Reggie Jackson is a very decent player, I do not think he is on the level of Westbrook, so I think that the Thunder have been misusing Jackson a little bit, by partially trying to plug him in as Westbrook version 0.8, instead of plugging him into his own system.

Another sidenote here.. Derek Fisher was looking like he was a decade younger last night.  He hit a bunch of open look threes. Which will be a very important factor for the Thunder in the series to come.  Also, by the end of this playoff run, at least as I expect the playoffs to go, (if I saw the stat correctly) then Fisher will become the person with the most NBA playoff experience in the history of the league.  Some very impressive stuff right there.  I suppose I should move onto some much quick recaps of other series..  B- for this series.

2 San Antonio vs 7 LAL

I predicted Lakers in 6, actual result was Spurs in an extremely convincing 4.

Goodnight..  What was I thinking?  I know I was forcing the upset a little, but I didn't think it would be that bad.  Even my stats read was a little off, because I said that they said that the Spurs would win in 5.  In the first round I tended to watch the games that I was either interested in from an entertainment and fan perspective such as OKC vs Houston, or the main games I watched were the games where I was concerned about the teams I picked (from the start).  So I mostly watched the Lakers series and the Denver series..

For future series I think I will try and take more heavily into account each team's best player, and then also (/especially) each team's coach.  How was I trying to see that Coach D'antoni beat Coach Popovich.. ?  I don't know..  In hindsight it doesn't make sense.  I have a little more to talk about in regards to this series, which I plan on posting within a day or two.  Overall, this was a very naive pick by me.  Silly PU or PURST Spurs.  F+.

3 Denver vs 6 Golden State

Predicted Denver in 4, actual result was GS in 6

Now on to my other ugly series.  Another naively dumb pick by me.  I was forgetting things.. In hindsight.  Denver has a great record @home in the regular season in part because the high altitude is hard to adjust to for other teams in just a day or two.  However in the playoffs rounds 1-3, the one time when a lower seeded team gets to stay for a while.. As in game two.  So GS got to adjust to the altitude by that time and by 'pure coincidence'..  GS won game two.  Which in turn, caused the snowball effect that beat Denver.

Not meaning to be disrespectful to Coach Karl, since I'm just some random (theoretical) couch sitting NBA fan, but I did not like how he tried to guard Curry.  Or as it looked to me, how he tried to give Curry looks at threes.

When facing a shooter like Curry, (though, really there aren't any other shooters like/as good as Curry) I fail to see the need to constantly have your players go under the pick and roll..  Yet that is what Denver kept doing.  Imho, a quick hard hedge by both defenders is what should occur, then the post should recover to his man or whomever he now guards.  Worst case scenario, Curry makes a nice pass, and the Warriors are playing 4 on 3.  In my opinion that is a much improved situation as opposed to going under the screen and letting Curry who shot 62% (adjusted between three points and two points) to hoist a nothing but net three.

I was in and out of this game, but in game 6 I believe that I heard one of the play by play announcers say that Iguodala was on Curry in game 5, and that Curry had a tough game.  No kidding?  Who would have guessed..  It's too bad no one ever thought about that before the series..  No wait, I thought of that, and I wouldn't be surprised if some other folks thought of that as well.

Height is, kind of obviously, something which can not be taught.  And it is a decent advantage in basketball to have a team which is on average two inches taller than the opponent.

Even though Curry isn't very muscular, and kind of looks like your average guy off the street, I don't think that you can simply out physical / bully him into having a poor game and/or series.  I think the best tactic is to smother him.  Put a taller defender on him to affect his shot attempt's arc. Will that defender occasionally get beaten off the dribble more than the 'typical' defender of Curry, and Curry get a few relatively easy looks at the hoop?  Probably, yes.  But that is a small price to pay for taking away many of Curry's 62% shot attempts.

I was impressed with Curry's arsenal of finger roll shots/floaters. I learned around two main things from this series  The first thing is that coaching matters..  Coaching matters..  I really need to make sure I understand that point in the future.  Even though I think I understand that, I don't think I am applying it heavily enough.

The second is that trends tend to tell the truth.  (there were a  lot of t's in that sentence) So if you want to abbreviate that, then it's TTTTTT.

I decided to ignore Coach Karl and the Nugget's abysmal performance in the playoffs over the last decade.  Which burned me just a little. Curry was (per usual) very impressive in this series. While my original prediction was, in hindsight, a bit silly, overall, Denver easily could have won this series in 5 with a couple different bounces of the ball.  D

LAC vs Memphis

I said LAC in 7 while the actual result was Memphis in 6.

I don't have a lot to say about this series.  Memphis stole a game on the road and the Clipper's offense struggled. D+

Overall first round grade, C.  I am kind of surprised I even got a C, after the three horrible West series.  While there wasn't a ton to predict, I was only off by a total of 2 games in the East.  I'm not certain I am doing this correctly, but I think I was off by a total of 8.5 games in the West.