"Frontrunners"

by Peter W on May 13, 2008 7:21 AM CDT

That's what Kenny Smith called Boston after their loss to the Cavs last night. So far I would agree with him. Boston has an amazing ability to pummel a team when they're down, and not let them back into a game, especially at home. As we've seen in the Celts playoff road games, they struggle to manage a game from behind.

A note for Wolves fans: 20 game win improvement predictions aside, last night demonstrated how far we are from not only making the playoffs, but being able to compete in them. There was some serious defense played by both teams; forget the illogical talk about adding still more outside perimeter jump shooters to this club as the first priority, give me folks who are first willing to defend, then shoot. That's how championships are won.

Cleveland was able to shut down both KG and Pierce in the second half; Allen got off a couple of three's, but it has to be troubling for the Tri-Core not to be able to take over a game in crunch time. After horrible adjustments in Game 1, Cavs coach Mike Brown made a couple of slight tweaks to his offense, running high pick and rolls in the fourth quarter to enable both Gibson and Lebron to have spacing to hit clutch treys to seal the contest. And of course, there was the posterizing dunk on KG by LBJ.

King James will need another majestic performance like last year to carry the Cavs; I think Boston still has too many ways to beat a team. Lebron will have to find a more consistent shooting touch, and as I mentioned in a previous post, guys like Wally, Gibson and Z are going to have to show up again, especially back in Beantown. Losing Game 1 was critical to the Cavs chances. Boston still wins this series, but unless KG, Pierce and Allen find themselves, even a gimped-up Detroit will prove difficult for the Celtics. Detroit can beat Boston at home, Boston hasn't proven yet they can beat anyone on the road. That's not promising for title aspirations.

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Ladies and Gentlemen...

...we have ourselves another Dallas Mavericks. I wonder which one would hurt more: getting bounced by Wally or Flip/Chauncey?

by Stop-n-Pop on May 13, 2008 8:59 AM CDT 0 recs

PS...

...I think they get rolled by Cleveland. They’re a Lebron missed layup in game 1 from being down 3-1.

by Stop-n-Pop on May 13, 2008 9:04 AM CDT 0 recs

Couldn’t agree more about defense over shooters. That’s why I think center is the most important position. We need post-defense and we need it from somewhere other than Al. If Al gives it, great, but we need someone else to guard the opponent’s best post-player.

This is the same reason I’m so leery about Foye and McCants. They’ve shown they CAN play defense, not that they always WILL.

But, in my never-coached-a-game-of-hoops-in-my-life opinion, it seems that defense is something that is much more easily coached than scoring (not to be confused with offense). Sure instinct and lateral quickness go a long way, but the Celtics play team defense. And that comes from a plan, a lesson and execution. All bucks that I think stop with the coach.

by wyn on May 13, 2008 9:58 AM CDT 0 recs

Cleveland still has to break through at Boston...

I would guess between the two, it would hurt KG to get nailed by Flip/Chauncey than Wally, unless Wally hits a game winner somehow. I don’t know, Lebron was great last night, but he’s going to have to be superior offensively and hit some out-of-his-mind shots like he did against the Pistons to win in Boston. But S-N-P’s right, they’re one missed shot away from being up on the Celts, only KG has played well in all of the games.

How about a stat on teams with the best regular season record who fail to win the ring?

by Peter W on May 13, 2008 11:39 AM CDT 0 recs

"How about a stat on teams with the best regular season record who fail to win the ring?"

...I have a 2 hour net meeting coming up…plenty of time to dig that stat out of Basketball Reference. God bless the internets. We cut out the drive time for remote folks but we give back the time when certain people who shall not be named don’t read the Net Meeting manual and we have to sit around while IT walks them through the process. Dallas is the big one that comes to mind.

by Stop-n-Pop on May 13, 2008 12:36 PM CDT up 0 recs

more off the top of my head...

Sacramento of the late 90s/early 00s, Charles Barkley’s Phoenix teams, Utah with Stockton and Malone, some of the 80s Laker/Celts teams had a ton of wins and lost to the other.

by Stop-n-Pop on May 13, 2008 12:38 PM CDT up 0 recs

More ideas:

For some reason, when thinking about the best regular season team to fail to win the ring, a certain 15-1 purple clad football team comes to mind…as does a cheating bunch of New Englanders who went 16-0.

As for a quick Basketball Reference check, the 85 Celts won 63 games and lost to the Lakers in the finals. However, that’s not even the best Celtic team to lose; the 73 version won 68 games before getting knocked out by Walt Frazier and the Knicks. Dikembe Mutumbo went nuts on a 63 win Sonic squad in 94. To me, this is the big one. Seattle had Sean Kemp at the height of his game, a young Gary Payton, Detlef Schrempf, Sam Perkins, and Ricky Pierce. That was also the year that MJ went to baseball so Seattle was the heads-on favorite to win the title. I think that’s the series that made the league go to a 7 game series in the 1st round. If I also remember correctly, Seattle ended the season on something like a 15 game win streak. If not that, they were like 18-2 down the stretch while blowing people out. The more I think about it, that Seattle team is probably the closest to Boston in terms of these great teams that lost; they didn’t have a clear go-to scorer who could get them a bucket when they needed it. They played an empty type of “great” defense and they were stacked with guys who could get you double digits but couldn’t be depended on when going up against a superior individual performer.

Here are a few others:

- 2006 Suns: 61 wins
- 05 Pistons: 65 wins
- 05 Spurs: 63 wins
- 04 Suns: 64 wins
- 03 Pacers: 61 wins
- 97 Jazz: 62 wins (MJ’s shot over Russell)
- 96 Jazz: 64 wins
- 95 Sonics: 64 wins (Bulls insanity year)

I’m sure there’s a few more. I’m pretty sure the 73 Celts hold the record for the most wins without a title. I’m going with the Sonics for the most disappointing club with Dallas in 2nd.

by Stop-n-Pop on May 13, 2008 12:55 PM CDT 0 recs