Three of a Kind

More than a quarter of a way into the season, the 2009 NBA championship appears to be a three team race. The Spurs, Hornets, Nuggets, Magic and a handful of other teams may have something to say about that, but there is a clear-cut top tier in the NBA this season. Whatever order you rank them in, no one else is playing at the same level as the Celtics, Cavaliers and Lakers.

So what’s standing in the way of these three teams in their quest for the 2009 title?

Boston
The Celtics have been the best team so far this season. And I’ll be the first to admit that I’m surprised how well the defending champs have played the role of defending champs. They certainly appear to have the mindset to be the first team to repeat since the 2002-03 Lakers completed a three-peat. Paul Pierce and Rajon Rondo have both kicked their games into an extra gear I didn’t know they had.

The worry is that they will burn out. All of this success tends to make a team complacent. That’s the expectation, but the reality has been far from that. Instead, this team seems even more focused on the mission than they were last year when their many new parts (Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, James Posey) were still learning how to play together.

Still, it’s hard to believe they can continue along at this blistering pace, especially with a veteran-laden bunch. If the veteran leaders begin to show the wear and tear, the team could slip. In a year when home court advantage might be decided by one game among three potential 65-plus-win teams, that would be tough to overcome.

Cleveland
The Cavs are the most surprising success story this year. Everyone knew the addition of Mo Williams would help LeBron James and company, but I don’t think anyone expected it to help Cleveland vault into the elite category. With James and many of the players on this roster now seasoned in playoff basketball, this is a team built for the long haul. They have great team chemistry, and their offense is finally playing to James’ strengths.

The worry in Cleveland is based in the future. Will LeBron bolt for New York in 2010? No one knows the answer, but it’s very clear that winning now would help the Cavs’ case to keep him. That’s why ownership has signed off on deals that have this team on the high-end of team salaries. And that’s why it’s been widely speculated that Wally Szczerbiak and his hefty expiring contract is being shopped around to land one more piece of the puzzle to make a run at the title this season.

In the past three years, the Cavs have fallen in the Eastern Conference Finals, NBA Finals and Eastern Conference Semifinals. They’ve experienced their growing pains, and expectations are high. No one wants to face LeBron in the playoffs. The question is, can he and his team handle the pressure of winning in Cleveland before he is free to seek a new city?

Los Angeles
The most talented and versatile team of the bunch is the Lakers. They have the best pair of 7-footers In the league. They have a deep, energetic bench that includes Lamar Odom, who would likely start for every other team in the league except maybe Boston. And, as if that weren’t enough, they have the reigning league MVP, Kobe Bryant.

The worry in L.A. is the Lakers’ apparent disinterest. They’ve lost just three games this year, but two of those defeats came against Indiana and Sacramento. After a dominant stretch to open the season 10-0, the Lakers’ defense has fallen off. While they remain the class of the West, no one expects them to contend against Boston—or Cleveland—playing the sort of defense that nearly led to losses against the lowly Wizards and undermanned Knicks.

Cavs-Celtics Game 7 Thoughts

In the first six games of the series, the 90-point mark was eclipsed just once by each team. The Cavs did it in a 108-84 win in Game 3, and Boston did it in a 96-89 Game 5 victory.

It was a defense-dominated series. Yet it was the offense of two players – Boston’s Paul Pierce and Cleveland’s LeBron James – that was the story of Game 7. The two all-stars, who doubled as the other’s primary defender, delivered a classic duel. Pierce netted 41 points on 13-of-23 shooting. James put in 45 points on 14-of-29 shooting.

The two players accounted for more than 45 percent of the game’s scoring. Think about that. Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals, and two guys scored almost half of the points in a 97-92 thriller. In the end, the Celtics – riding Pierce, home court and a relentless intensity – were too much for Cleveland to overcome.

In the end, keeping it close was not enough for the Cavs. They lost two of the three games decided by five points or less in the series, including the decisive Game 7.

It was the little things that did them in. With Boston clinging to a three-point lead and less than 3 minutes to play, veteran P.J. Brown secured an offensive rebound – Boston had 10 for a total of 18 second-chance points – and scored the put back for the Celtics. The little-used Brown would hit add a jumper with 1:21 to play after Cleveland cut the lead to one. Boston made the little plays to win; Cleveland did not.

Sasha Pavlovic stepped on the line for a would-be wide open three-pointer, which netted just two points. Delonte West missed a potential tying three with just more than a minute left. LeBron James failed to step in front of Paul Pierce to box out on a jump ball situation that the Cavs should have controlled. Pierce hustled to be first to the ball and got the timeout called, swiping a precious possession away from Cleveland.

There are so many instances Cavalier fans can point to and wonder “what if?” but while they’re left wondering, the Celtics move on a face another daunting opponent, the Detroit Pistons. Detroit is playing in the Eastern Conference Finals for the sixth straight season. Boston returns for the first time since 2002 when they lost in six games to the New Jersey Nets. Only Paul Pierce remains from that team. And if he can build upon his Game 7 performance in the next round, he may play in the NBA Finals for the first time in his career and end the Celtics’ drought that’s lasted more than 20 years.

All the Cavs Need Is to Keep It Close

The Celtics have been exposed thanks to the Atlanta Hawks. The same Hawks that won 37 games in the regular season – that would’ve been good for 12th place in the Western Conference – pushed the 66-win Boston Celtics to the brink of elimination in round one of the 2008 NBA playoffs. In doing so, they exposed what could prove to be a fatal flaw for Boston – the inability to win close games.

The Celtics had a dominant regular season, posting a league-high average scoring margin of +10.3. Second place Detroit had a scoring margin of just +7.4. So what does that scoring margin tell us about Boston? Essentially it means the Celtics won a lot of blowouts, and they did.

Only 20 of their regular season games were decided by five points or less. But they struggled in those games. In fact, after losing two close ones to Atlanta in the first round, Boston is just 11-11 this season in games decided by five points or less, including a mark of 5-8 against playoff teams.

All of this is music to the ears of the Cleveland Cavaliers. The defending Eastern Conference Champions and second round opponent of Boston is much more comfortable in crunch time. Cleveland’s regular season games were decided by five points or less 41 percent of the time. The Cavs had a record of 22-12 in those games. That’s much better than their mark of 23-25 when the game was decided by six or more.

Throughout the course of the year, the Cavs beat a total of16 teams in a close game, and they went 13-6 in games decided by five or less versus playoff competition.

The good news for Boston is that they won each home game against Atlanta by at least 19 points, including a 99-65 drubbing in Game 7. And the Celtics have home court advantage again against Cleveland. Boston won both home games versus Cleveland in the regular season.

The bad news for Boston is that they lost all three road games against Atlanta. They also dropped both games on the road at Cleveland this year.

Worse for the Celtics, the average margin of victory in the four regular season games was just 5.25 points. The Celtics won by 10 and five. The Cavs won by five and one.

The Celtics don’t know who their go-to guy is down the stretch. Kevin Garnett is their MVP. Ray Allen is their best shooter. And Paul Pierce is the career Celtic and most versatile scorer. Yet none stepped up in the close games with the Hawks.

The Celtics also had no crunch time answer defensively for Joe Johnson. Now they square off against one of the top closers in the league in LeBron James. That spells danger for the Celtics, and that’s why I’m taking the Cavaliers to win the series and score the upset in seven games.

Check out the rest of my round two picks

One Week Later: My thoughts from Lakers-Cavs 12/20/07

Last Thursday, along with my brother Mike, my dad, my best friend Colvin and his dad, I traveled to Cleveland to watch the Lakers take on the Cavs. It was my first NBA game since 1998. That game was also Lakers-Cavs, though both teams bore little resemblance to their ’98 counterparts.

The only thing I remember about that ‘98 game is Mario Bennett, who scored a career high 21 points and pulled down double digit boards for the Lakers in an otherwise unremarkable 105-93 victory.

After looking at that old box score, it turns out Derek Anderson of the Cavs was actually the leading scorer in the game, not Bennett. And Shaq had 26 points to pace the Lakers, but he did so on 11-of-23 shooting.

Did you know three players from last week’s game also played in the ’98 contest? Derek Fisher, Zydrunas Ilgauskaus and some kid named Kobe Bryant.

As for the Cavs 94-90 win over the Lakers this time around, I have several observations:

• The loudest ovation of the first half, and arguably the entire game, was the introduction of the newest Iron Chef, Cleveland restaurant owner Michael Symon. No offense to the chef, but you would think the fans of the reigning Eastern Conference Champions would be a bit more excited, especially for LeBron vs. Kobe. Also, piping in chants of de-fense – not very impressive.
  
  
• There were at least two or three occasions when the Lakers used a halfhearted hug technique to foul LeBron on drives to the hoop, allowing him to get his shot up on the rim for the “and-1” opportunity. Part of that is LeBron’s strength, but you have to be able to commit a clean, hard foul in those circumstances to prevent the three-point play. You coach that in high school.
  
  
• Poor Larry Hughes. It’s not his fault the Cavs signed him to a ridiculous contract, but he looked overmatched by everyone in a purple uniform. My brother actually apologized to the Cavs fans sitting next to us that they had to have Hughes on their roster. I think he was only half joking.
  
  
• From the second quarter on, I kept saying, “It feels like we should be winning by a lot more than we are.” The Lakers enjoyed a double-digit lead for about 20 seconds late in the third quarter, but they had several key turnovers to stifle their own momentum throughout the game.
  
  
• If you ask me, the game was lost in the first two and a half minutes of the fourth quarter when Phil Jackson went with a lineup of Trevor Ariza, Sasha Vujacic, Vladimir Radmanovic, Jordan Farmar and Andrew Bynum. The Cavs turned a 78-75 deficit into an 83-78 lead in less than three minutes before Jackson reinserted Bryant into the lineup. I actually like what each of those players brings to the Lakers team, but as a unit, they brought the offense to a screeching halt.
  
  
• After LeBron hit two free throws to put Cleveland up 92-90 with 1:44 to play, the Lakers had five chances to tie or take the lead, including two shots from Kobe. I’ll take those chances every game. This game, however, the shots simply didn’t fall.
  
  
• Early in the season, when Kobe trade rumors were swirling, I proposed a four-team mega deal that I e-mailed to Bill Simmons, who calls himself the Picasso of ESPN’s NBA Trade Machine. At the time, you could make a case for all four teams, but I said the Cavs would be first to say no when it came to dealing LeBron. Fast forward to today, and the Heat and Knicks are dying for this sort of deal. But I think the Lakers are now as hesitant to deal Kobe as the Cavs would be to deal LeBron.