With apologies to Suns-Spurs, there is not a more interesting 2nd round NBA Conference Semi match up than Cavs-Celtics. After two games in Cleveland it stands 1-1 and seems to have the most lingering questions heading into Game 3 on Friday Night.
1. How hurt is Lebron?- I am an unabashed Lebron James backer, but even I am very confused as to what is truly going on with his elbow. While I am not in the camp that thinks he is faking it or trying to create drama by acting like it is worse than it is, I still cannot figure out his situation is. In both games 1 and 2 he seemed very passive and was in passing mode for most of the first half. In game 1 he stepped it up and lead the Cavs back to win, but in game 2 he never got into a groove and just seemed out of it. If the Cavs have any chance to take a game in Boston they need Lebron in full attack mode from the opening tip. My question is can he do it physically? Is he playing passive in the opening half intentionally or doe she know that his elbow cannot handle the physical style he plays for 40 minutes so he is trying to manage his game accordingly. If the elbow is holding him back this could be a short series for the Cavs.
2. Can Rajon Rondo keep it up? Plain and simple Rondo has been the best player on the floor in this series so far. He is destroying the Cavs off the dribble and getting into the paint whenever he wants. The question becomes are we witnessing Rondo making the jump to elite NBA PG and alpha dog of the Celtics or are we witnessing a hot streak by a good young player? If he is making the leap to elite, than it will be hard for the Cavs to win 3 more games in this series.
3. Will the real Mo Williams please stand up? Williams has been rightfully criticized by his complete no show in the Eastern Conference Finals last year, but seemed to be finding his playoff groove against the Bulls in the first round. In game 1 vs the Celtics Williams single handily kept the Cavs in the game and helped spark the Cavs 2nd half rally. Game 2 however was a nightmare performance that looked awfully similar to his stinkbombs vs the Magic last year. So moving forward it has become very obvious that as Williams goes so goes the Cavs. Lebron creates so many open looks for Williams that when he is hitting his shots it is almost impossible to beat the Cavs. So which Williams will we see in Game 3?
4. Can the Celtics Big 3 handle a long physical series? Its no secret that Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, and Kevin Garnett have a lot of NBA miles on their legs, and this series will be sure to test them. Pierce has been tasked with trying to mark Lebron on the defensive end which is hard enough, but he is also the Celtics go to clutch scorer. To ask a veteran like Pierce to do this for 7 physical games seems like an almost impossible task. Garnett still looks rusty from his knee injuries and is being asked to exploit his match up with Jamison on offense. While Allen looks fresh, the fact remains Cleveland plays him very tough and has historically caused him to shoot poorly from deep. In order for Allen to get open looks he is running all over the court through backscreens, and this takes a toll on any shooter especially a pure jump shooter like Allen. All of these factors combine to make these next 2 games in Boston huge, because if they take both the Celtics are in great position to close it out early. If the Celtics drop one of these home games than the possibility of a 7 game series drastically increases, which begs the question, do the Big 3 have enough in them to win a Game 7 in Cleveland after 6 grueling physical games prior to Game 7?
5. What should Mike Brown do with Shaq? The Cavs got Shaq for 2 reasons the Magic and the Lakers. After watching 2 games in this series two things have became apparent. First, Shaq is struggling to score when he gets the ball in the post and second, the Cavs do not need Shaq in the line up in order to shut down Kendrick Perkins. So the question becomes what do the Cavs do with Shaq? They obviously need him to get minutes to prepare for battling with Dwight Howard and or Pau Gasol, but they clearly are hampered by Shaq when facing a smaller faster Celtics frontcourt. Mike Brown will need to find some sort of balance between these 2 factors or else the Cavs will be in serious trouble.
6. Will Celtics bench give them anything? While the Celtics bench has played decent so far, they clearly are not a deep team. There will come a point in this series where either due to fouls or fatigue that the Celtics will have to trust their bench to come up huge. The Celtics simply cannot rely on their top 5 to carry them 48 minutes a night for 7 games. The bench will get their chance and it will not matter if its against Cleveland's much stronger 2nd unit or against the Cavs starters, the outcome of the bench's performance will play a huge role in the final outcome of the series. The Celtics bench does not even need to outplay Cleveland's bench; they just need to hold their own. Can they do it?
7. How will the 4 day break between games 2 and 3 affect each team? The weird schedule means that game 2 was played on Monday while game 3 would not take place till Friday. Who will benefit the most from this extended time off. Both teams could use the rest because it gives the Celtics time to rest the Big 3, while also giving the Cavs more time to rest and treat Lebron's elbow. However, both teams probably wanted to play game 3 as soon as possible for very different reasons. The Celtics just game off two of their best all around games of the year and stole a game in Cleveland, so they would have loved to carry all that momentum into game 3 as quickly as possible. The Cavs on the other hand, turned in one of their worst performances of the year in game 2 and were probably desperate to get to game 3 to try and erase the feelings of the game 2 beatdown. Will these extra days off give any team an advantage?
I am very excited to see how this series turns out and in my gut I have the feeling that this series goes 7 games. As for a prediction, your guess is as good as mine. With so many unanswered questions the only thing that we can be sure of, is that the rest of this series will be must watch television.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Wasted Opportunity
By now the dust has begun to settle from the NBA MVP voting and as most of you already know Lebron James won by a landslide. Most of you also know that he missed the first ever unanimous selection in NBA history by 7 votes. Most you have probably heard that the 3 1st place votes for Dwight Howard came from 2 paid employees of the Orlando Magic staff and one Orlando based sportswriter. While you can count me in the group that is upset that 7 voters ruined what should have been the easiest vote in sports MVP history, my reasons are very different than most.
All my life I have loved sports. For as long as I can remember there is nothing I like more than watching sports whether it is in person, on TV, or even getting updates on my phone and computer. I imagine there are millions of other people out there who are as passionate and dedicated as I am. Ask almost any guy what his dream job would be and i can promise a good number of them would say sports writer, sports broadcaster or something along those lines. Hell the reason I started this blog was that I wanted the chance to write about sports even if I was the only one reading it.
That is why I am so upset about the way these 7 voters threw away their respective MVP votes. These 7 guys are living every sports loving Americans dream and they took it for granted to try and prove there point. (I have not heard where the 4 Durant votes came from so I cannot focus on them) These voters are paid to watch the NBA and serve as our window into the league through their observations and opinions; something that most of us would do anything to do even for a day. They owe it to us to give us there full effort and use their MVP votes (which are a privilege not a right).
Now I know I am way up on my high horse with this entry but it upsets me that voters used these 7 votes to try and stand out. The Orlando Magic writers and broadcasters can write and talk with bias for 364 days a year and I will still respect their work but the MVP vote is supposed to be without bias. Every other voter put their bias aside to cast their votes so it should be expected that these 7 would as well.
When the names come out of who voted against Lebron each voter will put out an article that voices why they believe their vote was correct but I can promise if you hooked them up to lie detector every single one of them would fail because this MVP vote was so obvious. There is no possible way that any person who watched even 25% of NBA games this year could honestly believe that Lebron was not the MVP.
So please MVP voters of any sport, please start voting with your head and not your heart, because it is a slap in the face to all of us sports fans out there who would love nothing more to have the awesome job that you currently have. If you cannot do that then please give up your vote because lord knows I will be chomping at the bait to get a chance to be in your shoes.
All my life I have loved sports. For as long as I can remember there is nothing I like more than watching sports whether it is in person, on TV, or even getting updates on my phone and computer. I imagine there are millions of other people out there who are as passionate and dedicated as I am. Ask almost any guy what his dream job would be and i can promise a good number of them would say sports writer, sports broadcaster or something along those lines. Hell the reason I started this blog was that I wanted the chance to write about sports even if I was the only one reading it.
That is why I am so upset about the way these 7 voters threw away their respective MVP votes. These 7 guys are living every sports loving Americans dream and they took it for granted to try and prove there point. (I have not heard where the 4 Durant votes came from so I cannot focus on them) These voters are paid to watch the NBA and serve as our window into the league through their observations and opinions; something that most of us would do anything to do even for a day. They owe it to us to give us there full effort and use their MVP votes (which are a privilege not a right).
Now I know I am way up on my high horse with this entry but it upsets me that voters used these 7 votes to try and stand out. The Orlando Magic writers and broadcasters can write and talk with bias for 364 days a year and I will still respect their work but the MVP vote is supposed to be without bias. Every other voter put their bias aside to cast their votes so it should be expected that these 7 would as well.
When the names come out of who voted against Lebron each voter will put out an article that voices why they believe their vote was correct but I can promise if you hooked them up to lie detector every single one of them would fail because this MVP vote was so obvious. There is no possible way that any person who watched even 25% of NBA games this year could honestly believe that Lebron was not the MVP.
So please MVP voters of any sport, please start voting with your head and not your heart, because it is a slap in the face to all of us sports fans out there who would love nothing more to have the awesome job that you currently have. If you cannot do that then please give up your vote because lord knows I will be chomping at the bait to get a chance to be in your shoes.
Pretty Boy Floyd
How does one define greatness? In most team sports greatness goes hand in hand with titles (Jordan or Montana), but even then a player can be great without winning titles (Marino or Malone). However, individual sports are much harder to grade greatness. In some sports like swimming or track we can rely on times or records to show how great a competitor is at his or her sport. If I say that Micheal Phelps or Usain Bolt are all time greats in their respective sports I can back that up with the world record times they have recorded.
The problem comes into play in individual sports that have no standard measurement of greatness. Sports like Golf, Tennis and Boxing have well established history and yet if you ask 10 people who the Greatest of All Time (GOAT) is they will likely give you a variety of answers. Often this boils down to one aspect the level of competition. The discussion turns to debating who faced more difficult challenges in reaching the summit.
Boxing makes this task even more difficult due to the variety of weight classes and title belts. Weight classes fluctuate over time with each going through periods of great fighters and not so great fighters. At least in golf or tennis you have to overcome all your opposition in order to be victorious. In boxing however you are left with the choice of fight the opposition in your weight class or move up or down to find higher level of competition. Therefore the age old question in boxing seems to be "Who did you beat?"
I was thinking about this after watching Floyd Mayweather (PBF) destroy Shane Mosley this past weekend, it was a masterful performance that seemed to further distance PBF from his contemporaries. After the fight though most of the dialogue centered on how PBF had finally fought a top notch opponent and won, which cemented his legacy as an all time great.
The more I listened to this logic the more upset I got. Shouldn't the legacy of a fighter be how he won instead of who he faced? PBF cannot control who was in his weight class, he simply has gone out and dominated everyone who has been put in front of him. It is not PBF's fault that his divisions lack the all time great P4P fighters that they once had and it would be unfair to ask him to jump to weight class he doesn't feel comfortable just so we can watch him fight another great fighter. Yet, somehow his legacy was tarnished by the fact that he was 40-0 with no real great challenges heading into Saturday night's fight.
Would PBF have been held in higher regard if he had lost some all time battles with great opponents like Sugar Ray Leonard? Does a guy, who has dominated boxing to point where no fighter has really challenged him in any match up, have to go out of his way to fight another all time great in order to be recognized as Top 20 P4P fighter of all time?
I say no. In my eyes its about how you fight instead of who you fight. PBF has been dominating force throughout his entire career and has yet to taste defeat or even really come close to it and that to me is much more impressive than any criticism a person has with his opponents. So if a dominating victory over a 38 Shane Mosley is the "great victory" you needed to finally believe that PBF is an all time great. In my humble opinion he was already in that discussion and has been for a long time.
The problem comes into play in individual sports that have no standard measurement of greatness. Sports like Golf, Tennis and Boxing have well established history and yet if you ask 10 people who the Greatest of All Time (GOAT) is they will likely give you a variety of answers. Often this boils down to one aspect the level of competition. The discussion turns to debating who faced more difficult challenges in reaching the summit.
Boxing makes this task even more difficult due to the variety of weight classes and title belts. Weight classes fluctuate over time with each going through periods of great fighters and not so great fighters. At least in golf or tennis you have to overcome all your opposition in order to be victorious. In boxing however you are left with the choice of fight the opposition in your weight class or move up or down to find higher level of competition. Therefore the age old question in boxing seems to be "Who did you beat?"
I was thinking about this after watching Floyd Mayweather (PBF) destroy Shane Mosley this past weekend, it was a masterful performance that seemed to further distance PBF from his contemporaries. After the fight though most of the dialogue centered on how PBF had finally fought a top notch opponent and won, which cemented his legacy as an all time great.
The more I listened to this logic the more upset I got. Shouldn't the legacy of a fighter be how he won instead of who he faced? PBF cannot control who was in his weight class, he simply has gone out and dominated everyone who has been put in front of him. It is not PBF's fault that his divisions lack the all time great P4P fighters that they once had and it would be unfair to ask him to jump to weight class he doesn't feel comfortable just so we can watch him fight another great fighter. Yet, somehow his legacy was tarnished by the fact that he was 40-0 with no real great challenges heading into Saturday night's fight.
Would PBF have been held in higher regard if he had lost some all time battles with great opponents like Sugar Ray Leonard? Does a guy, who has dominated boxing to point where no fighter has really challenged him in any match up, have to go out of his way to fight another all time great in order to be recognized as Top 20 P4P fighter of all time?
I say no. In my eyes its about how you fight instead of who you fight. PBF has been dominating force throughout his entire career and has yet to taste defeat or even really come close to it and that to me is much more impressive than any criticism a person has with his opponents. So if a dominating victory over a 38 Shane Mosley is the "great victory" you needed to finally believe that PBF is an all time great. In my humble opinion he was already in that discussion and has been for a long time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)