Remember When?

Okay, so I've been off on a few series. I never thought the Bulls would sweep the Heat, I thought Toronto was ready to move against a mediocre NJ team, and, in the most incredible outcome so far, I believed the Mavs--with some difficulty--would have outlasted the Warriors by now. Instead of focusing on my mediocrity, let's talk instead about our boys the Wolves, and all those years they were the lower seed team in the playoffs, in contrast to the Warriors, playing top seeded Dallas.

Remember when all we heard from Flip Saunders were excuses why he didn't have more playoff wins? They were always the lower seed, no home court advantage, the deck was stacked against them from the beginning, he said. The truth is, and still is, Flip can't win the big game. There were a couple of times they came close to the big upset, against Seattle and LA in the last 10 years, but on the whole, they weren't mentally prepared to handle playoff intensity. We see a team like the Warriors--a lot of bad guys on their team--play intensely, with a coach familiar with the Mavericks system. Stephen Jackson--who was on one of the Spurs championship teams--and Baron Davis are leading the way, with role players like Matt Barnes chipping in. As much as I'm not a huge fan of Don Nelson, you have to love the underdog at this point and root for the bad guys. It tells me if you have a coaching strategy and have players who can leave it all on the court any thing can happen, which never much happened with Flip and the Wolves.

Another interesting aspect is the role of big men in today's NBA. Taking a look at two primarily perimeter teams--the Suns and Bulls--you could say this is evidence of a major shift in the league. But where would the Suns be without Stoudemire, and the Bulls without Wallace and Brown? Both those teams played well last year, but lacked the inside play to carry them to the top. This year, we saw the team with the most dominant big man in the NBA--Shaq--get swept in four games, because D-Wade wasn't close to the top of his game, and no one else showed up. So while guard play is critical, it's the balance between the front and back court that more than else determines success in this league. You can be a jump shooting team, but there still has to be the ability for a team to work inside out on offense, and to be tough in the paint on defense.

A couple pretty good match-ups in the playoffs so far. It should be much more interesting in the second round, especially if the Mavs fall in the first.