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Playoff preview: ranking a first round full of intrigue
Updated: April 19, 2007, 10:25 AM ET
Playoff preview: ranking a first round full of intrigue
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
Archive
Eighteen games decided by two points or less to tie the record. Ten games that went to overtime to set the record. Four separate Game 7s to fall one short of the record.
You had Phoenix in the first round coming back from a 3-1 deficit. You had Miami in the NBA Finals climbing out of 0-2 hole.
You had a postseason in 2006 that, frankly, won't be very easy to follow in 2007. Best postseason of my adult life.
So I've naturally been fretting about this since last July, as a chronic worrier, trying to project what kind of follow-up we're going to see. I'd probably settle for an '07 playoffs that turns out half as good, except that we really deserve something closer to the '06 stratosphere after all the injuries foisted upon the NBA public this season.
One parallel I'm sure we'll see is a Dallas-Miami reunion in June. I've just had a feeling since the fall that the Mavericks and Heat will both overcome all of their considerable obstacles -- Phoenix and San Antonio in the West, Miami's own fragile health and old age in the East -- to make it back to the Finals and resume the league's most contentious rivalry ... with MVP-to-be Dirk Nowitzki's Mavs winning the rings this time.
But that part's still some six weeks away.
Let's start with a first look at the NBA's first-round pairings, ranked in order from most to least intriguing/wild/watchable and with series predictions included:
(WG: Only the west was posted)
2. SAN ANTONIO (3) vs. DENVER (6)
Maybe it's because they're playing in the NBA's most remote time zone. Or maybe it's because the trade was in December and they really didn't start winning until April.
Either way, Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson -- as a tag team -- haven't roused much passion across the nation. Certainly nothing close to the adoration I was expecting.
Upsetting San Antonio would change that quickly, of course, but they're up against a veteran squad that (a) every lower seed in the West desperately wanted to avoid and (b) is accustomed to dealing with first-round foes that surge into the playoffs.
"We've done that a lot," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said with a knowing smile, well aware that San Antonio was forced to face and then disposed of the similarly hot Nuggets and Kings in 2005 and 2006.
Pop also knows that Denver needs a lot of things to go right to win their first series since the famed No. 8-over-No. 1 toppling of George Karl's Seattle SuperSonics in 1994.
The Nuggets need Marcus Camby and especially Nene to avoid foul trouble ... and Melo to play through the inevitable attempts by Bruce Bowen and Manu Ginobili to get under his skin ... and big fourth quarters from Melo and Iverson.
Weak-side jumpers out of double-teams from Linas Kleiza and J.R. Smith and winning one of the first two games in South Texas -- as Denver did in '05 -- wouldn't hurt, either.
If that seems like a long list, that's because it is.
Prediction: Spurs in six
3. PHOENIX (2) vs. LOS ANGELES LAKERS (7)
It's a rematch, yes, but not quite the rematch everyone was hoping for.
The Suns, in spite of some late-season chemistry concerns raised by Steve Nash, are simply not as vulnerable as they were in the first round last April. The Lakers, meanwhile, aren't nearly as ready to put them in a 3-1 hole, judging by all the 50-point games they needed from Kobe Bryant just to make the playoffs.
Put another way by a Western Conference scout: "Phoenix is a lot better inside than it was last year and the Lakers are much worse inside."
The difference? Phoenix, for starters, has Amare Stoudemire and Kurt Thomas this time. Thomas is the accomplished post defense Phoenix lacked in the teams' seven-game epic and Stoudemire's mere (destructive) presence means that the Lakers' big men will have to work a lot harder defensively.
The other difference? The Lakers have regressed big-time defensively and role players like Smush Parker and Kwame Brown aren't rolling anywhere close to how they were then, so it'll take a serious sell job by Phil Jackson to transmit the confidence Jackson has always had in L.A.'s ability to keep taking the ball to the rim to wear/slow Phoenix down. These players, Kobe aside, aren't exactly brimming with self-belief after going 12-16 since the All-Star break, no matter how beatable Phoenix is in the Zenmeister's view.
And don't be surprised if the Suns show up with more collective focus no matter what Jackson says or does. Phoenix knows that it must -- must -- get through the first round in faster fashion than it did in '06. Suns coach Mike D'Antoni has been stressing to his guys for a while that going seven games each with the Lakers and Clippers, in retrospect, hurt them in the conference finals as much as anything Dallas did.
Yet in spite of all of the above, just knowing Kobe will be lining up against Raja Bell makes this a must-see series for as long as it lasts. The personalities involved, as with the next series we'll cover, are going to keep us hooked even if the Suns and Lakers aren't going seven again.
Prediction: Suns in five
4. DALLAS (1) vs. GOLDEN STATE (8)
Yes: Don Nelson knows Dirk Nowitzki's tendencies better than any coach in the world and twice proved during the regular season that keeping a defender on each of Dirk's hips or trying to force him to go right by running long-limbed pests at him can work if the other Mavs on the floor don't take advantage.
Yes: Nellie's small-ball lineups, especially his latest incarnation with the 6-8 Al Harrington masquerading as a center, get the Dallas bigs off the floor ... and it does tend to weaken the Mavs' defense if Erick Dampier or DeSagana Diop aren't protecting the rim.
And, yes: Big backcourts hurt the Mavs as much as anything -- as a certain Mr. Wade proved last June -- and backcourts don't get much bigger and stronger than Baron Davis and Jason Richardson.
In other words, there is some substance to the notion that the Warriors, after winning five straight regular-season meetings, present real problems for the Mavs.
But if you believe that there's a big difference between playoff basketball and the regular season, or if you believe that Josh Howard, Jason Terry and Jerry Stackhouse are too good not to start punishing Golden State for its Dirk obsession -- and I do on both counts -- you'll share my fear that Mavs-Warriors won't be nearly as even on the floor as it figures to be on the quoteboard with Nelson and Mark Cuban around.
Prediction: Mavs in five
6. HOUSTON (4) vs. UTAH (5)
This one was made for the East, really, because it's going to be the most physical, half-court based series of the eight first-rounders.
The pick here would have been Houston even if the Rockets didn't have home-court advantage, because this is a better team than the one that extended Dallas to seven games in the first round of the '05 playoffs. Yet once they snatched home court from the Jazz -- and once Utah lost any semblance of rim protection without the ailing Andrei Kirilenko and started sliding at the finish -- Houston's status as the favorite was cemented.
It's true that Tracy McGrady is 0-for-5 lifetime in the first round and that Kirilenko is back in Utah's lineup now to harass him, but it's also true that none of T-Mac's previous teams has ever been as deep or feared as this one.
I'm betting it winds up even more true, by series' end, that the Jazz have more trouble trying to guard Yao Ming than the Rockets have with Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur.
Prediction: Rockets in six
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Updated: April 19, 2007, 10:25 AM ET
Playoff preview: ranking a first round full of intrigue
By Marc Stein
ESPN.com
Archive
Eighteen games decided by two points or less to tie the record. Ten games that went to overtime to set the record. Four separate Game 7s to fall one short of the record.
You had Phoenix in the first round coming back from a 3-1 deficit. You had Miami in the NBA Finals climbing out of 0-2 hole.
You had a postseason in 2006 that, frankly, won't be very easy to follow in 2007. Best postseason of my adult life.
So I've naturally been fretting about this since last July, as a chronic worrier, trying to project what kind of follow-up we're going to see. I'd probably settle for an '07 playoffs that turns out half as good, except that we really deserve something closer to the '06 stratosphere after all the injuries foisted upon the NBA public this season.
One parallel I'm sure we'll see is a Dallas-Miami reunion in June. I've just had a feeling since the fall that the Mavericks and Heat will both overcome all of their considerable obstacles -- Phoenix and San Antonio in the West, Miami's own fragile health and old age in the East -- to make it back to the Finals and resume the league's most contentious rivalry ... with MVP-to-be Dirk Nowitzki's Mavs winning the rings this time.
But that part's still some six weeks away.
Let's start with a first look at the NBA's first-round pairings, ranked in order from most to least intriguing/wild/watchable and with series predictions included:
(WG: Only the west was posted)
2. SAN ANTONIO (3) vs. DENVER (6)
Maybe it's because they're playing in the NBA's most remote time zone. Or maybe it's because the trade was in December and they really didn't start winning until April.
Either way, Carmelo Anthony and Allen Iverson -- as a tag team -- haven't roused much passion across the nation. Certainly nothing close to the adoration I was expecting.
Upsetting San Antonio would change that quickly, of course, but they're up against a veteran squad that (a) every lower seed in the West desperately wanted to avoid and (b) is accustomed to dealing with first-round foes that surge into the playoffs.
"We've done that a lot," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said with a knowing smile, well aware that San Antonio was forced to face and then disposed of the similarly hot Nuggets and Kings in 2005 and 2006.
Pop also knows that Denver needs a lot of things to go right to win their first series since the famed No. 8-over-No. 1 toppling of George Karl's Seattle SuperSonics in 1994.
The Nuggets need Marcus Camby and especially Nene to avoid foul trouble ... and Melo to play through the inevitable attempts by Bruce Bowen and Manu Ginobili to get under his skin ... and big fourth quarters from Melo and Iverson.
Weak-side jumpers out of double-teams from Linas Kleiza and J.R. Smith and winning one of the first two games in South Texas -- as Denver did in '05 -- wouldn't hurt, either.
If that seems like a long list, that's because it is.
Prediction: Spurs in six
3. PHOENIX (2) vs. LOS ANGELES LAKERS (7)
It's a rematch, yes, but not quite the rematch everyone was hoping for.
The Suns, in spite of some late-season chemistry concerns raised by Steve Nash, are simply not as vulnerable as they were in the first round last April. The Lakers, meanwhile, aren't nearly as ready to put them in a 3-1 hole, judging by all the 50-point games they needed from Kobe Bryant just to make the playoffs.
Put another way by a Western Conference scout: "Phoenix is a lot better inside than it was last year and the Lakers are much worse inside."
The difference? Phoenix, for starters, has Amare Stoudemire and Kurt Thomas this time. Thomas is the accomplished post defense Phoenix lacked in the teams' seven-game epic and Stoudemire's mere (destructive) presence means that the Lakers' big men will have to work a lot harder defensively.
The other difference? The Lakers have regressed big-time defensively and role players like Smush Parker and Kwame Brown aren't rolling anywhere close to how they were then, so it'll take a serious sell job by Phil Jackson to transmit the confidence Jackson has always had in L.A.'s ability to keep taking the ball to the rim to wear/slow Phoenix down. These players, Kobe aside, aren't exactly brimming with self-belief after going 12-16 since the All-Star break, no matter how beatable Phoenix is in the Zenmeister's view.
And don't be surprised if the Suns show up with more collective focus no matter what Jackson says or does. Phoenix knows that it must -- must -- get through the first round in faster fashion than it did in '06. Suns coach Mike D'Antoni has been stressing to his guys for a while that going seven games each with the Lakers and Clippers, in retrospect, hurt them in the conference finals as much as anything Dallas did.
Yet in spite of all of the above, just knowing Kobe will be lining up against Raja Bell makes this a must-see series for as long as it lasts. The personalities involved, as with the next series we'll cover, are going to keep us hooked even if the Suns and Lakers aren't going seven again.
Prediction: Suns in five
4. DALLAS (1) vs. GOLDEN STATE (8)
Yes: Don Nelson knows Dirk Nowitzki's tendencies better than any coach in the world and twice proved during the regular season that keeping a defender on each of Dirk's hips or trying to force him to go right by running long-limbed pests at him can work if the other Mavs on the floor don't take advantage.
Yes: Nellie's small-ball lineups, especially his latest incarnation with the 6-8 Al Harrington masquerading as a center, get the Dallas bigs off the floor ... and it does tend to weaken the Mavs' defense if Erick Dampier or DeSagana Diop aren't protecting the rim.
And, yes: Big backcourts hurt the Mavs as much as anything -- as a certain Mr. Wade proved last June -- and backcourts don't get much bigger and stronger than Baron Davis and Jason Richardson.
In other words, there is some substance to the notion that the Warriors, after winning five straight regular-season meetings, present real problems for the Mavs.
But if you believe that there's a big difference between playoff basketball and the regular season, or if you believe that Josh Howard, Jason Terry and Jerry Stackhouse are too good not to start punishing Golden State for its Dirk obsession -- and I do on both counts -- you'll share my fear that Mavs-Warriors won't be nearly as even on the floor as it figures to be on the quoteboard with Nelson and Mark Cuban around.
Prediction: Mavs in five
6. HOUSTON (4) vs. UTAH (5)
This one was made for the East, really, because it's going to be the most physical, half-court based series of the eight first-rounders.
The pick here would have been Houston even if the Rockets didn't have home-court advantage, because this is a better team than the one that extended Dallas to seven games in the first round of the '05 playoffs. Yet once they snatched home court from the Jazz -- and once Utah lost any semblance of rim protection without the ailing Andrei Kirilenko and started sliding at the finish -- Houston's status as the favorite was cemented.
It's true that Tracy McGrady is 0-for-5 lifetime in the first round and that Kirilenko is back in Utah's lineup now to harass him, but it's also true that none of T-Mac's previous teams has ever been as deep or feared as this one.
I'm betting it winds up even more true, by series' end, that the Jazz have more trouble trying to guard Yao Ming than the Rockets have with Carlos Boozer and Mehmet Okur.
Prediction: Rockets in six
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