It's a best-of-seven series for a reason.
Slow down, take a deep breath, and remind yourself: best of seven. The better team normally wins in this format, and in two weeks I'm not sure the events of this past weekend will seem like anything more than an interesting fluke.
Nonetheless ... it certainly was interesting. In particular, the struggles of the top two seeds in each conference to defend their home court was a surprise. Teams seeded first and second have a pretty gaudy record in the first round of the NBA playoffs. Since 1983-84, when the playoffs went to 16 teams, the top two seeds have a combined series record of 100-8 and have won 73.5 percent of the individual games. According to Elias, the top two seeds in the same conference had never both lost their home openers until Sunday. (That is, since the league instituted the current playoff seeding format 27 seasons ago.)
Thus, on a wild opening weekend from top to bottom, the top seeds' woes were the most notable story. Chicago and Miami opened things up by scrambling to narrow victories over opponents we expected to be totally overmatched, while in the West, San Antonio and Los Angeles both dropped their openers at home. If you're wondering, road teams that win Game 1 go on to win the series 56.6 percent of the time.
Obviously, this calls for closer investigation. And in examining each series a little more, the lingering thought in the back of my head is this: What if it wasn't a fluke at all? Is it possible these openers are actually indicative of how the rest of each series may play out?
In all four series, you could make a strong case for that hypothesis. Let's examine more closely:
[h3]Chicago-Indiana[/h3]
I was glad Chicago came back and won, because if the Bulls had lost we would have been fed a bunch of pablum about their inexperience or their nervousness as the top seed or some other psychological silliness, when the real problem was that Indiana made a bunch of impossible shots for 45 minutes. When the Pacers inevitably cooled off, Chicago made its dramatic run to improbably survive after trailing by 10 with 3:38 to play.
With all that said, I'm not sure this will be an easy series for Chicago despite the disparities in win-loss record between the two teams.
After Frank Vogel took over as head coach, the Pacers played the Bulls only once in the regular season. You know what happened?
Derrick Rose took a season-high 21 free throws and scored a season-high 42 points, Chicago grabbed 16 offensive rebounds, the Bulls couldn't buy a 3-pointer (6-of-27),
Tyler Hansbrough scored 29 points to miss his season high by one, and the Pacers won in overtime.
Sound familiar? Makes you a little less certain about Game 1 being an outlier, right? The Pacers won't shoot as well in future games -- Indy was 10-of-18 on 3s and made countless contested midrange Js -- but they're also likely to draw more than 17 free throw attempts.
Two obvious adjustments for Monday night's Game 2 stand out. For the Pacers, I'd take a hard look at giving
Dahntay Jones or
Brandon Rush a crack at guarding Rose. While Chicago was using the pick-and-roll, and that play requires five defenders rather than one, it's pretty easy to put size on Rose and hide
Darren Collison on
Keith Bogans or
Kyle Korver. Jones and Rush are the Pacers' two best defenders; it only makes sense to put them on the guy who has killed Indy in their past two meetings.
For the Bulls, it's an easier adjustment --
Carlos Boozer has to get closer to Hansbrough and trust the defense behind him. A lot of those midrange jumpers by the Pacers were catch-and-shoot plays for Hansbrough when he faced up Boozer and saw him giving ground. With shot-blockers behind him like
Joakim Noah,
Taj Gibson and
Omer Asik (who, sadly for this card-carrying Asik fan, played only three minutes in the opener), Boozer can afford to crowd Psycho T.
[h3]Miami-Philadelphia[/h3]
While this game got way too close for comfort for the Heat, again it was pretty emblematic of what happened in the regular season. The Heat won all three meetings, by margins of eight, nine and 12, so Game 1's eight-point margin was par for the course.
The other thing that followed the regular-season pattern was
Thaddeus Young, who shot 64 percent in the three regular-season meetings and blistered Miami for 20 points and 11 boards in 28 minutes in the opener. Sixers coach Doug Collins needs to seriously consider starting him in Game 2 rather than playing Young his usual 20-something minutes off the bench, because he completely changes the matchup dynamic for Miami.
In general, I understand the reluctance to start Young despite his stellar statistical season. Philadelphia has to defend the opposing frontcourt with Young and
Elton Brand (when he's in the game), which makes them pretty small.
But against the Heat, a team can get away with it. Miami isn't going to throw it into the block for
Zydrunas Ilgauskas or
Joel Anthony, and if the Heat ever do, the Sixers can thank their lucky stars because it means the ball isn't in the hands of
LeBron James or
Dwyane Wade.
Yes,
Chris Bosh hurt them in the opener and will continue to, but the Young matchup hurts Miami just as much at the other end. The Heat have nobody to check him unless James moves up to the power forward spot, making this one of the few genuine mismatches Philly can exploit against the Heat.
While the Sixers are searching for offense, I'd also encourage them to get more run from big man
Marreese Speights when Young is playing the 3. While Saturday's 12-minute stint included yet another laughable attempt to draw a charge -- seriously, he is the least convincing flopper I've ever seen -- Speights' potent midrange J can draw Miami's bigs away from the rim. And his defensive shortcomings are less of an issue in this series than they might be against an opponent with a stronger frontcourt.
[h3]Los Angeles-New Orleans[/h3]
I hear what you're thinking: "OK, Hollinger, I get how the Miami and Chicago games followed the regular-season pattern, but the Lakers? C'mon. L.A. won the season series 4-0.
Nothing that happened in Game 1 followed the regular-season pattern."
And you'd be correct. Except I'd like to take you into the way-back machine for a look at how the Lakers have defended against the healthy, explosive version of
Chris Paul. I mentioned in my playoff preview that L.A. is vulnerable to tiny speedster point guards, but wasn't sure if Paul still qualified based on his restrained play in the regular season.
On Sunday? Oh yes, he qualified. Paul routinely blew past opposing defenders, and that's a problem for L.A. in particular -- as we can see by looking at Paul's last healthy stretch. Because the Lakers have maintained such similar personnel, this is a useful exercise.
In eight games against the Lakers in 2007-08 and 2008-09, Paul eviscerated L.A.'s defense. He averaged 24.1 points and 14.3 assists in the eight meetings, going above and beyond even his normal MVP-caliber numbers in those two seasons.
So while Paul may not blow up for 33-14-7 every night -- Sunday was the first time in NBA playoff history a player hit those three thresholds in a road game -- guarding him is going to be a vexing problem for the Lakers all series. That's particularly true now that Steve Blake's chicken pox have left them with just one point guard.
Two other notes on this game. First, everyone talks about
Kevin Durant using the "rip" move to draw fouls on a 3-point shot, but Hornets guard
Jarrett Jack, not Durant, is the league's master of this maneuver. We don't notice it as much because he is a minor player, but Jack gets everybody with this move -- including the Lakers on Sunday, much to announcer Jeff Van Gundy's consternation. As a result, Jack draws three free throws amazingly often for a guy who shot 16.7 percent on 3s this year.
Second, other than L.A. being unable to guard Chris Paul, this game was much more of an outlier than the others. Lakers power forward
Pau Gasol won't play this horribly every time against an undersized frontcourt, especially with
Aaron Gray likely to miss the rest of the series after spraining his ankle at the end of Game 1. Jack and
Willie Green aren't going to make all those difficult runners -- the Hornets' subs shot 72.7 percent, only the third time in 20 years that a team's reserves combined to shoot that well in a playoff game, according to Elias. And the Hornets are going to commit more than three turnovers (tying a playoff low).
I expect L.A. to win Game 2, and I still expect the Lakers to advance fairly easily. But this was a worrisome defeat for L.A. more for the big-picture ramifications. As with other mystifying home losses this season for the Lakers, it leaves you wondering if perhaps this team just isn't quite as good as we thought.
[h3]Memphis-San Antonio[/h3]
The last time a pro basketball team from Memphis won a playoff game, it was with a red, white and blue ball. The ABA's Memphis Sounds went just 27-57 in 1974-75, but secured the only playoff win in the city's hoop history that April with a 107-93 win over the Kentucky Colonels.
Until yesterday, that is, when
Shane Battier hit a clutch 3 and the Griz held on for the win, ending Memphis' gloomy NBA playoff history. While a tremendous win, this one also comes with a huge asterisk since
Manu Ginobili didn't play for San Antonio, effectively making this a must-game for Memphis.
That's particularly notable since the Spurs shot bricks for most of the game before Matt Bonner's late 3-point heroics. San Antonio kept itself in the game with a whopping 47 free throw attempts. That might not continue -- the Spurs are not a high free throw team normally and didn't earn a ton in the regular-season meetings with Memphis. But on the other hand, they're going to convert more often from the field, even against the Grizzlies' stout D.
Here's the thing Ginobili won't change, however:
Zach Randolph is a load and the Spurs can't handle him. They have nobody who can match up against him, and they tried so hard to cover for it that
Marc Gasol also blew up on them. Randolph has gone 20-10 in his past five games against San Antonio. He averaged 23.0 points and 14.8 boards in the four regular-season pairings, making Sunday's 25 and 14 completely unremarkable.
Ginobili's return won't change that, which is yet another indicator that we may be in for a very interesting series. So is this indicator, courtesy of the Memphis Flyer's Chris Herrington: Since Jan. 1, the Spurs are 33-18. And the Griz? You guessed it: 33-18. The two teams split the season series, too. So as far as 1-versus-8 series go, it's tough to find one that's more competitive on paper than this one. Fittingly, the white-knuckler Game 1 was emblematic of that trend, as well.