oh warriors, come out and pla-ay

i'm in a glass case of emotion. the bad man just punted baxter.

the warriors took it to the mavericks on some serious WHO'S THE ONE SEED NOW, BITCH? shit. seriously, the mavericks looked RATTLED to even be on the court with the warriors.

observe: stackhouse airballing 3s!
see: jason terry getting stripped then falling on his ass!
watch: mickael pietrus going apeshit, and almost putting stackhouse on what would have been the guaranteed poster of the playoffs!

this series is a serious referendum on the state of basketball. if you didn't already stand up and take notice when the warriors finished the season streaking like frank the tank, it's about damn time you did.

first they take 1 in dallas, then self-destruct in game 2, take game 3 in a rocking home gym, and game 4 made all that shit look silly. in every series there is a turning point. for the mavs it probably came when avery johnson decided to start dirk at center in game 1. he made the mistake of bending to the will of the warriors. you have to understand that as soon as you play the uptempo game with a team designed to play uptempo, YOU HAVE NO CHANCE OF WINNING.

that's how the lakers were able to take the suns to 7 last year, that's why they're getting effectively swept this year. the playoffs are all about will imposition. a team simply cannot win if it plays to it's competition: the heat beat the pistons in part last year because detroit tried to run its offense through tay because he had d-wade on him. ride with the horse that brung ya should be the mantra of every succesful playoff coach.

another reason the warriors are winning is they have some serious interchangability. it seriously matters not who is guarding whom when the warriors play defense. everyone is between 6-4 and 6-7 and quick as fuuuu, so the mavs simply cannot break people down off the dribble. their best player is a slow-footed, 84-inch jumpshooter who relies on drives, dishes, and single coverage to make his living. well guess what dirk? they have an intimidating-looking russian and are totally prepared to double team you whenever you have the ball.

in all of this talk about how cleon's crew is neutralizing the mavericks defensively, let's not forget their sick break, lead by barrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrron! (everyone get on your jim jones hats and do the fadeaway) davis. seriously when this dude decides to get down to serious b-ballin, shot-callin there is not a more unstoppable scorer from the pg position. nash comes close, but he doesn't quite have the competitive fury that davis conjures. when nash gets upset, it's cute, but when baron gets mad, hit the deck because shots might be fired. legit the entire warriors team could be packing gats in their warmups and no-one would be suprised.

let's see you handle that, mavs.

it seems oddly appropriate

that the bulls are the ones to knock off the heat. apparently tired of hearing how the heat were a "dangerous" team that people should "keep an eye on," skiles n co. dispatched the heat with a reckless abandon we all thought would be reserved to the cavs-wiz and pistons-magic debacles. the bulls and heat are two of my least favorite teams, especially since tyrus thomas and dorell wright are the only players on either squad with any type of flavor.

(anyone who says dwyane wade has flavor needs to get their head checked. he's the blandest vanilla.)


the heat were the typical nba team of the 90s/early 2000s--one superstar, a supporting "star," and a lot of crappy role players who float listlessly around the court until they're asked to do something vaguely important, like wash dwyane's car, or get shaq donuts, or lube up riley's hair. the bulls on the other hand are a college team for chrissakes. they're team is a glorified roster of all-americans and "proven winners" with big bad ben wallace thrown in for shits and giggles. the only appreciable member of the team that never did anything re: final fours or championships is p.j. brown, whose presence continues to mystify me. maybe he's an expiring contract? or perhaps skiles felt that having one person who couldn't score to save his life on the court at once wasn't enough, so he decided to roll with a second? that's probably it--p.j. brown is there just to add degree of difficulty to the bulls' conquests.

none of the bulls with the noted and notable exception of tyrus thomas have the sort of fiery athleticism that people commonly associate with the association. even luol deng, who seems like the second best candidate for the designation of athletic, is curiously ground-bound and dependent on his freakish arms to retain value. what does that translate to? boring basketball. sorry, but i'm not down to watch a team run their fancy-pants version of what is basically the weave for 20 seconds and then take a jumper. that just doesn't appeal to me.

even phoenix last year, which had almost zero in the way of reliable interior scoring, played and moved so fast, with such a masterful architect at its head, that they were tolerable to watch. but they also had the matrix providing some sick slams on occasion, and he gets far more run that tt could hope for.

the bulls play such a slow tempo, predicated mainly on their defense and someone, anyone, getting hot, that they're basically unbearable to watch. their coming series against the pistons will, objectively, suck.

you bring out the worst in me

it's not exactly uncommon for a blogger to be a suns nut-rider. i am no exception to that rule. for like 90% of the season (the other 10% being when they play my lakers [LOS ANGELES STAND UP]) i am a huge suns fan. shit, pmac who is the spirit animal of this here blog has been a fan of the suns since the starbury dark ages. i'm saying we roll deep, and i'm saying we remember when, and i have some cred to go along with it.

the suns are a bit of a paradox in that they're generally credited with bringing forth from some primordial soup the vision of an nba where a team can be a team, where it isn't stevie franchise trying to physically pound the life out of the basketball for 20 seconds and then jacking up an ill-advised 3, where a foppish whitey can be league mvp because shit the dude can ball. however, the suns are really a throwback to an era called the 1980s, an era where everyone did coke, miami vice was the biggest show on tv, and magic johnson slept with every woman in hollywood. now, we have perscription drugs, csi:, and don imus saying nappy headed hoes. whatever.

as i guess is my point in the previous paragraph, the suns are not a complex team. they don't try to run the princeton offense, nor do they tango with the triangle. instead, it's a steady diet of picks, rolls, pops, drives, dishes, threes, dunks, etc. etc. ad infinitum. these plays aren't exactly rocket science folks. (or ROCKETS science. pun patrol is on duty.) the way they seem to win is by exploiting the worst tendencies of the teams they are playing against. take the deconstruction currently playing on my tv (sorry TNT, ain't no drama here. go back to the closer.) the lakers couldn't hit water if they fell out of a boat. which believe you me, they are doing. and the suns exploit this tendency by tossing all kinds of people at a kobe bryant resolutely opposed to driving to the basket. it's not that he isn't distributing, it's that nobody on his team can make an open jumper.

the suns also know that a lot of the lakers are--to be charitable--rockheads. observe as nash's eyes light up from HALF COURT. you read that right ladies and gentlemen. and he hits marion streaking to the basket as kwame and lamar look on dumbfounded. maybe pregame bongrips are bad ideas.

it's not that the suns don't have bad tendencies themselves, but they are so efficient at striking where the opposition is weakest that opponents are hard-pressed to seek out weaknesses of the suns. its awfully hard to punch a boxer that's beating the shit out of you.

***

and, just because, tyrus thomas killing it.

that horse on your chest might as well be a target

okay let's all be honest. who REALLY picked the warriors to pimp slap the mavs in game one of their soon-to-be seminal first round playoff matchup. no, you didn't pick them and stop lying and saying you did.

now the mavs were last seasons great white hope to some degree, proof that nubasketball (which is really just old basketball from the 1980s before pat riley wrecked it in the mid-90s) could exist and a win a championship for god's sake. now, they're something more along the lines of a semi-dynasty. good every year, with a fiery coach who preaches discipline and defense and a big german superstar whose game is based more on frost efficiency than any kind of otherworldly talent. (dirk is the anti-kobe. you heard it here first.)

so what, i'm supposed to care about these people? they aren't compelling--even their x-factors are proven commodities. i don't think josh howards YESSUH BOSS I'LL DO ANYTHING TO PLAY game has any kind of real appeal except to those who prefer the pliant submission of college ball. that's my main problem with the mavericks. they're far too pliant for their own good. ever anouncer makes a big deal about how they can "play any style" but blah blah blah. isn't the point of being good making teams bow down and respect what you're about to do?

that is why i less than three the warriors. they, and by they i mean nellie, force you to play their way by trotting out big al harrington as center and crazy stephen jackson as pf. it's also worth noting that the blackest coach in the league, well the coach with the team that plays the blackest, is a jowly white guy with a old-timey haircut. i'm lovin it.

the warriors make you play like they want to play, and if you don't do that, then they'll run you off the court. it is that imposition of will that makes them a dangerous team. for that reason also, the mavericks will never win a championship. you can't be the definining team of a season if you yourself have no definition.

re-up gang

looks like we got a rematch like "LET'S GET READY TO RUMBLE."

second most entertaining of last year's first round series is back like jordan, and the other ain't even got a shot at happening. in case there's wonder in your eyes the former is lakers-suns and the second is cavs-wiz. it might be true that cavs-wiz has a shot at reocurring due to seeding but come on; ain't like gilly is about to drop any more 50-foot bombs to send shit into overtime. unless he decides to cop 3s from the bench, which believe me he could do. pesky out-of-bounds rules.

but the suns and lakes. two opposite teams that are yet very very similar.

the lakers are KOBEKOBEKOBEKOBE as well all know. they run shit through him, if he ain't working they ain't working, period. the suns are a well-oiled machine on offense, basically scoring at will with a variety of talented performers capable of scoring in a variety of ways. also, their team is athletic enough to be talented on the defensive end; when the game slows down they can reasonably expect to stop teams on a few possessions. at least in theory.

the suns are w/o doubt the better bball team BUT HERE'S THE THING: the lakers could steal the show. they almost did it last year but fell juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust short of the ultimate prize. yeah i know the suns have amare now but the lakes seem to have some sort of crazy mystery tonic for which the suns have yet to develop an antidote. if the lakes can be patient on the offensive end and knock down their shots, there is very little reason why they can't stretch an admittedly godlike suns team to seven games or even knock em down before that. remember that in last years series it took a subliminal performance by tim thomas even to stretch the series to seven games.

yes the lakers will have to play damn near perfect ball, ball they haven't shown they're capable of playing in a long while, but it's a possibility. phil jackson is a gotdamn genius and there is no way he's going to let his team go softly into the night. we talkin about ending the season with a bang, not with a whimper, t.s. eliot be damned.

the ruler's back

something i'm not seeing reported is king james' serious resurgence. all y'all hating on him for mailing it in the first half of the season (and yes i think i was one of them) need to seriously reconsider your shit and start prosleytizing seriously for tha king. seriously he's been ripping the league up on some 6'8" oscar robertson shit since the asg. believe that.

in other new re: love for things surging in the second half how 'bout them raptors? maybe they're not the suns of the north or the east or whatever the fuck region you want to put them in but they're fun fun fun until your daddy takes your t-bird away. t.j. and jose calderon are seriously good pgs, maybe the best tandem in the league (leandrinho and monTAY ain't pgs no matter how much the suns and warriors wishcast them into that role). from what i hear since we can't get no raptors games in LA is that the raps are seriously fun to watch and seriously good on offense. even w/o jorge garbajosa and w/ a hobbled andrea bargnani (YEAH HIS NAME'S ANDREA WANT TO DO SHIT ABOUT IT?) they're challenging for the 2 seed and seem like they could be on the fast track to eastern conference success.

the east is kind of an old-timey conference (well a throwback to the 90s at least) in that 1/2 of the *good* teams are basically their stars and then NO-ONE. 'bron and wade-shaq both define their teams in a way matched only by kobe and nash out west. and no, i don't think the cavs would be shit in the west, let alone the #3 seed or whatever they are. they're basically the lakers and we know how the kobe show is going so far.

but even though the lakes suck this year they could be seriously dangerous if they stay healthy and add someone through the draft or free agency this year. or if andrew bynum makes a similar leap and vladdy daddy remembers how to play basketball.

OUT.