NBA Playoff, NFL Draft Thoughts

By: dwil

How do you not foul John Salmons and allow him to pass to “The Commissioner”?….

“We wanted it more. Before the second overtime I said, ‘let’s stop playin’ and win this thing,’” Gordon said after the game.

Gordon’s hyperbolic statement aside, how could you not foul Salmons at the end of the first overtime? And then, how you could you not be pissed off watching Gordon grab his junk and run down the court after the shot? And how could World Champion Celtics like Paul Pierce miss so many free throws at key moments? 

I thought Pierce was the self-described, “best player in the game?” 

Kobe would not have missed one of two when two win the game; LeBron might miss, but not Kobe Bryant, the best player in the game.

This makes me wonder about the legitimacy of the Celtics Larry O’Brien Trophy run last season. It is as if Boston ran through the playoffs without having to play any very good, experienced teams that could truly test the Cees mettle.

And Sunday the Celtics lost to a jump shooter - Gordon - who took a cortisone shot in his thigh so he could play through a torn left hamstring muscle and a 20-year old rookie in Derrick Rose. 

The most important facet of all this?

The “best player in the league” is not the best player on his own team; that would be Kevin Garnett.

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And speaking of Kobe - and the Lakers - I do believe their response to the Utah Jazz Game 3 win was “champion-ish.” See, Kobe’s reaction was as a champion’s should be, while the rest of the team’s reaction was championship team-like because, well, none of them have won a chip and we do not know their reaction if Kobe had not dragged them kicking and screaming into a position of confidence in Game 4.

Now we get to see how the young, but experienced LA Lakers handle an important close out game at home.

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Wow Dwyane Wade handled the Atlanta Hawks, huh? Or. Wow, the Hawks sure have reacted poorly to playing a less talented team that is playing really hard.

And.

Have the Hawks run a play in a half court set yet this series?

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Besides the Boston-Chicago series, the Orlando-Philadelphia matchup is a battle. This series features a Sixers team trying to establish itself and find its way through the harsh glare of the playoffs playing against a Stan Van Gundy team winning without its point guard who stabilizes his teammates when the head coach cannot (despite the protestations of the Miami Herald’s Israel Gutierrez who, on ESPN’s The Sports Reporters had the gall to blame the players for being directed into positions where failure is more an option than success down the stretch of tight games; sometimes I wonder what some of these cats who get paid well to watch games actually see…. or do they at all, through their preconceived notions of the games and all of the games’ participants).

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How ’bout that Houston-Portland series? The Rockets, the team no one wants to play versus the Trail Blazers, the team no one wants to play. But they sure are playing the hell out of this first round matchup. 

It’s the Blazers group of impressive young bigs versus Yao and it’s the group of stellar Rockets perimeter defenders versus Brandon Roy. So far, Roy has produced consistently better than has Yao.

However. This series will come down to this: when Yao plays well, Houston wins, period and the same cannot be said for Roy. If Rick Adelman gets Yao the looks he needs throughout the game, the Rockets will win Game 5 and the series. If not, well, seven games here we come.

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Yes, the Spurs are done.

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Why on earth is no one making a huge stink over the New York Jets management offer of nothing -the 17th and 52nd picks - which Cleveland took, so the Browns could allegedly avoid drafting number six in the first round? No one finds it odd that all the Cleveland print  press is discussing is the “intelligence” of the Browns’ draft picks? No one finds it odd that the very likeable Sanchez just happened to land in a city with a huge Hispanic population? 

We know Washington was offering more than did the Browns and sure Sanchez was nothing more to Daniel Snyder than “eye candy” as the Washington Post’s Michael Wilbon aptly termed Sanchez. This is not to say that Sanchez is not going to become an excellent NFL quarterback (which Wilbon also pointed out) but the Redskins had more pressing needs, which they met when they drafted Texas Longhorns defensive end Brian Arakpo.

I mean, Eric Mangini did do his former team, the Jets, a favor, right? Mangini did take one for “the shield” and put the limelight of the 2009 NFL Draft squarely in the league’s most noted city, New York, right?

NFL Grand Poobah Roger Goodell could have approached the podium and said, “The Cleveland Browns are trading their number six pick to the New York Jets for the betterment of the league’s bottom line and for it they will draft Joe Nobody and Johnny Do Nothing, and like it.”

The Browns used the picks to trade the 17th pick to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers so they could draft quarterback Josh Freeman, who is said to have more potential than either Matthew Stafford or Mark Sanchez, and pick draft David Veikune, a defensive end from Hawaii with number 52. “Mangenius” used the Traded picks to also snag Mohamed Massaquoi the big wideout from Georgia and, in the sixth round, cornerback Coyle Francis of San Jose State, who is said to be as good as his teammate, Christopher Owens, who was drafted in the third round.

But for a team that had a big wide receiver named Braylon Edwards and needed blocking and defenders, the Browns did little to solve their deficiencies. 

Perhaps, for his largesse to the NFL, in general and to the Jets, Mangini, unlike any other head coach in the league, will be graded on a curve.

And nobody found they needed Iowa running back Shonn Grene, who the Jets “found” in the third round? Greene was, arguably, the most NFL-ready running back in the Draft. He is not a flashy as Knowshon Moreno but Greene ran every down at Iowa like an NFL back - hard. He is Curtis Martin, but younger. Greene, 5′11″, 227 pounds, was the 2008 Big 10 Player of the Year and the Doak Walker Award winner given to the nations best college running back. Last year at Iowa Greene rushed for a school record 1850 yards on 307 carries and scored 20 touchdowns. At 24 Greene is also more mature than many of the other, younger players in the Draft.

So, no team needed a mature, “good character” guy who is a tough yard, “December runner?” Nobody?

Just like the Browns needed a wideout they already had and a 257-pound defensive end who better turn out to be a 10-sack “hybrid” defensive - now.

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