Playoff Daily Dose Kickoff
Good morning.
Later today, players from America will join other players from around the world and they will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of the NBA.
“NBA.”
That acronym should have new meaning for all of us today. We can’t be consumed by our lack of regular season basketball to play our fantasy games with. We can and will be united behind playoff and DFS formats, no matter how petty or trivial they may seem.
Perhaps it’s fate that this is the opening round of the playoffs, and you have once again been looking around to figure out who’s doing what … but not to win your league or for bragging rights, but because you’re brutally addicted to fantasy sports and long ago you stopped returning your friends and family’s phone calls.
And should the day come when the Daily Dose gets run through the summer, it will no longer be known as a regular season column, but as the daily dose of information that the world declared it wanted in one voice:
The Daily Dose will not go quietly into the night! The Daily Dose will not vanish without a fight! It’s going to live on! It’s going to survive!
Today, we announce ... that every day ... is Daily Dose Day!
(We’re running the Daily Dose for the rest of the postseason and I really wanted to announce it in Bill Pullman’s voice)
For amazing feats of literature like that, NBA news, and analysis you can click here to follow me on Twitter.
Also, I’ve been podcasting playoff series previews, reviews and everything in-between. Here are tonight’s matchups and you can subscribe to the cast on iTunes right here.
GREEN WITH ENVY
I believe the term is ‘buyer’s remorse’ for analysts around the league who were tricked by Kings front office leaks about Isaiah Thomas, especially now that he's operating as the Celtics’ best player these days while they push the Cavs. It's hard to cover all 30 teams and everybody has to rely on other reporters to get the story right. The story here is that the front office leaked to anybody that would listen that Thomas was a bad teammate and unwanted by anybody in the league. Of course, that wasn't true. Unscrupulous brick-and-mortar reporters ran with complicit articles and a narrative was born! But I digress…
Thomas finished last night’s Game 2 loss to the Cavs with 22 points on 6-of-14 shooting, 10-of-10 FTs, seven assists, one steal and four turnovers in 30 minutes of action. Brad Stevens still cuts his minutes back a bit when his shot isn’t falling, and I’m fine with that to a certain extent because Stevens needs to pitch a perfect game to win in this series, but the Celtics have no shot without Thomas capitalizing on even more minutes and touches.
He still needs to cut down on the turnovers and some silly mistakes, but with how much he handles the rock and how well he plays in general it it’s hard to hold it over his head too much. The scary thing is his already strong free throw rate and the fact he has never had the full support of an organization until now (the Suns panicked on a perceived upgrade with Brandon Knight to pair with fellow Kentucky grad Eric Bledsoe). So, he gets to finally develop at this late stage. He’s hungry as all hell as a player and has unique athleticism giving him more potential to shore up his defense than most think. In short, one can’t rule him out to make an All Star game especially in a weakened Eastern Conference.
But I hear Alex Oriakhi is doing great.
Marcus Smart also stood out with 10 points and not much else but some truly impressive defense. It doesn’t show in the box and he got beat a whole bunch by LeBron and Kyrie Irving – but he is already doing things laterally that the best defensive players in the league aren’t doing. Yes, you read that right. The trio of Avery Bradley (eight points, four boards, one steal, two treys), Smart and Thomas has unique upside as a group because they complement one another, but each will have to continue taking steps forward for it to be a championship-contending backcourt one day.
Jae Crowder (10 points, five boards, three assists, one steal, 30 minutes) needs to continue playing a heavy role and Kelly Olynyk (five points, two boards, one three, 21 minutes) had a great plus-minus (+13) but Kevin Love exposed him by dragging him out on the perimeter. In Game 1 it was Jonas Jerebko, who played four minutes in Game 2, getting crushed by Love on the block. It looks like Boston will need to go to some sort of gimmick coverage there because Plan A & B aren’t working even if the Cavs don’t go to the well that much.
Jared Sullinger continued to pick up the pace with 14 points on 6-of-12 shooting with five rebounds and not much else in 22 minutes. He’s such a liability in space against an athletic Cavs team, but he’s big enough to help keep the Cavs from destroying them on the interior. He can pick-and-pop with Thomas so he might be worth his considerable weight in minutes on the offensive end.
CLEVELAND ROCKS
The Cavs are being pushed by the Celtics and I’m not so quick to say they’re playing down to the level of their competition, but rather getting a team they don’t match tremendously well against in the Celtics. Marcus Smart, Jae Crowder, Avery Bradley and Evan Turner might be among the best suited groups in the NBA to try and stop the LeBron James and Kyrie Irving show.
And they can’t really stop them much anyway. But they have kept things from getting out of hand, and I’ve seen at least 10 plays in which LeBron would normally generate an And-1 but he’s getting forced to peel out and reset the offense. James’ line still read like old-LeBron in action, with 30 points on 11-of-22 shooting (1-of-5 3PTs, 7-of-8 FTs) with nine rebounds, seven assists, two blocks and six turnovers. On the turnover issue, it’s one of the Celtics’ specialties to force giveaways, and the Cavs had 18 of them last night. They can’t cover Thomas at all unless they put LeBron on him and Iman Shumpert hasn’t been a stopper by any means.
So the blueprint is there for Boston to win a game, but James and Irving (26 points, 8-of-18 FGs, 3-of-8 3PTs, 7-of-7 FTs, five boards, six assists, one block) have been so good that the Celtics have zero margin for error. J.R. Smith (seven points, 3-of-12 FGs, five steals) continues to scuffle on the offensive side and that’s bad news for Boston whenever that evens out. Timofey Mozgov’s development is going underappreciated as he is becoming one of the more athletic big men in the league with a fair amount of utility on both sides of the floor. He went for 16 and seven with five blocks and owned the paint for the most part last night.
Kendrick Perkins played two minutes and turned the ball over even if he didn’t get credit for it. This is your annual reminder that Scott Brooks played him about 25 mpg every year without fail no matter how bad he played. #NeverForget
WITTMAN IS ACTUALLY A REAL WIZARD
Randy Wittman’s offense may be worse than Scott Brooks’ ever was, but his Wizards are 2-0 on the road to start their series against the Raptors. I was pretty indifferent in my pick (Toronto) for this series and I’m still not convinced the Wizards have this wrapped up, but they have the mojo advantage behind John Wall and Paul Pierce.
Wall was electric with 26 points on 8-of-16 shooting, two treys, 8-of-11 FTs, 17 assists, one steal and one block. Bradley Beal got off the schneid with 28 points on 12-of-21 shooting, two treys, five boards and one steal in 42 minutes. He needed that type of game as much as anybody. Pierce scored 10 points with a modest stat line but his fingerprints are all over this series as he holds the trash-talking edge against Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan.
Otto Porter also had his first wow game in a 15-point, nine-rebound effort including two treys and a steal on 6-of-8 shooting from the field. The comparison is unfair or inapplicable on almost every level and I throw every disclaimer I can think of out there, but there was another busty No. 3 overall selection that recently took some time to develop and his name is James Harden. Maybe we oughta give the kid a chance.
SPLAT
Kyle Lowry (six points, 3-of-10 FGs, four assists) doesn’t look right and he’ll be the most recent ‘why didn’t you ignore your player’s bravado and sit the guy’ example. Early foul trouble and decreased athleticism were the culprits here, and though DeMar DeRozan finished with 20 points, four rebounds and seven assists – he too often made the wrong basketball play amidst a disjointed Raptors effort.
Jonas Valanciunas got fed a lot and finished with 15 and 10, one steal and one block in 29 minutes, though it reeked of desperation with the team needing his offense. Lou Williams scored 20 points with three steals and he hit all 10 of his free throws, but he was a roller coaster with the shot selection, turnovers and bad defense. Greivis Vasquez, normally known for his irrational confidence and flip back to being a shoot-first player, hit just 2-of-7 shots for seven points and five assists in 28 minutes. More notably was that he looked like somebody stole his dog, with none of the trademark energy and trash talk he brings to the game.
The Raptors genuinely looked shell-shocked out there and it’s a testament to the Wizards playing to their potential (finally) and the team having zero identity in a playoff setting with Lowry banged up. If I’m Dwane Casey I go with the 5-6 toughest players early on for Game 3 in Washington.
INTO THE ABYSS WITH RICK CARLISLE
I haven’t really worried too much about who pushed to acquire Rajon Rondo (Cuban, Carlisle, Nelson), but what a disaster. Rick Carlisle had some iffy calls last year and this year’s headscratcher might be why Al-Farouq Aminu (nine points, four rebounds, two steals, three blocks) isn’t playing more than the 23 minutes he got last night. Not only can he help with James Harden but Carlisle can’t do what he did last playoffs and simply ignore the defensive side of the ball. He’s a great coach but I’m not going to mindlessly follow him into the abyss on every single one of his decisions.
Rondo could seriously not play the rest of the series and it wouldn’t surprise me. He’s done in Dallas and nobody there is going to shed a tear. He looks like he has lost explosion and when you can’t shoot that’s typically a death knell to your offensive game, which is what we’ve seen. It’s hard to really rate any of these guys with that going on and Chandler Parsons (knee) out. Parsons sounds like he’s seeing the writing on the wall with this series so there’s no need to push a legitimate injury.
Devin Harris (toe) said he was optimistic about playing in Game 3 and who knows what he’ll be able to give, but J.J. Barea (13 points, six boards, two assists, 5-of-14 FGs) and Raymond Felton (nine points, two boards, three assists, 18 minutes) are good bets to reprise their roles unless there is some serious cumbaya session between Rondo and the powers that be. I thought Carlisle’s comment ‘you’ve gotta own your butts off if you’re the owner’ might have been a hint that he’s not thrilled he has to take the black eye on the Rondo situation – but that’s pure speculation and guesswork on my part.
BUDDY BALL
The Mavs can’t stop anybody right now so I’m not getting too high on performances from Dwight Howard (28 points, 12 boards, two blocks, 33 minutes) or Josh Smith (15 points, eight boards, nine assists, one steal, one block, 26 minutes) – but there is something to be said for friendship and chemistry on a basketball court. Howard has Smith’s back and along with an unquestioned role at the power forward position he can play his game without my resistance. And that game happens to include a smorgasbord of statistics when everything is going well. Howard’s numbers should settle in lower against a normal squad, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see some outright ugly lines from Smith next round, depending on matchups of course.
NEWS AND NOTES
Arron Afflalo (shoulder) is questionable for tonight’s game. Tiago Splitter (calf) could be in line for a few more minutes, but if he’s not 100 percent he’s not going to be much of an upgrade over Aron Baynes. Tony Parke said his left ankle and thigh injuries are fine and that he’ll play tonight. Derrick Rose said he didn’t experience any soreness, but his teammate Nikola Mirotic’s quad strain is still a question mark for the near future. An extended absence wouldn’t swing the series, but it would certainly help the Bucks try to jump back in it. Tyreke Evans (knee), Paul Millsap (shoulder) and Al Horford (finger) are all banged up but looking like they’re a ‘go’ for their next games, respectively. Mike Budenholzer was named Coach of the Year and that was my pick for one of the NBA’s dumbest awards and so naturally I think it was a great selection by the voters.
