NBA 2014 Finals Predictions

11.5 months later….it is the Spurs and HEAT again. It wasn’t a wasted year per se, but the expected Final Four teams were the last 4 teams standing. I did pick the Spurs in 5 over the Pacers at the beginning of the year, and still feel good about my thought process. Spurs in 6 seems more logical now, but a similar thought to where I started. Honestly, I feel better about the pick now that when I made it 6 months ago.

Many think that the HEAT had a more impressive run to the Finals this year, but that isn’t true. The HEAT got by Charlotte, Brooklyn, and Indiana. All decent teams, but not elite and not in their best shape. Their adjusted win margin is about +7.1. The Spurs had to beat the Mavs (who would have gone to the ECF were things switched), Blazers, and Thunder (their nemesis and horrid matchup). Their adjusted win margin is +8.2. The HEAT got scored on well in stretches by the inept Pacers. I think the Spurs have a few absolute masterpiece showcases on offense in this series, and can also gut out some other games.

Also, some have pointed out that the Spurs played 3 more games than the HEAT this postseason and may be tired. First, the idea that the rested team wins more is actually wrong. Stats show when there is a 4 games played or less discrepancy in playoff teams for the Finals, the team that played the MOST games won the title just under 73% of the time. It seems the experience, rhythm, and reps mean more than rest. And it will be only a day difference in rest since their last game, which helps Parker’s ankle and pretty much no one else on either team.

Oh, and the HEAT are actually older on average than the Spurs, and only the Spurs have players in the 18-23 age range who play. Sure Duncan and Manu together qualify for retirement benefits, but the whole point is the team plays a deep bench and spreads minutes. They will be ready.

The truth is the Spurs were under a minute from winning a title last year. They probably were better than Miami; Miami just had the best player. The Spurs actually outscored them in that series. It didn’t help that Tony Parker was hurt. Miami was more clutch and a bit more athletic. The Spurs system did beat them, it just didn’t bury them.

So the question of this series is, what’s the difference since last year? Well, the Spurs got better and the HEAT got worse. Wade continues to decline. His lack of shooting actually clogs the lane in pretty bad ways, and the fact he cannot be explosive each and every touch limits his total effectiveness. Battier is a beaten shell of the guy he was. He has already signed on for an announcing gig in college hoops for goodness sake. Allen is perhaps 90% of himself from last year. I have no idea what happened to Cole/Chalmers, they have so little impact. Lebron is about the same and so is Bosh. The HEAT have enough to win, very clearly. Mostly because of Lebron. But I don’t think they pull this one off.

Parker/Manu/Duncan are about the same players they were last year. Scarily, Parker may be HEALTHIER than he was for that series last year. Leonard is better in pretty much every way.  As long as he is aggressive on offense, his impact will be gigantic (darkhorse candidate for Finals MVP). Marco Belinelli should have a great impact, and he wasn’t there last year. Mills was there last year, but he was in no way this involved. He can match Gary Neal’s overall shooting impact, but run the team far more dynamically as a PG. Mills makes me comfortable in a Spurs pick even if Parker was to be sidelined by his ankle issues.

Duncan can do even better than last year on the interior defense of the HEAT. Bosh has gotten worse defensively and Chris Anderson isn’t the same player. I’m pretty sure I could post up Udonis Haslem at this point. The Spurs PG are still good, and the HEAT PGs are declining for some reason. But I believe the main point here is the Spurs will blast the HEAT in the battle of benches, which will swing this series.

So, Spurs in 6. Duncan walks off, and maybe Pop does too. Duncan does it with an MVP.

Hypocrisy, Stubborness, and the NBA Regular Season

Hypocrisy, stubbornness, and regular season meaninglessness. Those are my thoughts during this series. All four teams tie into these concepts. Here, let me explain. 

I see a lack of logical thinking in so many instances and examples. For example, the Rudy Gay trade. When it happened, most of the people I know and watch basketball with cheered. It gave Toronto a solid player to finally build around who could be unleashed and played at the small ball stretch four, where he belongs. The Grizzlies were a rough and tough team that just needed a 3 who could defend and shoot the long ball. Prince isn’t perfectly that, but he’s better than Rudy. More importantly, Pondexter is perfect for this role. Memphis would be smart to move Prince along and let Quincy play more. 

The thing that gets me is how so many basketball people lamented the trade. Magic, Shaq, Kenny, Wilbon, and so many more talking heads at Bristol said you couldn’t “win without the star” and they were “trading a dollar for 65 cents”. Normally that’s right, but the truth was Rudy wasn’t a star anymore. I watched Bill Simmons for weeks try to talk sense into his coworkers about how Rudy and his inefficient game being gone was actually good for the Grizzlies, especially when calculating in his salary savings and his horrendous shooting from 18 feet and out. They ignored him. But when it came to the playoffs and the Grizzlies got going and blasted their way into the Western Finals, they weren’t reversing course. You could tell several times they wanted no part of talking about this trade again because of how wrong they were. And I think Simmons was holding back from gloating. I know, the Grizzlies have exited already. But it wasn’t because they didn’t have Rudy Gay. He would have sunk them more. I am cringing from all the long terrible threes Leonard would have suckered him into.

If you will, please joing me in examining the Pacers and the logic inadequately applied to them this year. All season, they were derided because their bench is terrible, especially at the 1 and 5. But then we also hear that the bench matters far less in the playoffs, because the starters frequently play so many more minutes. So why are we surprised that the Pacers have again had a solid playoffs? Those starters have carried them. Has the bench let them down, and potentially cost them a win or two? Absolutely. But on the whole, Indiana has done well and still could win this series. Mainly because Paul George and Roy Hibbert aren’t playing 33 minutes. They are playing 43, so the inferior bench matters far less. And oh by the way? Those 5 Indy starters know each other really well. Of course, Granger being there would be nice and would let Lance “I think I’m Jamal Crawford” Stevenson not play so many important minutes. But overall, the logic remains true. 

Okay, I love basketball. But during the regular season, I don’t freak out about catching every game. I like watching, but I don’t count the stats or the wins until late in the year. I also don’t particularly care about home court or seedings to be honest. Ellis and LARRY SANDERS! had to be separated in the locker room during a playoff game. I think the Bucks were losing the first round regardless of the matchups. I didn’t really care about the Lakers record (cmon, they were at least getting into the playoffs), the Celtics record immediately following Rondo’s injury (it didn’t matter, the eye test said they couldn’t be as good in the long run), or especially the HEATs streak (statistical anomaly, and inherently meaningless). Would you rather win 20 straight games by 8 points per game, or 18 of 20 by 9.5 points per game? That should be an easy answer, yet I’ll bet most people get it wrong. If those are regular season games, the second scenario tells you more about your team and better indicates overall skill level. What the HEAT were in the regular season was impressive if all of their wins had come in a row or distributed how they were.

We put too much pressure on the regular season. Granger tried to come back too early, then pushed it. We don’t know if he had taken a long recovery whether he’d be playing now but it is possible. Roy Hibbert signed a big last offseason then had a “bad” regular season. People derided him and his new deal. Guess what? I would argue he didn’t have such a bad season. He produced about the same points per minute as he has for three years. He upped his blocks from 2 to 2.6 while playing less minutes per game. His PER was still a solid 17.35. But the biggest deal is he saved energy and minutes for the post season, where it matters. And he went from solid to dominant since they tipped it off with Atlanta in round one. The regular season was his warmup, and chance to adjust to playing with Paul George.

One could also say that about the Spurs and Duncan. Pop figured out some things that could work. They keep the ball movement/active shooter/Parker centric offense that has been so great for them 3 years running but used the regular season to figure out how to play Splitter and Duncan together while still doing all of that. Meanwhile, they let Manu and Diaw play fewer minutes and skip games frequently due to age and injuries, and Duncan played one of his most efficient seasons ever. The Spurs were derided for this, and fined by Stern and the NBA (probably more times than we know). But guess what? THEY WERE RIGHT! They are in the Finals. And they have all that accumulated rest from the year and these ten days of a break to prepare for the HEAT or Pacers coming up June 6^th. The Spurs have used the regular season as a test tube, and shook it enough times to make sure they knew what their end product would be.

One of the reasons I think the Spurs have a solid shot of beating either team in the Finals is because of another regular season casualty: Dwyane Wade. Wade is a top 5 all time shooting guard. His performance during the 06 Finals, aided by corrupt reffing or not, is an all time mark. But that guy is gone. This is a broken down, old, inconsistent player. The transformation of the HEAT from a two man offensive game plan with Bosh pick & roles and tough defense to a Lebron-centric offense with Bosh clearing the rim and 3 shooters on the arc has hidden how bad Wade really has become. This is all comparative of course: a “terrible” D Wade is still better than Bayless or Jason Terry. But he can’t do many things anymore, and many of the things he can do are produced randomly and without any consistency. Jacoby said on the BS Report the other day: “he looks like DWade for stretches and seems fine, but you look up in the 4^th quarter and he has 14 points on 6 of 17 shooting.” And Simmons makes the most astute comment: he attempts under 5 FTs a game now.  

The HEAT played Wade 35 minutes a game in the regular season through 69 games this year. He was efficient yes, but Wade didn’t create points as much as he many times received them. There is a big difference there. He played strong minutes during the aforementioned winning streak that inherently means nothing now. Ginobili, who is four years older than Wade but has played 5000 less minutes (roughly 29000 for Wade, 24500 for Ginobili) played 23 minutes a game over 60 games. That is a 1000 net minute difference this year alone. Wade is more important to his team, but not by that much. If the HEAT wanted to maximize this year and the next (we know Bron is out after that), then Wade should have been sitting far more and asked to do less. I don't know who that reflects on more: Riley, Spo, Wade himself, agents, marketing, the trainers, or some combinations of everyone. Likewise, money, pride, stubborness, or short sighted thinking could be most to blame. Wade hasn’t touched twenty points in a game for a while, and this is a player who AVERAGED 30 PPG only four years ago. Manu should be ready to go. While Wade is better than Manu, even now, the rest and prep may equalize them.

Maybe it won’t matter. The HEAT may very well still win the title this year, and I wouldn’t be surprised. But Lebron will have score 30, assist 8, and play 46 minutes minimum to do that. Or Wade will have to show something that he has been holding in reserve, and I just don’t see how he has that. He used it beating Charlotte and Orlando for a regular season game winning streak. That is something I just don't understand.