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The two best games of the playoffs thus far have clearly been Game 4 between the Brooklyn Nets and Chicago Bulls and Game 1 between the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs, which had a number of similarities.
Both games went multiple overtimes. Both games had plenty of big shots. Both games had role players becoming unlikely heroes.
And unfortunately for the Nets and Warriors, both games had huge collapses late in regulation.
And just like that, the second round is upon us. If that felt a little abrupt, don’t worry: it was. Somehow the first series to be set is the last to get underway, which I’m sure Gregg Popovich and the Spurs won’t mind. Mark Jackson and the Warriors probably won’t mind too much either, with Andrew Bogut and Steph Curry’s ankle troubles. For more on the Warriors and Spurs, check out Jan Hubbard’s latest column.
The other series that starts tomorrow will be the Bulls and the Heat, and while it won’t be Derrick Rose vs. LeBron James, there’s plenty of intrigue with the Bulls if you can get over their All-Star point guard’s absence. Just watching them dig down to their deepest reserves of grit against the Nets should have done that. In another new column on Sheridan Hoops, Jeremy Bauman looks at what the Bulls have accomplished without their franchise player.
Still, the rumors will continue to abound over Rose, and not without reason: he still hasn’t ruled out that he’ll return, and it’s not unreasonable to presume that the best chance the Bulls have of knocking off Miami is with him in the lineup. So let’s start off today’s roundup of the latest news from around the NBA with an item on Rose:
To say that winning a championship — in any sport — requires a certain amount of luck is a fair statement.
But to say that the Miami Heat have not benefited from a high-degree of luck on their quest to repeat as NBA champions, well that would be a little naive.
It’s unfair to criticize them for what is 100 percent out of their hands, but it is hard to ignore this fact: every respectable competitor of the Miami Heat has, or is, facing severe injury problems dramatically affecting their chances at winning a title.
Just in the nick of time, Memphis found its elite defense on Thursday night. But where was it hiding? Should the Nets reconsider its contract extension of its general manager after its offensive performance against the Bulls? How can Brooklyn get back in this series? Is Milwaukee’s backcourt worth keeping? The answers to all these questions and a whole lot more in today’s StatBox breakdown.
Milwaukee’s backcourt problems continue
There are very few teams that could survive a poor night in the playoffs from one of its stars. Unfortunately for the Bucks, they played one of those teams in the Miami Heat. Dwyane Wade shot 1-f0r-12 from the field, but Miami still shot 52 percent from the field in a 104-91 win. The Heat took a 3-0 lead in a series that will mercifully end this weekend.
The question of the Bucks’ future as a team (as currently constituted) is even louder after another subpar game from its star backcourt duo of Monta Ellis and Brandon Jennings. It was a 7-for-24 shooting night for the two upcoming free agents, which has been a growing trend in this laugher of a series. One would expect players to shoot worse against a team like the Heat than their regular season averages, but not at this rate. Observe:
| Bucks Backcourt | Points | FG % | 3 FG % |
| Reg. Season | 36.7 | 40.8 | 33.8 |
| Playoffs | 28.7 | 37.5 | 17.9 |
Jennings and Ellis are shooting nearly 16 percent worse from three (a stomach wrenching 7-for-39) than they were during the regular season and are hitting exactly three of eight field goals overall. The team is getting poor play from its top two offensive players, which is one of the reasons why Milwaukee couldn’t capitalize on a night where Wade was awful and Miami committed 20 turnovers (the Bucks had 19 of their own). The Bucks’ season will almost certainly end with its next game, and then the team has to figure out whether Jennings and Ellis are worth holding on to.
Deron Williams struggled to get going last night
Williams comes up limp again
Deron Williams, Brooklyn’s franchise cornerstone and $100 million man, is having a pretty awful series against a physically battered Bulls team playing without Derrick Rose, who would have made this series even more difficult for Williams. Williams is shooting 39.5 percent from the field over the Nets’ three postseason games, and went 5-for-14 in Thursday’s 79-76 loss to go down 2-1 in the series.
In an ironic twist, a lot of the moves General Manager Billy King made over last offseason looked downright foolish just mere hours after the team announced it was signing King to a contract extension. Let’s take a look at how King’s guys are doing in this series:
Sounds like money well spent, and a contract extension well earned, by King. Brook Lopez is a borderline All-Star player, but this Nets team is only going to go as far as Williams takes them. Everyone knows that. Until Williams can carry this team, especially with Joe Johnson being hobbled by plantar fasciitis, Brooklyn will be looking at first round exits for years to come.
We found Memphis’ defense!
It was in Memphis all along! Perhaps the team’s cost cutting prevented the defense from making the flight to Los Angeles. But it was back in full force Thursday night at the FedEx Forum, where the Grizzlies held the Clippers to 38.8 percent shooting from the floor and forced 16 L.A. turnovers in a 94-82 win.
Zach Randolph found his old postseason mojo, scoring 27 points and pulling down 11 rebounds. But it was the team’s defense that got the win, and it’s the defense that will have to keep Memphis around in this series. Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and Jamal Crawford shot a combined 12-for-33 and Mike Conley and Tony Allen finally played to their abilities as top level defenders on Paul.
“We didn’t make any adjustments,” Memphis Coach Lionel Hollins said of defending Paul. “We just played better.”
Hollins may have a point. Memphis just happens to play better defensively at home.
| Defensive Splits | FG % | 3 FG % | Turnovers |
| Home | 43.5 | 33.8 | 14.7 |
| Road | 45 | 33.9 | 13.8 |
That extra 1.5 percent of field goal shooting could mean the difference between victory and defeat, especially in such a closely contested series as this one. This type of defense has to continue, of course, if Memphis doesn’t want to be facing elimination the next time it steps foot on that Staples Center floor.
Shlomo Sprung loves advanced statistics and the way they explain what happens on the court. He is also the web editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and a writer for Football.com. A 2011 graduate of Columbia University’s Journalism School, he has previously worked for the New York Knicks, The Sporting News, Business Insider and other publications. His website is SprungOnSports.com. You can follow him on Twitter.
If you enjoy the weekly StatBox column that analytically breaks down some of the NBA’s most pressing and important topic, you’re in luck. Every Tuesday through Thursday during the postseason, the StatBox is expanding into playoff game analysis. You’ll not only find out why each team won and lost, but how different statistical trends can play out over the course of the series and the playoffs as a whole. First up: why the Bulls and Clippers are looking good in their quests to advance.
