Jim Alexander: The start of the NBA’s second round has not only brought out the wonderful weirdness that can make the postseason so much fun, but it was historic. For the first time in the history of the league, all four higher seeds trail after Game 1.
And what story lines. Indiana – my son’s favorite team, for reasons that date to Reggie Miller – has stunned Eastern top seed Cleveland twice in a row in Cleveland, and Tyrese Halliburton sucked the breath out of the Cavs’ home crowd with a last-second 3-pointer on Tuesday night. The Knicks poked a hole in the Celtics’ seeming infallibility, which at least gives Laker fans something to root for going forward. Anything that sidetracks Boston’s pursuit of Banner 19 will draw cheers in these parts.
In the West … well, Denver’s 1-0 lead over OKC might be a surprise considering their regular-season records, but if you compare postseason experience maybe it’s not a surprise at all. The Nuggets are just stubborn, as the Clippers learned.
And the Golden State Warriors’ Game 1 victory over Minnesota might have been a costly victory with Steph Curry’s hamstring injury, which is expected to sideline him for at least a week. But it reinforced the notion that the Warriors’ trade for Jimmy Butler might have been the steal of the year, rather than the Lakers’ lifting of Luka Doncic from the Dallas Mavericks’ pockets.
(See? Even when our teams are eliminated, there are plenty of local angles to go around.)
What say you, Mirjam? Are these playoffs going to continue to be this entertaining, even if the favorites eventually assert themselves?
Mirjam Swanson: Each of these series has the ingredients to continue to deliver – even if it’s not epic, madcap finishes every time, the games should continue to be really good. The playoffs have been good overall; almost a different sport, from the way-upped physicality and the way it’s being officiated to the all-out desire on display … and, for sure, the favorites, seeding-wise, regular-season-record-wise, all are in for a fight. It’s fantastic theater and a great distraction from, well, *everything* else that’s stressful about the world outside the lines.
Well, except, I suppose, for how the Lakers and Clippers went out. That wasn’t great.
Lawrence Frank, the Clippers’ president of basketball operations, called his team’s blowout Game 7 loss in Denver “embarrassing,” and he was right about that; it also left such a sour taste for what had been such a fun series, and that was unfortunate too.
And the Lakers folding in five games against a Minnesota team that got thoroughly outclassed, at home, by the Warriors without much of Steph? Ouch. That’s not a good look for the Purple and Gold, either. (And hearing after-the-fact about Austin Reaves’ ailing toe makes JJ Redick’s decision to run him as a part of that fivesome for that full second half in the Game 4 loss even wackier.)
So, sure, SoCal sports fans would rather have a dog or dogs left in the fight (to root for or against), but there’s also something freeing about getting to watch and appreciate so many great games stress-free, which is about all L.A. basketball fans can do now – unless you’re one of those basketball-season-is-over-let’s-go-Dodgers folks. And I’d get that too.
Jim: As long as the Celtics are in the mix, Laker fans at least should always have a rooting interest in the remainder of the playoffs.
As for their own team’s fortunes … I was a little intrigued by Redick’s suggestion that conditioning was an issue, as our colleague Khobi Price wrote today. Was that a subtle jab at Luka? Or was it a way of shifting responsibility for the end of Game 4 against the Timberwolves, when Redick tried to rely on just five guys for the entire second half.
But you have to realize that, on the NBA level, conditioning has to be the responsibility of the player and it has to be an offseason commitment. It’s easy from our vantage point to say, “Yeah, but the coach can run ’em in training camp and in practice,” but it doesn’t work that way. If you’re not already in shape when you get to camp, you’re not going to be able to work your way into shape – and you darned well won’t be able to get it done once the season starts and the schedule gets in the way of practice time.
(It’s interesting, too, because I suspect that college coaches are veering toward the professional model of fewer practices and more rest time to save the players’ legs – especially in conferences, like the Big Ten, where scheduling is so weird.)
But, to be honest, I’m not sure conditioning is as huge an issue for the Lakers as better personnel. Start with a rim protector and go from there. (Did you, too, find yourself thinking that these Lakers could have gone further with, say, even the 2020 vintage JaVale McGee?) It doesn’t need to be the modern version of Wilt Chamberlain or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Shaquille O’Neal, just someone who the coach can trust, because obviously Jaxson Hayes isn’t it.
Mirjam: I’ll never forget how valuable Dwight Howard was in the Lakers’ series against the Nuggets in the bubble, how putting an athletic big on the Joker to hassle him all over the court paid off … but to be honest, JJ likes his floor-spacers anyway. He pretty clearly prefers centers who can shoot 3-pointers; so I don’t know how much he’d even utilize a more-traditional big, even when circumstances seem to call for it.
As for the Lakers being in better shape? I guess they’re going to have to be, if their coach can pull full-halves out of his bag of tricks at any point – total aside, but I remember being in the Orlando Magic locker room ahead of one of their NBA Finals games against the Lakers back in 2009, and in one corner, Dwight and Rafer Alston were eating chicken wings (pregame!) and then, there came Redick walking by, with a plate full of fruit, and I remember being struck by what that said about those players’ diets.
I’d imagine that JJ, the coach, definitely does want to see his players take care of their bodies more like he did than some of the teammates he’s had. But I hope we never see footage of him snatching a beer out of Luka’s hand after he’s won the Lakers a playoff series.
Jim: Times have indeed changed. The stories were legend of Wilt downing a whole chicken and washing it down with a big bottle of 7-Up – at halftime! Not sure how accurate those were, but Wilt was a legend anyway, in any number of ways.
But what was more of a surprise in this playoff season, the Lakers’ performance against Minnesota or the Clippers’ Game 7 against Denver? I’m thinking the Clippers. Fully healthy, a deeper roster, and a golden opportunity against those stubborn Nuggets … and James Harden is again a no-show. What you wrote – that the things that work for Harden in the regular season work against him in the postseason, when, as you put it, “fewer fouls are called and mental fortitude is everything” – is quite the indictment, but if the goal is to hang a banner, Frank and his front office have to determine where (or if) Harden fits.
I don’t know … maybe shift gears and rebuild around Ivica Zubac? (Who, I’ll remind everyone again, was once a Laker.)
Mirjam: Credit the Clippers for their commitment to competing, season-in and season-out. And Harden was a huge help in that regard during the regular season; the Clippers would have had a lot of trouble making the postseason without his contributions. And with The Beard at the helm, they had an enjoyable first season in their new arena. This was a hard-playing, competitive Clippers team that engendered a lot of support and appreciation from their fan base.
But there’s also a well-documented cap on what he can do for a team in the playoffs – and this organization is desperate to win a title. So I’m not sure what happens with Harden as a Clipper in the coming months. He has a player option, but he’ll surely ask for an extension and Frank is talking like they’re committed to the Harden-Kawhi model, such as it is, for now. But … we’ll see for how long. The Clippers have never been afraid to take big swings, so I wouldn’t take my eye off of Ballmer and Co.
That said, I’m less surprised they lost a seven-game series to the Nuggets – who are so, so tough in the playoffs – than by how the Timberwolves dominated the Lakers, who did look slow (but also possibly injured) (and also sick, of course) (and, yes, older) but who also never seemed to figure out a way to take advantage of the advantages they did have like Minnesota did to them.
Jim: There are problems, and then there are problems. We can moan about the Lakers and Clippers – or the Kings, whose own playoff failure (again) led to the resignation of General Manager Rob Blake and put Coach Jim Hiller in the hot seat after some coaching malpractice of his own in a fourth straight series loss to Edmonton.
But for real problems, look at last year’s MLS Cup champions. The Galaxy appeared straightened out after a few years of flailing. But the team that was unbeatable at home last year is so beatable, they made history last weekend. They lost to Sporting Kansas City, 1-0, on an own goal and became the first team in MLS annals to lose without giving up a shot on goal.
We talk about teams going from worst to first? The Galaxy has gone from first to worst, the bottom of the Western Conference table with three draws and eight losses in 11 matches. (You like the way I used the proper terminology? But I still have an aversion to referring to a team with a singular nickname as “they,” even though AP’s stylebook has gone to that usage. The nuns in my formative years taught me grammar too well, I suppose.)
Injuries have played a part. Riqui Puig is still recovering from an ACL tear suffered in last year’s playoffs, and other key players have missed time. But a lot has to do with MLS’ arcane and counterproductive salary cap rules, the upshot of which was that the Galaxy had to get rid of several players including leading scorer Dejan Joveljic.
I realize that Commissioner Don Garber and the others in the league office prize parity. But shouldn’t a team be allowed to build a roster that can have a multiple-year championship window? Not only do the rules prevent that, but they also put MLS teams at a disadvantage against teams who don’t face salary cap rules, such as CONCACAF regional competitions or the upcoming Club World Cup.
Any thoughts?
Mirjam: I’m with you – I hate that MLS goes out of its way, with its inhibitive salary cap structure, to maintain parity. I guess the Galaxy might have been the beneficiaries of that last season, but it’s wild to think about, the idea that dynasties could be bad for a sport or a league.
When you think about other sports and what about them transcended or really went above and beyond in terms of lodging it in the public consciousness, don’t you immediately think of the dynasties? Lakers and Celtics? Patriots? Yankees? John Wooden’s UCLA men’s basketball teams? Individually, Tiger and Serena moved the dial in ways that a new winner every week – or season – never could have.
I know the ownership structure of MLS is different, with each team owned by the league though operated by individual investors, but c’mon! You really want to gain a foothold in America, give us sustained greatness, and the familiarity that would create – the good and evil, so to speak, that comes with it too.
We all always to witness greatness – whether it’s because we’re rooting for it or we’re rooting for the underdog and want to see an upset. That you’d deprive your own league of that is so strange.
Jim: Their response is to promote the heck out of Lionel Messi, and all that does is reinforce the worldwide assumption that MLS is a retirement league for washed up stars. Even so, that created attention … but MLS’ exclusive Apple TV+ deal has torpedoed that. It’s the result of taking the money – which seems big, $2.5 billion over 10 years, but only comes to a little over $8.3 million per team per year – as opposed to getting their product in front of as big an audience as possible.
There are times I wonder what they’re teaching in sports marketing classes these days.
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