Erick Blasco

First of all, is excitement worth more than the crowning of a legitimate champion? Because of small samples, baseball is a game where players and teams prove themselves over time. Because of fluky stretches, and the sheer amount of luck that goes in to baseball, it's impossible to say that the team that survives at the end of the postseason is the best team in baseball. In football, if a team has one bad game, it's eliminated from the postseason. That's an absurdly unfair system. It's the only system that can be reasonably played due to the nature of football's physicality, but let's put it this way, do you think that Patriots team that lost to the Giants loses four games to New York in a seven game series? What the NBA playoffs do is force teams to prove they're better by beating a number of different teams a number of different times. It champions the mental in that it forces a team to scout and prepare for everything an opponent does, and it champions the physical in that teams must often try and succeed with their pet plays taken away by scouting. With the exception of a handful of fluky circumstances the best team in the NBA playoffs ALWAYS wins. If someone thinks the NBA playoffs are boring, that's all fine and well and good. You're probably not a hardcore basketball fan, which is fine. But your advice will also carry less weight than an obsessive fan of the game.

TNT doubleheaders usually start between 8:15 and 8:20 EST which is 5-10 minutes later than conventional start times. Tonight's Knicks game for example lasted 2:23 hours. The game ended at 10:33. On TNT the game would've gone until 10:43 preempting the second game. Even an overtime game tonight, Nets-Cavs, finished in 2:44.

Can you verify this? Most NBA games are between 2:30-2:45 minutes. How many non-OT games really go longer than 3 hours? 2:30-2:45 is roughly on par with baseball (with more live action) and shorter than football.

They do mean something---live game experience for coaches and players. Sometimes I wish there were more games!

http://www.silverscreenandroll.com/2011/3/23/2068061/dwight-howard-should-win-mvp-because-weve-been-through-this-before

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2011/3/23/2067274/new-york-knicks-carmelo-anthony

I used to rail on T-Mac all the time because it was so obvious he had that mindset. People would bring up all these numbers in defense of his "greatness." The guy never worked hard enough to be special, and the fact that he still doesn't understand is almost tragic. Of course it takes a Jeff Van Gundy discussion for a bunch of people to finally stop and smell the roses. It's a shame too, because he brought so much to the table, with his talent, and with a good understanding of how to play basketball.

It does become a concern when all three of Miami's best players need to start from the outside to generate their offense, one of the myriad reasons why the Heat struggle against good defenses.

Misleading headline is misleading.

http://bballbreakdown.com/2011/03/15/dont-be-a-bosh-be-a-bynum-recap-of-heat-vs-spurs-and-lakers-vs-magic/ Coach Nick is impressed with the Lakers and it's because of Andrew Bynum. Conversely, he's very disappointed in how Bosh's game will translate to the playoffs. Check it out!

lol, hey, if I were a Nets fan I'd be reacting the same way! They aren't playing great basketball but they're making things happen and it's good to see.

Being soft doesn't just mean that one isn't macho, it also means one can't handle physicality and his play suffers when he's pushed around. That's not true. Except for the first few months of this season, Pau has handled physicality well the past two seasons and his game hasn't suffered. Maybe Kevin Garnett is soft for having Gasol dominate his ass on the boards during Game 7 last year and having him swat his drive in the 4th quarter.

Ariza had one good postseason and people thought he was the second coming of Scottie Pippen, that's what happened.

I've never been one for the LeBron is too scared to shoot it himself camp (except during last season's playoffs against Boston which I'll explain in a bit). If LeBron is able to suck in defenders and leave teammates open to make plays they normally make, then LeBron's giving the ball up shows a level of trust in his supporting cast which is healthy for team success.The people who attack LeBron for not taking shots when guarded one-on-four are caught up in an ultra-macho view of the game in which players are lauded for making the heroic play rather than the correct play. When Paul Pierce isolates at draws defenders and kicks the ball to Ray Allen or Glen Davis or Eddie House for big late jumpers, nobody talks about how Pierce is too scared to take the shot himself because they know how ridiculous it is. The time when LeBron gets in trouble is when he virtually takes himself out of possessions completely, as he did way too often during last year's conference semis. And whether LeBron takes the last shot or makes the last pass he still is a ball stopper because he needs to take two seconds to survey the court and make a decision and he doesn't play without the ball in his hands (except when Mike Brown would run his typical one weak-side backscreen a game for him to cut and dunk).

But is it Spoelstra's fault when LeBron breaks a play off to chuck a three? http://nbaplaybook.com/2011/02/25/lebron-james-fails-to-trust-his-teammates/

With an a good, but not special 12% rebounding percentage. He's played heavy minutes for two of the fastest paced teams in the league, of course his raw numbers will be up, but he's not anything special as a traffic rebounder. Teams don't really crash the glass against Denver and the Knicks from the backcourt because of the threats to run. A lot of his boards come right to him.

Melo's not efficient enough to be a great player because he still has no idea how to play without the ball. His scoring opportunities aside from broken court spot ups come from post ups, or face-ups at the elbow where he either drives or shoots a stepback jumper, all with a side cleared for him. He's prone to taking bad shots and has never shown he can play effective defense for more than a pair of games at a time. He does rebound okay (but only okay), and he is a good post passer, but he'll massage the ball and won't give it up unless its a last resort. Most statistical measures like Wins Produced per 82 minutes rate Melo between the top 10-20 players in the league which is about where he should be.

It's not that they quit...Duncan never got started enough to quit.

LeBron also had that entire game where he beat the Pistons by himself if that counts for anything.

Well he's Dwayne fricken Wade for crying out loud! Thibodeau's "system" isn't some amorphous entity, it's simply a "system" of playing proactive instead of reactive defense, with players asked to always be in position to help. Is Rose helped by bigs who know how to rotate? Sure. Just like those bigs are helped by Rose cutting off penetration, fighting over screens, rotating himself, etc.

As of mid-January, Rose had a top five PPP ratio according to Synergy Sports. There's a ton of video on Rose thanks to CoachNick for you to form your own conclusions. http://www.youtube.com/user/bballbreakdown#p/u Rose fights over screens well, he's decent on his help, he's very quick and long at staying in front of his man. He bites on pump fakes too much, and will yield the occasional blow by, but he's very solid, especially compared to other point guards. He takes fewer plays off than Rondo, guards fast players better than Williams, takes fewer stupid gambles than Paul, and unlike Russell Westbrook, he can actually keep players in front of him. Naming him as one of the worst defensive players in the game is silly.

Rose may be one of the five best defensive point guards in the game. Your statement may be the most ridiculous thing to have come out of Charlie Sheen, and there have been many.

lol, well he's a pretty good shooter and JVG did coach him in Houston. It's the rest of the game that Novak isn't good at.

I took a shower for the 4th quarter, what did he say?

It's games like that this that lead me to believe that the Lakers are the Western Conference favorites for the playoffs. Their defense has been terrific, and should be terrific with their length. Plus they went to their frontcourt early and rode Gasol and Bynum to nothing but success.