The New Orleans Hornets traveled to San Antonio supremely confident and firing on all cylinders. They had held serve at home against the defending champs with relatively easy wins and took a 2-0 lead into the Alamo where it appeared the Spurs would be forced to make a valiant but unlikely last-ditch defense. Chris Paul & Co. had been running the aging Spurs out of the gym in convincing fashion. The team that was supposed to just be happy to be here had won six of seven against two of the Western Conference’s major powers of the last decade and barely broken a sweat.
At no point did this team look wide-eyed, lost or as if they were anything but completely comfortable with the pressure and the situation. It’s remarkable, and I can’t remember the last playoff newcomer to play with this level of confidence and composure. But San Antonio showed they weren’t ready to lay down after a Game 3 victory. In Game 4 tonight they went one step further, proving there’s a reason they’ve had so much playoff success and that New Orleans are still the underdogs.
Tony Parker Photo Credit: Icon/SMI
Game 4 was a chance to take a likely insurmountable 3-1 lead for the Hornets and prove that their speed and energy were simply too much for the old guard. The pressure was on San Antonio to show that they could simply keep up. But the Spurs didn’t just keep up, they ran circles around the Hornets and made New Orleans look like the creaky and slow squad. Meanwhile the Hornets were the ones playing stiff and hesitant, as if the pressure was on them — and that’s not the attitude that got them here.
San Antonio made a conscious and consistent effort to get into transition and put the Hornets on their heels, pushing the ball after every rebound and even after some made baskets. They aggressively took the ball to the basket, and Tony Parker led the charge with a stellar first half. The Spurs got after every loose ball with more tenacity, they were more active on the offensive glass and they were hustling on each play. San Antonio took everything New Orleans does well and did it better.
The final result was an embarrassing 100-80 drubbing, and it wasn’t even as close a game as the final score would indicate. For the umpteenth time, the Spurs made anybody who wanted to write them off look foolish. Regardless of age or home-court advantage, this team is still the most difficult in the NBA to beat in a seven-game series.
What went wrong and what needs to change for the Hornets after the jump…
As long as the Los Angeles Lakers survive through the 2008 NBA playoffs, Empty the Bench’s West Coast correspondent Christopher Thell will be submitting a local fan’s take on his beloved Lakers’ postseason trials, tribulations and successes. In this edition: the Lake Show botched a perfect crime on the sabbath.
Larry Miller picked a poor game to miss. True, the Jazz owner may have scored a few points with his Mormon God by choosing, for religious reasons, not to attend the first Sunday game at Utah in seven years (although I’m going to assume he’ll still keep the profits from the game). But he missed a well-played contest by his Jazz team that allowed them to beat LA 123-115 and even the series, leaving Lakers fans feeling blue and perhaps even a bit blasphemous.
Game 4 was one of those maddeningly frustrating affairs where your team plays just good enough to lose all game – teasing you by getting close, even forcing overtime, but never playing well enough to get over the hump.
Once again, the Lakers dug themselves a hole in the first half. After a lackluster first quarter that saw them shoot only 34.5% to the Jazz’s 55%, the Lakers trailed 31-21. And once again, Derek Fisher picked up two quick fouls only three minutes into the game and had to be replaced by Jordan Farmar. The former Bruin is stinking up this series like a day old diaper left in the scorching sun. Farmar couldn’t guard Deron Williams (29 points, 14 assists) if his life depended on it. Compounding that, Farmar is shooting only 1-15 for the series. It’s no coincidence that the Jazz built their big lead when Farmar was on the court.
However, the Lakers managed to rally in the 2nd quarter behind ten Kobe Bryant points to tie the score 55-55 at the half.
After an almost even 3rd quarter, the Jazz took control in the 4th, building a 12 point lead with four minutes left in the game – a Lakers loss seemed inevitable.
How Los Angeles snatched a loss from the jaws of defeat after the jump…
On Saturday I heavily excerpted a recent blog entry by Chris McCoskey, who covers the Detroit Pistons for the Detroit News both in traditional print (which is of course also available online) as well in a blog. You may also remember him from that silly commotion that was made within the blogging community over comments he made some months ago about blogging vs. journalism. Whatever, we don’t really get into or worked up about those kinds of discussions.
Anyway, the excerpt I published concerned a recent run-in McCoskey had with an Orlando sports talk radio personality (read about it here). In a nutshell, he went on the show, felt he was being unnecessarily badgered, and after ending the interview heard that the host ripped on him for about 15 minutes on the air.
Normally I’d let the story die as far as ETB coverage goes right there, but there’s been a juicy update: McCoskey actually confronted said talk-show host in the press room before Game 4 and had to be separated, repeatedly, before finally walking away. Read the whole account here, but here’s a few tidbits:
I see him skulking around the press room before the game and I confront him. That’s sort of what I do. Not real good at letting things slide off me. I am working on it.
Anyway, I walk up to him and I said, “You always rip on your guests once they are off the air and can’t respond?” He said something about how it was his show and for me not to tell him how to run his show. I questioned his courage and some other things and we went back and forth. I remember him saying that I talked down to him, and I said something like, I only talk down to stupid people. I suppose that wasn’t very nice.
The guy’s parting line to me was, “Who are you, anyway. Who are you?” I am the guy in Mike Bianchi’s column. I am the guy who wouldn’t let himself be punked by a know-nothing homer radio clown. I am also the guy who isn’t at all proud of his hair-trigger temper, but, what are you going to do? For the record, at no point was I going to hit the dude. Just wanted to hold him accountable for his cowardly actions.
Ohhhhh, zing!
No CommentsPosted by Brian Spencer on May. 11, 2008 at 8:51pm in NBA
Good basketball teams excel at identifying their opponent’s weak spots and exploiting them over and over and over again until the adjustment is made. This axiom is especially true during the playoffs, when over the course of a seven-game series both teams become as familiar with each other as they are with the back of their hands.
That’s why adjustments-on-the-fly by the coaching staffs are so crucial to a team’s success, especially as you get deeper and deeper into the playoffs and the competition gets better and better. Well, right now LA Lakers head coach Phil Jackson has one such adjustment to make before Game 5 Wednesday night back at the Forum. The Jazz have evened the series back up at 2-2, are gaining their confidence back, and know that if they can steal Game 5 there’s an excellent chance they can wrap it up at home Friday night. (The Jazz were a league-best 37-4 at home during the regular season.)
Jordan Farmar Photo Credit: Icon SMI
The Utah Jazz have partly put themselves in this considerably better position by better sharing the ball as well as the scoring load: in Game 5, they racked up 32 assists—the most in a single game so far—and had six players score at least 12 points (and Ronnie Brewer bagged 8). They’ve done it by hitting the boards, scoring easy buckets on fast breaks, and by getting big offensive and defensive contributions from their bench.
The bench.
That’s where the Jazz have had the advantage over the Lakers these last two games, a surprise considering how deep and effective the LA’s bench has been all season. And that’s where they’ve found and exploited a specific weakness of the Lakers, and that’s where Phil Jackson has a tough question to answer. It’s with their backup PG, 21-year-old Jordan Farmar, who right now is struggling through perhaps his worst stretch of the season and is getting absolutely abused by the Jazz as soon as he steps foot on the floor.
Obviously, this couldn’t have come at a worse time.
More on the Utah Jazz exploiting the LA Lakers’ Jordan Farmar after the jump…
It’s not something you’re going to work on in basketball camp, but Kobe actually manages to make an alley oop off the backboard to himself look like a fundamentally sound, high-percentage play. There aren’t too many people on the planet who can do this: picking up his dribble, recognizing the open space, splitting the double in mid-air, tossing it off the glass to a place where only he could get it and and getting back up after it for the dunk. Pretty sick.
Oh, and he also had 34 points, 6 boards and 7 dimes on 50% FGs. Meh.
1 CommentPosted by Andrew Thell on May. 10, 2008 at 7:51pm in NBA
As long as the Los Angeles Lakers survive through the 2008 NBA playoffs, Empty the Bench’s West Coast correspondent Christopher Thell will be submitting a local fan’s take on his beloved Lakers postseason trials, tribulations and successes. In this edition the Lakers looked rusty and out of sync, dropping Game 3 to Utah.
Lucky number 7 it certainly wasn’t. After storming to six straight playoff wins, the Lakers lost a frustrating affair in Salt Lake City 104-99.
In a reversal of Games 1 and 2, which both saw the hot-shooting Lakers jump out to double digit half-time leads, the Jazz used a strong second quarter to take a 9 point half-time advantage (53-42) – a lead they never relinquished.
The Lakers got as close as 95-92 with just over three minutes left in the game when Derek Fisher, the team’s best free throw shooter, went 1-2 from the charity stripe. That miss, when both were really needed, was symbolic of the Lakers entire evening. The Purple and Gold was simply out of sync, looking nothing like the polished machine that controlled Game 2.
Further autopsy of the lifeless Lakers after the jump…
If you disrespect anybody that you run in to,
how in the world do you think anybody’s s’posed to respect you?
If you’re walking ’round think’n that the world owes you something cause
you’re here you goin’ out the world backwards.
Respect yourself! If you don’t respect yourself,
ain’t nobody gonna give a good cahoot, na na na na
- The Staple Singers, “Respect Yourself”
The Orlando Magic have been playing the “we don’t get the respect we deserve” card all season long. Throughout the regular season, as NBA writers and pundits handicapped the Eastern Conference they almost exclusively zeroed in on the Boston Celtics and Detroit Pistons as its best two teams—and the only ones capable of winning a title. The Magic, who led the Southeast Division for almost the entire season and finished with an impressive 52-30 record—their best since the 1995-96 season, and good for 9th overall in the league—all the while wondered why they weren’t ever being included in the discussion.
In some ways, they’re right to have felt a little slighted. They won 12 more games compared to last season and boast a First-Team All NBA player in center Dwight Howard, who at just 22 years young is already the most dominating pure big man in the league (more on Superman Howard here). They also employ Hedo Turkoglu, recently voted the NBA’s Most Improved Player, as well as one of ETB’s favorite under-the-radar superstars in Rashard Lewis. They stood toe to toe with the Pistons in splitting the regular season series two games apiece, and even bested the Celtics 2-1. And as I mentioned a few days ago, the Magic are one of the NBA’s most prolific three-point shooting teams.
They got it done during the regular season, dispatched the Toronto Raptors in a tidy five games in Round 1 of the playoffs, and today at 5pm will try to even up their Eastern Conference Semi-Finals series with the Pistons at 2-2. Clearly, this Orlando Magic team isn’t exactly chopped liver and are on their way up.
Still, they have some growing up to do collectively as a team. Repeatedly playing the disrespect card will only get you so far, and at some point becomes a detriment to your on-court performance. It’s not something you really should be worrying about—teams who’ve been there, done that, know better… especially come the playoffs. Respect is earned, not awarded because you think you deserve it. Win, and you get respect.
It’s really as simple as that.
More on the Orlando Magic and the Orlando-area media after the jump…
- Cleveland Scene - LeBron James “generously” tips $10 on $800 tabs. Regularly.
- Celtics Blog - As the creepy recycling hippie says, “that’s baaad karma, duuuuude.”
- Biz of Basketball - With a tough summer ahead, Billy Knight resigns as the Hawks GM.
- Sportaphile - There are a lot of reasons to dislike Shaq—here’s another (disgusting) one.
- Pistons Blog - Rasheed Wallace knew nobody would talk about Dwight Howard’s elbow.
- Simon on Sports - Step right up, guess these white dudes haircuts and win a prize!
- And One - Pizzas for 23 cents—but how much did it cost in gas to drive there and pick it up?
- Pounding the Rock - Chris Paul stole the Spurs’ flop — and they want it back.
- The Grand Rapids Press - For better or worse, Detroit is Flip Saunders’ team.
- Cleveland.com - The Boston D Party have been dumping LeBron Bricks overboard.
- 3 Shades of Blue - They can’t all be zingers, but Spartacus came pretty damn close.
- Ball Don’t Lie - Cleveland was outplayed and outcoahced; San Antonio woke up.
- 10,000 Takes - Christian Laettner will be inducted into the Hall of Fame this June.
- Tirico Suave - LeBron’s numbers against the Celtics are almost Jordan-esque.
- HOOPSWORLD - UNC is a one-stop-shop for basketball greatness.
- NBA.com - The NBA Playoffs: Where Andrew “The Candystriper” Thell happens.
2 CommentsPosted by Andrew Thell and Brian Spencer on May. 9, 2008 at 1:51pm in NBA
There are a lot of concerns within Detroit Pistons Nation about the availability of Chauncey Billups for Game 4 on Saturday. A little under 4 minutes into last night’s Orlando Magic win, the Pistons’ All-Star point guard slipped, did the splits, and left the game for good with a strained hamstring. Early reports on his injury have been sketchy: Billups says it’s still sore and doesn’t know if he’ll play, while Pistons trainer extraordinaire Arnie Kander thinks there’s an excellent chance that Billups will be good to go.
Maybe it’ll help if he gulps down some extra bottles of Tahitian Noni Juice.
This morning one of ETB’s faithful readers accidentally stumbled upon this little promotional nugget and passed it along to us. And now we, in turn, present to you Mr. Chauncey Billups—decked out in a blank jersey and shorts ensemble that strangely resembles a Detroit Pistons uniform—singing the praises of Tahitian Noni Juice.
“I began drinking TAHITIAN NONI Juice and after a few weeks I noticed my endurance levels were higher and my ability to perform late in the fourth quarter had improved. I’m glad I tried it! Now it is a valuable part of my workout regimen.”
Billups is an outstanding free-throw and 3-point shooter, earning himself the nickname “Mr. Big Shot.” His favorite nickname is “Smooth,” which he says “just sounds like Chauncey.” He is a good defender, a solid playmaker, and a feared “clutch player” who often takes and makes the last shot for his team. He is also versatile enough to play shooting guard if the need arises.
**UPDATE** The good folks at Detroit Bad Boys were on Chauncey’s Noni Juice (boy that sounds dirty) last year—we missed it—and were kind enough to throw us a head’s up on a Noni video! Enjoy.
- NY Post - Sebastian Telfair is hanging out at strip clubs with male models from Sweden.
- Vegan Fish Tacos - A solid mock draft with fairly detailed explanations for each pick.
- Houston Chronicle - After being cut down by the Jazz, T-Mac is cut up by a surgeon.
- SPORTSbyBROOKS - Apparently Richard Jefferson is a choker both on and off the court.
- NBA Blog Squad - Surprise! Gilbert Arenas says he “makes it easy” for Antawn Jamison.
- Hoops Addict - Rashard and Hedo are good, but the Magic live and die by Dwight.
- Pro Basketball News - Were Avery Johnson’s parting shots at Dallas really necessary?
- The Play in California - Andrei Kirilenko is on a personal mission to break Kobe.
- HOOPSWORLD - If the Blazers want a new PG, there are options out there this summer.
- Detroit Bad Boys - Calling all NYC, Chicago, D.C., and Los Angeles-based Pistons fans…
- The Legend of Cecilio Guante - Help us, Obi-Ron Turiaf, you’re our only hope.
- Hoop Doctors - Body checks, closeouts, and flopping—all in a day’s work for the Spurs.
- With Malice… - A lack of maturity is amongst the Denver Nuggets’ many problems.
- Raw Sports Blog - Honestly, I would love to see A.I. somehow end up in Detroit.
No CommentsPosted by Brian Spencer on May. 8, 2008 at 3:29pm in NBA
As long as the Los Angeles Lakers survive through the 2008 NBA playoffs, Empty the Bench’s West Coast correspondent Christopher Thell will be submitting a local fan’s take on his beloved Lakers postseason trials, tribulations and successes. In this edition a new environment, but the same results: another Lakers win.
I don’t have cable, so in order to watch Lakers home games, which aren’t televised on local TV, I have to venture out from my Hollywood apartment. During the regular season, I simply walk down to a nearby sports bar - the place where I watched Game 2 of the Denver series.
However, my normal place was packed to the gills – standing room only, a sharp departure from regular-season games, the influx of playoff fans palpable, kind of like burgeoning Catholic services on Easter and Christmas. It was so crowded as to make the entire experience unenjoyable, even though the Lakers won.
So, it was with trepidation that I ventured out for Game 2 of the Utah series. The night had the definite possibility of going bad. Not only was I trying out a new place to watch Lakers games, but the Lakers seemed eminently capable of losing Game 2 after playing sloppily in Game 1.
But sometimes, despite your well-founded fears, things work out. And on those nights, you have to be thankful and savor the moment.
Savoring the victory in plush new diggs after the jump…
Assuming Chauncey Billups is able to return in the next game or two the Detroit Pistons will likely end Orlando’s season in the next three games. Even with this big win the Magic aren’t legit NBA title contenders just yet, but that doesn’t mean this season shouldn’t be considered a success. As a team they’ve gone from a 40-42 record, an eighth seed and a first-round sweep in 2006-07 to a 52-30 record, a Southeast Division title and third seed, and a first-round playoff victory. But perhaps more importantly, this year the Orlando faithful have seen Dwight Howard take a massive leap in his individual development that has put the 22-year-old on track to be one of the most dominant big men in NBA history.
He could be the best center in the NBA right now, and it’s gotten to the point where he can drop 20 points, 12 boards, 6 blocks and 3 steals on the Pistons in a playoff victory and nobody bats an eye. Then again, that’s been an off night for Howard in this postseason. He entered Wednesday’s victory averaging 3.4 blocks, 16.7 total rebounds, and 6.7 offensive rebounds — all easily tops in the playoffs. Offensively, he’s been putting up 21 points an night on 62.6% FGs in the second season.
Filthy.
Dwight Howard Photo Credit: Icon SMI
Howard’s teammate Hedo Turkoglu won the Most Improved Player award, but Hedo’s strong season was enabled by all the attention Dwight has been drawing underneath. And perhaps Howard himself should have been in the conversation for MIP as he improved dramatically in nearly all intangible facets of the game and made a big statistical jump in points, blocks, rebounds and getting to the line while playing more disciplined defense and turning the ball over less. His 14.2 boards per game led the league, making him the youngest player with a rebounding title. He also managed to score 20.7 points a game on just 11.9 shots a game, the fewest field-goal attempts of any of the NBA’s top 45 scorers. That led to a 26.8 Efficiency Rating, just behind Chris Paul and ahead of MVP Kobe Bryant. His 69 double-doubles led the league by a wide margin (Paul was second with 56) and the 2.2 blocks per were also the top five.
The most scary thing about these gaudy stats is just how much better this young man can get.
How Dwight Howard can conquer the world after the jump…
The New Orleans Hornets traveled to San Antonio supremely confident and firing on all cylinders. They had held serve at home against the defending champs with relatively easy wins and took a 2-0 lead into the Alamo where it appeared the Spurs would be forced to make a valiant but unlikely last-ditch defense. Chris Paul & Co. had been running the aging Spurs out of the gym in convincing fashion. The team that was supposed to just be happy to be here had won six of seven against two of the Western Conference’s major powers of the last decade and barely broken a sweat.
This is amazing. Absolutely amazing.
Good basketball teams excel at identifying their opponent’s weak spots and exploiting them over and over and over again until the adjustment is made. This axiom is especially true during the playoffs, when over the course of a seven-game series both teams become as familiar with each other as they are with the back of their hands. 
There are a lot of concerns within Detroit Pistons Nation about the availability of Chauncey Billups for Game 4 on Saturday. A little under 4 minutes into last night’s Orlando Magic win, the Pistons’ All-Star point guard slipped, did the splits, and left the game for good with a strained hamstring. Early reports on his injury have been sketchy: Billups says it’s still sore and doesn’t know if he’ll play, while Pistons trainer extraordinaire Arnie Kander thinks there’s an excellent chance that Billups will be good to go.
Assuming Chauncey Billups is able to return in the next game or two the Detroit Pistons will likely end Orlando’s season in the next three games. Even with this big win 
