I thought I'd start a a place for general thoughts on 2010 NBA playoffs. Any kind of thoughts about it.
I'll start off with a few.
1. In
post, I already mentioned: Doc Rivers, the Celtics' coach, was interviewed after his team beat
LeBron James' Cleveland. LeBron was heavily criticized for his
performance of the previous game/s. The first thing Doc said was how it
was an incredibly hard work to guard LeBron. That was a class act. In a
very subtle way he thus mentions how good is LeBron, and how it was the
defense that made the difference and not LeBron's poor play. No wonder
players like him.
2. I also mentioned in
post that the reason Cleveland lost was not because LeBron didn't have a supporting cast but because the Celtics played magnificent defense:
"(For the record, great defense makes everyone in the opposing team look
bad, as
bad defense makes everyone looks great. The Celtics played simply
magnificent
defense. It is not by accident that all of a sudden everyone the Celtics
play
against has played inexplicably bad. Everyone complains about all the
players
in Miami besides Wade, and everyone in Cleveland besides LeBron like
they just
didn’t appear. What an amazing coincidence.)"
We can assume several more players aren't going to show up for Orlando this coming series.
3. Miami's coach, Erik Spoelstra, is a really good coach. He didn't have a lot of talent to work with, but he made the team much better than the sum of the parts.
4. On people getting off the LeBron train. One bad game and all of a sudden people start questioning LeBron. Besides the stupidity of it, I'll add that we knew LeBron had
issues, and though when they win he got the credit, usually his supporting cast gets the blame when they lose. The team clearly doesn't have character, as was visible in last year's playoffs. But what people forget is how long it took Kobe to become a winner. Kobe had Shaq, but his character was not of a winner. He liked to take the winning shot, and many times make it, but he didn't have that instinct to bury teams. Without Shaq he wouldn't have won any championships until last year. It took him years (of losing) to change. LeBron will become a winner and will win championships. He'll change. He's still young and people change. Perhaps he'll team up with someone who can help him.
Compare him and KG. KG so much wants to win it is inspiring to see. One often feels LeBron wanting to show off more than win, and again, Kobe was similar.
5. What people don't mention when talking about LeBron poor game 5 performance is the Rondo effect. Rondo's amazing game 4 where he had a monster tripe-double screwed up LeBron's head. He was supposed to be having these numbers and all of a sudden a complimentary player in the opposing team is having them! I think he just didn't know how to respond to that. He was focusing on stopping Rondo more than about succeeding himself.
6. Derrick Rose. At some point in game 3 of the first round series between Chicago and Cleveland LeBron moved to guard Rose. Rose perked up and all of a sudden had double the speed and focus. It was impressive to watch. The effect of competition on people is one of most interesting and fun things when watching sports. He'll become an impressive player.
That's it for now. Awaiting to hear your thoughts.
