You know, I just DONT see why eporters are looking at the pistons as a contender, I see them as a one hit wonder. Thinking that the Spurs could not beat them is funny, REAL funny. We could beat them in 5 - AT MOST! Pistons will become fodder to Miami's run the the finals. Miami - by all accounts - is the most overlooked team this season as far as contendership goes. most of the predictions do not have Miami winning it this year - which i thinkk is a really big possibility. Miami has what it takes to win the east, and even more imprssive they have what it takes to beat the running suns and the defensive spurs...any team taking on miami will be in for a big surprise in th finals, they ARE the team to beat IMHO. Just reading how detroit will do it again just bothers me, they are good, but i never saw them as THAT good. nor have i ever considered Brown to be that good a coach either, and he was one of my favorite Spurs coaches... I dont know, my feeling is detroit will be trashed by miami. writing that they could beat the west is just an insult IMO.
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West won't get
title back this year
Suns good, but haven't shown
they can beat Heat, Pistons
COMMENTARY
By Mike Celizic
NBCSports.com news services
Updated: 1:10 p.m. ET May 2, 2005
There’s something lacking in this year’s NBA Western Conference playoffs, and it’s one of those things, like a full tank of gas, that you should never start a journey without
What’s missing is a reason to get involved, something like a compelling matchup, a super team, of the sense that the entire conference is playing for anything other than the right to lose to the winner of the East. And if that’s the case, does it matter who wins?
Of course, until last year, we’d been saying the same thing for years about the East instead of the West. Then last year’s finals surprised us by giving us both an upset and a story to remember. So the NBA may as well go ahead and let the West play it off, because you never know when something similarly wonderful will happen again.
But so far we haven’t seen anything to suggest that there’s any team in the West that can beat either the Pistons or the Heat. The conference that once offered the most bang for your playoff buck has yet to produce a story that demands your attention.
It’s not that the West hasn’t provided any entertainment value. The Mavs and the Rockets are engaged in a very watchable series, with the visitors winning every one of the first four games. And Houston’s Tracy McGrady is one of those stories about a great player trying to become a great winner that every postseason should have.
But those are the fourth- and fifth-seeded teams at work, and you expect a competitive series out of that matchup. What hurts its long-term value is the certain knowledge that if the Rockets win, they’re not going anywhere with Yao Ming playing softball in the paint. And the Mavs aren’t going to beat the Suns, should they get that far; they play a similar game, and Phoenix plays it better.
The Sonics are virtually unknown outside of the Pacific Northwest. The Kings are burdened with the baggage of too many disappointing playoffs. It’s hard to imagine that series producing anything that we’ll want to know more about — or have to know more about.
Then there are the Spurs, which should be a team to pay attention to. But in their first-game loss to Denver, San Antonio looked slow and old and hardly possessed of the qualities that would lead you to believe it could match up with either Detroit’s physicality and defense or the Heat’s all-around excellence.
If Tim Duncan were healthier, it might be different. But as great as he is, he’s not a true center and, running at maybe 80 percent, he’s not going to match up with Shaq or the Detroit Wallaces. Even if Shaq is still running at 80 percent, it’s not going to be a contest; the Spurs couldn’t beat him last year when he was with L.A., and they’re not going to do it now, with a far better team around him.
That leaves the Suns, the valedictorians of the NBA’s regular season. They swept the Grizzlies in the first round, and they score points at a faster clip than any team we’ve seen in quite some time.
Phoenix point guard, Stave Nash, is a legitimate MVP candidate and Amare Stoudemire is a great young talent in the middle. If the Suns get to the finals, it will be at least worth watching, because they are dedicated to the kind of game we haven’t seen for a while, you know, the kind where teams run and shoot well and score 100 points every night.
They beat the Heat once during the regular season, too, so they know it can be done. Still, the Suns were pushed by the Grizzlies in a couple of their first-round games. It’s hard to imagine them not buckling under the firepower that the Heat can bring to bear — Miami will be quite happy to win a game in the 100s — or the defense and half-court game the Pistons can throw at them.
We used to say that the real championship series was the Western Conference finals and the Eastern Conference playoffs were held just because the rules said they had to be. For years, that’s the way it worked.
Now, we’re saying the same thing, only with the roles reversed. The talent’s in the east, and the stories are there, too, in the form of Shaq and the defending champs. The West has one slick team, much like the Nets were in the East a couple of years ago. But few believe the Suns can actually win.
The first round is winding down, and we haven’t seen any reason to change those perceptions. Maybe some year, we’ll get back to those thrilling days of yesteryear when the NBA had two great teams, and they weren’t both in the same conference. Those were the days when the finals — the Lakers and the Celtics, if things broke right — were everything.
Maybe some year, but probably not this year.
