With the playoffs about a week away, we were treated to some absolutely great games this past week in addition to some interesting playoff seeding races; which is why it saddens me to begin this post with the artist formerly known as 'World Peace' but his elbow (pictured above) on James Harden needs to be talked about. Firstly, the suspension. Everyone wants to know how long Artest (I tweeted out that calling him Artest is more appropriate than World Peace, so from this point that is what I will do, even the ESPN analysts had to do it because calling him "world peace" is disgraceful) will be suspended for. In my opinion, given the nature of the incident (completely un-called for and un-necessary, in addition to being excessive), and Artest's history with causing trouble, plus the fact that Harden did, in fact suffer a concussion, I think Artest should be done for the season. The NBA needs to send a message to its players that this type of behavior is unacceptable on an NBA court, by bringing down the hammer on Artest they will do that. As I said earlier, that incident marred an otherwise fantastic game between two contenders. The Lakers came back from 18 down, with Steve Blake, Devin Ebanks, and Jordan Hill (who finally got minutes, I don't understand Mike Brown sometimes, Hill is a useful back-up-much better than Mcroberts and Murphy) providing shooting, defense, and energy that enabled Kobe and Gasol to win the game. Kobe in particular hit an array of clutch shots, including two monster threes to force OT.
The degree of difficulty on the first three is a 15/10
It feels like its been forever since the Lakers had a big comeback at Staples using only role players, or as I like to call it: "the Phil Jackson Special". This bodes well for the Lakers heading into the playoffs (even if it is without Artest), they look ready and the rest of the West should be weary of this.
Some other games of note that happened this week include San Antonio's demolition of the Lakers (with and without Kobe in the line-up). Anyone who still hangs on to the media-driven narrative that the Spurs are boring (which is one of the biggest myths of the 2000s) clearly has not been watching Spurs games. Their ball movement, unselfish play, movement off of the ball, and the individual brilliance of Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili make this team the funnest to watch in the league currently. If they are able to hang on to the one-seed in the West Pop' should get major coach of the year considerations (and will from this blog). Some other teams that came up with big wins include the Nuggets, who by beating Houston twice, Phoenix, and Orlando, saw themselves clinch a playoff berth and could even get as high as the six seed. Before injuries to key players almost derailed their season, the Nuggets were among the best teams (record-wise) in the West and I don't think that a playoff match-up with them should be taken lightly by the higher seeds. In addition to Denver, both the Clippers and Grizzlies kept their momentum rolling in the hopes of securing home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs, both teams had some nice wins this week to keep up with the other.
Speaking of playoffs, with the regular season ending on Thursday, and some playoff match-ups still undecided, here are the match-ups that I would like to see most in the first round.
Miami Heat vs. New York Knicks - This one should go without say, The Knicks have the Heat kryptonite (Tyson Chandler), an elite defender to throw at Bron/Wade (Shumpert) star power (Amar'e, Melo), and a rabid fan base that might be worth one win in a series. This would be the best pairing of the first round by far.
Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Dallas Mavericks - Yes, believe it or not, this is actually in play. A re-match of last year's conference finals and the best way to see whether or not Dallas will seriously defend their title.
Anything but Hawks-Magic - I think we're good here.
Lakers vs. Nuggets and Suns vs. Spurs - for ol' times sake.
That will do it for this week's recap, coming up this week on the blog we will most likely debut a podcast, the first one will complete our NBA ranking list and talk some NBA awards and some playoff match-ups. Hopefully we'll figure it out in time, cheers
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