NBA TV showed a Cavs vs. Celtics game from the 1992 Eastern Conference semifinals yesterday. That Celtics squad not only featured Larry Bird, Robert Parish and Kevin McHale (and a young benchwarmer named Rick Fox), but also Reggie Lewis.
Some of the young’ns in the office were asking what current player Reggie Lewis could be compared to. The comparison is tough. Reggie was such a tremendous scorer, averaging 20.8 points in each of his final two seasons, but he wasn’t a three-point threat. He could shoot, though, and was a terrific slasher. He was an improving defender who used his length and athleticism and always seemed to be picking up steals. Reggie was sort of a combination of Paul Pierce, Rip Hamilton and Josh Howard, but without the threes. Rudy Gay was actually nicknamed “Big Truck” by an AAU coach in his native Baltimore because he reminded him so much of Lewis, a B’more legend who went by “Truck.” To me, the closest comparison is probably Josh Howard, but that really doesn’t do Lewis justice. Reggie passed at the age of 27, and who knew what the peak of his career would have looked like.
For those of you who watched Reggie, school the youth on who #35 reminds you of in the comments section.
The visiting team looked like cooked cauliflower in games one and two in the foggy TD Banknorth Garden. Their best player left his game back home - first Joe Johnson hit 11-32 shots in Atlanta’s first two tries, and now LeBron is 8-42 with Cleveland in an 0-2 hole. Offensively, Boston’s bench - namely Sam Cassell and Leon Powe - backed up the Big Three (and the trash talk) with efficient performances off of the bench in the first two games of both series.
So what’s going to stop them from going radio silent as they did when the series traveled away from Beantown to Atlanta, when the Celtics travel to the Q in a must-win game for the Cavs on Saturday night? Read More »
Remember that Nike ad from a few years back when a 5-on-5 run devolved into Paul Pierce and Jermaine O’Neal going 1-on-1 full-court while the other guys just sat on the sideline and watched? That was kind of like what we saw between Chris Paul (35 pts, 9 asts) and Tony Parker (31 pts, 11 asts) last night in Game 3 of Hornets/Spurs. Right from the jump, CP and TP went back-and-forth giving each other buckets; both guys were relentless going to the rack and trying to bury the other one under a hailstorm of points. At halftime Paul was ahead on the judges’ scorecards — his team was leading, he’d scored 18 points, and Mark Jones was using words like “radiant” and “sublime” to describe him. But the second half was Tony’s, and behind an 11-0 Spurs run in the fourth quarter, his team came away with the W and avoided what would have been a catastrophic 0-3 series deficit … There was no shortage of mixtape plays from both Paul and Parker. One time CP started a madcap drive into the lane, then stopped on a dime and sent Bruce Bowen running damn near into the stands. (Bowen complained that Paul had pushed off.) Read More »
In the ’80’s, Chuck Daly coined the term “Jordan Rules” when he issued an edict to his Pistons to blitz MJ with traps and double-teams to get the ball out of his hands. Ideally, by the time the ball swung back to him, he’d be rushed to get a shot off before 24 seconds were up.
“We played Jordan differently everywhere he went on the floor,” said Daly. “We used everything physical and psychological to throw him off his game.”
At least we put it nicely. We’d like to give Pop the benefit of the doubt given that his team is in a 2-0 hole and about to step on the floor for their first must-win game of the season. But as Mike Finger of the San Antonio Express-News writes, Brent Barry says it’s a year-round thing.
“He’s an ass year-round,” Barry said, dishing out the kind of admiring, heartfelt compliment only his coach could appreciate. “You don’t get much change out of coach Pop.”
“He’s got this bully pulpit up there, and he tells you what he likes and dislikes,” Barry said. “And he asks you, ‘OK, what do you think?’ And before you have time to answer, he’s like, ‘OK, let’s get started.’”
Co-Ed Magazine was nice enough to compile images of all the remaining playoff teams’ dance squads. Then we went through and made sure they were all there for you. Twice.
To answer some of the questions we’ve received about criteria for this list, we are including guys whose teams have been eliminated so long as they’ve played at least one game since the previous power ranking. So while names like Caron Butler and Josh Smith will be seen in this week’s edition of the Hit List (last week’s was posted on May 1), you won’t see the likes of Dirk Nowitzki or Amare Stoudemire, who have been on vacation for a little longer.
1. Kobe Bryant (34.3 points, 5.8 rebounds, 6.3 assists) — We’ll go with the Heisman Trophy formula here: Kobe is the best player on the only team to go undefeated so far in the second season.
2. Chris Paul (24.3 points, 12.1 assists, 2.1 steals) — Not even the biggest CP fan would have predicted he’d be absolutely tearing up the defending champs and putting them in a 0-2 deficit.
3. Dwight Howard (20.9 points, 16.1 rebounds, 3.8 blocks) — Heard on the Detroit bench after Dwight hurt his thumb in the series opener: “You cut him! You hurt him! You see, he’s not a machine! HE’S A MAN!” Read More »
Yesterday Gilbert Arenasput up a monster post on his NBA.com blog that covered everything from his Wizards‘ series with the Cavs to his offseason free agency plans to Grand Theft Auto IV.
Gil also breaks down each remaining playoff series: Read More »
The news out of Jim Dolan’s office is that the Knicks are ready and willing to make a “staggering” offer to lure Mike D’Antoni away from the Bulls and into Madison Square Garden. According to ESPN’s Marc Stein, the Knicks are prepared to offer D’Antoni roughly $6 million per year - a figure too high to be considered just a ploy to get Chicago to up their offer.
Everyone wanted to see what Kobe Bryant would do on the night he was presented with the MVP trophy; one notoriously loud national analyst casually predicted he’d score 50, while others talked about triple-doubles and game-winning buckets for the game’s ultimate big stage performer. After telling his adoring L.A. minions that it was time to “Get this party started,” Kobe went out and “only” dropped 34 points on the Jazz, putting them in an 0-2 hole as the series goes to the League’s toughest area in Salt Lake … There was a crucial juncture in the fourth quarter when the Jazz had cut the lead to single-digits with just under eight minutes left. Going into a timeout, the Lakers’ bod language screamed defeat, and coming out of the timeout, it was then that Kobe could prove why he got the MVP by such a wide margin over Chris Paul. (And for some reason, Jerry Sloan took Deron Williams out when Kobe checked back in.) Read More »
In the Lakers/Nuggets series it was J.R. Smith. In the Philly/Detroit series it was Reggie Evans. In the Jazz/Rockets series it was Mehmet Okur. No matter the series, there has been at least one guy that has elevated his level of play far beyond expectations to give his team a much-needed boost throughout these playoffs.
Despite seeing only 27 minutes of action per game, J.R. Smith added six full more points per game onto his season average, tallying 18.3 over the four outings. Evans‘ production tailed off during the last two games, but during the first four games of the series, he looked like Brian Dawkins on a basketball court. The guy was doing absolutely everything. He’d collected 8.7 points and 8.2 boards during those first four games, and had committed 3.2 fouls per game that the refs never saw.
It might be early in round two, but here’s who’s stepped to the dish so far…Read More »
As you would expect, programs like UCLA, UNC and Memphis have serious talent coming to campus in the fall. But guess who’s crashing the party with the No. 4-ranked recruiting class in the nation?
How long will it be before Rutgers is a true national basketball power?
Was #35 better than Josh Howard?
