NBA Playoffs 07: May ,Will Did cause drowsiness
Spurs 83 Cavaliers 82 (SA wins 4-0): So the San Antonio Spurs have once again, won the NBA title, sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers. After a really non- descriptive 1st half, the Spurs broke the game open by taking a 60-52 lead at the end of the 3rd quarter. That’s when the Cleveland Cavaliers came back. They took an 11-0 run to take a 63-60 lead over San Antonio with 7:30 to go in the game. San Antonio went on a 16-6 spurt, dominating the offensive boards, taking advantage of the Cavalier mistakes (mostly by LeBron James), and had a 76-69 lead with less than a minute to go. Two free throws by Manu Ginobili stymied a remarkable Cleveland comeback, and made Damon Jones’ 3 pointer at the buzzer absolutely meaningless.
LeBron James struggled again, scoring 24 points on 10-30 shooting, but continued to get nothing from his teammates. Combined, anyone not named Lebron on the Cleveland squad 22-54The Cavs as a whole went 11-16 from the free throw line, missed many open shots, allowed many open shots, and will have a lot to think about in the offseason. After the magical run against the Detroit Pistons, Cleveland could not even make a series against the Spurs.
Okay, time to talk about the champs. San Antonio definitely didn’t win game 3 or 4, it was more like Cleveland lost the game, but a win is a win, and now the talks of dynasty are underway. The Spurs were just unstoppable, knocking down shot after shot, grabbing every rebound, and refusing to be cocky throughout the playoffs. Tony Parker, the Finals MVP, was outstanding. He ran right through the Cleveland defense, and even hit some 3 pointers, an area of his game where he is super weak. Tim Duncan was not bad, but had a poor performance tonight despite the double-double. Bruce Bowen stopped King James, everyone stopped Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Anderson Varejao, and maybe I could’ve stopped Larry Hughes, despite that huge height advantage he has over me.
How was the NBA Finals this year? Maybe the worst in the past 20 years. The quality of play was terrible, San Antonio won 3 out of 4 games scoring 85 points or less. Layups were missed, tip-ins from point blank range wouldn’t fall, and this was certainly a drop-off from the Mavericks/Heat last year. The sad part is, that the Spurs title this year will be somewhat tainted due to the controversial Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw suspension, which pretty much helped doom the Phoenix Suns. David Stern is in damage control now, his league just got a major drop-off in ratings, not just for the Finals, but for the Playoffs. All of the favorites went out early, especially the Dallas Mavericks. Then everyone was on the Golden State Warriors bandwagon, and they bombed in the 2nd round. Aside from the Cavs/Pistons, the Eastern Conference was unwatchable, and got dominated by the 3rd seed Spurs. Somewhere, Bill Russell weeps. Remember, he said to the Cavs, “Make me proud.”. Sorry Bill, your expectations are way too high.
And so concludes a mediocre NBA season, and maybe as a fan, my expectations coming into this year’s playoffs were too high. Many of the games were blowouts, we only had 2 overtime games in the entire playoffs, and last year we had 2 in one night! The only positive coming into next year’s post-season, is that it can’t get any worse.
Side note: How many more times do we need to see Eva Longoria? If I wanted to see her, I could’ve watched Desperate Housewives or watched her on Youtube.
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