The Basketball Post - What You Need to Know About Basketball

Sixers Have a Tough Decision to Make This Offseason

Rafael Uehara — Sun, 27 May 2012 14:35:46 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

The Philadelphia 76ers fell a Rajon Rondo four-minute takeover (he scored 11 of the Celtics’ final 14 points, after Paul Pierce fouled out) and 10 points short from the Eastern Conference finals but using that achievement as a way to analyze the team’s performance this season and its prospects moving forward is misguided. For the Sixers to get as far as they did, they needed the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics to deal with a number of injuries. As good a season Philadelphia had and as deep as it got, truth is the 76ers were not all that close from competing for the championship.

When Doug Collins was introduced as the team’s head-coach in the summer of 2010, many were puzzled. Collins seemed very comfortable on his sideline chair, broadcasting games for TNT and hadn’t coached in almost 10 years. Also, his hardnosed style of coaching didn’t exactly project to fit Philadelphia’s mostly young core, built around Jrue Holliday, Andre Iguodala, Thaddeus Young, Lou Williams and that year’s number two overall pick in the draft, Evan Turner. But it is undeniable Collins has done a good job, with the Sixers having won 51.3% of their games under his tenure. He has taken the most out of this understaffed squad.

Sure, we can point to the team’s poor, unrefined offense (lacking in high quality execution and based around mid-range jump-shooting despite the fact the squad lacks good mid-range jump-shooters) or his head-scratching substitution patterns but you can’t deny that under his tenure, the Sixers play hard and that type of effort led to them being one of the top defenses in the league, which fueled their overachieving run once they did get the breaks they needed. Professional sports are a bottom line business. And the bottom line here is, even with context, Collins has brought the Sixers back to relevancy.

But there’s a ceiling to how far only playing hard will get you and Philadelphia seems to have reached that ceiling. And in order to move on from here, the 76ers have a few tough decisions to make this summer. According to Sham Sports, they are actually in a very good position to decide their future. Credit where credit is due; team president Rod Thorn did a very good job being financially responsible over the last couple of years, even with the arrival of new ownership.

Here is Philadelphia’s picture: Elton Brand holds an early termination option but is set to earn $18 million dollars next year and it’s unlikely he’ll opt out of that, Williams is more likely to test free agency, Spencer Hawes’ one year deal is expiring and they hold qualifying offers on Sam Young, Jodie Meeks and Lavoy Allen. Iguodala, Thaddeus Young, Turner, Holliday and Nicola Vucevic are the only others under contract and they still hold the amnesty provision to use, which they should on Brand this summer, otherwise they run out of eligible players to use it on since it can only be applied to players whose deals were signed under the previous collective bargaining agreement.

Without the options, the Sixers only really have $32 million in salaries on the books for next season, some $28 million less than the projected cap line of $58 million. It makes sense for Philadelphia to attempt restructuring this offseason, given its financial flexibility. It’s not just about having the space to sign free agents, but rather being in a position to take advantage of the market, perhaps bidding for Pau Gasol or Al Jefferson or gambling on Tyreke Evans or Josh Smith, for example.

In my opinion, that’s what they should do; take this opportunity set up by their cap health and restructure to attempt shooting for that number two spot in the East behind the Miami Heat, which seems to be up for grabs. And before you shout “WHAT ABOUT THE BULLS?” you should read Brian Schroeder’s great insight on the challenges Chicago faces moving forward.

It’s unlikely that’s what they’ll do, however. With Collins remaining at the helm, it’s very doubtful they blow this core up. He seems attached to these players and appreciate how hard they have played for him over these last couple of years. So expect Williams to get his money and return. Despite how awful he looked against Kevin Garnett and Boston, Hawes is also projected to return. He’s a fit and did just enough against Chicago to get paid. Meanwhile the decision on Brand can go either way as he had a pretty good season and really only have one year left on his deal, becoming a trading asset even if he doesn’t manage to emulate this year’s production (18 PER, 52.1% true-shooting and 9.2% assist-rate on 18.9% usage, 96 defensive rating).

So for the Sixers to get to the next level with this same core that needed all these breaks to push a warned out, limping Celtics’ team to seven games and couldn’t hit water from a boat but still decided to keep settling from 15-feet and out on that decisive game seven, it will take some major emergence from Turner and Vucevic as volume scorer and legit escape valve, respectively. Turner did improve a lot on his second year and don’t take Vucevic’s low court time this season as a sign Collins simply isn’t a fan of his game as the same happened to Turner on his rookie season and now he’s a huge part of the rotation.

I guess Sixers’ management can rationalize keeping this core intact by assuming they can just focus all their efforts on refining the team’s offense and by the fact they are still pretty young at the top with Holiday and Turner and reasonably well mixed on experience and prime performance with Iguodala, Young and Williams behind them. On that notion, they trust the coaching staff to develop their young prospects into franchise-leading anchors and assume that Collins strongly-delivered message won’t get old and worn the team out as it has in the past.

Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

The Magic’s Attack of the Dwight Howard Conundrum

Rafael Uehara — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:53:36 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

Despite being the most successful head-coach in franchise history, with Orlando winning 65.7% of its games and posting a Finals appearance under his tenure, Stan Van Gundy has been fired by the Magic. CEO Alex Martins denied Dwight Howard requested his firing at this time but truth is directly or indirectly Howard is responsible for the move here.

The NBA is a players’ league. There aren’t really a whole bunch of players that single handily affect a team’s win-loss bottom line, and there are even fewer that can individually lift an organization to contention. Dwight is arguably one of only two, with LeBron James the lone other as it’s always good to remember that after Shaquille O’Neal left and before Pau Gasol arrived, Kobe Bryant’s Lakers were getting pounded by the run-and-gun Phoenix Suns in the mid-2000s and after Shaq left and before LeBron arrived, Dwyane Wade’s Heat couldn’t win a playoff series.

So under normal circumstances it’s completely alright for the Magic to have done what they did, firing an elite level head-coach only to please the team’s best player. Even such a beloved figure like Magic Johnson hung a coach out to dry before. It’s perhaps immoral in a utopian world driven by self righteousness but that’s not the reality of professional basketball. Guys as good as Howard who mean as much as he does don’t grow on trees or hit the market every so often. So if you have one of those guys, you do everything you can to keep that guy in place, even if that means unreasonably firing a very productive employee, partially responsible for your success just because the special one is tired of his negativity.

The former part of that last sentence is where the conundrum emerges. Had the firing of Van Gundy guaranteed Howard, who has flirted over the last 18 months with the idea of leaving for a better team in a more attractive market following on the footsteps of others in his generation such as James, Chris Bosh, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams, to sign an extension with Orlando and commit to the organization for the next half-a-decade, the Magic would be right for not hesitating on pulling the trigger on Stan Van.

But there are no assurances Howard is absolutely staying. He remains non-committal. You can argue Dwight is leveraging the organization with his threaten to exit to force them to remain proactive in the pursuit of a contention status upgrade. But a counter to that is a commitment from Howard would actually make it easier for the Magic to structure their plans. So based on his behavior, it’s easier to assume he just wants to leave and go play somewhere else.

The catch here is apparently Dwight does not want to get the heat these others guys, especially James and Anthony, caught for departing the franchises that drafted and invested a lot to make them happy. Apparently people’s perception of him is a very important thing for Howard. It’s why many believed he waived his early termination option for this summer at the trade deadline; because he wasn’t prepared to deal with the public’s scrutiny.

Things haven’t really smoothed over, however. After the “I stay” day, rumors emerged that in order for him to agree to waive his player option in the upcoming free agency window, the Magic promised Howard input over all key decisions within the organization’s structure including the right to ask for Van Gundy’s and general-manager Otis Smith’s dismissal, which he does. Then Van Gundy confirms the rumors to be true in one of the most fascinating moments in NBA history. The public’s perception of Dwight hit an all-time low even as he needed to undergo season-ending back surgery shortly after.

And now that Van Gundy is gone, it’s clear what the Magic are doing. Stan Van is a much respected figure because of the work he did in Orlando. And whether or not Howard did really ask for his dismissal is irrelevant by now. People are sure he did. And since we’ve established Dwight apparently cares, going through with his departure would defeat the purpose of why he hasn’t forced his way out decisively yet. The Magic are gambling on Howard’s immaturity, trying to trap him on his own logic.

It’s a risky gamble. Van Gundy would have been an instrumental asset in the rebuilding of the franchise in case of an eventual departure by Howard. But by looking as if they are being kept hostage by Dwight, Orlando somehow managed to actually increase its chances of keeping him, even if crimpling itself on the way. There is no doubt they are a worse team today than they were on Sunday, Van Gundy was that meaningful for that operation.

But if in the end, it pays off and Howard feels he can’t leave, then it will have been worth it. Dwight’s Q rating has made people forget how great of a player he is. Again, he is one of only two players in the league that can on his own assure contention. Most fans may be fed off with his antics by now but those have to remember they can’t take winning for granted. It’s annoying, to say the least, to have your team taken hostage by an immature superstar but because of the landscape of the league, it’s understandable why the Magic attacked the Dwight Howard conundrum the way they did.

Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

Lakers in a Really, Really Tough Position Moving Forward

Rafael Uehara — Tue, 22 May 2012 16:34:46 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

It was an odd season for the Los Angeles Lakers. It all started with the way they were swept in the Western Conference semifinals by the eventual champions Dallas Mavericks last season. Dallas’ three-point shooting and speed off the edges overwhelmed Los Angeles. And a bush-league clocking in the air of Jose Barea by Andrew Bynum closed out the embarrassing performance by the Lakers.

Phil Jackson then retired, something designed to take place regardless of the season’s outcome. Mike Brown was hired to succeed the winningest coach in NBA history in terms of titles. In five years coaching LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, Brown won 65.4% of his games but successive playoff disappointments and James’ eminent departure culminated on his firing. His hiring puzzled many but from a basketball standpoint made sense. LA had just bombed on the playoffs due to its defensive deficiencies and Brown was someone qualified to solve that issue.

In the offseason, general-manager Mitch Kupchak felt the only way to improve the roster was by using power-forwards Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol as trading chips. Kupchak had a deal in place with the New Orleans Hornets and the Houston Rockets, only for commissioner David Stern to step in and veto the trade as acting owner of the Louisiana franchise. But the specifics of the deal had already been made public and an upset Odom might or might not have requested a trade, that’s unclear. Either way, Kupchack shipped him to Dallas for absolutely nothing.

Once the lockout was settled and the season got underway, the issues the Lakers faced were multiple. Brown chose to uninstall the triangle offense the team had run for over a decade and install a system based more on low post play in which perimeter players had to generate their own offense off the dribble. Kobe Bryant did fine with it but the role players struggled. That meant Bryant asserted himself more and more aggressively and the team’s offense looked absurdly poor and downright predictable. They were still winning games, however, because the defensive improvement Brown was hired to bring did come through.

As the season progressed, though, things got better. In no moment up until late in the regular-season, LA looked like a juggernaut or anything but as Bynum emerged as a dominant force now he was healthy throughout the entire year and Gasol began to understand his role within the offense better, the ascendance was clear. And when Bryant sat out seven games in the beginning of April to nurse a hurt left shin, the supporting cast was forced to step up and, for the surprise of most, they actually delivered.

The Lakers were playing the best basketball of the year as the postseason opened and two dominant wins over the Nuggets in LA gave the impression they were legit contenders for the title. Denver, however, resurrected, helped by the Lakers’ inconsistencies, and pushed the series all the way down to a game seven. Against the Thunder in the second-round, the Lakers have now fallen in five games, in a series that was closer than the final score indicates but that was not close enough for us to see a scenario in which LA would have won.

And now the Lakers look forward and find themselves in a really tough position to move ahead. According to Sham Sports, Bryant is on the books for over $27 million dollars, Gasol for $19 million and Bynum $16.1 million (a team option was picked up earlier in the year) for next season. As of right now, the trio combines for 108% of the Lakers’ projected cap (which should remain at just $58 million). And even the cap line expands some, it’s still unrealistic for LA to keep them all and retool the supporting cast, which held them back with the lack of athleticism.

That means Gasol is most likely going to be traded. Pau did not have his most prolific season as a Laker this year but the notion he is on a steady decline is misguided. His role within the team’s offense changed. He was no longer featured in the low block, with his back to the basket but rather in the high post, with the team taking advantage of his passing skills. The production was still there if you cared to see it as Gasol posted the third highest assist-percentage of his career but in about four percent less usage than in the other two years and his shooting percentages remained about the same.

As mentioned above, Gasol was nearly traded to the Rockets in a deal that would have brought Chris Paul to the Lakers. That deal is no longer realistic as Paul now plays for the Clippers. Houston remains Pau’s most likely destination, however, because Daryl Morey has been so desperate for an elite player that he’s probably willing to overpay for him. That means a third trading partner we have no idea of whom right now will get involved since the Lakers can’t get both Kevin Martin & Luis Scola back because that doesn’t solve the issue as $19 million in yearly salaries would be leaving and $21 arriving.

Brooklyn and Dallas are other possible rumored destinations but neither can provide something that would satisfy the Lakers on a straight-up trade, so a couple more scenarios a third trade partner would have to be involved. Regardless of to whomever and for whomever in exchange, it’s safe to Gasol should be traded this summer.

And that’s where the Lakers’ flexibility pretty much ends. With Ron Artest, Steve Blake, Ramon Sessions (who apparently was planning on opting out prior to the playoffs but that can’t be true anymore after he was dreadful over the last 12 games) and Josh McRoberts are on the books for a combined $19 million next season, it would take a magic trick for general-manager Mitch Kupchak to turn that personnel over. LA still holds the amnesty provision but even if they use it on Artest, which apparently is no longer a lock based on how he performed late in the year, they should still be way over the cap.

Bynum is untouchable. That’s because of the leap he took this season and because acting decision maker Jim Buss handpicked him in that 2005 draft. Meanwhile, Mike Brown isn’t expected to get canned. He is still under contract for three more years and it’s unreasonable to justify firing him over this season that featured special circumstances. And an argument can be made he actually did better with this team than his predecessor the year before.

Although we all flirted with the idea of amnestying Bryant, BECAUSE HE’S SET TO EARN $30 MILLION A COUPLE YEARS FROM NOW AND NOT BECAUSE HE CAN’T GO ANYMORE, for a while there, it really doesn’t make sense. The Lakers wouldn’t have the ability to re-sign him - in a backdoor, handshake, pre-agreed deal - for the length of his original contract and Bryant would go through that bidding system and probably end up in San Francisco or Brooklyn.

So where do the Lakers go from here? Even having as good a trading chip as Gasol, it’s tough to see them enhancing this core and contend next year. Financially, they are then tied up for one more year as only Bynum should be on the books for the 2014-2015 season and they can re-sign Bryant to a more reasonable contract at that time. It is common knowledge contenders go through a drought after the window is closed but not the Lakers. So this four-year stretch we are midway through is bigger deal for them.

Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

As Everybody Stumble, Spurs Remain Title’s Top Contender

Rafael Uehara — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:10:08 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

The San Antonio Spurs are undefeated in the 2012 NBA postseason. Behind a 102-99 victory on game four yesterday – May, the 20th – the Spurs swept the Los Angeles Clippers in the second round of the Western Conference playoffs to clinch a berth in the West Finals, waiting for the winner of the Oklahoma City Thunder-Los Angeles Lakers series. It was another demonstration of machine-like execution and depth by San Antonio, which assisted on 28 of 38 field-goals, rotated 10 players and had six of them scoring in double figures.

No team in the NBA has played better basketball. The Spurs are in a dominant, dominant run as they have won their last 18 games and 34 of their last 39 since the start of March. San Antonio has just dismantled opponents behind a career year from Tony Parker, a rejuvenated look from Tim Duncan, great coaching from Gregg Popovich and key all around contributions by role players such as rookie Kahwi Leonard, second-year import Tiago Splitter, third-year pro Danny Green and in-season pickup Boris Diaw.

These are not your big brother’s Spurs, walking the ball down the court, playing through Duncan in the post and shutting down opponents on defense. With Parker a more assertive playmaker within the offense (second highest usage rate of his career, career high 40.3% assist rate), San Antonio has reinvented itself from that version that won three championships in a five year spam in the mid-2000s to a more fast-paced attack, heavily based on the high screen and roll action to manufacture its scoring.

Featuring Parker’s aggression and cerebral running of the scheme, Popovich has developed them into an offensive juggernaut that led the league in offensive efficiency in the regular-season, averaging 108.5 points per 100 possessions, and that has averaged 109.6 points per 100 possessions in the postseason. The concept of pace and space has virtually made the Spurs unstoppable as their shooters have broken the bank this year - 61.8% effective shooting by Emanuel Ginóbili, 59% by Matthew Bonner, 54.9% by Green, 54.3% by Leonard and 52.2% by Gary Neal.

Defensively, this team doesn’t resemble the one that featured Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley, Nazr Mohammed and Rasho Nesterovic on their primes but throughout the year, the Spurs have shown they have enough assets to adjust to what opponents are throwing at them. A perfect example of it was game three of the series against the Clippers, in which Blake Griffin completely punked Diaw, Splitter and Bonner in the first-half. San Antonio then threw Duncan at him in the second, Griffin was consistently pushed off the deep post position he enjoyed earlier in that game and was a non-factor as San Antonio resurged to win that game.

In Leonard, Green and returnee Stephen Jackson, the Spurs have a multitude of defenders to throw at high volume wing scorers, like the ones they should face against the Thunder in the likely conference finals. All those guys are lengthy, versatile, fundamentally sound stoppers who can provide effective perimeter pressure. Chris Paul turned the ball over at a 10.8 percent rate during the regular-season. Checked by Green most of the series, Paul recorded 18 giveaways in four games against the Spurs in the postseason.

Based on their jaw-dropping end to the regular-season, the Spurs opened the playoffs as the main favorites to win it all. And as everybody has stumbled, San Antonio has unrealistically maintained the pace and remains the top contender for the championship. The Thunder are in a similar but not quite as impressive continual run. Meanwhile while others have dealt with injuries (Bulls, Heat) and ups-and-downs (Lakers, Celtics, Sixers, Pacers) the Spurs have some way, somehow kept their extremely high level of play a constant.

Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

2012 LegaBasket Playoff Overview

Rafael Uehara — Fri, 18 May 2012 19:16:14 GMT

By Giovanni Reale

As 2012 LegaBasket playoffs open, Montepaschi Siena begins its attempt at a sixth straight league championship, which would become a LegaBasket record. However, the 2011-2012 regular-season couldn’t more of a distant memory for the team that will shoot for history this postseason. Siena put all of its focus into returning to the EuroLeague’s Final Four, eventually getting eliminated by the eventual champions Olympiacos Piraeus in the quarterfinals, and sort of lost track of things in domestic play, losing eight games compared a combined 12 in the previous five championship campaigns.

Many believe this will be the most thrilling postseason in recent memory because Siena has not looked like the dominant force of years past. Having said that, they still open the playoffs as the top favorites to win it all, as players that have dealt with nagging or semi-serious injuries such as Igor Rakocevic and Rimantas Kaukenas are returning to fitness and they also have in Bo McCallebb and David Andersen the league’s two best players.

McCallebb was named the LegaBasket’s MVP and Andersen the runner-up. The awards were voted in by a panel of press members, general managers, coaches and the captains of the 17 teams. Banco di Sardegna Sassari’s head-coach Romeo Sacchetti was named coach of the year, Banca Tercas Teramo’s Achille Polonara was voted the league’s rising star – award given for the best performer under 22 years of age (beating both Alessandro Gentile and Niccolò Meli, more high profile developmental prospects), and Umana Venezia’s Federico Casarin was named the executive of the year.

It’s curious to note that every team qualified for the playoffs has a losing scoring differential, except for Siena (+8.9) and Olimpia Milano (+0.8). The first couple of rounds will be played in best of five series format (2-2-1) with games played every two days and the championship series will be played in a best of seven series format (2-3-2), if necessary, of course.

Siena and Cimberio Varese are featured in the 1-8 matchup. Mens Sana arrives as the league’s top scoring team (82.1 points per game) and the most accurate from the foul line (79.4%). Varese succeeded in clinching the playoffs for the second year in a row despite building the team with a low budget. A team that was not full of talent but that was well coached by Charlie Recalcati who will leave the franchise at year’s end, Varese relies on Yakhouba Diawara’s prolificacy scoring ability. But honestly, we don’t see any chances for Varese to pull the upset here, especially considering that the first two games will be played in Siena and that the series will move to Varese for the third, which probably will be a series clincher, with Cimberio probably exhausted. Montepaschi won both regular-season meetings and is projected to advance in three games.

Milano and Umana Venezia are featured in the 2-7 matchup. Many ups and downs for Emporio Armani during the season, featuring Danilo Gallinari leaving after the end of NBA lockout and Drew Nicholas getting cut. They suffered with injuries and for being a young team but they ended the regular season with eight straight wins, taking advantage of an easy schedule and overcoming Bennet Cantù for the second seed. Antonis Fotsis had the best three-point percentage in the league at 43.8% while the team dished the best average of assists (15.6 per game). Olimpia Milano’s performances looked too much reliant on Ioannis Bouroussis’ outings while both young players Alessandro Gentile and Niccolò Melli showed signs of growth in some games.

Meanwhile, Venezia arrives as definitely the real revelation of 2011-2012 regular-season, coming from the Legadue and forced to set up a team in just a few days prior to the start of the year due to a mix-up with the federation. They stayed between second and fourth place in the standings for most of the year but lost four straight to close the regular-season and fell to the seventh seed. To add to Venezia’s incredible journey, they had to play all of their home games in Treviso at Palaverde because of their home arena’s noncompliance to league rules, yet Umana always played in front of a sold out crowd.

Milano won both regular-season meetings. It had just 10 days to integrate Justin Dentmon, signed to replace the injured JR Bremer Jr., while Venezia had an important period of rest to recover mentally from the four straight losses at season’s end. We expect great enthusiasm but also inexperience. And there is no doubt game three will be a madhouse. On the other hand, Olimpia Milano is supposed to advance to the next round thanks to their physicality and length of their roster. We project Milano to sweep.

In the 3-6, we have Bennet Cantù and Scavolini Siviglia Pesaro. Cantù had to reckon with injuries and split attention with the EuroLeague appointments and in the end, they lost the second seed in the playoff bracket and that is quite important because they’re almost unbeatable at home. They ended the season with the best defense (only 69.9 points allowed per game) and the best three-point shooting percentage (at 38.2%). Gianluca Basile proved he can still make the difference with his clutch triples while Giorgio Shermadini was a great integration down the boards during the season.

Meanwhile, Pesaro arrives as giant killers. They beat Cantù twice and Milano and Siena once each. That’s enough to describe the potential of this team that has in the trio Jumaine Jones-Ricky Hickman-James White its best performers but whose growth is probably mainly due to Daniel Hackett’s improvement. A squad full of talent, it’s not strange that they drew more fouls than any other team in the league (23.5 per game). Pesaro won eight road games – only Siena did better. Furthermore, they are the best team from two-point range with 56% shooting and had the best blocker of the league in Marco Cusin (1.4 denials per game).

Pesaro won both regular-season meetings and proved they can match-up well against last year’s runner-ups. Add to it that Vladimir Micov’s return for the first couple of games is uncertain and you see why this series is hard to project. In the end, we still believe Cantù’s experience will prevail and they will advance in four games.

In the 4-5 duel, Banco di Sassari Sardegna faces Canadian Solar Bologna. Sassari improved their great results from last season (eighth place), taking that next step by clinching home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs this season. It arrives as the second best scoring team of the league, playing at their best when they have control of the boards and can push for transition opportunities.

Meanwhile, Bologna found its best set when Terrell McIntyre had to retire due to injury and when Jared Homan was released due to disciplinary reasons. Since that moment, Chris Douglas-Roberts enhanced his performances, Giuseppe Poeta found his rhythm and the frontcourt duo Viktor Sanikidze (best rebounder in the league, LegaBasket’s leader in double-doubles), Angelo Gigli became a factor.

Sassari and Bologna split the regular-season series. Both teams finished with 40 points in the standings and both teams have a nearly intact home record, but if Sassari has its strength in offense, Bologna sets its game on defense. We projected this series to go to a fifth game and Bologna’s individual talent should come through then.

Editor's Note: Giovanni Reale is a staff blogger for 'the Basketball Post', providing info on Italian basketball. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @Pariolino.

2012 International Clinic Giovanni Papini

Rafael Uehara — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:53:33 GMT

Olympiacos Piraeus Wins EuroLeague Championship Behind Historic Comeback

Rafael Uehara — Sun, 13 May 2012 23:49:38 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

Amazing doesn’t begin to describe Olympiacos’ unbelievable run at the 2011-2012 EuroLeague championship. Down 19 points to CSKA Moscow with a little over 12 minutes remaining, the Greek club then went on a furious 28-8 run to win it on a Georgios Printezis floater with 0.7 seconds remaining. It was a comeback of such historical proportions by the Oly that I’m admittedly personally incapable of finding words to describe the feelings of those watching on that moment the game ended. So I won’ try.

This is the Reds’ second EuroLeague title in club history. After so many years of disappointment with a squad built with high profile names such as Milos Teodosic, Sofoklis Schortsanitis and Ioannis Bouroussis, it makes sense Olympiacos finally wins it all with a team built with one single star in Vassilis Spanoulis and around him a couple of young prospects in Kostas Sloukas and Kostas Papanikolaou, players acquired on the cheap in-season in Joey Dorsey and Kyle Hines and Pritenzis, who after a couple of years away returned to the club where he first arrived at age 15 to hit the shot that brings the club back to relevancy.

For most of the game, it was a miserable contest really. CSKA led 10-7 at the end of the first as both teams couldn’t control their emotions and were erratic on offense, combining for 13 turnovers on 33 possessions, and then 34-20 at halftime as Teodosic took over in the second-quarter, at one moment hitting back-to-back-to-back three-pointers and then no-look feeding Darjus Lavrinovic below the rim for a layup. It looked hopeless for Olympiacos at that point.

And it did more so early in the third as Oly continued to turn the ball over at an absurd rate which kept them from putting any sort of comeback attempt together. Meanwhile CSKA wasn’t necessarily playing the ball that made them the heads-on favorites to win it all coming into the weekend but was doing just enough to remain in control and when Alexey Shved broke away for a layup to put the Russian club up 19, the game looked all but over.

But it was a 13-point game at the start of the fourth when Olympiacos went on a furious 8-0 run during a three-minute stretch to reenergize its crowd that changed all momentum. Dusan Ivkovic’s crew just never gave up. The frontline featuring Hines and Printezis just started outhustling CSKA’s taller, stronger and more skilled frontcourt. They created havoc below the in the paint, generating second chance opportunities to fuel Oly’s run.

CSKA simply went through the motions during all of this. It’s tough to know what exactly was going through the players’ and head-coach Jonas Kazlauskas’ minds but the easy assumption is they checked out too early and even when Olympiacos made the push early in the fourth, they still didn’t take it seriously and at the time to secure the title, which they believed they had already won, they could no longer match Olympiacos’ intensity and adrenaline.

Leading by three with under two minutes to go, Teodosic went to the foul line and missed one of two free throws. On the other end, he fouls Papanikolaou and was actually one split second away from doing something even more stupider by fouling him in the act of shooting, which would have mean three free-throws right there. But in the end it didn’t matter. Old man Ramunas Siskauskas went zero for two at the line after Papanikolaou hit his, then Spanoulis drove the length of the court and magnificently fed Printezis on the baseline when Kirilenko cheated to help too soon. And the rest is history.

Spanoulis was named the Final Four’s MVP but as Sportando’s Emiliano Carchia reminded us, the ballots were passed during the third quarter when it looked like CSKA was going to run away with this game. Printezis, the pure heart of the comeback, was the true most valuable player for the team’s win in the championship game. And while Spanoulis fueled their arrival to that moment, he isn’t the one that will forever live in history.

Head-coach Dusan Ivkovic was terrific for managing to make his players continue to play hard when it looked like there was no more reason for it. And then when they did, he rewarded those, Hines & Printezis, who made a difference by keeping them out there throughout the comeback even as Printezis looked spent and Hines committed some dumb turnovers that made it appear the run would fall short.

Papanikolaou goes as the unsung hero. The 22-year-old did not have a fantastic season and at times, it seemed he was more involved on last year’s team compared to this one’s but he stepped up big this weekend, hitting big time shots in the semifinal against Regal FC Barcelona and completely giving the league’s MVP a run for his money on the championship game as they were matched for most of the night, outplaying him with 18 points on 5-5 shooting from the field and 5-6 from the foul line with just two turnovers compared to 12 points on 4-5 shooting and four turnovers by Kirilenko.

Papanikolaou is automatically eligible for the 2012 NBA Draft and up until Thursday, he was projected to go undrafted after failing to build up on last year’s arrival to the scene. But after this weekend, he will possibly be a commodity in the second round as he’s shown a neck to perform in the grand stage against elite class competition with his combination of terrific defensive hustle and instincts and an offensive skill set of intuitive cutting and quality shooting that NBA teams are always looking for. At a minimum, a handful of teams must already have called Olympiacos’ front office to familiarize themselves with the status of his buyout situation.

Olympiacos put together one impressive stretch of five wins in six games, overcoming Montepaschi Siena, Barça and CSKA on their way to the title. As far as legitimacy of a championship goes, they are in the pantheon after surviving three of Europe’s most dominant powerhouses. After so much disappointment over the last decade or so, the red part of Athens can smile, drink and celebrate again. Their Cinderella story has a happy ending.

Editor's Note: The video of Printezis’ buzzer beater live from Istanbul is a courtesy of EuroLeague Adventures. Freaknick, Slam and Rob did a great job providing us the temperature of the Final Four this weekend. And their effort is deeply appreciated by readers, such as me.

Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

What's Next for the Bulls?

Rafael Uehara — Sun, 13 May 2012 14:16:50 GMT

By Brian Schroeder

“You guys are in store for a lot of other championships when you look at this team tonight. Don’t be surprised if you have six more coming.”- Michael Jordan, March 2011.

A few hours ago, Derrick Rose had successful surgery to repair his torn left ACL at Rush University Hospital on the West side of Chicago. His recovery time is listed as anywhere from 6-10 months. Even longer will be the gap until he regains any semblance of his MVP form, and MVP award that is no longer his to defend, with LeBron James officially being announced as its recipient for the third time in the past four years. The 2010-2011 season is beginning to feel more and more like a dream, albeit one with a bad ending. What do you do when the dream ends? Do you pretend that it wasn’t a dream, or do you prepare for what happens next? Do you get on with your life? This is the idea that I, as a nearly lifelong Bulls fan, want to address. Where does the team go from here?

From a personnel standpoint, one has to assume management will stand pat. If there’s one thing I can say about the Reinsdorf administration, it’s that they never quite seem to be able to temper their own expectations. Despite the fact that this team probably wouldn’t have been able to get past the Miami Heat, management will almost certainly go about as if they had. The Rose injury is exactly the sort of excuse this administration needs to justify not over-spending or engaging in any sort of meaningful roster turnover. For the sake of this piece (and for the sake of my sanity), I will assume that this isn’t the case. The contracts of Omer Asik, Mike James, John Lucas III and Brian Scalabrine expire this offseason. Asik is restricted, the latter three are not. It stands to reason that Asik, Lucas and Scalabrine will all be back, as all three are favorites of Tom Thibodeau and the Bulls’ fan base. At the very least, the Bulls will be compensated if someone wants to overpay for the offensively challenged Asik. So let’s assume he’ll be back. The year after, 2013, sees the contracts of the rest of the so-called “Bench Mob,” Taj Gibson, Kyle Korver, Ronnie Brewer, and C.J. Watson expire. Once again, the best player of the bench, Gibson, is restricted, while the rest of unrestricted. It seems almost impossible for all four to return. Gibson is probably the most likely candidate to stay. The other three, while valuable, are also more easily replaceable.

I suppose, were I in control of the Bulls’ roster, I would do what they should have done six months ago and amnesty the contract of Carlos Boozer. Boozer, who turns 31 in November, is easily the least cost-effective player on the team, posting a career Bulls average of 16.2 points, 9.0 rebounds, and 2.2 assists on 52% shooting. These are by no means ineffective numbers, but considering the fact that over the next three seasons, he’ll be making almost $50 million, more than anyone else on the team except Rose himself, he needs to go. His production will only slip as he loses more and more of his athleticism. He was signed to be a presence in the post. He has become a mid range jump shooter.

The first thing the Bulls could do with the money saved from amnestying Boozer’s contract is go after New Orleans Hornets guard Eric Gordon, whose contract expires this summer. The salaries don’t match up, but with some tinkering (namely convincing the bargain-bin Richard Hamilton to retire), it isn’t unfeasible. Outside of Gordon, one of the best young shooting guards in the game, and a perfect complement to Rose, the services of Ray Allen and Jason Terry, both proven playoff performers, will be available. I would suggest Allen, if at all possible. There is also the matter of the NBA Draft, this year’s class being one of the deepest in recent memory, due in part to the NBA Lockout. The Bulls have only one pick as of now, the 29th overall selection at the back end of the first round. Former All-American forward Draymond Green may be available to add depth to both forward spots, which may be more of a necessity if Boozer is parted with. Also of note is Nikola Mirotic, last year’s first round pick, who just came off a very successful season with Real Madrid. The talented 21 year old may not be ready for the NBA, but whenever he is, he guarantees to be a useful piece at either forward spot.

There are two other pieces are worth mentioning, and they are possibly the two most important on the entire team: Derrick Rose and Tom Thibodeau. There is no guarantee that Rose, who looks to return sometime around January, will ever regain his vaunted explosiveness. His game is, perhaps more than any other star in this league, predicated upon quick cuts, often off of one leg. Without that explosiveness, he’s not much different a player than someone like Brandon Jennings, who, while talented, is never going to be confused for a potential championship building block. While it’s true he’s still only 23, an ACL tear is possibly the most devastating injury he ever could have suffered, and the fact that it comes during what is ostensibly the Bulls’ best championship window since 1998 is disheartening. His recently signed contract extension kicks in during the 2012-2013 season, so if he can’t come back near the MVP level he showed last season, he very well might become as overpaid as Boozer is now.

As for Thibodeau, there is only one stat I can bring to evaluate his performance. His career record in the regular season stands at an imposing 112-36 (.757). His career playoff record? 11-11 (.500). I’m not saying that he is incapable of winning in the playoffs. After all, he was three wins from a trip to the NBA Finals in his rookie season. I’m just saying that his style, winning by attrition, might not be the advantage come playoff time that it is in the regular season. His rotations are also still cause for questioning, as are his injury protocols (by this I don’t mean Rose’s injury. I mean Noah’s. No one in their right mind should have let Joakim Noah re-enter Game 4 like Thibodeau did. Not with that injury. It was risky and stupid).

At the expense of sounding pessimistic, I bring up the proceeding not to evaluate the Bulls’ relative failures. I do it to evaluate their chances in the future. And those chances, with an overpaid power forward, an increasingly battered small forward, and an injured star, are looking worse and worse in a conference where LeBron James and Dwyane Wade reign supreme. What do you do when what felt like fate turns out to be only pain? For the city of Chicago, this is an all too familiar question. We are thoroughly acquainted with the sound of a championship window shattering.

Editor's Note: Brian Schroeder is a featured blogger for 'the Basketball Post', providing insight on the NBA and the NBA's Developmental League. More from Brian can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @cosmis

Grizzlies Go Back to Gasol & Randolph to Force Game Seven Against the Clippers and Re-Emerge as Title Contender

Rafael Uehara — Sat, 12 May 2012 15:37:17 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

The Memphis Grizzlies made a run to the second round of the playoffs last year only falling to the Oklahoma City Thunder on game seven, that after overcoming the number one seed San Antonio Spurs behind a frontcourt-based attack relying on Zach Randolph’s and Marc Gasol’s versatility in the post. Through paint domination - high volume low block scoring and high percentage second chance manufacturing - Memphis looked like a legit title contender.

The idea was to emulate that same formula this season but Rudy Gay’s return from injury – he was sidelined throughout last year’s entire run after undergoing surgery to repair a shoulder issue – and Randolph’s partial MCL tear - that sidelined him for 38 games - changed those plans. The Grizzlies acquired Marresse Speights in-season who has a different game than Randolph’s, floating around the mid-range area more than setting position deep in the low post.

Through Speights’ presence and Gay’s volume shooting – he led the team in attempts, with a 16.4 average - Memphis became a more perimeter oriented team than they wanted to be. Gasol still balanced the attack inside but the team’s fifth-leading ranking in paint scoring is more due their eighth-leading ranking in fast-break scoring dimension resulted from their high percentage of takeaways than the frontcourt-based attack they had in mind.

Against the Clippers, the Grizzlies have a substantial advantage upfront. DeAndre Jordan and Blake Griffin are a strength challenged combo who struggle with fundamentally sound defense. Reggie Evans isn’t quick or athletic enough to matchup with either of Memphis’ frontline players and Kenyon Martin, despite still being a great option on switches, does not bring all that much on the boards. And offensively, Evans & Martin are weak links.

Game one of the series is known for LA’s 27-point fourth-quarter comeback. Actually on that game Memphis dominated - scoring 95 points on their first 73 possessions, good for a 130.1 offensive rating for the stretch. But they did it because they shot unusually well from three-point range - going 11-16 as Mike Conley Jr. and OJ Mayo exploded to combine for 9-11. They never really established some sort of frontcourt edge. According to Hoopdata, Gasol & Randolph combined to use just 29 of the team’s 91 possessions.

On game two, Memphis dominated again and almost blew it again but won the game by scoring 31 points at the foul line. Gasol & Randolph combined to use just 24 of the team’s 90 possessions, again per Hoopdata. Asked about Gasol’s specific low amount of touches, just four shots on that game two, head-coach Lionel Hollins threw it on Marc, arguing he is the one that has to demand the ball late in games.

As the venue shifted to LA, the Grizzlies looked their worse in the series. The 86-87 loss on game three was only close because Gay took over in the fourth and started hitting some unconscious shots. On that game they scored just 14 points at the rim – in perspective, they averaged 32.8 during the regular-season. Then on game four, Conley Jr. provided a spark, scoring or assisting on 42 of the team’s 97 points, but they fell short in overtime. Over the two games in LA, Gasol & Randolph used just 53 of the team’s 190 possessions.

With their backs against the wall, the Grizzlies finally re-focused on their game-plan and with back-to-back wins, managed to force game seven at FedEx Forum on Sunday – May, the 13th. On the 92-80 blowout in game five, Gasol had 23 points and four assists, posting a 25.8% usage rate, his highest of the series up until that point. Randolph wing-manned him with 19 points on 6-11 shooting from the field and 7-10 from the foul line. Playing through them, Memphis got the best looks they generated all series. And with the tone set, yesterday on game six, the combo combined to score 41 points on 33 shots to lead the way on the team’s 90-88 win.

As good seasons Conley Jr., Gay and Mayo have had anchoring the team’s offense on the perimeter, the Grizzlies will only go as far as Gasol & Randolph can take them. After looking slow there for a while, Zach has shown over the last two games he can still emulate the sort of production that made him a key figure on last year’s run. And Gasol proved all he needs is for them to feature him and devote him the possessions necessary.

Back home for game seven and against a Clippers’ squad that does not contain Griffin and Paul at 100%, the Grizzlies are the clear favorites to advance. They would then face the Spurs, against whom they got good memories. Seen as a title contender coming into the year, Memphis has flashed they still have the potential to fulfill those expectations. All it takes is discipline within the game-plan; just continue going back to Gasol & Randolph.

Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

2012 EuroLeague Championship Game Preview

Rafael Uehara — Sat, 12 May 2012 13:54:46 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

And we have narrowed it down to two. CSKA Moscow and Olympiacos Piraeus will play for the 2012 EuroLeague title on Sunday – May, the 13th – after winning hard-fought battles against defending champions Panathinaikos Athens and 2010 champions Regal FC Barcelona, respectively, in the semifinals on Friday. It will be the first time these two historic organizations will meet each other with Europe’s crown on the line.

CSKA Moscow arrived to the Final Four as the heavy favorites to win it all, based on its great performance all year long in which it showed to be a dominant force who has reached an outstanding level of cohesiveness as a unit. And all of it was in display on the team’s 66-64 win over Panathinaikos Athens, behind 17 points, nine rebounds and four blocks by Andrei Kirilenko and 15 points and five rebounds by Alexey Shved.

The Russian club actually started the game flat, allowing PAO to open a 29-15 first-quarter lead. Greek club’s head-coach Zeljko Obradovic surprised by starting Sarunas Jasikevicius alongside Dimitris Diamantidis at the backcourt and Kostas Kaimakoglou alongside Aleks Maric upfront, essentially throwing his best offensive weapons out there from the get-go, which made a difference as PAO’s attack gave CSKA’s defense fits.

In the second-quarter, however, CSKA upped the ante. Kirilenko, low maintenance and unassertive early, became more energetic on defense and aggressive on offense. Combined to Shved’s boost of fuel on both ends off the bench, Kirilenko led CSKA’s 17-5 second-quarter run in which the Russian club held the Greek club to five points on 18 possessions, forcing six missed shots at the rim, six missed shots from three-point range and four turnovers.

Panathinaikos continued to struggle early in the third, at one point totaling just 13 points on a 15-minute spam between the middle quarters. But then Obradovic brought Kaimakoglou back off the bench for the struggling Mike Batiste – CSKA’s lengthy and strong frontline was just a terrible matchup for Batiste who finished with 11 points but on a 3-9 shooting to go with six turnovers, and just like against Maccabi in the quarterfinals, Kaimakoglou revitalized PAO’s on a key moment by getting to the foul line.

In the fourth, the Hall of Famer Jasikevicius dropped yet another historic performance, scoring seven of PAO’s nine points in the quarter but CSKA took the lead late when head-coach Jonas Kazlauskas went center-less in crunch time, which stressed matchups in their favor and also turned out to be affective on defense as it provided more help-defense and double-team flexibility, well exemplified on the last possession of the game when a double-teamed Diamantidis found no great passing lane and ended up turning it over to seal the game’s faith.

In the other semifinal, Olympiacos Piraeus upset Regal FC Barcelona, 68-64, in a rematch of the championship game of two years ago. Vassilis Spanoulis was fantastic - dropping 21 points on 7-19 shooting and six assists, supported by Georgios Printezis who had 14 points on 5-7 shooting and four rebounds. For Barça, Juan Carlos Navarro was really the only bright spot with 18 points on 6-15 shooting.

Barcelona arrived having posted the most impressive defensive campaign in modern era as it allowed opponents to average only 86.1 points per 100 possessions on 45.1% effective shooting, both league-leading statistics by a rather wide margin. But Olympiacos managed to push Barcelona’s historic defense like no other team but Real Madrid has been able to this season, scoring 68 points on 68 possessions. Spanoulis just shattered the team’s pick-and-roll coverage with his masterful running of the set, always getting what the defense would give him. Olympiacos scored 24 points in the paint and 27 from three-point range.

Offensively, Barça was dreadful. It was held to 11 points on 18 possessions in the first-quarter, had just 29 points on 34 trips at halftime and finished with 64 on 68, a 94.1 offensive rating. And that was only the case because it posted a 46.3% offensive-rebounding rate as it grabbed 19 offensive rebounds to make up for the terrible 6-30 (20%) shooting from outside the paint and the 13 turnovers (giveaways on 19.1% of their possessions). The issues for Barça were chronic pains that should have caught up with them a while back. This has been a team that relied heavily on Navarro and Erazem Lorbek to dictate the mood of their offense. Still dealing with plantar fasciitis that has bothered him all year long – he was questionable for the game, and affected by Acie Law IV’s size, Navarro didn’t have the most efficient of games, posting a .466 effective field-goal percentage and five turnovers. And Lorbek was shut down, going for just nine points on 12 shots in 29 minutes, by Printezis who defended him extremely well, able to push him off the low post and then affectively front him.

Barça then struggled badly to manufacture scoring. The game was slow-paced and without transition opportunities, Chuck Eidson can’t make a difference and he went scoreless on 18 minutes. Pete Mickeal, heating up late in the year, was then the hope to provide an escape valve but he also no-showed, scoring just four points on eight shots in 23 minutes. Second-chance scoring really was the only thing they had going for them.

In the fourth, head-coach Xavi Pascual gave in and let Marcelinho Huertas and Fran Vázquez try to make something happen off the pick-and-roll. Neither Huertas nor Vázquez seem to have the vote of confidence of the coach because they don’t meet the ridiculous high defensive standards held by Pascual but with the season on the line, they were the ones responsible to try saving the ship.

It worked some as Barça got within two in a couple of occasions late but it never really was able to put a string of stops and scores together in order to take the lead. Huertas & Vázquez helped on offense but hurt on defense as Spanoulis continued to shred Barça’s pick-and-roll coverage and Joey Dorsey was killing them on the offensive glass. Luigi Lamonica called a couple of ticky-tack fouls that helped Barça go on one last charge but Spanoulis put an end to it all on a stop-and-pop 25-footer and fed Dorsey for an And-one in the ensuing possession.

In the championship game, the most intriguing matchup will be between Olympiacos’ pick-and-roll attack and CSKA’s pick-and-roll coverage. Against PAO, CSKA did great on switches. Nenad Krstic somehow intimidated Diamantidis from trying to go at him as last season’s MVP consistently settled for outside shots. Diamantidis was a lot more aggressive against Sasha Kaun but Kaun was also pretty good on the mismatch, forcing tough finishes out of Diamantidis and Jasikevicius at the rim.

CSKA is also a phenomenal held-defending team. Kirilenko is great blocking shots off the weak-side. PAO tried hard to minimize his impact, with Romain Sato not touching the ball on offense more often than not and the team running their action away from him, but still had to deal with Kirilenko’s terrific help instincts. Shved is also good at helping on paint protection assignments and rotation. It’ll be curious to see if Spanoulis can shred them like he did Barça.

The battle on the glass will also be interesting. Olympiacos is terrible protecting their own glass but is pretty active on the offensive boards. It led the quarterfinals in second-chance opportunities, picking up 41.1% of their misses against Siena and then dropped 11-offensive-rebound (31.4% offensive-rebounding rate) performance on Barça. Meanwhile, that’s sort of a weakness of CSKA, who allowed opponents to pick up second chances on 27% of the missed shots they forced all season and a 28.5% offensive-rebounding rate to PAO.

On the other end, it’s tough to see CSKA struggling like Barça did. Despite his five turnovers and 1-6 three-point shooting, Milos Teodosic actually went well running the team’s offense in the second-half. The Russian club is also a lot more comfortable playing in transition, so don’t expect Shved to be neutralized like Eidson was. Krstic should have a great advantage in the post as he is taller than Dorsey, quicker than Pero Antic and stronger than Printezis. And that Kirilenko guy will find a way to contribute like he always does.

For Olympiacos, the key should be forcing bad looks from the perimeter which they proved they can do against Barça who went 3-11 from mid-range and 3-19 from three-point range. CSKA is coming from a bad perimeter shooting performance on its own (5-24, 20.8% shooting from outside the paint against PAO in the semifinal) and might just be having a cold weekend. Acie Law IV would be to helping Olympiacos there but his possible absence can hold them back in that department. We’ll see.

CSKA Moscow is the favorite to win the title. They were so all season long and arrived as so this weekend. The Russian club proved on Friday that even when things don’t click, they can figure out a course of action quickly and then bounce back. Olympiacos Piraeus, on the end, sure has proven they can pull an upset over a more complete squad than theirs and they are on a row, overcoming Montepaschi Siena and Regal FC Barcelona in consecutive stages. So an outcome on their favor would be yet another upset but not a really shocking one at this point.

This is supposed to be that weekend of the year we are blessed with the best of European basketball at its finest. And Friday sure didn’t disappoint. We have already seen high quality play, emotion and drama. With at least one of the Greek teams making into the championship game, we’ll also have a great scene once more. We have a chance at feeling devotion one more time this season. So enjoy.

Editor's Note: All season-long statistical data on this post was researched at in-the-game.org, one phenomenal website dedicated to keeping track of advance statistics in the EuroLeague. Simon Jatsch does an amazing job and I hope he knows how much his work is appreciated.

Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

Knicks Caught in Between the Rock and the Hard Place

Rafael Uehara — Thu, 10 May 2012 16:04:39 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

Immediately after cutting ties with Isiah Thomas and hiring Donnie Walsh to replace him as the franchise’s decision maker, the New York Knicks diagramed a scheme to return to relevancy by putting together a core that featured, at least, two of the league’s TOP 20 stars. Once Walsh entered Madison Square Garden, the plan was to instantly clear as much cap space as possible, eyeing the free agency summer of 2010, the one most of the 2003 draft class elected to terminate their contracts at, as the time for the big play.

LeBron James, the touted target, however, passed on the Knicks to sign with the Heat and took Chris Bosh to South Beach with him. New York then moved on to the next best scenario, which based on signing the next best rated player available, at the time Amar’e Stoudemire, and maintain their options open regarding the Carmelo Anthony sweepstakes. Anthony seemed much more committed to the idea of hanging out playing on Broadway and it seemed a matter of time until the Knicks could tab him in the ensuing free agency period.

A lockout was deemed inevitable, though, and the uncertainty of what the league would look like on the other side of the new collective bargaining agreement rushed the process. Carmelo forced his way out of Denver in-season, in order to qualify for the $65 million dollar extension, getting to land where he planned all along in the process. The one who has paid for it is New York. Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov, Wilson Chandler and Raymond Felton aren’t elite players and weren’t combining to form an elite core but sure were combining for a better team than the one that featured Anthony’s presence most of the year. They were, at a minimum, more exciting.

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When Mike D’Antoni resigned after the team’s March, the 12th loss to the Chicago Bulls, the New York Knicks were considered the most underachieving squad in the league. What started as a bunch of unfit cast-offs surrounding Carmelo Anthony, Amar’e Stoudemire and Tyson Chandler eventually developed into a pretty decent core as Jeremy Lin, Steve Novak and Iman Shumpert proved to be all worthwhile rotation players and China returnee JR Smith was added.

And as the perception of the depth the Knicks contained improved, the pressure on D’Antoni grew. After that loss to Chicago, New York stood at 18-24 and looked in no way, shape or form as a playoff outfit. Anthony denied having pushed the coach out but it is undeniable that D’Antoni’s decision to depart was based on management’s unhappiness with Carmelo’s diminished role on the team’s offense, led by the media darling Lin, who emerged as the focal point of the scheme when Anthony missed games in February with nagging injuries.

When the Knicks replaced D’Antoni with assistant Mike Woodson, the consensus was the move was intended to give Anthony more freedom within the team’s offense. On Woodson’s last coaching job, in Atlanta, he was known to be somebody more interested in a scheme heavily based on isolation sets, which happens to suit Anthony’s game the best. That wasn’t the case immediately, despite what most expected, but gradually became true.

Against a mixed schedule (Indiana three times, Chicago twice, Orlando twice and Miami once but also plenty of Toronto, Charlotte and Detroit), the Knicks won 18 of 24 games with Woodson as the head-coach to clinch a playoff berth for the second straight year. As expected, individualistic play became a bigger part of their attack (17% of their shots came in isolation, according to MySynergy Sports) and with a rejuvenated Anthony (averaging 29.8 points on 49.5% shooting in April), the Knicks were peaking as the postseason arrived.

But New York crashed back to Earth in the first-round playoff series against the Miami Heat as it was eliminated in five games. They did manage to post the franchise’s first playoff win in 11 years but completely looked overmatched throughout the series. The whole point of that plan first engineered by Walsh was to make the Knicks a title contender again. And in this clash with Miami, New York has now learned they are far and away from climbing that mountain.

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Heading into this offseason, the Knicks are in an extremely tough position to improve their team in an attempt to take that next step in terms of contention. According to Sham Sports, linchpins Anthony, Stoudemire and Chandler will combine to earn just over $54 million dollars in salaries next season. If the salary cap line remains at $58 million, which has been the case over the last couple of seasons, this means the trio will account for 93% of New York’s cap. That was terrible planning by the Knicks’ front-office. In perspective, James, Dwyane Wade and Bosh will combine to earn $52 million next season.

To make matters worse, they will still have Renaldo Balkman, cut early in the year, on the books for $1.6 million. And Toney Douglas, dreadful the entire season, had his option picked up early in the year, so they will have to carry him and his $2 million dollars. Other than them, rookies Iman Shumpert - recovering from a torn ligament, Josh Harrelson and Jerome Jordan and midseason acquisition JR Smith are under contract. But Harrellson’s and Jordan’s deals are unguaranteed and Smith holds a player option, which he will most likely use and become a free agent. Landry Fields is a restricted free agent. And so is Jeremy Lin.

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Lin in a way is exactly what the Knicks need. Not Lin himself but him in a nutshell.

Undrafted out of Harvard, Lin played well in the 2010 Summer League, and signed as a free agent with the Golden State Warriors. After a year as a benchwarmer, he was released so the Warriors could free enough cap room to offer a sheet to restricted free agent DeAndre Jordan. Lin was then picked up by the Rockets who shortly after released him so they could free enough cap room to sign free agent Samuel Dalembert. And then there was Lin, a triple-double in the Developmental League and a couple of good practices later; a cult hero that exemplifies everything the hyped Knicks need.

After a breakout performance against the New Jersey Nets early in February, in which he fueled a come from behind win by the Knicks, New York won five straight. They had previously lost 11 of 13. More than that, they did it without their superstars, as Stoudemire had been away from the team with personal issues and Anthony strained his groin six minutes into the game against Utah, just the second of that dreamy five-game stretch.

With Lin, a true point-guard, running the show, we were able to see how effective Mike D’Antoni’s offensive system could have been. Over those five games, the Knicks averaged just less than five points more than their average for the season. That was the case because Lin’s skill-set fits D’Antoni’s scheme, which in the half-court forces constant high screen action in order to stress the defense and keep them from focusing on off-ball motion. But with Lin as such an unknown quantity, what happened is defenses were choosing to stay on their man rather than help on Lin’s penetration, unaware of his ability to get to the rim and finish there.

But as Anthony returned from injury, he didn’t fit the style of play the Lin-led Knicks were performing. D’Antoni was fired and then it was Lin’s time not to fit the style of play the Anthony-led Knicks were playing. Just before he torned his meniscus against the Cleveland Cavaliers in late March, “Linsanity” had become an afterthought as the league was made more familiar of his weaknesses. Lin had already proven to be for real, however, in the sense that he’s a great decision maker and is also not a born settler, like Douglas. But whether or not he was fit for that new identity the Knicks had developed was already starting to be questioned.

A huge marketing phenom and well like figure by the fan base, it’s tough to picture a scenario in which the Knicks don’t re-sign Lin. For that to happen, they will use the mid-level exception, but since Lin is a player with just two years of service in the league, New York can’t throw the full mid-level at him. He will most likely generate interest in free agency for more than the exception number the Knicks can offer him, so they will most likely have to use the bi-annual exception on him. And if another team makes an even more serious run at Lin, they will then be forced to use the little cap space they have left on him, absolutely crippling their financial state.

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With 93% of the salary can being spent Anthony, Stoudemire and Chandler, New York will need to focus heavily on finding more players exactly like Lin - undrafted hard worker who doesn’t get enough chances and bounces around because he doesn’t fit the prototype - through strong scouting and talent evaluation if they are in fact serious about trying to build a contender. It’s worth remembering the Knicks do not own a first-round pick on next year’s draft, as that selection was sent to Houston on the deal necessary to clear Eddie Curry off the cap.

They can’t even buy a pick because they already used the $3 million dollars a franchise is allowed to a year, sending that money to Washington on the sign-and-trade for Chandler. Finding Fields and Harrelsson in the second-round over the last couple of years, the Knicks have proven they are able to find underrated low-profile talent capable of contributing but with their first pick in this year’s draft at 55, that challenge is enhanced.

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Where the Knicks stand right now is here; head-coach Mike Woodson will most likely have his interim tag removed and probably officially be the team’s head-coach at next season’s start. Not because under his tenure New York showed glaring improvement over the team D’Antoni coached but because of his relationships within the organization. That’s definitely the wrong reason but it’s simply how pro basketball works, at least on franchises like the Knicks.

New York has what they consider to be an elite core in place but it has very little resources to surround them with the type of talent that can upgrade their status. So they are stuck in between the rock and the hard place. After a pretty disappointing finish for a tumultuous year, the Knicks are in a really difficult position to take the next step. And in New York, standing still is moving backwards.

Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

LegaBasket Week 34 Roundup: End of the Regular-Season, Playoff Bracket Set

Rafael Uehara — Wed, 09 May 2012 02:29:55 GMT

By Giovanni Reale

The weekend featured Week 34, the last one of the regular-season, with the playoff bracket being set. The postseason will begin on May 17th and 18th with the following matchups in the first round (best of five series): Montepaschi Siena (1) vs Cimberio Varese (8), Banco di Sardegna Sassari (4) vs Canadian Solar Bologna (5), Bennet Cantù (3) vs Scavolini Siviglia Pesaro (6), EA7 Milano (2) vs Umana Venezia (7)

As you read, finally Bennet Cantù lost its second place in the table as they fell, 66-65, in Bologna against Canadian Solar despite a 10-point lead in the last minutes. The final decisive plays were by Giuseppe Poeta (nine points on 2-3 shooting in the last quarter) and Viktor Sanikidze (six points on 2-2 shooting and four rebounds in the last quarter) while Petteri Koponen and Chris Douglas-Roberts kept their team alive with 16 points each. Cantù shot only four free throws.

EA7 Milano took advantage of Cantu’s loss and clinched an unexpected second seed beating Angelico Biella, 97-77, for its eighth straight win. Milano dominated down the boards ouutrebounding its opponents, 40-27 (seven rebounds for Richard Mason Rocca and Nicolò Melli each), shot 10-17 from beyond the arc (3-5 for Omar Cook, 2-3 for Ariel Filloy) and 21-32 from within the arc (again, Richard Mason Rocca and Nicolò Melli combined for 11-11). Coach Sergio Scariolo used the bench a lot as nobody played more than 24 minutes. On Biella’s side, Aubrey Coleman ended the season with another 20-point game.

Montepaschi Siena won 113-57 in Montegranaro whose team had only six players healthy to play. Mens Sana shot 29-45 from two-point range (7-7 for Ksistof Lavrinovic), 15-21 from three-point range (3-3 for Bootsy Thornton, 2-2 for Pietro Aradori, 4-5 for Igor Rakocevic) and dished 23 assists (none for Bo McCalebb and six for Rimantas Kaukenas).

Banco di Sardegna Sassari even did better than last year as they ended the regular season placed fourth and earned home-court advantage in the first round. The game was easy as Sassari prevailed 95-69 in Caserta whose team finished second to last place in the standings. Sassari outrebounded its opponents 46-20 (11 for Vanja Plisnic), shot 15-32 from beyond the arc (4-6 for Vanja Plisnic, 3-4 for Drake Diener). The two teams combined for only 16 free throws attempted.

Scavolini Siviglia Pesaro lost on the road for relegated Novipiù Casale Monferrato, 77-82. For the home team, Matteo Malaventura scored 28 points on 10-19 shooting (4-6 on triples) on a career-high afternoon.

Cimberio Varese beat Banca Tercas Teramo, 83-78, but the best performance was by a guest’s team player as Valerio Amoroso tied his career-high with 26 points on 11-16 shooting, while also grabbing nine rebounds and dishing three assists for a 34-ranking. The two teams combined for 68 three-point attempts.

Sidigas Avellino ended its regular season without the playoff qualification but with a good win in Venezia, 95-90. Marquis Green was the best player of the weekend (36-ranking); he shot 10-18 from the field and 6-6 from the free throw line for 32 points scored, he dished 10 assists, had four steals but also nine turnovers. Linton Johnson had a notable performance as well with 32 ranking points (five blocked shots). Umana Venezia ended the regular season with four straight losses.

Vanoli Braga Cremona ended Legabasket at tenth place (best result in club’s history) thanks to a great return round made of nine wins (seven in a row at home) and only seven losses. Jason Rich (18 points on 9-10 shooting from two-point range) was decisive one more time as he hit two clutch jumpers in the last minute and pushed his team to a win against Benetton Treviso, 84-82. Cremona outrebounded Treviso, 36-22, while the guests shot 13-24 from beyond the arc (Marcus Goree and Jeff Viggiano shot 3-5 while Jobey Thomas shot 5-7).

Acea Virtus Roma didn’t play as it was its scheduled bye.

Editor's Note: Giovanni Reale is a staff blogger for 'the Basketball Post', providing info on Italian basketball. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @Pariolino.

Zalgiris Takes Game One of LKL Finals in Dominating Fashion But Expect Series to Still Be Competitive

Rafael Uehara — Sun, 06 May 2012 19:13:31 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

Behind a flawless second-half in terms of execution, Zalgiris Kaunas beat Lietuvos Rytas, 71-56, at home to take a 1-0 series lead in the LKL Finals. Having lost just a single game in the domestic league, Zalgiris arrived as the favorites and displayed why in the opening game of the series, proving to have a deeper, more talented squad with a superior development of the unit. Marko Popovic was phenomenal - with 13 points and five assists - and so was Mantas Kalnietis - with five points and seven assists - running the team’s offense, successfully setting up Milovan Rakovic and Robertas Javtokas - 10 points each - in the paint. Paulius Jankunas was also a key contributor, with 11 points on 2-of-5 shooting from three-point range.

Zalgiris just killed Rytas on the pick-and-roll since the get-go, scoring 21 points on its 18 first-quarter possessions and scoring in the paint on five of their first eight scoring trips. Kalnietis was making all the right decisions. Rytas then adjusted to switch on the screens and it worked some as it took Zalgiris about five minutes of second-quarter to score more than three-points but Popovic’s reliable shooting brought the offense back to rhythm. Despite the well oiled execution, Zalgiris led by just seven at the half but a 25-point third-quarter in which Rytas’ defense regressed and Popovic returned to finding Javtokas, Rakovic and Jankunas for looks under the basket broke the game open.

Rytas got almost no production from its wings. It missed Brad Newley badly. Tyrese Rice, Lawrence Roberts, Steponas Babrauskas and Arturas Jomantas had miserable games, combining to go for 17 points on 5-for-19 shooting and seven turnovers. Renaldas Seibutis had the best game for Rytas on the perimeter, scoring 12 points but on 10 shots to go with a single assist. Aleksandr Rasic didn’t have his best game quarterbacking the offense either, shooting 2-for-7 and dishing just two assists in about 29 minutes. Jonas Valanciunas was the semi-bright spot with an 11-point, 4-rebound, 2-block stat line but he also contributed heavily to the team’s giveaway issues, personally turning the ball over five times.

Rytas could really use Newley here to boost up their playmaking on the perimeter and improve the shooting from distance but as far as Rytas’ problems go, that’s the least of them. It’s tough to believe Rice, Roberts, Babrauskas and Jomantas will continue to be all terrible all together throughout the series. So the 4-18 three-point shooting should even out. The turnovers are a huge concern, though. Rytas give it away 16 times. That’s crippling to any offense, especially one struggling in the jump-shooting department. That has to get better and in a hurry. But the biggest issue for Rytas is their pick-and-roll coverage. Zalgiris torched them early and just as they found a solution, Zalgiris made an adjustment of their way changing the screens from hard more to slip. That put pressure on Rytas’ rotation, which was terrible and Aleksandr Džikičius decided to go back to hedging, which was just as ineffective as in the first-quarter.

Based on what we saw on game one, Zalgiris remains the favorites to take the title. It’s sort of simple, actually. They have more better players and their better players are playing better. I expect the series to be more competitive, though, as so far we’ve only had one good quarter. As exemplified by their performance in the EuroCup and the VTB United league, reaching the Final Four of both competitions, Džikičius has been able to take the most out of Rytas all year and I am counting him to do the same here.

Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

2012 EuroLeague Final Four Guide for NBA Fans

Rafael Uehara — Sat, 05 May 2012 02:58:26 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

We are officially within a week from the 2012 EuroLeague Final Four, with this year’s edition taking place in Istanbul. It is that week of the year again and we should be blessed with the best of European basketball at its finest. We can argue the three best teams made it the biggest stage. That combined to Olympiacos’ somewhat Cinderella story should make for one great ride. The event even attracts an NBA fan or two who is curious to check and see how this whole other side of basketball is like. So here is a guide of the 2012 Final Four for NBA fans.

CSKA Moscow has been the best team in the league all year. The Russian powerhouse was the one of continent’s most dominant forces in the 2000’s, posting eight-straight Final Four appearances and winning a couple of titles with now Brooklyn Nets’ owner Mikhail Prokhorov running the club and now Los Angeles Lakers’ assistant Ettore Messina coaching the team. Last year they failed to advance from the initial group stages, officially signaling the end of that cycle. They retooled in the offseason, acquiring former Net, Thunder, Celtic Nenad Krstic and former Jazz Andrei Kirilenko among others, and have now returned to relevancy.

Kirilenko has had an amazing season in Europe. He was already named the defensive player of the year and should be named the league’s MVP in the next week or so. He has displayed all his skills as complete all-around player who can impact the game in so many different ways. Defensively, he is the ace that provides so much flexibility within their scheme and offensively he is a breakdown explorer and bail-out safety net. Kirilenko can cut, spot-up, handle, pass, screen, post-up and crash the offensive glass. So instead of defining one specific thing for him to do, head-coach Jonas Kazlauskas is smart enough to let him to some of everything. And the result of it has been Kirilenko posting one of the most remarkable seasons efficiency-wise (the record-breaking stuff cooled off as the cohesiveness of the team came together and also he dealt with a concussion in early December) in league-history, as he has averaged 1.17 point-per-possession on 66.3% true-shooting and posted a 15% assist-rate on just 20% usage.

Krstic has also gone through a similar European renascence. A simple rotation big in the NBA, Krstic is a true impact player in the EuroLeague. He would in fact be among MVP contenders on a normal year when Kirilenko wouldn’t be around to do the stuff he is doing. He is averaged 1.23 point-per-possession on 68.2% true-shooting and a low 10% turnover-rate considering his 23.7% usage. Krstic is an important part of CSKA Moscow’s offense, the league’s highest scoring this season and don’t be shocked when he has a big game Friday against a strength challenged Panathinaikos’ frontcourt.

Sasha Kaun is another CSKA player that should draw some sort of attention from NBA fans. The Cleveland Cavalier draftee and former Kansas Jayhawk was closer to the league once upon a time but after undergoing knee surgery last season, he is now further away and it’s doubtful the Cavs or any other team will ever have enough interest to make a push for him and inquire whether or not Kahn is interest in coming over.

And a player some fans may be familiar with and perhaps should keep in the back of their minds is Milos Teodosic. There are always rumors about a team or two looking into the Serbian point-guard and wondering whether or not it would make sense taking a flyer on him. Teodosic is extremely mercurial and up until this year, there were doubts about his ability to play simply point-guard in order to fit in with more gifted offensive players but he has answered those questions, running the CSKA’s pick-and-roll heavy offense as well as you could ask him to, although his turnover issues are still there (21.6% turnover-rate). So all those team x might be interested in Milos rumors are closer to actually being true this summer.

CSKA Moscow faces the defending champions Panathinaikos Athens in one of the semifinals. PAO is another European powerhouse whose dictionary definition has the word victory attached to it. Head-coach Zeljko Obradovic has coached the Greens for 13 years now and this is the ninth Final Four he has led his team to over the period, tabbing five championships on the way.

Nick Calathes is the only true NBA prospect on the team and his rights are held by the Dallas Mavericks. After a great Final Four last year, exploding in the semifinal game against Montepaschi Siena, in which he was a key part for them to win that title, many believed Calathes was actually closer to the NBA than expected, already wondering how a Rodrigue Beaubois-Nick Calathes backcourt would look like. But Calathes has failed to take that next step forward on his development, returning to being an inconsistent non-impact player. The hope is perhaps he is just that type of baller that gears up for big moments. I guess we will see if that’s the case next weekend.

Former Xavier Muskeeter Romain Sato could probably hang his own in the league as one of those perimeter players who bring good defense and three-point shooting on the perimeter but I doubt any teams regard him as somebody they should be interested in. And I think the ship has sailed on Mike Batiste, who played for the Memphis Grizzlies. In Europe he is a household name. Don’t think there are many teams knocking on his door either.

Someone you should be aware of is Dimitris Diamantidis. No, there is no chance the 32 year-old would just go ahead and have a cup of coffee in the Association just to see what is like on the other side of the glass, Juan Carlos Navarro style. But you should know that Diamantidis is a sure thing Hall of Famer, three-time EuroLeague winner, two-time league MVP and six-time defensive player of the year. So when he is doing awesome things like locking down his man with historic on-ball defense and running pick-and-rolls to perfection, don’t pull a Mike Krzyzewski and say; “hey, 13 (THIRTEEN!!!) is a nice player.”

The other semifinal features Regal FC Barcelona and Olympiacos Piraeus. That’s a rematch from the championship game of two years ago. While Barça remains an elite class squad, although no longer a dominant force on a level of their own, Oly has changed a lot. A couple of years ago Olympiacos was a team filled with high profile commodities such as Teodosic, Theo Papaloukas, Linas Kleiza, Josh Childress, Ioannis Bouroussis and Sofoklis Schortsanitis. The owners are no longer rich enough to afford talent at that price range and how they made it to the Final Four this year is one great story of roster building through value, a couple of lucky breaks, overachievement and great coaching.

Olympiacos’ game centers around scoring-guard Vassilis Spanoulis, that guy Jeff Van Gundy thought couldn’t hang in the NBA. Spanoulis has had one monster season – averaging 16.5 points on 56.1% effective shooting and a point per possession while also posting a .272 assist percentage on 27.5% usage. In a normal year in which Kirilenko wouldn’t be around, he would be a heavy favorite to win the MVP.

The arrivals of Acie Law and Joey Dorsey midseason have been a huge reason of why Olympiacos took a leap from where they were at season’s start to who they are now, a team capable of making the Final Four. Law has actually been half-decent after already being half-decent with Partizan Belgrade, although shooting their way out of the league there in the end. The same is true for Dorsey, who brought better post-defense, paint protection and rebounding to a team that needed to sure up its frontcourt rotation, that after he had a not so successful stint with Caja Laboral Baskonia.

The star addition, however, was Kyle Hines, who arrived from Brose Baskets of Bamberg in January. Hines is your typical hard working, high energy, high maintenance, undersized, shot blocking big who will definitely crawl his way into the NBA one day. Count on it.

A youngster to keep an eye on is Kostas Papanikolaou. Once upon a time the 22-year-old was regarded as a prospect with a good shot of being one of those second-round picks nobody knows or cares for and then half-a-decade later, BOOM, he is on the Spurs and becomes a fan favorite. But Papanikolaou hasn’t progressed all the much and this year has been a smaller part of the team than last season.

Former Michigan State Spartan Kalin Lucas and former Butler Bulldog Matt Howard started the season with the team but didn’t survive through the year, not all the shocking considering head-coach Dusan Ivkovic is an elderly from Serbia, proven Hall of Famer who returned from retirement after sitting out a few years and doesn’t seem like the patient teacher type, especially to explain to some American kids this whole different game they have probably never had a thought of its existence.

Meanwhile Barcelona is looking at a shot for its second title in three years. Barça arrives with its defense having posted one of the best performances in history. It has held opponents to an average of just 86.1 points per 100 possessions and 45.1% effective shooting, both league-leading statistics by a rather wide margin. Barcelona has rotations, help-defense concepts, switching and forcing opponents to low percentage areas down to an art.

And the enhancer behind that type of performance is Boniface N’Dong who is having the best season of his career at age 34 (officially). The ridiculous long seven-footer (that just sounded wrong) played a single season for the Clippers in 2005-2006 and despite his advanced age (officially) could be a relevant part of a rotation today in the league. Obviously, that’s not going to happen. But in a perfect world, it should. That’s how good a basketball player he still is.

Another of Barcelona’s big-men who have already played in the league and should perhaps be given a shot at a return is Kosta Perovic. The 27-year-old, 7-feet-2 center is a great post defender and could have a place in a rotation. That’s what I thought of Timofey Mozgov, though, and George Karl refuses to throw him out there against Andrew Bynum, so what do I know…

Oh and there’s that Juan Carlos Navarro guy. We all know JC’s deal. He hung out in Memphis for a year, then the Grizzlies traded Pau Gasol and Navarro looked around and said; “nah, man, I’m out of here”. As much as we all hope and dream for a possible return, that’s extremely unlikely and breaks your heart.

Marcelinho Huertas is constantly regarded as someone with a good chance of getting a shot in the league soon but Marcelinho is now 29 and the clock keeps ticking. If it hasn’t happened for him yet, you have to wonder if it ever will.

The two guys on Barcelona’s squad with an actual chance of making into the league, as soon as next year even, are Erazem Lorbek and Fran Vázquez. In fact, it has been reported Lorbek has already decided to join the Spurs, who acquired his rights on the Kawhi Leonard-George Hill trade, next summer. Lorbek is your prototypical skilled low post presence European big, a versatile weapon whose multi-dimensionality of his skill set makes him one of the toughest players to defend in the globe as he can score from the post, off the pick-and-pop, spotting-up…

Oh, Fran Vázquez… Fran was drafted 11th overall by the Orlando Magic in the 2005 draft, which envisioned him to be the perfect frontcourt pairing for Dwight Howard. Vázquez just never crossed the Atlantic. Word is he was about to do it last summer. His contract was up, he declined Barça’s offer for an extension, which resulted in head-coach Xavi Pascual putting him on the doghouse for essentially that whole year. But then the lockout took place and Vázquez re-signed for just one year, possibly signaling he’s really intending to come over.

It remains likely Vázquez will be a pretty good player in the Association. He has the attributes to succeed. Fran is a lengthy athletically big who is a great shot blocker, a fundamentally sound post defender and a legit weapon off the pick-and-roll. His minutes over the last couple of years have been absurd. I figure Pascual and management can’t possibly still be angry over the extension thing so I’m just gonna go ahead and guess he slept with the coach’s wife or did something else terrible of that nature. It just doesn’t add up how little he is onn the court.

The thing is does he even factor in on the Magic’s plans anymore? Orlando has the whole Dwight Howard cloud hanging over their heads, they are likely to re-sign Ryan Anderson and Glen Davis has proven to be not a terrible investment. In theory, it wouldn’t be unreasonably to add Vázquez to that rotation since he would become a true backup to Howard, which neither Anderson nor Davis is, but is this going to be Otis Smith’s thought process? Does Otis Smith have a thought process?

Anyway, these are the storylines and names you, NBA fan, can familiarize yourself with if intending to watch the EuroLeague Final Four this year. It’s a different type of basketball but it is basketball and if you really do love the game, some part of you will be open-minded about the differences and enjoy some. So, feel devotion. You might like it.

Editor's Note: All the statistical data on this post was researched at in-the-game.org, one phenomenal website dedicated to keeping track of advance statistics in the EuroLeague. Simon Jatsch does an amazing job and I hope he knows how much his work is appreciated.

Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

2012 EuroLeague Final Four Preview

Rafael Uehara — Fri, 04 May 2012 22:34:21 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

We are officially within a week from the 2012 EuroLeague Final Four, with this year’s edition taking place in Istanbul. 184 games were played. Three of last year’s participants, Real Madrid, Maccabi Electra Tel Aviv and Montepaschi Siena, failed to make it back. Three absent powerhouses last year, Olympiacos Piraeus, CSKA Moscow and Regal FC Barcelona, take their place instead returning to Europe’s biggest stage. Which so does the defending champions Panathinaikos Athens, looking to become the first repeat champions since Maccabi in 2004.

PAO is essentially a carbon copy from last year’s team. It was a season as usual for Zeljko Obradovic’s team who arrive at the Final Four, the eighth on 13 years of the Obradovic-Dimitris Diamantidis era, having lost a grant total of 10 games all year, combining the EuroLeague, the Greek Cup and the Greek league. At times Obradovic complained about the team’s effort but it is tough to poke hole on Panathinaikos’ profile as the Greens rank third in offensive efficiency and fourth in defensive efficiency.

But in order to defend its title, the Greens will have to first pass through the EuroLeague’s most prolific team this season. CSKA Moscow returns to the Final Four after an extremely unusual year last season when it failed to get out of the initial group stages, ending a streak of eight straight semifinals appearances. The Russians used the offseason to finally put an end to that cycle as club cornerstones JR Holden and Trajan Langdon retired, with only Ramunas Siskauskas remaining from the core of Mikhail Prokhorov, Ettore Messina, Theo Papaloukas, Holden, Langdon and Siskauskas that led the organization through that 2000s Golden Age. It revamped its core by bringing in Milos Teodosic, Darjus Lavrinovic and Nenad Krstic and giving a maximized role to Alexey Shved. But what really put them in a class of their own was the acquisition of Andrei Kirilenko, who at first was only going to stay for the duration of the NBA lockout but chose to remain for the remainder of the year.

CSKA and PAO have played each other twice already this year as both were part of group b on the initial stages. The Russian club won both games; the first a 78-76 overtime struggle in Athens and the other a 91-75 pounding in Moscow without Kirilenko who at time was dealing with the effects of a concussion. The common trend in both games is the excessive amount of times Panathinaikos got to the foul line - 31 times in one and 34 in the other, Krstic’s paint dominance - 15.5-point and 11.5-rebound average in the two-game series, and how well CSKA shot from beyond the arc - a combined 18 three-pointers.

CSKA runs a pick-and-roll heavy offense, which features the best attributes of their players; the quality passing from the handlers, the versatility of the screeners and the accuracy of the spot-up shooters. And the perfecting matching of those has resulted in prolificacy for the team’s offense - the highest scoring in the league at 85.5 points a game and also number one in offensive efficiency, effective shooting, shooting from the paint and assists-per-field-goal-made, while also ranking second in three-point shooting - with all their playmakers having outstanding seasons (32% assist-rate by Teodosic, .682 true-shooting percentage by Krstic, .663 true-shooting percentage by Kirilenko, 50% three-point shooting and 26.5% assist-rate by Sved, 41.4% three-point shooting by Siskauskas, 40.7% three-point shooting by Viktor Khryapa).

It is one tough matchup for Panathinaikos, who has yet again gotten nothing out of Aleks Maric, signed in the summer of 2010 to be the replacement for Nikola Pekovic at center. But as he arrived, Maric dealt with an elbow injury that sidelined him for most of last year and he has never been the same since. Steven Smith has gotten most of the starts in the frontcourt, pushing Mike Batiste to center. As great a fundamentally sound positional defender Batiste is, he will always be undersized at center and going against Krstic was trouble in the initial group stages and projects to be the issue once more in Istanbul.

The biggest strengths of PAO’s defense are the athletic-ability of its perimeter players, the versatility of the entire squad as almost every player can guard two or three positions and their level of activity, which makes them successful at forcing turnovers (.201 takeaway percentage, number one in the EuroLeague). Teodosic sure as hell is giveaway-prone (21.6% turnover-rate) and there lies Panathinaikos’ biggest opportunity at generating stops. Diamantidis, Romain Sato and Smith are great elite one-on-one defenders but the only isolation player on CSKA’s squad besides Teodosic is Jamont Gordon, who has been fairly competent since the change to off-guard midway through the year but doubtfully will get high usage in this game. That should mean Obradovic will put Diamantidis on Teodosic, which is one fantastic matchup for the Greens as the six-time defensive player of the year, the greatest on-ball defender in Europe has a major history of success against the Serbian who played for Olympiacos in the four seasons prior to this one.

That leaves Sato and Smith to rotate on Kirilenko. Early in the year CSKA gave Kirilenko higher usage because Teodosic’s turnover issues were at an unacceptable rate and head-coach Jonas Kazlauskas misused Gordon as backup point-guard. Things were eventually sorted out, though, and Kirilenko’s role on the offense is simply of breakdown explorer and bail-out safety net. He can cut, spot-up, handle, pass, screen, post-up and crash the offensive glass. So instead of defining one specific thing for him to do, Kazlauskas is smart enough to let him to some of everything. And the result of it has been Kirilenko posting one of the most remarkable seasons efficiency-wise (the record-breaking stuff cooled off as the cohesiveness of the team came together and also the concussion happened) in league-history. Sato and Smith provide the best possible matchup for PAO but nobody is expecting them to actually be successful at shutting down Kirilenko because nobody has been able to do so all year.

On the other side, Panathinaikos’ meal ticket is also the high pick-and-roll. Hall of famers Diamantidis and Sarunas Jasikevicius lead the way, making great decisions off the set – PAO has assisted on 54.8% of its field-goals. What can hold them back, however, going against such an intuitive defensive unit (second in defensive efficiency and fifth in opponents’ effective shooting) is that the big-men have not been awesome finishing this season – 59.6% paint shooting by Batiste, 55.6% by Smith, 50% by Stratos Perperoglou and 48.7% by Kostas Kaimakoglou. As a team, PAO shot 58.2% in the paint, second-worst in the league. Add to it that CSKA has blocked five percent of opponents’ shot attempts, good for third in the league throughout the year. If the game gets into a stage they need to score with urgency, that should result in a lot of Ian Vougioukas on the floor, which worked out fine in the quarterfinals against Maccabi as Vougioukas managed to rent a place in the free-throw line, but would leave them short-handed defensively.

For CSKA the answer is to show hard and hedge high on the pick-and-rolls and run them off the three-point line on the rotations but also following through in the mid-range area, constantly directing PAO to their shot blocking and help. The extra attention is on the perimeter. Panathinaikos has shot 38.4% from three-point range and 41% from mid-range. Even Nick Calathes and David Logan, who had been dreadful from beyond the arc all year, came alive in the team’s quarterfinals series and should be paid attention to. The one weakness of the Russian club the Greek club can explore is the board protection. CSKA has allowed opponents to pick up second chances on 27% of the missed shots they force, while PAO ranks second on offensive-rebounding percentage, securing 32.7% of their misses.

CSKA is the favorite to advance to Sunday’s championship game, not just because they won both games against the Greek club this season but because of the juggernaut they have been all year. They are a dominant force who have reached such an outstanding level of cohesiveness as a unit that it is their title’s to lose as of this point. That does not mean a victory by PAO would be an upset, mostly because basketball is a game of five-on-five in which Diamantidis always wins and I’m not even quite sure by law Obradovic is allowed to lose.

The other semifinal features a rematch of the 2010 championship game between Regal FC Barcelona and Olympiacos Piraeus. A lot has changed since then. Barça is no longer the most dominant force in the continent, although still in an elite class. But the biggest change is Oly’s approach regarding the building of the team. Two years ago, Olympiacos’ squad featured a number of stars from Teodosic running point and Papaloukas backing him up through Linas Kleiza and Josh Childress on the wings to Ioannis Bourousis and Sofoklis Schorsanitis manning the paint. The owners are no longer rich enough to afford talent at that price range and what took place in Piraeus this year is one great story of roster building through value, a couple of lucky breaks, overachievement and great coaching.

While everything still revolves around the one superstar they have left, Vassilis Spanoulis, it’s the great contribution they have gotten from their in-season pick-ups that took them to Istanbul. Head-coach Dusan Ivkovic had them playing good enough ball early in the season but the team definitely took a leap with the arrivals of Kyle Hines, Joey Dorsey and even Acie Law. Hines and Dorsey sured up the frontcourt rotation, lacking behind Pero Antic and Giorgios Pritenzis in the depth chart. And Law provided a steadier presence handing the ball, taking over for the developmental prospect Kalin Lucas.

So we should project Olympiacos’ outlook for the Final Four based on the team that showed up in the quarterfinals series against Montepaschi Siena because they are far and away from that team that started the season in August. Oly dominated the glass on that series, grabbing 41.1% of their misses. They shot 109 free-throws over the four games and also posted a great defensive performance, holding Siena to an average of just 95 points per 100 possessions and 48.5% effective shooting. Although, it should be remembered the Italian club missed Rimantas Kaukenas, a huge part of their offense.

Just like every European team, Olympiacos has in the pick-and-roll a reliable set in its offense. The more athletic Hines and Dorsey provide better options than Antic and Pritenzis who are better suited for the pick-and-pop. But their meal ticket really is the isolation sets featuring Spanoulis, who has had one monster season – averaging 16.5 points on 56.1% effective shooting and a point per possession while also posting a .272 assist percentage.

But Oly can’t afford to rely on Spanoulis as the single engine of their attack against Barça. Xavi Pascual’s squad has put together one historic performance on defense as it has held opponents to an average of just 86.1 points per 100 possessions and 45.1% effective shooting, both league-leading statistics by a rather wide margin. Barcelona has rotations, help-defense concepts, switching and forcing opponents to low percentage areas down to an art. And the enhancer behind the performance is Boniface N’Dong who is having the best season of his career at age 34 (officially). Having that eraser behind the scheme is a great asset but it sure helps when Chuck Eidson and Pete Mickeal (who has moved better and better as the season progressed) are already leading the opponents into tough positions to finish. Then with Marcelinho Huertas, Victor Sada and Kosta Perovic filling other spots, Barcelona is simply always equipped to handle whatever the opponent can throw at them and make up for whatever issues Juan Carlos Navarro and Erazem Lorbek (at times) have them exposed to.

On the other it has been a process for Barça, who broke in a new point-guard this year with Huertas’ arrival and Ricky Rubio’s departure to the NBA while also having to deal with injuries, mostly at the mid-point of the season as Navarro went down with plantar fasciitis, Lorbek had his rhythm slowed down due to some nagging issues and then Eidson went down with a knee sprain in the King’s Cup championship game. All looked fine in the team’s quarterfinals sweep of Unics Kazan and have seemed to remain healthy as the most important week of the year arrives.

But even at its best, Barcelona hasn’t looked like a demolition machine this year because they haven’t gotten as much as expected out of offseason marquee signee Huertas. We all banked on the Brazilian being a major upgrade over Rubio since his style of play wasn’t so based on the transition element but Huertas has struggled to fit in just as much as Ricky did. His numbers across the board haven’t been terrible and his good shooting (53.3% from mid-range and 43.1% from three-point range, overall 69.8% effective shooting) still makes him a positive presence on the lineup but it’s undeniable Huertas hasn’t played at the level that made many judge him the best point-guard in all of Europe over the last couple of seasons.

So Barça essentially has a predictable offense. It’s either Navarro putting it up or taking advantage of the defense overreacting to him and feeding someone else a great look, something involving Lorbek (such a versatile weapon whose multi-dimensionality of his skill set makes him one of the toughest players to defend in the globe as he can score from the post, off the pick-and-pop, spotting-up…) or Eidson running in the transition. On paper it sounds like a lot but in the world of professional basket, predictability kills you. So there is why so many people complain about how ugly Barcelona’s games are; they force the worst on their opponents and grind it out on offense, most times able to insert their will. With Mickeal continuing to look closer and closer of being the player he was prior to last year’s injury-plagued season again, they are hoping he is the one who can provide flexibility within their outlook. And his 16-point, 6-rebound performance against Real Madrid yesterday means they could get their wish.

Real Madrid has been the most successful team dismantling Barcelona’s defense this year. Olympiacos should look into using the same template. They obviously don’t have the personnel to cause as much trouble but there are a couple of specific areas they can attack. Guards that can both get red hot from outside and get to the rim off the dribble provoke a bug on Barcelona’s ball-screen defense. Ivkovic should look into getting Spanoulis and Law on those situations a lot. Although, for it to really work Olympiacos must make them respect the secondary options, which should be problem since Oly is neither a good paint-finishing (63.4%) nor a good jump-shooting team (33% from mid-range, 32.6% from three-point range). Active, pesky big-men on the offensive glass exactly like Hines also give Barça issues. So if they pull the upset, it will because they were able to grab 17 offensive rebounds for 25 second-chance points or something just as absurd like that.

It is unlikely, though. Barcelona is the heavy favorite to advance to their second championship game in three years. They just have too much to throw at Olympiacos, a veteran core that settles at nothing but winning and that Navarro guy, who is always something special waiting to happen.

It is that week of the year again and we should be blessed with the best of European basketball at its finest. We can argue the three best teams made it the biggest stage. That combined to Olympiacos’ somewhat Cinderella story should make for one great ride. I feel devotion. How could you not?

Editor's Note: All the statistical data on this post was researched at in-the-game.org, one phenomenal website dedicated to keeping track of advance statistics in the EuroLeague. Simon Jatsch does an amazing job and I hope he knows how much his work is appreciated.

Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

Despite Loss on ‘El Classico’, Real Madrid Proves Yet Again it’s Tailor-Made to Beat Regal FC Barcelona

Rafael Uehara — Fri, 04 May 2012 16:21:11 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

Regal FC Barcelona stormed back from a seven-point deficit heading into the fourth-quarter to beat Real Madrid, 86-83, at Palau Blaugrana and secure the number one seed in the Liga Endesa playoffs as Barça now stands at 28-5 and Real Madrid at 25-8 with a single week remaining, taking place this weekend. Had Madrid pulled the upset, it would still have a remote chance of tying Barcelona’s record on week 34 which would earn them home-court advantage throughout the playoffs as they would win the tie-break over Barça, having won both regular-season games. No longer a possibility, though.

But despite the loss, Real Madrid proved yet again it has put together a team tailor-made to beat Barcelona this season. It was evident off the bat as Madrid dropped 28 points on 20 possessions in the first-quarter, that’s an average of 1.4 point-per-possession, through 77.4% true-shooting while assisting on seven of their nine first field-goals. Ante Tomic got them kick-started, causing massive troubles to both Erazem Lorbek and Fran Vázquez, getting sent to the foul line constantly, dominating his way to a 13-point, 5-rebound stat-line in the first nine minutes of the game.

Then, as the second-unit took over in the second, Real Madrid ran more pick-and-rolls. As Sergio Rodriguez gave their big men trouble in the switches, Barça started to overreact which freed the screeners on rolls to the rim. Then when Barcelona took that away, it was time for Carlos Suárez to hurt them from the post for yet another game. It’s been proved Pete Mickeal can’t guard Suárez on those post-ups yet they are always matched up together and the result is always Real Madrid getting to shoot a ton of free-throws either from his aggressiveness or his skilled passing to cutters. The Madridistas got to attempt 17 foul-line shots in the first 20 minutes and dropped a 48-point first-half on Barça, trough a 126 offensive rating, which has to be the highest an opponent was able to get against Barcelona in this historic season they are having.

It was a see-saw battle in the third and Real Madrid was able to add a point to its lead but in the fourth, things unraveled and all the blame for the loss goes to head-coach Pablo Laso. He coached the entire fourth-quarter trying not to lose, putting a lineup to prevent rather than score with the likes of Kyle Singler, Felipe Reyes and Mirza Begic getting the bulk of the minutes instead of Suárez and Tomic. Victor Sada shut down Sergio Llull and Laso’s solution to it was to insert Rodriguez to play alongside him, taking Jaycee Carroll, who was once again giving Juan Carlos Navarro major trouble running off screens, out on a key stretch of the game. Even as Barça took its first lead inside five minutes, Laso kept his defensive approach, only subbing Carroll in with about 2:30 minutes left and only bringing Tomic inside of two minutes. Oh, there is the monstrosity that was that last possession.

Regardless of the fact they blew the fourth-quarter lead and the lead, what Real Madrid takes out of this game is the certainty they are built to beat Barça. When they beat them up for the first time in the Liga Endesa, they identified the matchups and took advantage of them, then on the King’s Cup championship game they could the see the trends carrying over and now they can be sure that what they throw, Barça struggles to deal with. Carroll gives Navarro hell and Barcelona can’t hide him because Mickeal and Chuck Eidson are already drawing either Suárez or Martynas Pocius. Real Madrid’s bigs are extremely active on the offensive glass and have more success than usual going against Lorbek and CJ Wallace, who is way too involved on Barcelona’s season because Vázquez probably slept with Xavi Pascual’s wife or did something else to that effect to justify his minutes over the last couple of seasons. And Llull and Rodriguez are such a tough cover on those pick-and-rolls because they are streaky with their shooting so the bigs can’t risk not showing hard or hedging high and can also give them trouble on the switches with their quickness.

Real Madrid will not have home-court advantage if the two powerhouses meet in the Liga Endesa finals in a month-and-a-half but something else this game proved is that Madrid also has no issue in pushing Barça at Palau Blaugrana. Hadn’t Laso interfered, they would have left Cataluña with the win. Although the EuroLeague campaign, especially the exit, give people the impression this team has underachieved, truth is Real Madrid is on its way to accomplish something major this year. It’s not that they are equipped to bring down Barcelona’s empire. At this point, based on what we’ve seen in their games this season, they are actually likely to do it.

Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com

LegaBasket Week 33 Roundup: Crowd Battling for the Second Seed

Rafael Uehara — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:35:29 GMT

By Giovanni Reale

The midweek featured the second to last week in the regular-season but the seeding for the playoffs is yet to be defined. The last week will take place next weekend, Cantù, playing in Bologna, and Milano, facing Biella at home, will fight for the second seed. The two teams are paired at second place with Cantù having the head to head scoring deficit in their favor. Sassari, Pesaro and Bologna have the same points in the standings, but at the moment Sassari is placed fourth and Pesaro is placed fifth due to head to head results between the three teams. Venezia and Varese instead are respectively seventh and eighth seeds, locked already.

Canadian Solar Bologna won in Siena and celebrated a rare record, having defeated Siena both in the first and return round (never happened with Pianigiani as a coach for Siena which introduced Jonas Macioulis). The decisive break for Siena is the 26-10 of the third quarter when Chris Douglas Roberts scored three triples out of four attempts. Viktor Sanikidze as well had a great game, scoring 16 points on 6-8 shooting and grabbing 15 rebounds. Virtus Bologna outrebounded the reigning champions 45-28 and shot 10-24 from beyond the arc.

Bennet Cantù easily won against Fabi Shoes Montegranaro, 81-63, having reached a 30-point deficit in the third quarter. Doron Perkins appeared as usual in all stats (15 points on 7-12 from the field, 10 rebounds and six assists).

EA7 Milano took away a win from Treviso, 84-76 mainly thanks to a career high game by Omar Cook (23 points on 5-8 in three-point shooting and six assists) while Ioannis Bourousis confirmed its good shape scoring 22 points on 8-9 shooting within the arc.

Scavolini-Pesaro defeated Virtus Roma, 83-75, with a decisive run of 25-17 in the last quarter and shooting 8-17 from beyond the arc. James White scored 25 points on 9-11 shooting, grabbed five rebounds and dished five assists.

Banco di Sardegna Sassari beat Umana Venezia, 81-74, and had all the starting five in double figures. On the guests’ side Szymon Szewczyk had the best ranking performance of the week with 34 points (as much as Avellino’s Linton Johnson) thanks to 25 points (week-high as well) on 10-13 shooting and eight rebounds.

In Avellino, Sidigas beat Cimberio Varese, 78-77, thanks to a buzzer-beater triple by Taquan Dean (back in action after two months) and four other players in double figures. For Varese instead Phil Goss scored 32 points on 8-10 shooting while Diego Fajardo shot 8-9 and grabbed 10 rebounds.

Angelico Biella defeated Otto Casertà, 88-84, driven by guards Aubrey Coleman and Jacob Pullen who combined for just three turnovers, three steals and 44 points while on the other hand, centers Andrè Smith and Andrija Stipanovic combined for 40 points on 16-21 shooting from the field and 16 rebounds.

In a crucial head to head match for avoiding relegation, Teramo beat, 83-77, Casale Monferrato. Achille Polonara this time scored “only” 21 points on 9-13 shooting and grabbed nine rebounds. On Casale’s side Oliver Stevic scored 20 points on 10-13 from the field and grabbed 12 rebounds.

Vanoli Braga Cremona didn’t play as it was its scheduled bye.

Editor's Note: Giovanni Reale is a staff blogger for 'the Basketball Post', providing info on Italian basketball. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @Pariolino.

As James Dominates and Battier & Miller Come Through, Heat Adds to Favoritism

Rafael Uehara — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:05:08 GMT

By Rafael Uehara

Except for stretches early in the year, the Miami Heat have not really looked like a dominant force this season, ending the regular-season with seven losses on their last 16 games but most importantly, looking sloppy. After entering the season as the heavy favorites to win the title considering they had bigger holes last year and came within a couple of lucky breaks from winning that title, some, including yours truly, expected Miami to cruise through this shortened season on their way to fulfilling the high expectations everyone have to this core that features the league’s best player LeBron James and another top five all around performer in Dwyane Wade leading the way.

There were bumps on the road, however. Wade missed 13 regular-season games but the Heat went 12-1 on his absence. It was the unreliability regarding Chris Bosh, Shane Battier, Mike Miller and Joel Anthony that impacted their bottom line. Bosh was a lot more inconsistent this year, now on his second season of adaption to a diminished role. Miami completely quit posting him up, finally understanding that’s not his strong suit but Bosh didn’t actually come through for them as pick-and-pop screener and weak-side shooter, posting a .493 effective field-goal percentage – practically the lowest of his career since his second year. Whenever he was affective, it made a night-and-day difference on the Heat’s offense but his inconsistency and at times disinterest out there held Miami back.

Battier was signed to sure up their wing rotation, bringing great spot-up shooting and perimeter defense. King of the corner three-pointer, hitting 43% of those with Houston and Memphis last season, he struggled badly at season’s start after dealing with a calf injury during the abbreviated training camp and preseason. As the season progressed, Battier eventually began to get his legs under him but in no moment did he look like the player Miami thought it was acquiring, despite the fact his numbers (38.7% three-point shooting, 39% on corner three-pointers, 0.91 point-per-possession guarding isolation) evened out.

Miller was supposed to be an important part of their run last season but dealt with multiple nagging injuries that held him to just 41 games in the regular-season and then personal issues that affected his performance on the playoffs. Miami was still counting on a healthier, clearer minded Miller this year, despite the fact they re-signed James Jones and added Battier as complements, but more injuries held him to just 39 games logged. As he shot 45.7% from three-point range you can assume Miller probably would have had a maximized impact had he been on the court more often, most likely improving their win-loss bottom line.

Anthony, a cornerstone of their defense last season who became almost overrated considering how much people like to say he was underrated, didn’t have as great a season this year. Guarding post-ups 41% of his defensive possessions, Anthony allowed 43% shooting on those, according to My Synergy Sports. Still according to Synergy, he allowed 56.5% shooting to opponents when defending the pick-and-roll. The Heat felt the need to sure up their rotation at center and brought in Ronny Turiaf after he was bought out by Denver, that after already testing second-year enforcer Dexter Pittman as a possible replacement for Anthony. Head-coach Eric Spoelstra eventually settled on just plugging undersized post defender Udonis Haslem in the starting lineup and now in the postseason has simply played James at power forward a little more, diminishing Anthony’s role, decreasing his court time even more.

As the playoffs began, Heat fans were hoping the team had the ability to flip the switch and start clicking. And over the first two games, there is no reason to doubt that’s been the case. Obviously the Knicks’ unraveling has something to do with it but we shouldn’t overlook the Heat have proven to be in championship form. That’s the case because James have maintained the historic level of play he posted through the shortened regular-season. It’s only been two games but LeBron’s production as he just finished probably the most outstanding statistical year of all time (30.7 PER - 1.1 point shorter from the highest mark of all time, 0.605 true-shooting percentage and 0.336 assist-percentage on 32% usage, 118 offensive rating, 97 defensive rating, holding opponents to 28% shooting in isolation) is ridiculously impressive.

Over two playoff games, James is posting a 35.2 PER, a 0.618 true-shooting percentage and a 0.333 assist-rate on 31% usage and the Heat are averaging 127 points per 100 possessions with him on the floor, data provided by basketball-reference. He is surreally sustaining his absurd regular-season standard. And he has done all of that while plugging all the holes Miami has exposed. In crunch time of game two yesterday, James ran point on offense so Spoelstra could have a lineup with the shooters Miller and Battier out there with Wade cutting and Bosh screening and popping. Then on defense, he played post defender checking Tyson Chandler so the strength-challenged Bosh wouldn’t have to, rather focusing on the standstill shooter Steve Novak. It is amazing stuff that we have almost taken for granted by now.

Besides’ James prolificacy, Battier and Miller finally coming through for them has added to the Heat’s favoritism. On game one, Battier split time with James guarding Carmelo Anthony and he did a terrific job, executing perfectly on the team’s fronting strategy to defend Anthony on the post. On game two, Anthony exploded for 21 first-half points but was held to nine points on 3-8 shooting in the second as Battier upped the pressure. Down the stretch, he exclusively checked Carmelo in order to free James to guard Chandler when Miami went center-less and did great. On offense, he went 3-5 shooting from three-point range for 11 points. Alongside him, Miller also went 3-5 from three-point range for 11 points as the combo provided the perfect complement for James and Wade as they went for 19 points and nine assists and 25 points on 11-18 shooting, respectively. Battier is now 5-11 and Miller is 6-14 from three-point range in the playoffs.

The Chicago Bulls’ loss of Derrick Rose, the league’s defending MVP and center of gravity of their offense, is a big deal for the championship sweepstakes but for those that already believed Miami to be the heavy favorites, like yours truly, it only comes as an addendum. I always believed the Heat to be running a marathon against themselves. And it looks like they are prepared to settle that one. We’ve been on this road with James before but how out-of-his-mind he has played should give us enough to believe a choke is really unlikely. And in the most important part of the year, their supporting cast is coming together and giving them exactly what they hoped for. It’s all happening for the Heat.

Editor's Note: Rafael Uehara is the managing editor of 'The Basketball Post'. More of his work can be found here and he can be followed on twitter @rafael_uehara or reached via e-mail at rafael_uehara@live.com