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The Wounded Three Of The NBA Eastern Conference: Chicago, Philly & Indiana

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The NBA Eastern Conference is muddled by injuries right now, as the middle class tries to sort itself out. Three teams—Chicago, Philadelphia and Indiana—have hopes of eventually emerging as the pre-eminent challenger to the Miami Heat by springtime, but all three have their signature player on the bench. TheSportsNotebook will take a brief look at each team so far this season, who’s stepping up, and what the prospects are for their injured stars.

Chicago (11-8): Why is it that the Bulls seem to have such a hard time getting any respect as the top challenger? They’ve been the #1 seed in this conference for two straight years and might have won it all last year if Derrick Rose hadn’t blown out his knee in the first playoff game. We were told at the start of the season that Rose would be back in either late January or around the All-Star break and every report coming from the Windy City since has confirmed that timetable. The point guard is working on his cuts, starting to run sprints and he’ll have several weeks to play his way into playoff shape. So what’s the problem with considering the Bulls a real contender?

Even without Rose, Chicago’s signature of stingy defense remains, as they’re tied with Memphis as the NBA’s best at defensive efficiency, and they’re also the best in the game at hitting the boards. Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer continue to own the glass, and small forward Luol Deng has emerged as the top scorer, at 18 ppg.

There are big problems with the offense—Noah, and veteran two-guard Kirk Hinrich are the leaders in assists, suggesting that Nate Robinson has not adequately filled Rose’s shows. But if we look at this team in light of a healthy Rose, and suddenly they look pretty good. For my money, this is still the second-best team in the East and with Rose, quite possibly the best.

Philadelphia (11-9): It was with much hype that the Sixers acquired center Andrew Bynum as part of the multi-team Dwight Howard trade, but a knee injury has Bynum sidelined until at least early January and we’re even starting to hear reports he may not return at all. For the time being let’s assume he comes back next month—because if he doesn’t, this whole section of the article is pointless and the Sixers are, at best, a borderline playoff team.

But with Bynum it’s a different story. Point guard Jrue Holiday is having an excellent season both scoring and distributing and Evan Turner has made a similar elevation of his game. Thaddeus Young is providing both scoring and rebounding help at the small forward spot. What Philadelphia is not doing very well right now is rebounding the ball, and it should be self-evident that a healthy Bynum goes a long way to fixing that problem.

I’m not as sold on a best-case Philadelphia team as I am with Chicago—Bynum’s noted immaturity still remains an issue, but the Sixers could at least be a top-four team, win a playoff round and if they meet Miami in the spring, the Heat’s biggest nightmare is a team built around a high-quality center.

Indiana (10-11): The Pacers lost small forward Danny Granger, their best offensive threat, to a knee injury. Granger is off crutches and the team hopes for him to be back by February, but of the three injured stars we’re focused on, Granger is the biggest question mark.

Granger’s also the biggest question mark when he’s healthy, because the Pacers are exactly the kind of team that can—indeed, should have beaten Miami in last year’s playoffs, with the presence of Roy Hibbert in the post and David West at power forward. West is stepping up this season, with 18 points/9 rebounds per game, but Hibbert, at 10/8, needs to elevate his game whether Granger comes back or not.

Indiana’s depth on the perimeter is also not what it was a year ago, and there’s considerable pressure on George Hill to maintain his strong start. Right now I’m still down on Indiana because of how unready-for-prime-time they looked in last year’s playoffs, and Granger was as big a culprit as anyone. That’s why I find them the least interesting team of this trio right now.

NBA Previews: Final Predictions

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The NBA season tips off tonight with three games, highlighted by a TNT doubleheader of Boston-Miami (8 PM ET) and Dallas-LA Lakers (10:30 PM ET). TheSportsNotebook ran its NBA previews for the Eastern & Western conferences this past weekend, offering brief thoughts on each team and a projection for how they would fare against the Over/Under win total posted for them in the Las Vegas sportsbooks. Now it’s time for the final preview, with picks for how each conference will stand up and who eventually claims the title in June.

Oklahoma City made the big splash in the last hours of the preseason when they traded James Harden to Houston for a shooting guard. Kevin Martin, a prospect in Jeremy Lamb, plus a first and second-round draft pick. TheSportsNotebook’s Western Conference preview was already posted when the deal went down, but quite frankly, I doesn’t affect my positive view of the Thunder all that much—if anything it enhances it.

The contract negotiations with Harden were not going well and by all accounts he was headed for free agency next summer. So for the long-term, I haven’t heard any pundit deny that the Thunder did what they needed to do. But even in the short term that is the 2012-13 season, I think this deal might help. Martin is a quality scorer and can fill Harden’s production.

Let’s also not forget that Harden tanked in last year’s Finals, the biggest reason his team lost three consecutive close games to Miami when the series was up for grabs. It’s well possible that he might have come out more battle toughened and improved this year—that was the trajectory followed by Laker legend James Worthy in the 1980s. But it’s also possible that the Finals exposed something about Harden’s ability to play at a high level when the pressure is at its highest.

What it boils down to is that I’m opening with a “no change” policy toward evaluating the Thunder. There are likely to be some early bumps, as Martin gets blended into the offense, but over the next 5 ½ months that is the NBA’s marathon regular season there’s plenty of time to get that worked out.

Now let’s move on to the picks. Below are each team’s predicted final record. One thing to note is that the win total may not line up with what I picked regarding each team’s Over/Under in the conference previews. The reason for that is the latter is a pick made purely in a vacuum—I establish a general range I think the team will fall in, and whatever side offers more room for error (something I provide plenty of in my picks) is where I land. For these record projections, it’s ensured that everything averages out to .500, so hard choices need to be made.

EASTERN CONFERENCE
1)Miami (58-24)
2)Indiana (54-28)
3)Atlanta (51-31)
4)Boston (47-35)
5)Chicago (45-37)
6)Philadelphia (44-38)
7)New York (42-40)
8)Brooklyn (40-42)
(PLAYOFF DIVIDING LINE)
9)Toronto (38-44)
10)Detroit (37-45)
11)Milwaukee (34-48)
12)Washington (29-53)
13)Orlando (28-54)
14)Cleveland (27-55)
15)Charlotte (21-61)

WESTERN CONFERENCE
1)Oklahoma City (60-22)
2)LA Lakers (58-24)
3)Denver (56-26)
4)San Antonio (49-33)—as a division winner Spurs are guaranteed at least a 4-seed
5)LA Clippers (52-30)
6)Memphis (46-36)
7)Dallas (44-38)
8)Phoenix (43-39)
(PLAYOFF DIVIDING LINE)
9)Utah (42-40)
10)Golden State (36-46)
11)Portland (34-48)
12)Minnesota (33-49)
13)New Orleans (31-51)
14)Houston (30-52)
15)Sacramento (20-62)

At this point there’s not much reason to do anything other than pick the chalk to advance in the NBA Finals, which sets up an Oklahoma City-Miami rematch in the Finals. Obviously if I thought one team was going to beat another in the playoffs, I’d pick them to win more games in the regular season.

The one caveat in that is we can expect the Chicago team that makes the playoffs to be much better than its actual seeding, since Derrick Rose comes back in mid-January—just enough missed time for his team to dig a hole, but plenty of recovery team to be firing on all cylinders for the postseason.

Other storylines will be how hard Miami pushes themselves in the regular season—they’ve never done it before and now they’re likely to have some cushion in the push for the #1 seed (something they haven’t had either of the last two years), along with the need for Dwayne Wade to push his knee too hard. The Lakers are another veteran team that has to make similar decisions about the value of seeding versus the value of veterans’ health. Boston does as well, but even though I’m a Celtics fan, I don’t see them impacting the title chase.

This is a big swing year in defining the legacy of LeBron James. At this point, it seems to be accepted as a given that he’ll rack up multiple additional rings. You can certainly see the Heat winning the next couple of championships. But it’s far from a guarantee. The Lakers have made their big moves in getting Steve Nash and Dwight Howard. And Oklahoma City’s loss in the Finals last year is a necessary learning experience that all rising teams have to go through. Is it that hard to imagine the Thunder winning the next two titles and leaving LeBron at a huge crossroads as he gets set to enter free agency again?

I don’t think it is, and in fact I’m picking Oklahoma City to win it all. As mentioned at the top, I’m not deterred by the Harden deal and if anything I am emboldened by it. The Thunder are younger, better defensively, more potent offensively and now have the one missing ingredient that’s proven necessary in the NBA—the pain of failure. This time around, they’ll celebrate in OkC come June.

NBA Playoffs: The Stars Define Tuesday Night

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Last night, as I watched Jaleel White (formerly Steve Urkel of Family Matters) get eliminated from Dancing With The Stars (yes, I watch the show. Not fanatically. Not at the expense of Monday Night Football in the fall season, but enough to get a strike against me, per the Miller Lite commercials), I thought that Jaleel could’ve gone the distance, but often didn’t seem to unleash everything at the key moment. If there’s any sport that can be correlated to DWTS, it’s the NBA, with its special emphasis on individual stars seizing moments. And last night was all about three stars—Paul Pierce and Kobe Bryant because they were there, and Derrick Rose because he wasn’t. TheSportsNotebook recaps the three games and looks ahead to three more tonight…

Philadelphia 109 Chicago 92: The obvious question that comes to mind is how much this had to do with the loss of Rose for the rest of the playoffs with his torn ACL. But even without Rose for about half the regular season, the Bulls were the best defensive team in the league. The Sixers shot 59 percent. That can’t be about Rose’s absence. They outrebounded Chicago. That has nothing to do with Rose’s absence. Carlos Boozer and Luol Deng were non-factors offensively. I suppose you can make the indirect argument for Rose’s value in getting them the ball, but with 14 points combined, that’s taking the point to an extreme level.

You can point to Philadelphia guards Jrue Holiday scoring 26 points and Lou Williams lighting it up with 20 off the bench as evidence of Rose’s defensive value. I’ll give some credence to this, but ultimately I have to see a team that hadn’t emotionally adjusted to not having their star player. Its one thing to strategically adjust during the regular season, knowing the Man is one the way back for the biggest games. It’s another thing to look at your huddle without him and know this is all there is from now until June. Chicago has absolutely demonstrated they can win two playoff rounds with their current roster. They have further demonstrated you can’t even count them out against Miami or the Western Conference winner with the current roster.

The team knows how to play without Rose—they aren’t better without him, it’s still a huge loss, but they can compete at an extremely high level. That leads me to believe this current battle is mental. I respect what the Bulls have accomplished as a team and what Tom Thibodeau has done as a coach, so I’m not ready to write off their title hopes based on last night.

Boston 87 Atlanta 80: If Paul Pierce’s basketball game would have been a DWTS number last night, he would’ve gotten 10s across the board. On the floor, he had 36 points and 14 rebounds and virtually singlehandedly pushed the Celtics to a road win without a suspended Rajon Rondo and an injured Ray Allen. And for all Boston’s woes in the early part of the playoffs, suddenly they’re exactly where you expected them to be and have taken homecourt advantage. Kevin Garnett was good last night. Atlanta helped the C’s out by settling for missed three-point shots all night, while Boston took the ball to the hole and created a 26-16 scoring advantage on free throws. But this was Pierce’s night.

LA Lakers 104 Denver 100: It was Kobe’s night in Hollywood as he poured in 38 points. Bryant’s performance wasn’t quite the epic that Pierce’s was, because the Lakers had some help involved. Andrew Bynum is terrorizing the Nuggets inside, with 27 points and 9 rebounds, following up his insane points/rebounds/blocks triple-double in Sunday’s Game 1. I picked Denver to win this series, but I thought that Al Harrington and Javale McGee could at least hold their own in the low post. They’ve done nothing of the sort, small forward Danilo Gallinari hasn’t made an impact and this series has turned into the Kobe & Bynum show. If Denver is going to pull the upset they need to win four straight, because no one takes a Game 7 in Staples from Bryant.

Tonight the top half of the Western Conference bracket goes into action with San Antonio going to Utah, the LA Clippers visiting Memphis and in the East its Indiana-Orlando. The Spurs-Jazz series is lacking in drama and lacking in any reason to think Utah can win a single game—just pushing the series back to San Antonio for a Game 5 would be a moral victory. And Orlando, having taken home court from Indiana, tries to show they can hold it.

As to the Clips-Grizzlies,  I erred in yesterday’s post saying this game would be played last night. So I’ll just rehash the preview I wrote….  “Do the Grizzlies roll over after blowing the 27-point lead in the fourth quarter of Game 1 at home? Or do they realize that they can’t get outrebounded again, bring max intensity to even the series and vow to themselves that they can get homecourt advantage back when the series reverts west? The talent is still there. There was no reason to think, in general, that the Clippers couldn’t get one win on the road, while Memphis still won the series. If that’s the Grizzlies’ mindset, they can bounce back. If they feel like they gave a shot at the Finals, this potentially good series can get away early.”