Scattered Thoughts on Game One
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by user Wade Garrett
1) Mid-way through the second quarter, the broadcasters pointed out that Cleveland had a lead, despite the fact that LeBron was not playing particularly well. Almost immediately after that the Spurs seemed to knock the rust off and outscored Cleveland by 17 points between then at the end of the third quarter.
2) Cleveland's done a good job of handling eastern conference playoff teams with strong wing players, but they haven't had to guard a real center yet, and the good point guards they've encountered so far (Jason Kidd and Chauncey Billups) have been pass-first types. Tonight, they showed that they are going to struggle against a penetrating point guard and an all-NBA caliber big man. Cleveland has a great front line, but none of them is a good one-on-one match-up for Duncan.
3) Tim Duncan must have had ten "hockey assists" tonight.
4) The Cavaliers ran three different help-side double teamers at Tim Duncan on a single possession tonight. That's the best way to slow Duncan down (it would slow anybody down) but for how long can they afford to leave Finley, Bowen, and Brent Barry open from 3-point range? It didn't kill them tonight, but it will in the near future.
5) San Antonio has the best home crowd in the NBA. People always seem to forget this, probably because they're on television all the time, and familiarity breeds contempt. They certainly know when to rise to their feet to give their team an emotional boost to sustain a run, or to end a Cleveland run.
6) Tim Duncan's dunk in the final minute of play was one of the more emphatic exclamation points I've ever seen. The Cavs were on a 13-4 run until Duncan picked for Parker on the wing, Duncan rolled to the basket, Robert Horry cut to the post and one-timed a touch pass to a rolling Duncan for a vicious slam. That's the top teamwork play of the playoffs so far.
7) I enjoyed this exchange between Mark Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy and Mike Breen:
Breen:When Anderson Varejao first came to the NBA, he didn't speak a word of english, and he credits his teammate Zydrunas Ilgauskas with helping him learn to speak english and adjust to living in the United States.
Van Gundy:The first word that Varejao learned was "flop."
Jackson:Its a good think that he had somebody like Ilgauskas to learn from, because if he tried to learn from some of the guys I grew up with, he still wouldn't know how to speak english.
8) Anderson Varejao sucks. People praise his energy, and the way in which he "does the little things." Basically, this translates into drawing charges and getting offensive rebounds. But what about the big things? He doesn't block shots, gets pushed around on the block, falls for every shot-fake, commits a lot of fouls, and is a career 57% free-throw shooter. He's good at annoying opposing teams and at taking advantage of bigger, lumbering big men like Shaq, but against Duncan, Oberto, Elson and Horry, he is toast.
Wade Garrett blogs at www.commonsensedancing.blogspot.com
