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2011-2012 NBA Eastern Conference
Semi-Final Preview
The NBA Playoffs as we knew them are
back. It took a while to get here, with
the recent lockout almost wiping out the entire season. One year after 2011,
one of the more fascinating postseasons in NBA History. So many storylines to
marvel at just one year ago, with the first season of the Big-Three era,
then-budding superstars like Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose making the leap to
super stardom, and the Dallas Mavericks shaking off 3 consecutive seasons of
disappointing postseason runs to finally win an NBA championship. It was one of the more entertaining, fun
seasons to follow and there’s no better time to be a basketball fan than right
now. And now that half of the teams have
been weeded out, there are only three more rounds to go before crowning not
only the champ, but the team that will resonate in our minds when we think of
this crazy 2012 NBA season.
Eastern Conference Semi-Finals
4 Boston Celtics vs. 8 Philadelphia
76ers
Starting Fives/Key Reserves:
Boston Celtics Philadelphia
76ers
PG Rajon Rondo PG Jrue Holiday
SG Avery Bradley SG
Evan Turner
SF Paul Pierce SF Andre Igoudala
PF Brandon Bass PF
Elton Brand
C Kevin Garnett C Spencer Hawes
Key Reserves: Key
Reserves:
Ray Allen (banged up a little bit) Lou Williams
Mickael Pietrus Thaddeus
Young
Greg Stiemsma Lavoy
Allen
Jodie
Meeks
Series
Breakdown
Both of
these teams advanced to the second round under fairly separate
circumstances. The Philadelphia 76ers
were thoroughly outplayed in Game 1 of their series against the Chicago Bulls
and received probably the biggest break of the playoffs in the ACL tears of the
reigning MVP Derrick Rose. Couple that
with the Game 3 severe ankle sprain of starting center Joakim Noah and all of a
sudden the 76ers had the talent advantage in their first round series against
the top-seeded Bulls. They took
advantage, and won a grind-it-out series in 6 games, due in large part to the
emergence of starting center (and former Sacramento King) Spencer Hawes, their
cerebral head coach Doug Collins, and their talented bench that consists of two
guys in Lou Williams and Thaddeus Young that could probably start and succeed
on half of the teams in the league. They
are led by studs on the perimeter in Andre Igoudala, Evan Turner and Jrue
Holiday and their lone veteran on the ball club, Elton Brand. They’ll try to
speed up the tempo on this aged Celtics team and force them to rely on their
depleted bench.
The Boston
Celtics got here by once again having the number of a team whose number they’ve
had since their title run of 2008. The
Atlanta Hawks might have proven an athletic counter to the older Celtics, but
they over and over again in the series made the mental mistakes that allowed
the Celtics to win the series in 6. The
Celtics will try to slow the tempo down in this series and take advantage of
certain match ups against the Sixers.
There’s no indication that Kevin Garnett can consistently perform at the
level of that Game 6 he just had against the Hawks, but there’s a clear
advantage for the Celtics between he and the three big men in Philadelphia’s
rotation. Something the Celtics are
going to have to monitor is the health of Ray Allen, who missed the last two
weeks of the regular season with bone spurs in his ankle, and has admitted so
much now as that they are back to the state they were in when he was missing
time.
The best
bet for the Sixers will probably be for them to go small-ish with Holiday at
the point, Williams at the 2, Turner/Igoudala at the 3, Igoudala/Young at the
four and Hawes/Brand at the 5 and just try to wear out the Celtics with their
depth and equal-opportunity offense. The
one thing you do worry about if you’re a Sixers fan is that once the game
inevitably slows down, as the TNT guys like to say, there isn’t a go-to guy for
them, not just for crunch time, but for those must-win games when you know it’s
going to be a dogfight and the only way that team is going to win is if that
guy has a transcendent game. The Celtics
have that guy and he has proven it, in these playoffs in fact, Paul Pierce. Game 2 of the Atlanta Hawks series, without
Ray Allen and without the then-suspended Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce put up 36
points and made every big play when it mattered the most. And the most impressive part of that is that
he knew that that was what would be required out of him, and he still
delivered. And that’s about all you can
ask of “the guy” on this Celtics team.
Matchup
to Watch
Paul Pierce vs Andre Igoudala
If there’s
one thing we can tell for certain it’s that Paul Pierce will show up in this
series and fight for a chance to play the Heat in the ECF. He’ll have to battle through a recently
sprained MCL, but it’s not too much of a tough task to ask for from one of the
more durable and tough players in NBA History.
Andre Igoudala represents the perfect defensive foil for a guy like
Pierce. Long, athletic, quick and
explosive, Igoudala has developed the
defensive chops in his time in the NBA to be relied upon to put the clamps on
Pierce. If there’s one big what-if in
this series, it’s if Andre Igoudala can not only contain Pierce on the
defensive end, but replicate what Pierce does in crunch time on the offensive
end. Igoudala is a part of that NBA
player fraternity of guys who improved so mightily in that 2010 Olympic run,
and if there’s one test as to whether that improvement has culminated in
anything, it’s this match up against Paul Pierce.
Prediction
Celtics over 76ers in 6.
The Boston
Celtics are the type of nitty-gritty team that could probably steal a game in
Philadelphia, and the Philadelphia 76ers are probably a team inexperienced
enough, despite their coach, to blow one.
The Celtics take care of home court and steal a game 6 in Philadelphia
to lock up the series. Much could be
said about the Sixers team about how athletic and deep they are, and none of
that is a lie. But they had an even
better match up for themselves with the depleted Chicago Bulls and could barely
eke out the last two victories in the series, putting up point totals in Games
3, 4, 5 and 6 of 79, 89, 69 and 79 respectively. It’ll take a lot more offensive output to
outdo this Celtics team, and barring any significant injury or a huge setback
with Ray Allen, I don’t think this 76ers team is good enough to pull it
off.
Game 1: BOS 92 PHI 89
Game 2: BOS 88 PHI 76
Game 3: PHI 91 BOS 88
Game 4: PHI 82 BOS 77
Game 5: BOS 105 PHI 102
Game 6: PHI 86 BOS 93
2 Miami
Heat vs 3 Indiana Pacers
Starting Fives/Key
Reserves
Miami Heat Indiana
Pacers
PG Mario Chalmers PG George Hill
SG Dwyane Wade SG Paul George
SF LeBron James SF Danny Granger
PF Udonis Haslem PF David West
C Chris Bosh C Roy Hibbert
Key Reserves: Key
Reserves:
Mike Miller Darren
Collison
Shane Battier Tyler
Hansbrough
Joel Anthony Leandro
Barbosa
James Jones
Series
Breakdown
Neither of
these teams faced much of a challenge in their first round match ups preceding
this 2nd round match up, and both of these teams will face an
entirely different animal than the two teams they bounced in the first round.
The Indiana
Pacers took on an Orlando Magic team playing without Dwight Howard and with two
key players, Jameer Nelson and Hedo Turkoglu, playing hurt. Essentially the Magic played with a trio of
Jameer Nelson-Ryan Anderson-Glen Davis, respectable for any number of lottery
teams in the NBA, but not exactly one that rivals the Miami Heat. Speaking of the Heat, this era of Pacers will
probably face their toughest challenge together in this 2nd round
series. Last year the Pacers were widely
recognized for giving the #1 seeded Chicago Bulls a challenge in the first
round, now, expectations are higher.
This team is even having pundits such as Charles Barkley lamenting their
toughness and resiliency in possibly giving the Heat as much of a challenge as
the aforementioned Bulls got. This
Indiana Pacers team is deep and they certainly provide the Heat with more of a
challenge than the New York Knicks did, but the deciding factor in this series
is whether or not the Heat recognizes this fact. This Pacers team has 5 guys that can create
their own shot but they don’t play isolation ball like a team like the Atlanta
Hawks does. They run an offense that
forces a team to play them straight up and not focus in on one guy. Whether or not they stick to a game plan that
forces the Heat to do that, and not let them off the hook defensively could be
a series swinging development.
This Heat
team is about as up front with their strengths as a team could be. They have the now 3 time MVP LeBron James,
perennial All-Star Dwyane Wade and perennial X-factor Chris Bosh. Their cast of role players fills the roles
necessary to complement these three guys, roles such as knocking down wide open
threes, grabbing crunch time rebounds, playing solid team defense and getting
the ball to either Wade or LeBron in the fast break. The Miami Heat have consistently shown that
even though they are one of the best teams
in the league, they are virtually impossible to beat when they’re
forcing turnovers which lead to fast break points and when they’re knocking
down they’re threes in the half-court game.
Depending on how you feel about
Chris Bosh, the Miami Heat could definitely have the three best players in this
series. While the advantage always lies
to the team with the best player, let alone the three best players, the
argument being made for the Pacers is that in a seven game series, they provide
a challenge for the Heat that of which they haven’t seen since getting beaten
by the Mavericks in the Finals, in that their scoring is balanced and their
defense is team-oriented. The comparison
in those terms is fair, but in a season that’s proven that in order to advance
deep in the postseason you need a guy who for lack of a better word is “The
Guy”, it’s tough to envision the Pacers being anything more than a second round
speed bump to this year’s Miami Heat.
Matchup
to Watch
LeBron James vs Danny Granger
The Three
time NBA MVP versus the fringe star of the Indiana Pacers. There’s not much to marvel at on first
glance. One of these players just pulled
off one of the more impressive statistical seasons in recent memory and the
other player who was once considered to be the face of his franchise has seen
his stats drop significantly in the last three seasons and may not even be the
best player on his own team anymore.
This match up is intriguing only because of what it could turn into. The playoffs are a time not only to weed out
the best teams en route to crowning an NBA champion, but also in weeding out
the best players in the league. If Danny
Granger can prove serviceable in defending LeBron James, depending on whether
Frank Vogel decides to match Granger or Paul George on James, and also provide
the Pacers with those timely “Best Player on the Team” plays, his legacy as a
Pacer could change dramatically. And in
a sense that is one of the many things at stake in these playoffs. At the beginning these playoffs legacies were
at stake for Derrick Rose, the Big Three era Celtics, LeBron James, the end of
the Spurs dynasty, Kobe Bryant, and a variety of other young talent can lay the
foundation for how their careers can play out.
Danny Granger has been in the league since ’05, it’s about time we
figure out just how much he can do. He’s
hitting the prime of his career and if he’s ever going to prove he’s worth the
$27 million he’ll be making over the next two years, it’s now. Leading the 3-seeded underdog Indiana Pacers
against the vaunted, albeit over hyped Miami Heat would be ultimate gauge for
where the 29 year old is as a player and as a leader. I may be over dramatizing the effect this
series will have on a player such as Danny Granger’s legacy, but I am a
believer in career-defining moments and the fact that they do exist for a guy
who you’ve invested this much money into.
Prediction
Heat over Pacers in 5
My
prediction not only is in the Heat winning the series in 5, but in Danny
Granger not living up to the aforementioned standards. I don’t think Danny Granger has it in him,
and if this league has proven anything more to be true, it’s that a team ebbs
and flows as its best player ebbs and flows.
The Heat is for lack of a better word “frontrunners” and I think they
come out the gates firing against the Indiana Pacers. That continues on the road where they will
leave Indiana with a 3-1 advantage, and the Indiana Pacers undergoing some sort
of an identity crisis in regards to their best player in conjunction with their
style of play. The Pacers could keep
each of these games close but the Heat are one of those teams that pull out
those 50-50 balls and win those types of battles that truly decide whether a
team will pull out a playoff series as hotly contested as this one proves to
be.
Game 1: MIA 96 IND 81
Game 2: MIA 106 IND 102
Game 3: IND 92 MIA 89
Game 4: MIA 97 IND 83
Game 5: MIA 106 IND 98
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