NBA: Daily Playoff Report (4-22-06)

by David Pincus
2006-04-23

Cavaliers 96, Wizards 87 (Cleveland leads series 1-0)
After a few days off the NBA playoffs began, and first up was the Cavs and the Wizards. Any doubts of LeBron James' ability to perform in the playoffs were quickly shattered as he posted a triple-double in his first ever postseason game.
Arenas scored 26 but got never controlled the game like LeBron did. Butler and Jamison were supposed to pick up the slack but combined for just 22 points. The 48 points scored by Washington's big three was 29 points off their season average. If they're going to win, they need better performances out of Butler and Jamison.
It wasn't just LeBron to step up for Cleveland. Eric Snow had a season-high 14 points. Donyell Marshall provided 19 and 7 off the bench and Murray chipped in with 10. But Ilgauskas and Hughes were nowhere to be seen. If Cleveland wants to win this series, they'll need a little more than LeBron to win. Rest assured, he'll get his points. But the others have to chip in as well.

Spurs 122, Kings 88 (San Antonio leads series 1-0)
The Spurs/Kings game came in with a surprising amount of believers that the Kings had a chance. Those people didn't say a word as the Spurs showed up with one of the most dominating performances you'll ever see in a playoff game.
The Kings were held to just 39.3% shooting and had just 3 players in double-figures. They were out-rebounded by 19, out-assisted by 11 and trailed by as much as 37. Ron Artest did hold Manu Ginobili to just 10 points, but could do nothing to stop six other Spurs from reaching double-figures.
San Antonio was shooting 68% from the floor by the first half and finished shooting 57.5%. Tony Parker could not be contained and scored 25, most if not all of them on layups. The Spurs bench outscored the Kings starters 52-46. Every Spur scored a field-goal. Best of all, Tim Duncan scored only 11. For San Antonio to demolish the Kings without even needing Duncan is a great sign for Spurs fans.
No series is over after one game but the Kings will have to step up. San Antonio shot 11-17 from long-range but almost all were wide open. They were so concerned with Duncan than Horry and Van Exel kept getting wide-open looks. If Sacramento can hold the Spurs to 100 and shoot about 46%, they could win a game, but one at the most. The Spurs won 63 games this year, they deserve more respect. Hopefully this series will clear up any nonsense about them being vulnerable or weak.

Heat 111, Bulls 106 (Miami leads series 1-0)
The Chicago Bulls played well enough offensively to win. They are a perimeter team, and they made 13 threes. They need Ben Gordon to show up, he had 35. They shot 45.5% from the floor and scored 106. Chicago had all aspects of the game won except on defense, where in the regular season, they were #1 in opponents FG%.
The Heat shot 48% from the floor and managed to outscore the Bulls. Shaq had 27 and 16 rebounds and Wade had 30 with 11 boards. When Miami's big two perform at their peak like this, they're very hard to beat. Jason Williams contributed with 17 and outplayed Jason Williams.
This game is both a positive and a negative for Chicago. The positive is that they know they can play at the same level of the Heat and should be able to make some readjustments. The negative is that Chicago, who is the #7 seed after all, can't be throwing away games like this. Down the stretch the Bulls took hurried shots and never utilized the shot clock properly. They played at their best offensively and still lost, and unless they can play better defense and score they'll have a hard time winning games.
Two other notable things occurred in this game. The first was Udonis Haslem throwing his mouthpiece at an official. The fact that he threw it at Crawford, who has the shortest chain of any ref in the League, only made him get ejected quicker. Odds are that Haslem will be fined and could face suspension.
Also, all the Heat fans dressed in unison in white tee shirts. Why not red, yellow, or black shirts? A white shirt doesn't really represent the Heat. At least the Clippers fans wore red shirts.

Clippers 89, Nuggets 87 (LA leads series 1-0)
The Clippers led the whole well by double-digits. But in the 4th period the Nuggets finally showed up and went on a run. With exactly 4 minutes left the score was 87-77 when LA failed to make another basket. The Nuggets outscored them 10-0 and tied it up with 1:07 left.
Vlad Radmanovic entered the game and drew a foul on Kenyon Martin. He sunk both free-throws and Carmelo missed three shots that would tie it up.
For Denver it was a two-man offense between Andre Miller and Carmelo Anthony, who both scored 25. Miller was able to exploit the 36-yr old Cassell who probably won't be guarding him in game two. However they were the only two to score 10+.
Elton Brand led the Clippers with 21. Chris Kaman had 15-13 while Mobley and Cassell combined for 36. The Clippers won this game from a variety of players, which would have been completely different from Denver had they won. Mobley played awful down the stretch of the regular season but shot well here. Maggete only played 15 minutes. If Mobley wants to keep his starting job, he needs to continue to sink open jays.
Denver needs to find their best method of defeating the Clippers. They played a game in LA a few weeks ago where they lost 112-111, and here they lost in a game under 90. They need to get off to a good start in Game 2 so they can hold a 4th quarter lead. The Nuggets haven't been good at controlling games but now would be a good time to start.

Overall Game review:
Game 1/Wizards @ Cavaliers: 2.5 out of 5 (Washington got down early and never recovered)
Game 1/Kings @ Spurs: 0.5 out of 5 (I hate to say it, but you were better off not watching)
Game 1/Bulls @ Heat: 4 out of 5 (Shaq, Wade and Gordon all performed at their best)
Game 1/Nuggets @ Clippers: 3.5 out of 5 (Could've been closer for a longer period of time)