HoopsHype.com NBA Blogs - Eddie Johnson

As Gary Payton would say, the Cavaliers are flowing.  They are in a world by themselves right now. Life is good and waking up in the morning is sunny even when it is raining. Athletes live for this feeling, they crave for it and the LeBron-led Cavs are living the dream at the moment. They  have eight straight playoff wins by double figures, leading to first and second round sweeps – which have put the them in elite company among great teams like the Lakers, Celtics and Sixers of past seasons.

But the question remains… Can they continue to dominate and win their first NBA championship? I think they have all the major ingredients, but I will put my support, beliefs and emotions aside for the sake of my article… And probably bring out the emotions of Cavalier fans.

I can make the statement that no team has performed with the machine-like structure of the Cavaliers in putting away Detroit and Atlanta, but I can also say Detroit had a down year and was in total disarray coming into the postseason. I can add that the Atlanta Hawks were a banged up team, especially after Game 2 when Joe Johnson suffered a severe ankle sprain.

I then can check myself and say they dominated both teams and put them away quickly like a great team would under those circumstances, so you can’t fault them for who they play and the breaks they have gotten. Why? Because they earned it with the best record in the league and a 39-2 record at home.

You see, that’s what great sports fans do… They second guess and try to justify why an individual or team is so good.

What we should do is not try to find reasons to say a team is overrated, but research and figure out why a team has played so well.

So I will just come out and say it. And then tell you why I feel this way.

My take: The Cavaliers are indeed the best team in the playoffs and will win their first title. Here’s why…

They have the best all-around player in the game in Lebron James. I wrote an article a few years ago talking about his inability to shoot the ball from the perimeter and that it would keep him from becoming quite possibly the greatest player ever. Well, he answered that argument because he has become a very good shooter with endless range, thus making him virtually un guardable anywhere on the court. Also, he has become the game’s best leader. Do you see how his teammates jump up and down with excitement every time he shows them something special. That tells me they genuinely adore him and that is huge in professional sports.

Danny Ferry has surrounded him with catch-and-shoot players. I wrote an open letter article to Ferry also a few years ago telling him to stop trying to put clones like Larry Hughes around LeBron and go get him some shooters. Well, he has so many good shooters now (like Mo Williams, Delonte West and Wally Szczerbiak) that Sasha Pavlovic and Daniel Gibson, two mainstays from the Finals run a few years ago, struggle to get prime time minutes.

They are extremely physical, which allows head coach Mike Brown to play two ways if he wants. He can go small and speed up the game or he can go big with Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Anderson Varejao, Joe Smith or Ben Wallace. This allows Brown to be prepared for a small Celtic team or a big Orlando frontline in the conference finals, and then adjusting to the size of a Laker big frontline or the ultra-physical Denver Nuggets.

Versatility is the key and that is why the Cavaliers have proven all year that they are the team to beat. Boston Celtic fans might ask, if Kevin Garnett was still in the lineup would I be making this statement? I would say yes without hesitation. Why? I think the Celtics are out of gas and I felt this way before Garnett got injured.

The Lakers have beaten the Cavaliers twice this season and should have the mental edge, but I believe that is fool’s gold. If you remember, the Cavaliers beat San Antonio twice a few years ago and got swept in the Finals against them. The Cavaliers have the bodies to fight Andrew Bynum and Pau Gasol and the Cavaliers I believe have a better advantage in the role-player department, especially off the bench.

In my opinion, the Denver Nuggets present the toughest challenge to the Cavaliers because they are the most physical team left in the playoffs and they can score. The challenge for them is… Can they emotionally stabilize themselves in a series against the Lakers? I say they will not and that will cost them a perfect opportunity to pull a major upset.

Let’s hail to the King. He has made us pause on how good it was back when Magic, Bird and Michael made us stand up and cheer, but we can’t anoint him yet because he has not accomplished the ultimate prize like those three did.

Anyway, I am not betting against him this year!

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The Rockets entrance into the second round of the playoffs will probably end the Tracy McGrady era in Houston. The Rockets could never get out of the first round with McGrady and now with him sidelined for the season, they are headed to Los Angeles to face the Lakers. I am a huge McGrady fan and personally feel he is one of the top 20 players in the NBA when healthy, but the problem for the Rockets is that he has not accomplished what they just achieved against a very good Portland team.

McGrady put up great numbers in last year’s playoff series against Utah (27ppg, 8.2 rpg and almost 7 apg), but they still lost and in Houston they want wins. This year’s version without McGrady produced all-around contributions and created more weapons to solidify a first-round win. It probably will force the Rockets to shop their star next year.

There are four areas the Rockets improved in without McGrady.

Better cohesion

McGrady dominated  on the court, but off the court as well. Although the Rockets have Yao Ming, McGrady still had the spotlight on him 24/7 and I felt because of it, he tried to do too much – thus diminishing the skills of his teammates and especially Yao Ming. The Rockets now seem to co-exist with one another. They seem to relish in the sight of not having to expect one player to produce huge numbers for them to win big games, which becomes a devastating weapon to have moving into the second round against the mighty Lakers.

Better defense

Ron Artest has been one of the best defenders in the league for a reason. He does not need help to guard his man. This alone takes a lot of pressure off the rest of the team, knowing that Artest is self sufficient. This allows Rick Adelman to gamble and double other players like Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum and he will be doing it with more aggressive/physical players like Shane Battier and Luis Scola.  What does this have to do with McGrady?  Well, because of Artest’s ability to defend and score, Adelman can keep the diminutive Aaron Brooks on the floor and surround him with players that are very good defenders and can score in double figures as well.

Better ball movement

This might be the most important reason why McGrady might not return. The Rockets seem more fluid on offense now that McGrady is on the sidelines. The ball moves and does not stick, which used to force teammates to stop and stare instead of moving. Adelman would rather have the ball stick in Yao Ming’s hands on the post than McGrady’s on the perimeter. He would rather have a high-percentage missed field goal in the post with Ming (54 percent shooting)  than a well-guarded perimeter shot by McGrady (41 percent last year and 38 percent this season).

Better offensive structure

Balanced scoring has allowed the Rockets to concentrate more on defense and not depend on one player to score in order to win. This in itself will cause the Lakers problems in the second round. Who would have thought Scola would be the Rockets’ top scorer in the first round at 17 ppg.  The best part is the Rockets had six players scoring in double figures against Portland and Ron Artest was taking only 15 shots per game compared with the 24 shots per game McGrady took last year in the first-round loss to Utah. The beauty of this is that there are three players taking more shots than Yao Ming. But it’s all based on the fact that Yao Ming was the big worry defensively for Portland… And will be also for the Lakers, which will allow Scola, Brooks, Von Wafer and Shane Battier to become threats.

This article was not written to diminish the McGrady era in Houston or blaming him for the Rockets’ faults in past years. He was giving them what they expected and it did not work in Houston like it is in Cleveland with LeBron James.  The greatest players in history have been humbled for dominating the ball and critics have pointed the finger at them. Michael Jordan was called selfish and a ballhog until Phil Jackson convinced him the triangle offense was better suited to win a championship.

Rudy Tomjanovich convinced Hakeem Olajuwon to trust his teammates and pass it out of double teams instead of turning it over trying to beat it. When his teammates started knocking down three-point shots with regularity, it gave him more one-on-one matchups in the post and earned the Rockets back-to-back championships.

Shaquille O’Neal allowed Kobe Bryant to take on a bigger role, especially in crunch time, during the Lakers’ three straight championships.

The problem for McGrady is that all the good things have happened for the Rockets without him on the floor and he never got the chance to be the one who made the adjustment. Now the question is… Do the Rockets want to see if he understands the adjustment he would have to make next year and do they want to deal with it?

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