The NBA regular season is a time for hope, promise and ambition, when teams dream of what could be. The playoffs are a time for change, when those plans can be exposed and futures are altered.
Under the four-of-seven format there’s time for a turnaround, but developments in the first round of the playoffs over the weekend already raised questions about several teams’ plans.
Pacers: That come-from-ahead loss to the Celtics at home Saturday was potentially devastating. Indiana already has $39 million committed in salaries next season. That doesn’t include free agents Jermaine O’Neal, Brad Miller and Reggie Miller. If they lose in the first round for the third consecutive season, management may reconsider contracts for all three because the small-market Pacers would go well into luxury-tax territory (predicted to be about $52 million) and could be looking at $10 million in losses. Why lose that much money to lose in the first round again?
It also raises questions about the future of Miller. He played just two minutes in the fourth quarter Saturday. Coach Isiah Thomas clearly preferred younger, more athletic players down the stretch. As a result, Al Harrington and not clutch great Miller attempted a late three-pointer that could have clinched the win for Indiana.
Although point guard Jamaal Tinsley had good numbers with 14 points and nine assists, he remains the Pacers’ big problem. He was unable to run the offense or make entry passes to O’Neal late in the game as Boston overcame a 16-point deficit. “Jamaal Tinsley played good sometimes and he played bad sometimes, but he did that the whole season,” Ron Artest recently said. “He was consistent.”
Meanwhile, Thomas found himself without a timeout when he needed one to advance the ball when the Pacers needed a three-pointer to tie. He has been looking for a contract extension but could enter next season a lame duck.
“This is the same team, the same system, the same coaching staff that was No. 1 in the Eastern Conference most of the year,” O’Neal said. “It’s all the players. I want to keep reiterating that. It’s almost disgusting that we can’t win games. Isiah’s doing all he can do for a team that obviously doesn’t want it as much as it says it does.”
So who gets the blame?
Bucks: No team was more unprepared to open the playoffs than the Bucks. “[The Nets] played a playoff game and we were still in the regular season,” Bucks coach George Karl said.
So whose fault is that? The Bucks weren’t ready, just as they weren’t last season in the biggest late-season collapse in NBA history. Just as Karl’s U.S. team was unprepared last summer in its worst finish in world-championship play.
Karl got management to trade Glenn Robinson and Ray Allen. Now he’s not speaking to Tim Thomas, who didn’t start as the Bucks were blitzed from the beginning. They started Marcus Haislip.
Marcus Haislip?
“I don’t know. You have to ask that guy over there,” Thomas said, nodding toward Karl, when asked if he’d start Game 2. “I don’t have a darn clue.”
Bucks players may have been distracted. Gary Payton, Sam Cassell and Jason Caffey had to leave for Toronto after the game to answer to charges in an alleged assault that took place outside a Toronto strip club 10 days ago.
One version circulating around the league had a Bucks player talking to a dancer at the club. Her boyfriend supposedly took offense, and the three Bucks engaged in a fight with the boyfriend and then a bouncer. Biggest surprise: Anthony Mason wasn’t involved.
From afar, Allen believes Karl is reaping what he sows.
“I went to bat for a couple guys who did not work out, and they ended up destroying our chemistry,” Allen said. “You can’t just put talent on a team anymore. You have to know how guys affect locker rooms.”
Spurs: Not a good weekend for the No. 1 seeds as the Spurs and the Pistons both lost home-court advantage. The Spurs have been thinking of dividing their approximately $14 million in free-agent money between a role-playing forward like P.J. Brown and a small forward like Corey Maggette. But the way Stephon Marbury again dominated Tony Parker, the Spurs may have to reconsider going after Jason Kidd and perhaps trading Parker for a small forward or a defensive power forward.
Parker was unable to get the ball to Tim Duncan against Phoenix’s overplaying defense and settled for poor stand-still jumpers.
Though Marbury was the Suns’ catalyst, Amare Stoudemire apparently doesn’t realize he’s a rookie.
“He has no fear,” Marbury said. “We feel like he was in the military for two or three years, then he decided to play. He’s unbelievable. He dominates the best power forwards in the game.”
Said Suns center Scott Williams: “We were in their heads before the series. Now they’ve got some questions and they need to find some answers.”
Maybe after the season as well.
Around the league: Best player on the planet? Pistons coach Rick Carlisle declared it’s Tracy McGrady, who carried Orlando on Sunday with 43 points. Coach Doc Rivers, remember, sat McGrady the last game of the regular season to fall to eighth and a matchup with the top-seeded but low-scoring Pistons.
McGrady, 23 this season, became the youngest player since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976-77 to average more than 30 points. In addition, McGrady finished as one of only five players in league history to average at least 30 points, six rebounds and five assists. McGrady said he’s determined to get out of the first round, “to not get to be Kevin Garnett.”
Garnett, trying to avoid a seventh straight first-round ouster, finished the regular season as the fifth player to average 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists in two consecutive seasons, joining Larry Bird, Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson and Elgin Baylor. Garnett also became only the third player to lead his team in all five major statistical categories: points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. He joins Boston’s Dave Cowens (1977-78) and the Bulls’ Scottie Pippen (1994-95).
Coaching carousel: With the Toronto job open after Lenny Wilkens’ departure, former Glenbrook North High School coach Brian James could be a candidate. James, a Washington Wizards assistant, was an assistant with the Raptors and was popular with the younger players, particularly Vince Carter, who demanded a younger voice replace Wilkens. . . . Paul Silas figures to leave New Orleans no matter how the Hornets finish . . . Doug Collins’ future is connected to Michael Jordan’s in Washington, and Dallas’ Don Nelson could move upstairs . . . Cleveland interim coach Keith Smart says he’d return to being an assistant if the Cavs want a new coach. But Hawks interim coach Terry Stotts is looking for an extension after a 21-19 finish. “You can look at [interim coaches] Nate McMillan, Frank Johnson and Jim O’Brien. It’s a proven way of keeping things going,” Stotts said. “If the team fell apart, that would be one thing. But after we started off 3-12, it could have gotten worse.”
The most curious situation is in Houston, where Rudy Tomjanovich is getting treatment for bladder cancer. He spoke to reporters last week for the first time since his illness was diagnosed.
“I wake up in the morning so grateful about the day ahead,” Tomjanovich said. “I can’t wait for the opportunity to do great stuff. Sometimes it’s just little things–my dogs, the innocence of a kid. It’s not like I used to be. I let a lot of things bother me.
“Now I have a real positive attitude. I have a positive feeling this will work. If not, there are other treatments, and we’ll do that.”
With the addition of Yao Ming, Rockets owner Les Alexander said before the season he had one of the great teams ever assembled. He said the team should have done better and declined to say whether Tomjanovich would return, which didn’t go over well with star Steve Francis.
“I don’t think I could play for another coach,” Francis said. “Like Shaq said he’s sticking with his coach, that’s what I’m doing. I’m sticking with my coach.”
Finally: Karl Malone to Dallas reporters last week: “You notice nobody’s using No. 32 down there. Tell Mark Cuban to dust off No. 32 for me.”
