Witness protection program

I was at the AT&T Center for game 5 of the Spurs-Jazz series on Wednesday night, but unfortunately, there's nothing more to say except the Spurs took that game. They jumped out early and never looked back, something they don't do enough. The real story during the conference finals has been the Cavs-Pistons series though.

These are slowly becoming the King James version of the playoffs. I wrote before game 2 of this series that I thought LeBron James was finally going to show us something special. Well, I was one game off. He did in game 3. And in game 4. And even more so last night in game 5. As you can read at any sports site, that was truly a performance to be cherished.

You can credit Detroit's lack of defense at the rim for part of that (who would've thought they'd miss Ben Wallace this much?), but mostly it was LeBron. All LeBron. You don't need to know the statistics; as incredible as they are, they don't begin to tell the story.

The work isn't done for the LeBron and the Cavs, they still have to win one more game against a better team. But if there's one player who can take down a team, it's him. And even if he doesn't, we'll remember these three games for what they are: special.

There were no games last night, so what the hell am I going to write about?

That is the one drawback to the games getting deep into the playoffs, the lack of games played. Very rarely since October have there been nights where there have been no basketball games played. So what do I do? Well, I write about tonight's game.

But there's a problem to that to. Everybody is writing about tonight's game. And it seems everybody has the same idea. Right after I decided what I was going to write about, I read Scoop Jackson saying the same thing, although, much more eloquently. And Sam Rubenstein at SLAMonline had pretty much the same idea too, although his relates to LOST.

It comes down to this. LeBron James had his team in a position to win on Monday night against the Pistons with not his best game. But at the same time, Chauncey Billups and Tayshaun Prince for the Pistons had bad games too. You can't expect that two games in a row.

LeBron has also had a fairly quiet postseason. And I don't mean quiet like Tim Duncan quiet, where nobody notices. I mean quiet like people are expecting more from him.

And yes, I do realize he's averaging almost 25 points per game along with 8 rebounds and 8 assists per game during the playoffs. But these are the Eastern Conference Finals now. He's four wins away from the NBA Finals. He's playing one of the toughest teams in the entire NBA. People are expecting something special from him on his conference's biggest stage.

People are expecting one of those performances from him where years down the road, they remember where they were and what they were doing that night. LeBron James is the type of player who inspires those expectations in people.

I believe LeBron James knows this.

And I think (I hope) tonight is the night he delivers.

Down with the King?

A lot of people are on LeBron's case today. You know what? I'm not. I'm going to break it down for you:

• Donyell Marshall is a very good three-point shooter.
• Donyell Marshall was wide-the-hell open.
• LeBron is a great passer.
• LeBron had about three good-to-great defenders coming at him when he got to the lane.
• The old saying is you go for the tie at home and you go for the win on the road. Well, the Cavs were on the road.
• Calm the f*ck down. If Marshall hits the three, the Cavs win and everybody is talking about what a great decision LeBron made to pass the ball.
• I've heard people say that Michael Jordan would've taken the shot. I seem to remember Money hitting Steve Kerr and John Paxson for game winning jumpers in his playoff career.

The draft lottery is tonight and the future decade for several franchises could be decided tonight, good or bad. My God I'm glad the Spurs are in the playoffs; I couldn't deal with that stress. But I'm excited to see what happens.

I'll be at game 2 of the Spurs-Jazz tonight and I'll watch the lottery there. I'll have my thoughts from both the lottery and game here tomorrow.

Me and Mark Cuban vs. Sam Smith

I caught wind of an article by Sam Smith, a columnist for MSNBC.com and the Chicago Tribune, today on SpursReport.com. Smith predicts that the Spurs will win the NBA title this summer and and claims that the Spurs are his NBA champion from last season. I'll repeat that again for emphasis. Sam Smith claims that the Spurs are the real NBA champions of 2006.

I don't repeat that because I'm proud to hear it or want to rub it in the faces of Heat fans or Maverick fans or fans of any team that got past the second round of the playoffs. I repeat it because it's ridiculous.

Let's get one thing straight, the Miami Heat won the 2006 NBA Championship. There's no doubt about it.

Smith claims that the Spurs were the best team during the playoffs last year and only lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the second round because Mark Cuban intimidated the NBA's younger officials during that series, giving the Mavericks calls that should have gone against them.

I agree that the calls seemed a little lopsided in that series, one of the reasons I have a personal vendetta against Steve Javie, but I don't think Cuban's presence and antics had much to do with it.

Smith also states that the Spurs are a classy organization and won't complain about or blame their losses on officiating (which is true), and wonders what the Mavs would have done if those calls went against them.

Well they did. In the Finals.

I don't know if Smith remembers, but Dwyane Wade scored about half of his points from the free throw line in that series.

(And if you're wondering, yes, I am going to break down all of Smith's points in his article and counter them. Or at least the ones I disagree with. Why? Because it's a beautiful day outside and I'm stuck at work on a Saturday with nothing else to do.)

The main reason Sam Smith attacks the Mavericks and Cuban so blatantly in this article is probably his running feud with Cuban.

Later in the article Smith gives his reasons for why he thinks the Spurs will beat the Mavericks and win the title this season.

1. "(Gregg) Popovich has quietly kept playing time down for the entire roster."
2. "This Dallas team is haunted by that Finals collapse." (Against the Heat in last year's Finals)
3. "What we saw (last year) was that the Spurs could play the Mavs' game and have success. The Mavs can't play the Spurs' game"

Those are Smith's three main points in his article.

The only one of those points I agree with is the first one. I have been keeping an eye on minutes this season because this is a veteran (a nice way of saying old) team. The Spurs would have had a better chance of beating the Mavericks last year if they were healthier and I attribute those injuries to age.

But the coaching staff has done an excellent job of monitoring the players' minutes this season. In the games I have seen so far this season, Avery Johnson hasn't done as good a job with his players' minutes.

I vaguely remember a game this season where the Mavs were up by a good twenty or so points for the entire fourth quarter but player his starters through the final minute. I don't remember who they were playing but I remember thinking that he should have gotten Dirk Nowitzki and his other starters out of the game earlier.

Last season the Detroit Pistons had a regular season much like the Mavericks are having this season, albeit in an easier conference, where their Flip Saunders mismanaged his players' minutes during the regular season, and they flamed out in the playoffs against the Heat. I don't know if the Mavs will have a similar fate, but who's to say they won't?

As far as Smith's claim that the Mavs are haunted by their collapse during the Finals last year, who knows? They may talk about it a lot, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are haunted. Oftentimes something like that leads to motivation, which could explain the Mavs great regular season. But who really knows what's going on inside the Mavs' players' heads other than the Mavs? Definitely not Sam Smith.

Smith's final point is one I disagree with to a point. The Spurs can play the Mavs game. The Spurs can play the Suns game. The Spurs can play any team's game. They are one of the very few teams in the league with the personnel to excel at any style of play. But they play the best when they control the pace and play the game under their circumstances. Just ask the Phoenix Suns.

I think that the Mavs can play the Spurs game. After all, who knows more about the Spurs game better than Avery Johnson, who guided the team to its first NBA championship? The problem is, the Mavs can't play the Spurs game as well as the Spurs.

Smith's only criticism of Popovich was that he had the Spurs play the Mavs game during the series instead of the other way around. The Spurs had no choice. The Spurs won championships forcing teams to play their style of play and play big because they had two dominant seven-footers in the paint to stop the ball at the rim.

In last year's Spurs-Mavericks series, the center combination of Rasho Nesterovic and Nazr Mohammed was so ineffective that Avery Johnson and the Mavs were able to play a smaller lineup featuring two point guards. Had Nesterovic and Mohammed produced at all during the series, we would probably be weighing the Spurs' chances at winning three NBA titles in a row.

But because Nesterovic and Mohammed couldn't produce, the Mavs went small. When the Mavs smaller guys produced and the Spurs' centers couldn't, the Spurs were forced to go small. When the Spurs went small they couldn't protect the rim as well because Tim Duncan didn't want to get into foul trouble (because he was the Spurs' biggest offensive threat).

This gave the Mavericks easier opportunities to score in the lane and rendered the Spurs' defense much less effective than it is when there are two big men in the lane. And that, in essence, was the series. The fact that the Spurs took it to a game seven and were in a position to win that game, only to lose in overtime, should be a victory in itself.

If Fabricio Oberto and Francisco Elson can protect the rim and rebound the basketball in the playoffs this year you can expect the Spurs to win their fourth NBA Championship this summer and prove Sam Smith right, but for completely different reasons than he'll give you.