As the NBA season is about to wrap up, Paul Jones breaks down some key factors.
The NBA regular season ends in two days and it's the time that teams need to be playing their best basketball going into the playoffs.
It's this time of the year that the good teams with championship aspirations understand that their season will be determined to be a success or failure based the April to June portion of the calendar.
So how do you feel if you're in riding with the Boston Celtics or defending champion Los Angeles Lakers with neither team playing well with the second season ready to start this weekend?
Boston picked a bad time to drop its first game of the season to Miami on Sunday as they now sit with a 9-10 record since March 9th. The Celtics kept the locker room closed a bit longer as they try to figure things out. The biggest key right now is having a healthy Shaquille O'Neal. The problem is, O'Neal has not been consistently healthy and he sure as heck will not be playoff ready by Saturday or Sunday.
The Heat on the other hand, seemed to have figured things out against the Celtics. Although the tough times continued for Dwayne Wade, the Heat finally decided to move the ball, registering 24 assists. Ball movement will be the key for Miami going forward against Boston and Chicago.
The Celtics sit in the third spot which is probably the worst place to be right now. Why? Well it means a first round match up with the New York Knicks, and although they will more than likely defeat them, it could be a difficult series with the likes of Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire and a potentially non-traditional playoff style team. A win over the Knicks might take some of the playoff legs out of the Celtics and going through both Miami and Chicago is a tough road to the finals. If any team in the east would benefit from the top seed, it is the older "they-got-limited-miles-on-the-tires" Celtics.
Oh by the way, the Chicago Bulls won their 60th game of the season on Sunday against Orlando and every other time the Bulls have hit the 60 wins plateau in the regular season, it has meant an NBA title. There is no Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen, but there is the probable MVP Derrick Rose and a team that has well defined roles and is willing to defend.
So what about the team on the other coast that is looking for its third straight title? All you need to know right now is the Lakers have lost five in a row and that team that won 17 of 18 after the all-star break is not in the locker room at Staples Centre. Kobe Bryant points to the Lakers poor defence as the biggest issue facing the team.
Unlike the Celtics, the Lakers have kept the core of their title team together but have lost the sense of urgency according to their head coach, Phil Jackson. It's the double edged sword of a championship team's attitude as they had it "turned on" since the all-star break and may have eased up slightly….at the wrong time. They may not say "we can turn it on when we're ready" but you know that's what they are thinking. Well, they have to turn it on, and leave it on in just a few days.
But both the Celtics and Lakers have something that few other playoff teams possess right now and that's a core group of players that have been part of a title team. Neither Boston nor Los Angeles looks good right now but there is an old adage in the NBA that says never underestimate how close you are to going bad when things are good or how close you are to playing well when things look bleak. We'll see if the Lakers and Celtics can put that into play.
