First, the upsets: Memphis over the Spurs. Atlanta over Orlando. Then you take the other first round series: - Philly played Miami tightly in a lot of games even with nagging injuries affecting Iguodala and Brand. - Indiana gave Chicago fits and generally played them quite well despite the final results - LA had their hands full with Chris Paul before realizing that Jason Smith and Aaron Gray aren't all-stars. - Denver gave OKC all it could handle. Durant needed to play big minutes and so did Westbrook (who morphed into a chucker at times) - Portland played well enough despite their franchise cornerstones (Roy and Oden) playing out the T-Mac/Yao script. What's going on? Is this a perfect storm of good coaching and favorable matchups? We haven't even taken into account the fact that Finals hopefuls LA and Chicago just lost today in their respective buildings. I don't know what's happening, but I like it and so do the rest of the NBA fans as illustrated by soaring ratings for this years playoffs.
there are lot more good players in this league than we realize. when the league had Jordan, hakeem, malone, robinson, and shaq i think there was a true lack of parity. the superstars, even though the lakers are still dominant have not separated themselves like that group from the rest of the pack. also, i think the lack of dominant big men allows a lot more competitivness
They're all playoff teams. Playoff teams aren't going to get run out of the building very often. If you make the playoffs in today's NBA, you're not a slouch. If you make the playoffs in today's Western Conference, you're a pretty good team.
miami won 4-1. chicago won 4-1. dallas won 4-2. LA won 4-2. OKC won 4-1. playoff games are usually contested and tight. you get to game plan just for ONE team so regardless, the games will be close. but there's no parity; we haven't seen any true upsets yet. the league in itself is more competitive however. and it's absurd people thought chicago would go to the finals.
Miami hasn't gelled. Spurs are old. Orlando made stupid trades mid season to weaken themselves. Lakers always play down to their opponents. Mavs are still going strong. Celtics are still formidable, although their window is closing. Thunders is the only up and coming team that will replace one of those older teams in the elite category. Every season there are a few of these teams (somehow it's always in the West) making some splashes and then sort of fade. NO, Portland, Denver, and now Memphis. I don't think it has changed that much in terms of parity.
Yup. Like I say, the Spurs and Lakers were the top seeds this year - the late 90's, early 2000's Spurs & Lakers teams would shred the current ones to pieces. The middle of the back, and even the bottom of the league are better though. But, there are some bad playoff teams in the east.
What he is saying is that he believes that, records aside, the grizzlies were the better team. An upset in the strictest sense of the word is when a team is beaten who should have won. In this case, the actual disparity in the records made us think that the spurs were the better team, when in truth they were not.
No elite teams this year. Lakers are mediocre at best. Chicago is overrated. Spurs chocked. Miami will explode sometimes this playoff.
Average margin of victory 2010 Playoffs First Round: 11.16 Average margin of victory 2011 Playoffs First Round: 8.79 Games were closer this year than last. Orlando was heavily favored going in against the Hawks and they got picked apart. We already know what happened to San Antonio. The only upsets last year were Dallas getting beaten by SA (understandable since Dallas chokes all the time and the disparity between their W-L records was a mere 5 games) and Utah beating Denver (again, no biggie.) Orlando getting smoked by Atlanta was surprising. Memphis dominating SA was incredible. All the teams have performed very well in these playoffs. Each series has been quite competitive. You could not say that about last year.
I'm pretty sure winning 15 games more games is a clear indicator of how much better you are than your opponent. If the Spurs won, nobody would have said "Oh, the Grizzlies were actually the better team." That was as valid an upset as you'll see.
The upsets were upsets. Still, I think people were seeing weakness in both San Antonio and Orlando late in the season. It looked like they weren't operating efficiently and were dropping games they should have won. Meanwhile, the Grizzlies were coming on strong at the end of the season and came into the playoffs with a lot of momentum. I think there was some timing and chemistry that determined the result. That Atlanta played well enough to beat Orlando even with the problems they were having was surprising to me. But, that was a 4/5 match-up, where upsets are much more common. So, I don't think there's anything larger going on here. You had one out-lier event with SA-MEM that wasn't totally shocking (like the GSW-DAL thing was years ago), and otherwise it's been pretty typical.
I think the reason most people wouldnt call it that big of an upset, because after the first game Memphis looked like the better team. SA looked old and slow, it was pretty clear that they overachieve in the regular season.
I wonder if all of the people who say Memphis wasn't an upset also believe that Miami's Big 3 is the most exciting storyline this year and they want Miami to win it all. In that case to argue would be to argue with my evil, opposite twin.
