The Race for the #1 Seed -- The Week Ahead(4/6)
by John Bena (aka CavsBlogger) on Apr 7, 2009 8:00 AM CDT
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PrintOnly two weeks left in the regular season, and what was once a 3-game lead for the Cavaliers over the Lakers has been trimmed to 1. The Cavaliers shook off their two-game losing streak by beating the Spurs by 20. Can they continue their success this week?
Cleveland Cavaliers(62-15) - Last Week(2-2) - This Week -- 3 Games(2 Home, 1 Away)
After winning 13 straight, the Cavaliers lost at Washington and Orlando. The doubters are now in full effect, despite the 20-point win over San Antonio. The Cavaliers at 2-6 against the best teams in the NBA, a stat the will no doubt gets drilled into our collective heads for the next 2 months.
The Cavs get to exact some revenge against the Wizards this week and finish the week with a visit from the Celtics. That should be fun.
4/08 - Washington (18-60)
4/10 - @ Philadelphia (40-36)
4/12 - Boston (58-19)
Los Angeles Lakers(61-16) - Last Week(3-1) - This Week -- 4 Games(2 Home, 2 Away)
Another 3-1 week for the Lakers who sit just 1 game behind the Cavaliers, and own the tie-breaker. A relatively easy week up-comin, with a trip to Portland on Friday night the only potential bump in the road(sure, they play Denver too, but that is in LA.
Neither the Cavs or Lakers can really afford to lose this week.
4/07 - @ Sacramento (16-60)
4/09 - Denver (52-26)
4/10 - @ Portland (48-28)
4/12 - Memphis (22-54)
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I am so ready
to see Ben Wallace get back into the line up. The Cavs are much tougher inside with him patroling the lower blocks. Any word on his expected return?
So I told her," I'll be nicer if you try to be smarter!'..That was a mistake.
According to this article from the PD, both Anderson Varejao and Ben Wallace practiced fully yesterday and are expected to play against Washington tonight barring any setbacks (soreness, etc) early today.
Proof that Lebron James gets star treatment from the refs:
Enjoy, kiddies.
And I’ll counter that KG could get called for a moving pick every time he sets a pick at the top of the key.
LeBron does get a few calls, we all acknowledge this. However, he also gets hacked more often in the lane without getting a whistle more than any other player besides Shaq in the NBA today.
If the refs called every foul that LeBron incurred, he’d be at the line 30+ times a game. Nobody wants to see that, not even Cavs fans. SO STOP YOUR B*TCHING please!
I'm not bitching...
I’m just showing you all that Lebron James gets star treatment from the NBA referees.
Saying that calmly.
And I will repeat, HE IS NOT THE ONLY ONE.
Should he be getting more than one foul called on him per game? Yeah probably. But I doubt he’ll ever be in the 4-5 fouls per game range. He mostly defends on the wing, and does not overplay the defender like Kobe or Jordan did, where they are up in your face and reaching in all the time.
But for every non-call against him defensively (let’s just say 2 per game for arguments sake), I could probably point to five drives where he gets hacked without a call. He should be living at the line even more than he does now.
Wow
I actually read that whole blog post and feel dumber having read it.
by Hardcore Legend on Apr 7, 2009 11:05 PM CDT up reply actions
Let's give the guy some credit and atleast give him a chance to man-up on
his premise.
If as he says, Jordan averaged 2.0 fouls in 82 games one season as his career low.
And Lebron is averaging 1.72 fouls in 77 Games this season, then what he is saying that for things to be on the ‘up and up’, Lebron should have been called for 32 more fouls this season.
If he can find my 32 non-call fouls defensively this year, then his theory has merit. Otherwise, he’s going to have to deal with Lebron being an All-NBA Defender.
by Hardcore Legend on Apr 8, 2009 1:43 PM CDT up reply actions
This analysis is pretty much useless. Sam Smith is looking at personal fouls divided by games played. So player A plays 35 minutes a game and picks up 3 fouls. Player B plays 5 minutes and picks up 2 fouls. In Sam Smith’s world player B will be seen as benefiting from the refs because in his game he was only called for a foul twice.
A better way to look at this would be personal fouls divided by the number of 48 minutes played (i.e. minutes played divided by 48). And my god, how about normalizing for era (specifically game pace). Its widely known that pace has slowed down since the era of Jordan, Bird, and Magic.
So doing it the right way would show that Lebron’s PF/48 is 2.17
Those better (or more lucky as Smith would have you believe) include:
Kevin Durant 2.15
Brandon Roy 2.08
Jamal Crawford 1.79
Michael Finley 1.76
Tayshaun Prince 1.65
Tracy McGrady 1.54
Why no outrage over Brandon Roy? what about Jamal Crawford? He apparently is doing better than Jordan ever did (Smith’s per game analysis would had him at 1.42 PF per games played)!!! What is the incentive for the refs to swallow the whistle when Michael Finley makes a defensive stop? Why does Tayshaun Prince get more star treatment than Lebron, when Lebron is obviously the better player?
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