I was hoping to set up some kinda live stream pod like gman and jnr, but I could not figure my [expletive deleted] out in time, so here we go with another written article that will not get nominated for MEOTY.
OMEGA
#1 Bucks, bye bye bye
MISSES:
You could credit a late season scratch by the Pistons’ Alex Caruso for this, or you could credit Quail with a truly formidable season with a strong squad. Sure, prior to Caruso’s injury (and Kai Jones’s injury too, yikes), the Pistons were destined for first place. The Bucks beat them out by a game, sending the now 2nd best team in the league to 3rd in the rankings.
HITS:
Save a couple games missed by Hintz, the Bucks have avoided the injury bug this season. I think it’s going to stay that way. I think the sim gods cannot be so cruel that, of many rebuilds in the past sim decade, one playoff run can go the whole way without disaster. Even with Caruso in the mix, the Pistons would have a tough conference finals matchup that I see going either way. Now, though, edge definitely goes to the Bucks in the next 3 rounds of playoffs, fully rested and ready to dominate.
#2 Kings vs #7 Cavs (4-0, Kings won)
HITS:
Despite many league GMs urging SuperDog to move on from Killian Hayes and start a new build, he has held tight with his core of Hayes and Addington. Took his team all the way to #2 this season, and true to form, Hayes won ¾ Player of the Game awards to Addington’s 1. It was all Kings, all Hayes and Addington, all series long. No one expected any less from this duo after the underdog Cavs scratched and clawed their way to their first playoff entrance under GM jlmarines, who lost his star Center Eloy Tilton before having a chance to start this series. Hayes sat comfortably in the top 5 of the league in points, assists and 3p% like one of the league’s leading - AHEM - point guards and newly minted MVP of the league should. It is worth noting that Hayes scored his one triple-double of the series at the SG spot, performing better overall there than at the point, so maybe he can play more roles than I’m giving SuperDog credit (MVP at SF/SG, to wit). Addington, meanwhile, efficiently cleaned up the boards to create more opportunities for Hayes while shooting pretty well himself at over 62% from the field. Additional big man support from Tubbs (good acquisition) and yeah, Cavs never had a chance.
…but HIT! Cavs made it to the dance! I’m sure we were all happy to see that (except the GMs he’s actually friends with, lol). Jlmarines first trip with his rag tag group of okay players, one of whom will never be the same (RIP Eloy). Jeffery Jackson stepped up, though, scoring almost 20ppg in the series, and Scottie Barnes first playoff appearance was a hit, averaging over 21ppg - 30pts in their final loss. Not bad. Made up some lost ground with a particularly bad offensive performance from Jere Bailey. Beyond these numbers, though, it’s all misses for Cleveland.
MISSES
Cleveland was outrebounded by 21 rebounds in game 4. They really lost any drive they had getting here. Still not as bad as game 2 where they had 29 rebounds to Sacramento’s 57. Every game was demoralizing at the rim, avg’ing only 34 rebounds per game to Sacramento’s 53 - almost exactly the tally of rebounds in game 4. The writing was on the wall all series long and explicitly so as they got swept on April 24th.
For Sacramento, the big miss could be Hayes recording ONLY 1 triple double against the worst team in the playoffs. He’s not even leading the league in scoring after the first round. Perhaps my expectations of the MVP are too high, but Hayes will need to at least record these high of numbers if they have any hopes getting past a Caruso-less Pistons - still the league’s true #2 team - in Rd. 2.
#3 Pistons vs #6 Thunder (4-0 Pistons)
HITS
Obviously Caruso got hit, but let’s acknowledge the play on words and move on to the real hits. With Caruso, Pistons win by 30 every time. Without Caruso, Pistons win by 20. They’re really, really good, and demonstrated just as much in Rd 1. The real come up for Detroit, however, is Gerry Folse, who capped the series with a cool 40 points. The young Charles Alleman may have a bright future ahead but he really stood no chance opposite Folse. Overall, though, the Pistons record 23 entries on the Playoff leaders page, without any bs entries in the Minutes played and turnovers category. They hold the top 3 spots in 3p% courtesy Caruso, Olney (proving to be a wise midseason trade for Frank Daily, now more than ever) and Cunningham. Even if you take Caruso out of the occasion, they still have 20 entries in the top 25 of all positive stat categories, and appear poised to make the #2 Kings look like the #7 Cavs in Rd 2, too.
OKC continued to get future league stars Richie Cuevas and Antonio Blakeney invaluable post season experience, with Blakeney more than doubling his output compared to last season’s playoff run. Perhaps his efficiency would have waned if he played more games, but holding the far superior Cade Cunningham to 20pts in the first two games has to be a hit, even if he struggled to get his own offense going. He came out roaring in gm 3 facing lesser opposition with Cunningham shifting a bit due to Caruso’s injury, recording 34 points on 11/16 from the field and 11/13 from the stripe, too. He will be a problem for everyone in another few seasons.
Also worth noting that, despite the unfavorable matchup with Folse, Alleman still recorded 10 or more rebounds in ¾ games, so that’s pretty cool, too.
MISSES
It’s not so much a miss as it is a glaring reality that this new Thunder core of Blakeney, Cuevas and now Alleman have a long way to go, still. They did not look bad, usually, but they’ll need every bit of playing time the next few years to be contending again.
And for Detroit, it’s no secret how much losing Caruso hurts. The nerve of former teammate Richie Cuevas (if only for 1 preseason)!!! Just because he bricked the first bucket of the game and Caruso recorded one measly assist did not give Cuevas the right to inbound the ball and hustle down the court and instantly dislocate Caruso’s shoulder like that. So messed up. But a team deep like the Pistons should be able to manage a while. At least through this upcoming series against the Kings…
#4 Wizards vs. #5 Magic (4-1 Magic)
MISSES
Dan Yandell going down after only 1 quarter of play is the only real story of this series. And it’s unfortunately a huge miss for Washington, cashing out on 10 points to upgrade from Brandon Boston Jr. The whole league mourned for X. Even though he probably did not expect to get too far past the first round, the Yandell acquisition almost guaranteed getting past the first round, with support from Paul Cassel, vet Ronnie Reynolds and the emerging Charles Bojorquez. Without Yandell’s 4 rings and 4 Playoff MVPs worth of experience, it would prove to be a short series for the Wizards. Even with Orlando in their own rebuild-limbo, they’re still not a squad one simply steps over.
HITS
The Wiz still won one without Yandell. That’s a hit, especially with young and rising stars Kory Manley and Tony Parris recording highly respectable numbers the same game (Parris with 9 blocks and 20 points, and Manley with 22pts over 33 minutes, too).
Speaking of Parris and Manley, these two are the true hits of the series. Manley, so far, has most-improved level numbers by doubling his scoring, A/T ratio, and improving his overall shooting percentage from 51% last year to 60% this year. Free throw shooting went from 70% to 80% too. And Parris, well, let’s just say Andy has found his dream player in a more well-rounded version of Matthew O’Connor. Averaging over 6 blocks a game in your rookie season in a playoff series is outstanding news for this kid’s future. He’s also scoring and rebounding when needed to do so, even though a glut of bigs with big guy skills are also grabbing nice stats around the hoop, too (see Elcock’s 3 blocks a game over 11 minutes and Mitch Rob’s 19 points and 10ish boards a game, not to mention Dirks efficient 69% (nice) shooting, good for 8 points over 13 minutes of play on average).
All of this can and will change when they meet the Bucks later today, but it has been fun while it lasted, right false9? The future is bright.
ALPHA
#1 Clippers, bye bye bye
MISSES
Much like the Pistons in Omega, the team down the hall from me have suffered a potentially playoff destroying injury with Luguentz Dort’s dislocated knee. They should be able to get through the Lakers Knicks without too much concern, courtesy Danny Campbell’s ability to kick general ass. Raiquan Gray, Carle Gabauer and possibly even rookie Tony Throckmorton will have their hands full with Douglas Haun, but
HITS
even without Dort they should have enough talent in the back court courtesy Dong Bone and Karlo Pearson to shut down the Knicks game-of-depth and move on to the conference finals. Here, they will need Dort back asap, and it may not be soon enough…
But speaking of the Knicks…
#4 Lakers vs #5 Knicks (4-2 Knicks)
HITS
Hats off to Drk. This loss in 6 was absolutely devastating to my ego, handing the Knicks their first semi-finals berth in almost 15 seasons. But credit where it is due: the Knicks, contrary to historically popular belief, do NOT suck. They are a team overlooked at first due to its lack of true star players, but against my Lakers, they proved they only needed one: Douglas Haun.
This guy is the man. Top 10 scorer, 2nd best blocker and top 15 rebounder AND free throw shooter (set to take the reigns from Kenneth Heard as best big man free throw shooter in all PBSL), we just did not have an answer for him. In the first two games, he easily outplayed Luigi Leathers, who at least put up a fight in game 1, but ultimately took advantage of the Lakers adjustment to put Shores opposite Haun and dominated him, too, and even more so Leathers when Leathers came off the bench. And aside from Haun, everyone put up numbers while playing limited minutes. Eight players scored double figures in their first win of the series. EIGHT. And when one of those eight was Haun putting up 30, it was more than the Lakers could swallow, forcing them to fold in 6 games.
It’s no secret that I fully expected to get past at least the Knicks this playoff run, but despite the loss to a team that was better than I thought, we still had some hits. Darius Garland ran some wonderful offense, getting Shores and Quack going for well over 20pts apiece per game while averaging a cool 20 points himself, with just over 10 assists per game, too. Though he continued his regular season struggles with turning the ball over, he still had a nice 3.5 A/T ratio, which could satisfy any rookie in their playoff berth. The only person with more assists is one of the best PGs in the league, He Hor.
MISSES
More Lakers than Knicks here, unfortunately. The adjustment to put Shores on Haun failed, thinking Shores’s offense would overwhelm Haun’s defense and get him into foul trouble and thus less time on the floor. It was almost a complete failure. Meanwhile, we held NY to less than 120 points only twice the entire series, and one of those times we still lost. It was L season for LA. Luigi did even worse coming off the bench than he did starting, and Caleb Coffin was just not effective enough with his quickness to contain Leonardo, who grabbed over 15 rebounds a game more than once opposite Coffin. Even though I’d like to try again, I’m just not sure how different the end result would be. What’s certain is what I thought might have worked did not. And that’s just how it goes sometimes in the PBSL.
#3 Nuggets vs #6 Mavericks (4-3 Mavericks)
MISSES
No offense to the absent Nuggets, but this made the sting of my loss to New York sting just a little bit less. Just a little bit. I mean, the Nuggets were finally exposed for not having a back court, and not having any GM attendance throughout the series. Because there was no clear attempt at victory, this devastating 30 pt home loss in game 7 probably was not all that devastating to the team’s GM, but a loss as embarrassing as this nonetheless made my loss feel just a little bit less bad. Their slaughter-rule level of defeat here was actually just a small HIT for me.
HITS
But this is all a huge hit for Dallas! Jockeying for position in an ultra competitive 4 seed through 9 seed, with only 4 games separating 4 and 9, Dallas did not seem poised to have much success against a team seeded at #3, a full 9 games behind them in the rankings. They had a lackluster offseason, losing their perennial (if misplaced) point guard in Dudley Carner to the Magic for only $4m some dollars, and getting a couple decent but no amazings signings on vet min deals. The Mavs hit the playoffs as a very streaky team, but they hit their stride at just the right time in Rd 1. Falling 0-2, the squad made some solid adjustments and took the Nuggets all the way to gm 7 ending in a shockingly dominant win. Relative to the other playoff teams, they were not great anywhere but decent everywhere. It would appear Toni Gauss’s scoring and Zeke Nnaji’s well-rounded play did the trick, but they also shot at a high clip once they started winning. The only game they did not score more than 118 points, they lost, whereas the Nuggets seemed lucky if they got close to scoring 115.
Maybe I’m just getting tired of writing this article, but I still don’t really know how they did it. I’m just impressed by it.
OH! And Saddiq Bey looked good consistently, so good for him and good for Denver. He’s a HIT.
#2 Spurs vs. #7 Suns (4-1 Spurs)
MISSES
Any opportunity to take the Spurs out at the knees. We’re all pretty sick of them leading the league now, aren’t we? I’m sick of talking about it. Hopefully they make some big trades this offseason and we can all move on to a new era of PBSL, even if they and the Bulls are contending again in another couple of seasons. I would not be surprised.
HITS
Suns stole one from San Antonio. I’m really sorry, Phoenix, but Rd 2 of the playoffs are starting in like 15 minutes and I’m starting to get carpal tunnel pounding this damned article out. Keep on keepin’ on with good moves like you made this year to go in on He Hor and I’m sure I’ll write more on you soon.
Alright, that’s it! Where’s ma prnts