Jay's NBA Finals Preview

If you guys can remember back to November, I said this (edited for space):

"2 Good Teams

Miami Heat

I don't care - not even a little bit - about the collapse in the playoffs/finals. If anything, that will help the Heat this season.. bear with me. Now, we have definitive evidence that this team belongs to Dwyane Wade. Lebron James is the best basketball player on the planet, yes, but this is Wade's team when they need a leader. There goes their biggest problem from last season. Prepare for domination, as long as Lebron has been reading everyone's tweets over the summer and accepts his role. 

With the size down low they can match up with any team in the NBA and overpower them. It's all on Lebron (sort of, because what I mean by this is that it's actually all on DWade). 

Oklahoma City Thunder

If I'm right, then the Heat will meet the Thunder in the NBA Finals. The Thunder's core is in a prime spot to overthrow Kobe, Dirk, Steve Nash, Tim Duncan, and the rest of the Western Division. Despite a pretty lackluster draft, the Thunder still have a phenomenal starting 5: Russell Westbrook, Thabo Sefolosha/James Harden, Kevin Durant, Serge Ibaka, and Kendrick Perkins. Top to bottom, they can guard any team in the NBA (except Dirk) and outscore any team (except the re-invigorated Heat). 

NBA Finals Prediction: Heat over Thunder, 5 Games"

And really, I only got like one thing wrong:

• LeBron was far and away the best player on the Heat. Dwyane Wade was maybe even the third most valuable player. Oops.
• The Heat's (lack of) size was one of their major flaws. Oops. 
• The Thunder swept Dirk's Mavericks. Oops.

But, I did get that LeBron was going to be the most influential player on the Heat's success and that OKC couldn't guard Dirk all that well (25-31-17-34 points per game, 41.8 JPoint) and that these teams would meet each other in the Finals. Ergo I think you can lock down Miami winning in five. 

Maybe don't quite lock that down. Because I think that enough people want the Thunder to win (OKC could wear white jerseys and Miami could wear black jerseys every single game and nobody would care. Create kind of a hero-villain atmosphere, how do you feel about that David Stern?) and they really feed off support. Couple that with the fact that it seems that LeBron can't handle being unloved and the crowds/America could actually be a pretty huge factor.

Normally I'd break down the backcourt comparisons (advantage Thunder), small forward comparisons (advantage Heat), and frontcout comparisons (advantage Miami), team chemistry comparisons (advantage Thunder). But I just did that in one sentence so let's just throw it all out the window because I have absolutely no clue how the next week or two are going to play out. 

Part of me hopes that Oklahoma City wins so LeBron doesn't get a ring and the glimmer of hope in Cleveland fans' eyes stays alive that they can win a title before LeBron. Kevin Durant goes about everything perfectly - his game, his podium game, his fashion game - and Westbrook is (for me) the most intriguing player in the NBA (more on that in another post, maybe). Plus they have Derek Fisher, which has to count for at least one late-game-three-pointer-dagger. 

But part of me wants LeBron to shine on the game's biggest stage, win the first of many rings, and silence the haters. He's so gifted physically. He's so un-gifted emotionally and personality-ly. He needs to hire someone (I'm available) as a PR rep. Because I'm absolutely sure that he doesn't currently have one. It's not possible. We're getting off track. This is going to be a telling series for LeBron. If he can shoulder the load (but still have Bosh and Wade) then he'll probably win and go down a path of championship-winning. If he can't win with this team, he will probably never win one. And then the whole Cleveland thing may just come true. Dan Gilbert will be a prophet. And LeBron's hair will continue to retreat. 

But fuck it, I'm sticking with my Heat in 5 games prediction that I made in November (that's seven months ago). 

Knicks - Heat & All-Star Weekend Preview

You could say that the NBA's All-Star weekend actually starts with tonight's TNT games: Knicks @ Heat and Lakers @ Thunder. Those games will be more interesting than the All-Star game itself because they could end up being conference semifinal (or even conference final) matchups. Let's break that game, and the rest of the weekend festivities, down:

Part 1: Knicks vs. Heat

It's easy to break this game down into smaller matchups, and that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Backcourt
New York: Jeremy Lin, JR Smith, Baron Davis, Landry Fields, Iman Shumpert, Bill Walker
Miami: Dwyane Wade, Mario Chalmers, Norris Cole, Mike Miller, James Jones
Edge: New York
Dwyane Wade is the best shooting guard in the game. But the Heat have no depth at the guard positions. All of the Knicks listed could go off for 20 points and 10 assists and nobody would be that surprised - Dave touched on this yesterday. Maybe don't count Bill Walker in that group. But hey, you never know.

Frontcourt
New York: Carmelo Anthony, Amar'e Stoudemire, Tyson Chandler, Jared Jeffries, Steve Novak
Miami: LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Joel Anthony, Shane Battier, Udonis Haslem, Dexter Pittman
Edge: New York
Again, the Heat are stacked at the top of the order and then it tails off horribly. LeBron obviously is better than Melo. Stoudemire and Bosh are essentially a push. Chandler is better than anyone the Heat can put at center. Steve Novak can spread the floor for Lin, Anthony, and everyone else to get to the rim.

Based on the most basic of breakdowns, I'm taking the Knicks +9.5 in a heartbeat (odds from Bovada).

Part 2: All-Star Saturday

Good News, Bullets Blog Fans: The JPoint is Relevant

To be honest, the night I made the JPoint I was just looking for a numerical way to prove Kobe's overratedness. However, I was fairly unbiased and we've adjusted the JPoint calculation method slightly to reflect offensive efficiency. I meant it to be an individual thing, but in last night's post I expanded it to entire teams as an explanation of why the Heat won.

Well in class today I was thinking. What if offensive efficiency is the single most important determinant of the winner of an NBA? Sounds absurd right, because I mean it's only a part of the game - there's assists, rebounds, defense, steals, substitutions, momentum, and the occasional brawl between players and fans.

But chew on this: I crunched some numbers from the games yesterday (there were only 3 - a small sample size, for sure) and look at my findings:

Game 1: Houston Rockets 90, New Orleans Hornets 88 (Final/OT)
To summarize this game in one ESPN headline, "Rockets survive awful 4th to top Hornets in OT." The fact that neither team scored more than 90 points in 53 minutes of play should reiterate that. But if you were looking for a statistical measure of offensive effectiveness, I have just the thing (see where I'm going with this?):
Houston: 30.5 JPoint (that's horrendous, in relation to averages)
New Orleans: 28.2 JPoint (and that would be even worse)

For those of you keeping track, that's 1/1 on JPoint reflecting final score.

Heat Beat Lakers.. But Why?

So tonight the Heat beat the Lakers convincingly - by 11 points - and (as usual) Lebron and Kobe were the two best players on the court.

The basic stats, which are impressive for both players:

James: 31 points, 8 rebounds, 8 assists, 4 steals, 3 blocks
Bryant: 24 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists, 3 steals

The more advanced stats, which show that neither player really had a spectacular night:

James: 0.444 FG%, 0.714 FT%, 37.1 JPoint
Bryant: 0.381 FG%, 1.000 FT%, 37.5 JPoint

So, as Kobe fans may point out, Bryant was slightly more efficient than James. And, in a strange role reversal, James fans would respond by saying that the only stat that counts is a win. I disagree with that notion, as you probably know, and I love the statistical reasons for why teams win games. Let's look at the rest of the players (skipping every stat besides points and JPoint because what else do you really need?).