The Larry O'Brien itself is plenty of motivation for the participants in the 2009 Finals. But there will also be a few individual goals driving those involved.
Dwight Howard: Everyone marks Kobe as the NBA's preeminent love-him-or-hate-him player, but D-12 earns a fair amount of vitriol, whether for his lack of refinement in the post, his Shaq II free throw stroke, his alleged faux-choir boy persona or the sentiment that slam dunk stardom has rendered the D.P.O.Y. publicly overrated. Let's just say those Patrick Ewing comparisons (ahem) would disappear with a ring.
Hedo Turkoglu: Like kindred spirit Lamar Odom, Hedo will be a free agent signing his last long-term, high-dollar deal this summer. A marvelous turn which began in Game 7 against Boston could land Hedo near the top of the offseason ledger, above everyone but Carlos Boozer. Turk needs a good Finals series to keep that hope alive, though.
If there's one great ignored fact about defense in the NBA, it's how important it is to limit 3-point attempts. We all focus so much on the interior or on fouls that we forget the most basic tenet of committed defense: challenging every shot. The great defensive teams, for the most part, challenge every shot. In some forms, this leads to a low opponent shooting percentage.
But for other great defenses who challenge everything -- San Antonio, Boston, Orlando -- challenging every shot means you dictate the types of shots opponents take. Over the last five NBA seasons, there has been a strong correlation between defensive efficiency and the percentage of two-point jump shots taken by the opponent. In other words, a key cause (and result) of great defense is the prevention of 3s and inside shots. It's not universal, but it's substantial. (Eye-poppingly so.)
The Lakers have a strong, strong defense -- No. 6 in the league this season. But it doesn't fit the "no 3s" mold. At all. In fact, the Lakers defense allows a lot of 3s. Against the Magic in the Finals, that could spell doom.
As the NBA Universe tries to adjust to the fact that the team with the best record in the league with the best player in the league faces a 2-1 deficit that would be 3-0 were it not for The Shot Part 11,000, there are some interesting ideas being thrown around as to how the world will right itself, so to speak.
The common reaction is to look to the Cavaliers and ask, "What can they do to get back in this thing?" But instead of attempting to decipher ways to counter the Magic's matchup advantages, or rotation adjustments, or defensive gambles, instead you hear a lot of "Cleveland's shooters have to start making shots."
As if Orlando has had nothing to say about the Cavs' struggles. Just so you're aware, it's not the Fates that have ordained this slump for the No. 1 seed. It's the same principle that got the Cavs that lofty record. Defense.
Amid a midseason war of words, Shaquille O'Neal faulted his old coach Stan Van Gundy for his frenetic, loud sideline direction, infamously calling SVG a "master of panic." Magic players including Dwight Howard and Marcin Gortat have alluded to the accusation late this year -- a seemingly worrisome development.
But if Van Gundy's style does create unnecessary anxiety for Orlando, it sure didn't show up in Game 1 Wednesday.
Were the Cavaliers rusty or simply overrated? Anyone who watched the Magic go into Cleveland and steal home court advantage by winning Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals is pondering that question today. The answer, as unsatisfying as it may be, is likely somewhere in the middle.
Coming into the game, most of the talk centered on whether the Magic would be fatigued after their grueling seven-game series with the Celtics that ended only after the Magic staved off elimination in back-to-back games. In hindsight, more attention should have been paid to the fact that the Cavs had played a grand total of four games in 24 days entering Wednesday evening, which didn't seem to affect them early but clearly messed with their conditioning late.
CLEVELAND -- Suddenly, the LeBron puppet was speechless. So were the mortified fans inside a famously raucous arena in a sports-cursed, economy-blighted town, where THIS was not supposed to be happening. Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals was ticketed as another chapter in a coronation, a poof of resin in the air followed by another romp by the Cavaliers, a prelude to a LeBron James vs. Kobe Bryant matchup that already is being overhyped on vitaminwater commercials as "The Great Debate."
For all of the Cavaliers' success this year -- both posting the league's best record and winning their first eight games of the playoffs -- the Magic have actually held their own in head-to-head matchups, winning two of three games in the regular season and seven of 10 the last three years.
Much like your 401k, though, past results do not guarantee future performance, but at least the Magic won't come into this series questioning whether they have what it takes to win a single game against the vaunted Cavs, which was exactly the situation the dysfunctional Pistons and the injury-depleted Hawks faced in the first and second rounds, respectively.
Much of the year, Orlando's reliance on the three-point shot earned scorn from observers, who (en masse) dubbed the style as likely to fail in the playoffs. As recently as Game 5, Dwight Howard himself questioned the strategy to keep taking threes with a lead -- it was seen as a risky move. You live by the three, you die by the three ...
... or so they said. The Magic took more threes than anyone but the run-and-gun Knicks this season, but still finished with the sixth-best shooting percentage from deep. The threes weren't tics of the inside-out offense Stan Van Gundy employed, waiting to be turned off when the circumstances warranted. The threes made up Orlando's offensive identity. Without shooting them, the Magic die. Sunday's Game 7 win is a great example of how the threes work for Orlando.
The Larry O'Brien itself is plenty of motivation for the participants in the 2009 Finals. But there will also be a few individual goals driving those involved.
If there's one great ignored fact about defense in the NBA, it's how important it is to limit 3-point attempts. We all focus so much on the interior or on fouls that we forget the most basic tenet of committed defense: challenging every shot. The great defensive teams, for the most part, challenge every shot. In some forms, this leads to a low opponent shooting percentage.
As the NBA Universe tries to adjust to the fact that the team with the best record in the league with the best player in the league faces a 2-1 deficit that would be 3-0 were it not for The Shot Part 11,000, there are some interesting ideas being thrown around as to how the world will right itself, so to speak.
Amid a midseason war of words, Shaquille O'Neal faulted his old coach 
CLEVELAND -- Suddenly, the LeBron puppet was speechless. So were the mortified fans inside a famously raucous arena in a sports-cursed, economy-blighted town, where THIS was not supposed to be happening. Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals was ticketed as another chapter in a coronation, a poof of resin in the air followed by another romp by the Cavaliers, a prelude to a 
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Much of the year, Orlando's reliance on the three-point shot earned scorn from observers, who (en masse) dubbed the style as likely to fail in the playoffs. As recently as Game 5, 
