Points in the Paint

» May 4, 2009 7:48 PM | By Brandon Hoffman
  • Time constraints prevented me from writing playoff previews for the Cavaliers-Hawks, Celtics-Magic, Mavericks-Nuggets, and Lakers-Rockets series. But for the record, I’ll take the Cavs in five, Celtics in six, Nuggets in six, and Lakers in six. For more on my Celtics-Magic pick, check out today’s scoop.
  • Hornets247:  “Scott is a self-assured, strong personality.  He’s got a sizeable ego, and has no difficulty telling the players under him what he thinks of them and their abilities.  It’s that ego that allowed him put his stamp on the team and build it into a playoff contender. And that ego may also be Byron Scott’s downfall when it comes to gameplanning. That ego allows Byron to be certain his way is best.  It makes him certain that what he is doing is right.  That may allow him to sleep well at night and control the team, but it also makes him stubborn and inflexible.  That inflexibility shows up in his gameplanning – and has in every year he’s been with the Hornets.”
  • John Branch of The New York Times:  “Linas Kleiza, 24, is the rare professional athlete whose parents may have more specialized and unusual job skills. The son, a powerfully built 6-foot-8 forward, averaged 10 points and 4 rebounds this season for the Nuggets, who lead the Dallas Mavericks, 1-0, in their second-round Western Conference playoff series. Kleiza led Lithuania to a fourth-place finish at last summer’s Beijing Olympics. Kleiza is rich and relatively famous, but he does have his shortcomings. ‘I have no talent when it comes to art,’ Kleiza said in an interview in Denver recently. ‘I can’t even draw.’ His parents, meanwhile, are graduates of the Vilnius Institute of Art in Lithuania. Their two-person team tackles various Old World challenges, including frescoes (painting on wet plaster), trompe l’oeil (creating an illusion, often through painting) and scagliola (using plaster work to imitate marble), mostly for clients in the moneyed residential enclaves of northern New Jersey, Connecticut and Manhattan.”
  • Chris Perkins of the Palm Beach Post:  “For the record, Spoelstra said of Beasley, ‘I think he’s best at the four (power forward).’ But there’s no playing time there. So Beasley will try to make the change with a full summer of work and a full training camp. The extra time should help tremendously. Beasley was clearly a poor defensive power forward when he reported to training camp. ‘It really was like getting a junior-high level defensive player,’ Spoelstra said. He wasn’t ripping Beasley. That was the truth. To get an idea of how complicated the Heat’s defensive system is consider they grade players in 55 areas on every possession. That’s right, 55 areas on every possession.”
  • Tim MacMahon of The Dallas Morning News:  “Denver finished the regular season by winning 14 of its final 17 games, including a mail-in loss in the nothing-to-gain finale. Eleven of those wins were by double figures. Denver has started the playoffs by winning five of six games — and all the victories are by double figures, including a 58-point thrashing of the Hornets in New Orleans. The Nuggets’ stars got to laugh it up during garbage time Sunday despite Carmelo Anthony getting in early foul trouble and Chauncey Billups failing to put his stamp on the game. In other words, the Nuggets won comfortably without big games from its two best players. That’s scary.”
  • Love these quotes on Ron Artest’s transformation via Richard Justice of the Houston Chronicle:  “‘A lot of years of mistakes, a lot of years of immaturity, a lot of years of stress,’ he said. ‘I’ve been through so much. I’m at a point now where I can deal with more.’ Is he still fighting it? ‘Yeah. I think I’m doing better now,’ Artest said. ‘That game I didn’t take a shot until the third quarter, I said that was the best game I ever played. I cannot believe I did that. Before, I would be (mad) if I didn’t take a shot. I was just so happy. I never felt like that.’ When asked about his past troubles, Artest smiles. ‘I’m here for a reason,’ he said. ‘If those things hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t be here.’”
  • Jack McCallum of SI.com:  “I expected LeBron James, who arrived in the pros as an 18-year-old drawing intense scrutiny and facing extraordinary expectations, to have screwed up by this time. Not a Jeff George-level screwup, i.e., clashing with coaches and consistently underperforming. Not a Michael Phelps-level screwup, i.e., getting photographed with a marijuana pipe. Not necessarily a Kobe Bryant-level screwup, i.e., committing a sexual indiscretion that cost him a reputation that he has only recently begun to salvage. But some kind of screwup. Show up late or not at all for one game. Miss a practice because of a Nike commitment, then say it doesn’t matter all that much. Shove an unruly fan who got in his face in a club. Get frustrated from double- and triple-teaming and lash out at an opponent. Complain about teammates not giving him enough help. But here we are in the 24-year-old’s sixth season, and it’s as if he’s following a script written by a couple of hip, yet image-conscious screenwriters.”
  • Sam Smith of Bulls.com:  “DiLeo is expected to return to the front office for what some around the 76ers are suggesting is a tougher, more demanding coach who was a player. The obvious guy is TNT’s Doug Collins, who was an All-Star with the 76ers as a player. I’ve heard he’s interested in one more coaching run with his kids and grandkids now living in Pennsylvania and North Carolina, and he’d only return to the 76ers, where he started his career as the No. 1 overall pick to revive the then worst ever 9-73 franchise. He’s exactly what this drifting franchise needs.”
  • Phil Jackson’s coaching style is unique. He rarely berates officials, and never rushes to call timeouts when his team struggles. In all honesty, Phil’s laissez-faire attitude infuriates me at times. There are moments when I’d love to see Phil tear into the Lakers for playing lackadaisically. I remember Jackson coaching with a lot more fire when he was with the Bulls. Interestingly enough, Dennis Rodman was the player who changed Jackson’s coaching style:  “It took Dennis Rodman for me to learn to sit down and shut up because he drew energy from how I was on the sideline.  I was as active a coach early in my career as a lot of these coaches… Dennis would become animated the more I coached animatedly.  He was a personality that really fed off the people around him – he really wanted to be cool and calm and collected… At that point, it might be that Dennis would get his second foul and get kicked out of ball games, so in the late 90’s I started sitting down, observing, and leaving the officials alone.”
  • Sekou Smith of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:  “Hawks coach Mike Woodson roasted him for passing the ball to Smith in the corner on in the final seconds. As Smith’s 24-footer bounced off the rim with 10.9 seconds left, Woodson jumped Bibby’s case for making the pass. The surprise was Bibby’s response. He jumped Woodson right back, much to the delight of those of us sitting close enough to hear the entire exchange. ‘If you don’t want me to throw to him put him somewhere else,’ Bibby shouted. ‘He’s wide [@*&$%] open. Wide open. What do you want me to do? If you don’t want him shooting that then put him somewhere else. You tell him.’ After getting it back as good as he gave it, Woodson crossed his arms, did a pirouette and smiled at everyone watching as he strolled back toward the Hawks’ bench.”

  • Basketball trainer Brian McCormick writes about Brandon Jennings, Jeremy Tyler and learning:  “Education is what you make of it. You can sleep walk through four years of college and graduate as ignorant as when you enrolled. You can skip college altogether and start a billion-dollar company. My greatest learning experience in college was coaching and managing a Special Olympics program. My ’school work’ taught me very little about anything. All these talking heads that get their 15 seconds of fame talking about Jennings and Tyler and the ruination of the United States miss the point: if they are worried about the educational system, fix it for those it is failing. The system did not fail Jennings and Tyler. They may not have great grades – I don’t know – but they sound articulate in their interviews – more so than NBA TV”s Gary Payton – have guaranteed contracts, dreams, goals, contacts, resources, etc.”

Category: Atlanta Hawks, Chicago Bulls, Cleveland Cavaliers, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, International Basketball, Los Angeles Lakers, Miami Heat, NBA Issues, New Orleans Hornets, New York Knicks, Philadelphia 76ers, Points in the Paint, Portland Trail Blazers

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Discuss in Forum 
Leave Your Comment