Chris Dempsey of The Denver Post: “Thirty-four seconds remained when Carmelo Anthony walked off the court for the last time Wednesday night. He faced the crowd and clapped. The crowd clapped back. The rocky times through six up-and-down seasons seem like a distant memory, along with the cornrows and the first-round playoff failures. All that was left was adoration. Anthony is living his Kevin Garnett moment. The playoffs had been an albatross for the Boston Celtics star while he was a member of the Minnesota Timberwolves. It took eight tries for Garnett to get out of the first round. But when he finally did, he took the magic carpet ride all the way to the Western Conference finals. Anthony’s sixth time has been his charm. The pixie dust hasn’t faded, and he has ridden this fairy tale to his first conference finals.”
Eddie Sefko of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: “For the second year in a row, the Mavericks’ season has ended with a convincing playoff loss against a team that was clearly superior. That it came in the second round instead of the first is no real consolation. This is the dilemma facing Mavericks management. They have warriors who will fight. They’re just not good enough to handle the really good teams in the Western Conference. A supreme effort is great. And fans should expect nothing less at this time of year. But talent rules in the playoffs. And the Nuggets have a boatload. The Mavericks can fill up a dingy. Dirk Nowitzki? No question he played like a monster. Jason Kidd? Whether he comes back or not, he competed with mixed results to the bitter end. Brandon Bass did his job beyond what the Mavericks could have hoped for. Beyond that? The Mavericks simply didn’t get enough from Kidd and Howard.”
Frank Isola of The Daily News: “Howard, who likes to think of himself as Superman, wears a tight-fitting shirt without sleeves when he warms up before games to show off his massive physique. He wants everyone to know that he is big and strong. And yet, he never looked smaller than after Game 5 in Boston when he publicly called out Orlando head coach Stan Van Gundy for not getting him the ball in the fourth quarter of the Magic’s disappointing loss to the Celtics. ‘If you have a dominant offensive player, let him dominate,’ Howard said on Tuesday. ‘Coaches have to recognize what’s working on the floor and stick to it.’ Here’s how dominant Howard was in Game 5; he attempted 10 shots, making five and shot three air balls. In the series, he is averaging just 16 points; he’s made just 31 of 57 shots and is being bullied by Celtics center Kendrick Perkins, who unlike Howard doesn’t try to play amateur comedian when the lights are on. Perkins just plays hard on every possession.”
Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald: “If there’s anything we’ve learned through 12 Celtics playoff games, it’s that we haven’t learned anything. Expectations seem to exist only so they can be mocked. To wit: Ray Allen’s going to light up J.J. Redick in this series. Try again. Allen is shooting .328 from the floor overall and has made just 5-of-29 treys. The Celtics will come out hard and fast in Game 5 and establish early and complete control. Sorry. They needed to score 13 straight points in crunch time to survive on their own floor. You get the idea. The best harbinger that the Celts will play well against the Magic is to find them in dire straits. They seem to arise only when Orlando is pressing a foot to their neck. It’s as if they like this stuff. One can only imagine the conversation in the huddle when they fall behind by double figures and time is running short. Player X: ‘We are so (expletive).’ Player Y: ‘Sweet.’”
Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: “They have come back from their worst losses, beginning with a rout by the Lakers in November, to produce some of their biggest wins. They triumphed on nights they were stunned by everything from season-ending injuries to Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming to the gunshot wound of Carl Landry. ‘That’s our team,’ Shane Battier said. ‘When people are ready to write us off, we come out with a great effort. It happened in Game 4. There’s no reason to think it won’t happen in Game 6.’ There is ample reason to think they could rebound again. There also is cause to wonder if they have tested the theory once too often. With Yao out, the Rockets have had to rely on 3-point shooting. They went from going 10-of-29 on 3-pointers in Game 4 to 5-of-29 in Game 5. They must rely on their passing against a team whose greatest defensive attribute is choking off ball movement and turning it into turnovers that lead to instant offense.”
Elliott Teaford of the Los Angeles Daily News: “They don’t want to return for a winner-take-all Game 7 on Sunday at Staples Center. No question, the Lakers have had their fill of the Rockets. They are poised to advance to the Western Conference finals, but they also know their work is not done. Certainly, they aren’t ready to say they have rediscovered their game only one game after they lost it in dramatic fashion. They aren’t prepared to say they have reclaimed the magic that eluded them from start to finish in Game 4. ‘To say we recaptured the magic is to say that Thursday we’re going to play the same way,’ Derek Fisher said late Tuesday. ‘It’s just not how this works. We could shoot 39 percent and have to play defense and rebound and hustle and take charges and figure out a way to win because it’s going to be different than it was (Tuesday).’ Or as Kobe Bryant put it, ‘This isn’t some chump team we’re playing.’”
Chris McCosky of The Detroit News: “A few years ago, I was joking with Shane Battier, telling him to give up this basketball gig and take on a project worthy of his intelligence, compassion and charisma — become the mayor of Detroit. I’ve called him Mr. Mayor since. So I guess I wasn’t surprised to find out he’s text buddies with President Barack Obama. Sort of. According to a Houston television station, Obama sent Battier a text message, through one of his aides, after the Rockets beat the Lakers in Game 4. Of course, the aide was Battier’s former teammate at Duke, Reggie Love. ‘Through Reggie, he sent me a message that said good job leading the guys in the face of adversity,’ Battier told FOX 26 Sports. ‘It was pretty cool. Not your garden variety text message. It’s great that we have a sports fanatic in the White House who appreciates competition. For the leader of the free world to acknowledge your leadership, it’s pretty cool.’”
Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News: “No surprise, it appears that Larry Riley has become the lowest-paid GM in the NBA, which isn’t terrible for a guy who wasn’t exactly a hot commodity at any point. But it’s telling. Very telling about the current state of the Warriors vision and power structure, or lack thereof. I’ve checked around and the word is that Riley got a 3-year deal, worth about $700-800k annually. (I think Chris Mullin as exec VP, was making about $1.5M. (Hey, that’s a great reason for Robert Rowell to dump the exec-VP model! Same weird front-office, HALF THE PRICE.) Before Riley’s short-shrift deal, the lowest-paid GM was believed to be Oklahoma City’s Sam Presti, at somewhere below $900k.”
Phil Jasner of the Philadelphia Daily News: “Jordan spoke to the Daily News after returning from Las Vegas, where he interviewed Tuesday for a job he has held once before with the Sacramento Kings. Jordan, a proponent of the cut-and-move Princeton offense, spent five full seasons coaching the Washington Wizards before being fired with a 1-10 record this season. With a home in Princeton, N.J., he is very familiar with the Sixers and their facilities. ‘I think that’s a good team, one that’s ready to compete at a high level, ready to go deep in the playoffs,’ he said. ‘I think that’s an exciting team. You know how they say if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere? To me, Philadelphia is the equivalent of a ‘Sports Broadway’; if you can make it in sports in Philly, you can make it anywhere. To me, it’s the truest, toughest sports town in America, and I’m 54 years old and it’s time to test my mettle.’”
John Denton of HOOPSWORLD: “It’s a generally accepted theory that the Boston Celtics hung championship banner No. 17 last June because of the landscape-changing trades for defensive-minded forward Kevin Garnett and gunning guard Ray Allen. But it’s another bold move – one every bit as important to Boston’s present and future – that sets the franchise up for long-term success. The fact that Celtics general manager Danny Ainge was able to acquire Garnett from Minnesota and Allen from Seattle in the summer of 2007 without having to surrender blossoming star Rajon Rondo was a coup of epic proportions. Ainge’s actions were such highway robbery that he should have been wearing a ski mask when dealing with his, um, cough, peer GMs in Minnesota and Seattle. Bernie Madoff thinks the helpless T-Wolves and formerly Sonics were unfairly ripped off.”
Mary Schmitt Boyer of The Plain Dealer: “Former Cleveland center Brad Daugherty thinks his Cavs teams would beat the current edition. Writing on ESPN’s Media Zone Water Cooler, Daugherty, now an ESPN NASCAR analyst, said, ‘It’d be very difficult matching up and defending LeBron, much like the problems we had to guard Michael Jordan. LeBron continues to groom his outside shot, being able to make 15- to 18-footers, and that’s what’s making the difference in him being the player he is today as opposed to the player he was three years ago. ‘If we played them, and he started making 18-foot shots consistently, he’d be a problem. But I think we could have altered some of his shots, and we could have thrown a couple of really top-notch defenders at him. Larry Nance could guard out on the perimeter, he could guard a 3 or a 4, and Hot Rod Williams was an excellent defender. When you got past them to go to the basket, the game was still on because they could come from behind you and block your shot.’”
Waiting For Next Year: “The Browns are still the most popular team in town. You can argue it if you want, but the numbers don’t lie. Ask anyone in the Cleveland media who ‘moves the needle’ more – the Cavs, Browns or Tribe and the answer is unanimous – the Browns. Here at WFNY, even in the off season when the Browns are floundering at the bottom of the NFL pool, posts about the Browns will routinely get more response than posts about the Cavaliers. It is the same story at the PD, the Beacon Journal, or wherever you get your Cleveland sports news. Terry Pluto admitted on the Les Levine show that he leads with Browns news just to get readers’ attention. But even if they aren’t the favorite team, why would Clevelanders not want them to win? I’ll tell you why. They want the Browns or the Indians to be the team to break through. They want a Super Bowl. They want the World Series trophy to come first. They want the title of ‘most tortured sports fan’ until the Browns can erase the bad memories.”
(Photo by Garrett W. Ellwood NBAE/Getty Images)
