Thursday, April 01, 2010

NBA Notes - End of Season

Back to NBA programming here... with the season wrapping up, and most of the playoff teams already set, I thought it would be a fun time to point out some of the biggest surprises and disappointments of the season:

Biggest Surprises
1) Stephen Curry, G Golden St - fantastic 2nd half to the season has pushed his numbers to 16.5ppg, 4.2 rebs, 5.7 assists. Yahoo! pre-ranked him at 125... and he is currently 16th in the fantasy rankings.
2) Marc Gasol, C Memphis - Solid season all-around (despite the Grizz not making the playoffs); 14.6ppg, 9.3 rebs, 1.6 blocks (pre-ranked 134; currently 33rd)
3) Danilo Gallinari, NYK - 14.3ppg, 4.8 rebs, 1.5 assists (pre-ranked 166, currently 50)
4) Aaron Brooks, PG Hou - put together a great season, to follow-up on last year's playoff performance; 19.6ppg, 2.5 3ptm/gm, 2.7 rebs, 5.3 assists

Biggest Disappointments
1) Devin Harris, PG NJ - a bad season after an all-star season last year. The injuries didn't help. Ended up shooting 39.7% from the field, with 6.9 assists, but 2.8 turnovers (pre-ranked 24; currently 103)
2) Hedo Turkoglu, SF Toronto - big letdown campaign after signing for big money (11.8ppg, 4.4 rebs, 41.2% FG%); (pre-ranked 57; currently 119)
3) Charlie Villaneuva, SF Detroit - got benched at the end of the season for "not putting forth effort on defense"; put up only 11.8ppg, 4.7 rebs, 0.6 assists, in only 24mpg; pre-ranked 61, currently 133
4) Ben Gordon, SG Detroit - shot only 41% from the field; 13ppg, 2.5 assists, (pre-ranked 62, currently 208)

NBA Games of the Week (from the last 3 weeks)-
-Lakers edged the Suns on 3/12 behind 49% team FG%;
-the Cavs beat Boston on 3/14 behind superior rebounding (51-43) and a 30-8-7 game from LeBron;
-OkCity beat Utah by solid redounding (36-30) and 35 pts from Durant and 30 from Westbrook;
-The Spurs got clobbered by the Magic on 3/17 as Rashard and Vince hit 7 of 10 3s and the Magic shot 52%;
-Boston beat Dallas on 3/20 as the Celtics shot 52% and Pierce, Allen, and Rondo each had more than 20pts;
-ATL beat the Spurs in OT on 3/21 as the Hawks outrebounded the Spurs by 10 (including 18 by Horford) and Marvin Williams went 10 for 14 from the floor for 26 pts;
- Milwaukee edged ATL on 3/24 as they outrebounded the Hawks and Salmons had 32, Ridnour 18 (Jennings only played 16 minutes - this is a new trend); and Delfino 23.
***Note, if you look up Jennings, you will see that 3 of his last 6 games he's been benched (and played less than 20 minutes); notably, the Bucks are 1-2 when he gets benched, and 2-1 when he doesn't get benched during this stretch

-Utah beat the Celtics by 13 on 3/24 as Okur had 14 pts and 15 rebs; ATL FINALLY beat the Magic on 3/24 (first time in 10 tries) as Bibby hit 4 threes, despite being outrebounded 48 to 38 and shooting only 40% (they held Orlando to 37.5%);
-Boston beat Denver on 3/22 as with a solid rebounding advantage (45 to 36) and a triple double by Rondo;
-The Lakers beat the Spurs on 3/24 as the Lakers hit 10 3s and 45% from the field;
-OkCity beat the Lakers by 16 as the smaller OkCity team outrebounded the Lakers 42 to 39 (including 10 by Kristic, who can barely move now), and a 4-steal game from Westbrook with 23 pts and another 26 pts from Durant;
-Orlando beat Denver on 3/28 as the Magic got 23 pts from JJ Redick and 19 pts from 6'10" Ryan Anderson off the bench;
-San Antonio CLOBBERED Boston on 3/28 as they outrebounded Boston 48 to 37, held the Spurs to 37%, and Ginobili went for 28 pts, a +36 in only 35 minutes!
-Dallas beat Denver on 3/29 as Dirk had a triple double;
-ATL beat the Lakers on 3/30 as Maurice Evans had 18 pts off the bench, and Joe Johnson had 25 points;
-Ok City beat Boston on 3/30 as Durant had 37;

2 comments:

Mighty Mike said...

I'm not sure what to make out of the West anymore. I assume partly the Lakers are just going through the motions but partly they don't seem right. Followed by I can't figure out the difference between 2-8. Is there a 2nd place team in the West?

Gutsy Goldberg said...

I don't know what to make of it, and neither do any of the numbers. I think the West, once again, is wide open for the conference finals (aside from the Lakers spot). I want to say Dallas will be re-focused, but who knows?

I also found it funny that every game over the last month that the Spurs get beat by most of the good teams.