Nets are looking tough Mavs are fading I can't see anyone but Detroit Miami or San Antonio winning it all - maybe Denver will shock and get their in the West

I'm a huge seller of the Mavs and the Suns - even though i'd like the suns to do well

bring Amare back was a huge mistake

Looking forward to it.

Love the NBA, but my 2 biggest complaints about the Playoffs are the best-of-7 first round and the 2 weeks it takes to play the championship.

Miami is the most intriguing team to me. Will Shaq be healthy? And will this roster be able to gell for a strong championship run?

Tough to bet against the Pistons, though.

I'm more excited about tonights NCAA championship game!

Expecting too much of his return was a big mistake. However, Amare came back on his own timetable as a way of testing his progress, and the Suns kept his minutes under strict limitations. Bryan Colangelo (before he fled from Sarver to Toronto) and D'Antoni both said they wouldn't bring Stoudemire back unless he felt comfortable and ready to play. His knees just weren't as recovered as he thought (hoped?) they were, simple as that.

The playoffs should be pretty decent, especially if we follow the ongoing Rasheed Wallace technical saga. Every other game he gets T'd up is a suspension now, and the leash is shorter in the postseason.

yeah but with Amare

1.they still risked re- injury and
2. they raised the hopes of the teammates that he would be back which were crushed

I also think Rasheed is better able to behave in the playoffs - supposedly he's a decent guy he just loses it because he's so competitive

How bout them Kings? starting to look scary and if they can fight up to 7 or 6 they could be a handful for the mavs or suns.

I wont really get excited about the playoffs until the second round. Some interesting series should start to happen there (Spurs vs Mavs, Pistons vs Cavs, Heat vs Nets)

The one first round matchup I'm hoping for: Suns vs Lakers. Either Kobe, the Suns, or both are going to break some kind of scoring record in that series. I wouldnt miss a game if it actually happened.

NBA Playoffs?? Wake me up in two months when they are getting somewhat towards the end.......

the first koop statement i sadly totally agree with - the first round is a joke and takes forever

This would depend on whether your team is in the playoffs or not. If your team is in it, you'll still pay attention, but otherwise it does seem tedious and things don't get interesting until the Conference Finals barring an interesting rivalry.

Ya, they should have never switched from a 5 game series to a 7 game series. The previous one was a lot funner to watch with the prospect of first round upsets.

The other thing I hate about this year is their stupid seeding system. The way it is now, the Spurs and the Mavs are going to collide in the second round, instead of the WCF, while the Suns are going to skate into the WCF. There could have been so many good matchups if the stupid thing was just record based. Oh well.

It is a fun time of year to be a basketball fan. There is no denying that.

--RuffRidr

The Denver vs. Phoenix Series will be a very competitive series in the 2nd round. So I wouldn't say the Suns skate to the WCF

Well yes, I know. However, I don't have a particular NBA team I root for....so I don't have that. Even if I did though.......man that format is just WAYYYYYYYYYYYY too drawn out. I say eliminate the first round altogether and only let 8 teams in or maybe 12 teams.......but 15 7 game-series altogether?? Atrociously boring unless it is your team involved...and even then it would seem a bit long. I'll follow the playoffs, but I ain't watching anything until only 4 left probably.

The problem isn't necessarily the 7 game series, it's the fact that they only have two games each day during the week because of TV. So you have one series play a game on Monday, then have to wait until Friday for the next game. The first round was great when they had four games on each night, staggered starts, with TNT and TBS televising them all.

I'm combining these two posts and calling them my own

Only if A) Camby is healthy and Melo averages 35 a game for the series.

The Suns should easily beat the Nuggets if they indeed face each other in the second round. I say "If" mainly because the Nuggets will have to fight hard just to get there. As of right now, the Nuggets would face the Grizzlies and the Grizzlies actually have the better record. Another side note is that Boykins is hurt right now.

The Nuggets arent bad. Their good enough, and so is their coach, to win one game. Maybe they win two, but its not going seven. I see a lot of blowouts in that series. If a team is questionable to make it to round 2, there is no way they can keep up with the Suns.

No way, with a healthy Camby the Nuggets would out rebound the Suns by 20+ a game, and the Suns would get nothing from inside the paint.

If Amare was healthy, I'd pick Suns in 5 but without Amare I'm picking Nuggets in 7

Well I guess anything can happen, and its a little strange even discussing this match up since the Nuggets might actually get bounced out in the first round (their first series is absolutely not a lock), but all the evidence points to the Suns beating the Nuggets easily.

1: The Suns are 9 games ahead of the Nuggets.

2: In head-to-head competition, the Suns won 3 of the 4 matchups.

3: In the one Denver win, they had to go to triple overtime to do it. In the 3 Suns wins, they won 2 of them by good margin. Not a good sign.

4: You are greatly over estimating the Camby effect. He played in all of the 3 Suns wins, and MISSED the game in which Denver won (which I admit is wierd). Camby played extremely well before he got hurt and has now come back down to Earth.

5: The Nuggets are a better rebounding team than the Suns, but not by much. remember the Suns do have Marion, use their quickness to get the boards, and ofteen the opposing team is out of position. Statistically speaking the Suns grab more boards, but style of play affects that stat a lot. Very very small edge to the Nuggets. So small it hardly matters.

5: Amare's injury means nothing. They played all year without him and still played well. Even if Amare came back, he wouldnt be healthy anyways. The Suns will get to, and lose in, the Conference Finals with or without him.

6: Earl Boykins is hurt.

7: The Suns have looked mortal over the last couple of weeks and have played worse than they are capable of. Despite that, they still beat the Nuggets just a couple of weeks ago. You know its bad when the Suns beat you easily and then complain they were not very sharp that night (yes that actually happened).


Basically the Suns are just the better team. Thinking this series would go 7 implies the teams are evenly matched in which they clearly are not. I would be shocked if that series went 7.

QFT.

Camby is a monster inside, but who else is going to somehow magically get the Nuggets to outrebound the Suns by 20? Francisco Elson? 6-8 Reggie Evans, who is a worse rebounder than Marion? Come on.

I wouldn't deny the Suns would probably be outrebounded in, say, four of the five games in that series, but you're going a bit overboard.

Pacers finally won a game last night. Don't know if I'm happy or sad. A lottery pick sounds a lot better than a 1st round loss!
Although if they stay a number 7 seed they always play Miami tough. I would hate to drop to 8 and play Detroit.

The Pacers have been just brutal down the stretch.

Tough to watch.
And I agree, there's no way a playoff appearance equals anything other than a first round exit.
But the draft seems extremely thin this year.




...




Sorry 'bout that. Was just looking for the silver lining.


No luck yet.

You forget how big the nuggets backcourt is with Ruben Patterson, Carmello and Andre Miller. If Kurt Thomas doesn't get healthy the Suns will be relying on Boris Diaw and Shawn Marion as their Power Forward and Center spot, and neither of those guys are considered a great paint presence.

Again, I don't deny they'll get outrebounded, but this 20+ margin nonsense is a jopke. The Jazz rolled out their big lineup two weeks ago featuring 6'9" Kirilenko at guard, in a game where the Suns conceded rebounding as an edge all game in favor of a pick-and-roll half court offense to take advantage of their edge in speed, and they STILL only outrebounded Phoenix by 19.

And if Kurt Thomas does get healthy in time, suddenly the Suns' backcourt is bigger than the Nuggets with the exception of Nash, who won't be bigger than anyone except Earl Boykins.

Yea, I agree, Thomas getting healthy will be a huge factor on the 2nd round

Pacers are sucking wind. Lottery here we come!

The one thing we can definitely agree on is that if those two teams do match up in the second round, it should be a fun and entertaining series to watch. Both are very good teams.

Yea, both conferences have good potential 2nd round matchups.

West
Nugs vs. Suns
Mavs vs. Spurs

East
Cavs vs. Pistons
Nets vs. Heat

whoops wasn't logged in

I think this years playoffs is going to be a ton of fun to watch, the only dissapointing thing I can think of is that Amare got hurt. I would have loved to watch that Phoenix team at full strength. I really think they had a decent shot at winning the title this year as long as Amare was somewhere near 80%.

Even with Amare at 80% they still wouldnt beat the Spurs and likely not the Mavs either. And that was the big mistake the Suns made. They actually believed Amare returning would change the destiny significantly. With or without him, they will likely lose in the Western Conference Finals.

If you look closely, here was the Suns flawed logic: After not playing basketball for an entire season, Amare was coming back from a surgery that has ruined several players careers. He was also coming back on a much faster time table despite other players statements that it took much longer than they realized to get to 100%. Amare would then help them beat the likely opponent, the Spurs, who they couldnt beat last year.

I cant even believe they thought that was going to work out while risking the career of their primary investment.

This might be true if it had been the Suns' decision to bring him back.

However, using the games as an experiment to see where he was physically was Amare's choice, not D'Antoni's, Colangelo's, or anyone else's. D'Antoni and Nash were both quoted multiple times as saying they wouldn't do anything to jeopardize Stoudemire's career (and with the contract extension they signed him to before the season, that's hardly surprising). Stoudemire came back when there was virtually no chance of reinjury to see if he could get himself into game shape. He couldn't. End of story.

The Suns would/will not beat the Spurs with or without Amare. San Antonio always has another gear in the playoffs that makes them hard to beat, and they will be even if Ginobli can't get healthy. But the Mavs? The same Mavs that couldn't beat the Suns without Thomas, Grant OR Stoudemire a few weeks ago? I'm not so sure about that one. This isn't to say the Mavs aren't a very solid team, but they don't match up very well with the Suns with or without Stoudemire.

I couldn't believe they rushed Amare back like they did. I don't think it suprised anyone when he injured his other knee as that was what almost everyone was predicting was going to happen. I was however hoping for the best, as I love watching him play.

I do stick by my position that WITH a somewhat healthy Amare they would have had a shot at the title. I think they would have to be at least even money against Dallas, considering they beat them last year. I know Dallas has improved and it could be argued that the Suns have regressed with the losses of Joe Johnson and QRich however they are playing great team ball and had they had Amare all year I wouldn't be suprised if they would have ended up with a better record then they had last year.

Every team has and will have an extremely tough time with San Antonio, however I think that with Amare they would have had as good as a shot as anyone in the Western Conference. Would I bet money on it? No, probably not.

See above post.

Besides, if the Suns' management HAD had anything to do with Amare's timetable for his return, and they were to have rushed it, he would have been back shortly after the All-Star break as originally planned.

Otherwise, I agree.

I'm confused. If management didnt have anything to do with Amare's return, then who did?

Thank you for also reading my post. It's not like it answered that exact question or anything.



That's not enough for you? How about this from GM/head coach Mike D'Antoni? "I just don't think we can put a timetable on it," D'Antoni said. "Nobody knows. We didn't know a month ago when he could play, all of sudden he pops up on the court. We didn't know the day before. We don't know now when he'll be ready, but we're hoping the best for him. Whatever it is, we're going to do it with caution and make sure he's ready to roll. He's going to play 10 years for us, so we're not going to be nearsighted and think it's so important that next week he plays," he said.

No? What about reigning MVP Steve Nash's take on it? "If [Stoudemire were] a 10-year vet -- like a Chris Webber for example, a guy who knows the league, sees the floor and knows how to play without his jumping ability -- it's a different story. But Amare is a young guy, he has his whole career ahead of him -- you've got to err on the side of caution."

Well, those two must not have known what they were talking about, so what about Amare himself? From azcentral.com:
"I'm feeling like suiting up tomorrow," he told Suns head athletic trainer Aaron Nelson.

Three consecutive days of work without problems in his surgically repaired left knee or recently troublesome right knee had made an impact.
Stoudemire found coach Mike D'Antoni and said, "I don't know why I don't play tomorrow."

D'Antoni agreed, as long as everything went well in practice. Once it did, Stoudemire approached D'Antoni again. "I want to play," he said.

"Guess what?" the coach responded. "You're playing."

Must've been management's decision.

It wasn't his Knee that was operated on that gave him problems, it was his other knee

Oops I missed where you said it was Amare's choice. My Fault.

Anyways, I completely disagree. The decision of activating a player who coming off the injury list is ALWAYS up to management (and I'm including the coach here). These are the people who actually make the decision who plays or not. Amare may have said he was ready to go, but it was still managements decision to make. And it was a big mistake if they went on Amare's opinion alone.

And there's a specific reason why management shouldn't base their decision on the players answere to the question, "Are you ready to go?" Because any player you would want on your team will always say they are ready play (unless their leg is actually chopped off). Thats just the way the guys are. They believe they are super human. I cant count how many guys have said they're a fast healer only to see them go down again.

And I refuse to believe it was just pure COINCEDENCE that Amare's injury just happened to heal in time for him play with a month before the season was over (pretty much the minimum time needed to come up to speed for the playoffs). There is no doubt Amare and the entire Suns organization were eyeing that day as a comeback as soon as the surgery happened. I can even remember all stuff about how the injury wasnt as severe as other cases and his age being cited as possible reasons for him being able to return faster than other players who have had the same injury. This despite all the evidience from other players who had simliar injuries, had a longer time table, and still said they should have taken more time to comeback. Having the knee feel good this long after a surgery isnt uncommon. Actually having the knee healthy enough to play is a different story. Amare used how he "felt" to gauge whether or not he could play. Management should know better.



I completely disagree with this too. "Game shape" (at least how I define it) had nothing to do with it. He was not healthy enough to play. If game shape had anything to with it, he had a month of games left to get in shape. It wasnt like he just dropped the crutches and walked onto the court. The reason they pulled the plug is because he overcompensated with his other knee and aggrivated it. This is extremely common and people warned of this exact problem when the Suns activated him. The reasons for him overcompensating are probably a combination of the bad knee not being 100% and mentally being afraid of the knee. He basically needed more time to get the bad knee to 100% and "forget" about the injury. The fear of him getting re-injured when he came back wasnt miniscule when you count BOTH knees, and management should know this.

I actually like the Suns management and they've made a lot of good decisions in the past. I just think they botched this one. When you consider risk vs reward, they should've kept him out.

I agree with your points in this post much more than the previous one. The thing I'm tired of is this misconception that it was the Suns' timetable that Stoudemire's return was operating on, which was what it seemed like your previous post -- and much more noticeably, oldirtyharry's -- was saying. Even a few so-called NBA "experts" have said that the Suns rushed him back, and that's simply not the case.

But your fundamental point, "Could/Should management have had a say in the matter?" is valid. And they should have kept him on the shelf the rest of the season without question, because with or without him it was going to take an injury to the Spurs for them to make the NBA Finals. (Don't get me started on the Mavs, who lost to the Suns AGAIN the other night. They have no chance against either Phoenix or San Antonio.) There was no sense taking any chances with their new $100 million gem if they couldn't win a title this year, and while it was possible if Amare came back, it certainly wasn't probable. Not worth the risk.

Who cares about these other crappy teams. I'm telling yalls now who's going all the way
DA WIZARDS!
WITH GILBERT ARENAS.
CAVS FIRST ROUND
UPSET OF PISTONS SECOND ROUND(WE'RE 2-1 AGAINST DETROIT THIS YEAR)
THIRD ROUND NETS AND CARON SHUTS DOWN VC

THEN ITS ON TO THE FINALS!

BULLS ARE IN THE PLAYOFFS!!!!!!!!!!

haha

So when the Wizards lose in the first round of the playoffs are you going to switch to the Cavs? And then when they lose are you going to switch to the Pistons? Just like you did in the NCAA tournament...??

Yeah but it looks like Detroit in the first round. Good experience for them.

Hope Knicks keep losing. That pick will be valuable.

Damn Pacers made the playoffs. I wanted a lottery pick.

The Wizards are my only home team, if they get eliminated I don't care who wins. I routed for all the DC local area teams in the NCAA championship as did almost everyone in the area. Why did you think Mason has such a home court advantage at the MCI Center?
Now that the Wiz have locked up 5th, I guarantee a playoff series win against the Cavs. We're 3-1 against Cleveland, and even with Larry Hughes back, Caron is a much less rusty player now and will school him with his quick jumpers and slashes to the rim. Don't forget about "Curious George" Jared Jeffries. He is a defensive pest, and one of the most underrated players...on the Wizards. Kind of like our less offensively talented Tayshaun Prince