Bringing Down The House

The NBA play-offs have now begun and with the exception of Dallas winning game one against San Antonio, Philadelphia beating the buzzer and along with it Orlando, and Chicago beating Boston, sans The Big Ticket, everything has gone according to script. The Celtics cannot and will not make it back to the Finals with out Garnett, and nobody in the West in going to beat LA. Sooooo now all we have to do is wait until June for LA and Cleveland to square off for the hardware.

The most interesting match up in the entire play offs is going to be the second round match up of Houston and Los Angeles. Yeah I am not giving Portland too much of a chance against Houston. I will go as far as to say Houston may sweep the TrailBlazers. Portland is good young team who is knocking on the door, but they are a jump shooting team with no low post scoring presence. It showed when they squared off on Saturday night when Yao Ming went 9-9 from the field, and scored 24 points and grabbed 9 boards.

Houston is the second best team in the west. Yao is the best center in the league and now that Tracy McGrady is out the offense runs through him. Let me say this; I do not buy this theory that the Rockets are a better team with out McGrady than with him. McGrady is one of the most talented players in the league and can score at will. Please tell me how is a negative?

I was listening to an interview with former Houston coach and current ESPN analyst Jeff Van Gundy and he made and interesting comment. Van Gundy said that he thought the Houston Rockets would present the toughest match up for the Lakers in the entire play offs.
The reason being? The Lakers don’t like to play in front of the opposition’s big man, they like to play behind. This will allow Yao to cleanly catch the ball with his back to the basket and the offense will flow through him. Houston also possesses what no other team has. Two wing players who play hard nosed defense and relish playing against Kobe Bryant. Shane Battier and Ron Artest are the best wing defensive duo in the Association. Ron Artest because of his reputation will never win Defensive Player of the Year again, but try to find a better and more versatile defender than Artest.

Artest and Battier love to play against the league’s best wing players, and nobody more then Bryant. They will be salivating with the idea they could knock Bryant and the Lakers out of the postseason. But, alas it won’t happen.

-Jared House