The Bratwurst - Milwaukee Bucks Blog

Enough about the Bucks. Time to look at what’s going on among the good teams, and preview the first round of the playoffs.

Instead of thinking about how teams have played throughout the whole season, I’m a little more interested in how they are playing now. So I calculated IPM power rankings for the last six weeks of the season, which gives a good picture of which series’ might be the most competetive, and where potential upsets may lie.

If you are not familiar with IPM (as I recently learned that my friend Mike Headd is not, despite his having read the blog for nearly a year), it is my proprietary player ranking calculation. IPM stands for Impacts Per Minute, and more about the methodology is available here. I update IPM rankings for all players weekly (here) as well as team power rankings (here). All of this information is also avaliable through the links on the right side of the page.

I’m writing the preview under the assumption that the playoff matchups will not change in the next couple of days. If they do then I will update them accordingly.

Listed next to the team names are each team’s power rank for their offense, defense and overall for the last six weeks. The information is also given here.

On to the preview:

Eastern Conference

1 vs 8. Boston (#4 Offense, #1 Defense, #2 Overall) vs. Atlanta (#9 Offense, #18 Defense, #16 Overall): Welcome back to the big time, Hawks. Blink and you will miss it. Obviously the Celtics completely outclass Atlanta in this series, and it looks to be a 4-0 sweep.

4 vs 5. Cleveland (#13 Offense, #9 Defense, #10 Overall) vs. Washington (#12 Offense, #15 Defense, #14 Overall): The Cavs haven’t really jelled as much as I thought they would since their deadline trades, only going 13-12. They have, however, played a little better than their record, as my numbers say they have underachieved by two games. Washington is struggling to reintegrate Gilbert Arenas into their rotation, and the combination of home court advantage and LeBron James should make this series a pretty easy Cleveland win. I say the Cavs in 5.

3 vs. 6. Orlando (#20 Offense, #6 Defense, #13 Overall) vs. Toronto (#10 Offense, #13 Defense, #12 Overall): This is an interesting matchup — I feel that Orlando has overachieved all season and Toronto has underachieved. They come into this series as an even matchup, but I feel that the point guards will decide this series — and I think that Toronto has a huge advantage there. I’m calling the upset here — Raptors in six.

2 vs. 7. Detroit (#8 Offense, #3 Defense, #3 Overall) vs. Philadelphia (#11 Offense, #11 Defense, #9 Overall): The only Eastern Conference matchup that features two top ten teams over the last six weeks, the Sixers could make some noise against Detroit. However, I think that the Pistons’ veteran savvy will carry this one pretty easily. Pistons in 5.

Western Conference

1 vs 8. LA Lakers (#2 Offense, #12 Defense, #4 Overall) vs. Denver (#3 Offense, #29 Defense, #19 Overall): Despite getting the edge over Golden State by beating them this week, the Nuggets are staggering to the finish line. Recent losses to Seattle and Sacramento highlight the absolute defensive collapse that they are suffering as they abandon that end of the floor to concentrate on scoring. Their home court advantage will win them a game or two, but they cannot seriously challenge Kobe and the Lakers. Lakers in six.

4 vs 5. Utah (#1 Offense, #4 Defense, #1 Overall) vs. Houston (#15 Offense, #5 Defense, #7 Overall): Utah has been the best team in the league for several months, but it hasn’t been borne out in their record, as they have underachieved by 5 games in the last six weeks. The problem is that they are simply dominant at home (36-4) but subpar on the road (17-23). That makes home court advantage the deciding factor in this series, which will be up in the air until the final day. Houston has one more game left than Utah, giving them an edge on getting home court. Even without Yao, the Rockets have been one of the best teams of the second half this season, and maybe this finally is the year that T-Mac finally gets out of the first round. My prediction? Lets see who gets home court advantage. Either way this will be the best first round series (which is saying somethng) and whoever is at home for game seven will prevail.

3 vs. 6. San Antonio (#23 Offense, #2 Defense, #6 Overall) vs. Phoenix (#7 Offense, #14 Defense, #11 Overall): Now the playoffs begin and the Spurs turn it on. One reason their numbers look so bad is that they limit Manu Ginobli’s minutes so much in the regular season. Once he starts playing a little more, look for them to get that much better. Meanwhile, I think that the Suns’ acquisition of Shaquille O’Neal will be exposed as a mistake in the playoffs — in the last six weeks their offensive and defensive rankings have all declined from their full season rankings. Spurs in seven.

2 vs. 7. New Orleans (#5 Offense, #7 Defense, #5 Overall) vs. Dallas (#6 Offense, #10 Defense, #8 Overall): After the acquisition of Jason Kidd, this is the worst possible matchup for Dallas. Kidd couldn’t stay in front of Tony Parker in the finals six years ago, what makes Dallas think he can check Chris Paul now? Meanwhile, the Mavs traded away their best matchup against Paul, Devin Harris, and in the process fell from the #3 seed to the #7. This is actually a pretty close matchup with two top-ten teams, but the Hornets are simply a little better at both ends of the court. Hornets in seven.

I’n not going to call the second round, but I guess I should give my finals prediction: Boston over San Antonio.

With a T-Shirt. Seriously.

Through the beauty of the benefits of being a season ticket holder, a friend and I found ourselves sitting on center court, 12 rows up on Sunday night. We were having a great time. Until the Bucks brought in the T-Shirt cannon, the T-Shirt slingshot, the T-Shirt Cheerleaders, and, apparently, Derrick Turnbow.

As shirts were flying about, suddenly I look up and see whizzing toward my face a shirt that must have been a misfire off of a slingshot — it was coming in low, fast, and had me in its sights. I put up my hands too late, and got blasted solidly in the left eye. I yelled, “I’m hit!” and fell backwards into my seat. The shirt ricoched off of my face and hit my friend in the ear hard enough for him to say; “Ow! That hit me in the ear, man! That hurt!” I bounced into my seat, my legs coming up fast enough to catch the offending shirt on the rebound between my knees.

Being the nice guy that I am, I gave the shirt to the little girl next to me, whose brother had already caught another shirt.

Boy, you tell the truth for 30 or 40 negative posts about a team, and this is the treatment you get?

In all seriousness, though, an inch down and to the right and I could have had my nose broken by a flying T-shirt.

The problem was that the shirt was balled up to slightly larger than a baseball, and strapped together with insulated cord that was about as thick as what you would use to wire a house with. Whose bright idea was it to send these things into the stands at 100 mph? Are they going to stick firecrackers in them next? Better train your slingshot operators better, guys. It would have been something else if the person who got hit wasn’t me but was the 5-year-old girl on her mothers’ shoulders who was next to me.

In other issues surrounding the Wizards-Bucks game, there was the matter of the Bucks allowing an 11-0 run to end regulation and let the Wizards get into overtime. This did not bother me at all.

That 11-0 run was a series of fluke plays by the Wizards that just happened despite the best efforts of the Bucks. They allowed two deep 3-pointers by DeShawn Stevenson (who is a 36% 3-point shooter. He should miss one of those.), Had a turnover where Mo tried to get the ball to Bogut down low and it was slapped away (Bad luck. 90% of the time something good would come out of that play), and allowed an offensive rebound off of a missed free throw that turned into a potential 3-point play (Bell sliced in and actually knocked the rebound away from Bogut).

Several plays in a row for the Wizards that can only be attributed to luck. Or to beating the odds 4 times in a row. No big deal.

Actually, I felt it was a great effort by the Bucks tonight. To call the first quarter “sloppy” would understate it, but both teams were clearly thrown off by the 5 pm start time. Even though the Bucks played without Michael Redd and Charlie Villanueva (and Bobby Simmons was up to his old “1-5 shooting, three turnovers” tricks), the backcourt was more than up to the task.

I don’t know if this was actually Krystkowiak’s gameplan, but by letting Caron Butler get his (40/8/5) and clamping down on everyone else, the Bucks were able to get a win.

Of course, we are now going on a month of seemingly playing better without Michael Redd than with him. Which begs the question: are they a better team without him?

No way.

If Redd had been available tonight, then once Simmons got into foul trouble early, Krystkowiak would have shifted Redd onto Butler instead of bringing Bell in to face him. This would have hurt the Bucks in two ways — Redd would have had to expend energy defending him and costing himself offense in the process; and Butler would have had to continute to run his teams’ offense instead of taking the shorter Bell into the post all night.

It worked like a charm.

And it also helped that both Bell and Ivey were teriffic offensively, combining for 39 points, 8 rebounds, 12 assists and 4 steals vs. only 3 turnovers.

Please don’t think this team is better without Redd — it’s better without Redd playing small forward.

Ah, the Southeast. Warm, sunny weather. Laid back people. Several average basketball teams, each with major flaws – especially at power forward. Except for Atlanta, who lacks pretty much everything except a ton of power forwards. This is a funny division — the only one without a good championship contender, but Atlanta might be the best “worst” team in any division. There should be plenty of entertaining games in this division, but no hardware come June.

1: Washington: You know the old saying, “The best defense is a good offense�? Well, last year the Wizards proved that one true until the injuries piled up. Washington had the 6^th best offense in the league (by IPM) last year, but the 26^th best defense. It all seemed to be working as the Wiz cruised into mid-March at 34-25 and were thinking about the #1 seed in the East. However, injuries to Caron Butler and then Gilbert Arenas sent the team into a tailspin. They finished with a 6-13 face plant, with all 6 wins coming against non-playoff teams. The hobbled Wizards were then crushed in the playoffs by Cleveland.

Washington’s identity was built around the eye-popping play of Gilbert Arenas, who might be the deadliest late-game player currently in the league. However, Caron Butler may have actually been their most important player, as he raised his offensive game to All-Star level and was also one of their best perimeter defenders (but that’s all relative to his teammates. Butler’s defense was pretty average). The whole no-defense policy will continue for at least another year as defense-allergic Antwan Jamison and limited Brendan Haywood make up the starting frontcourt. Tragically, co-starting center (and frequent wrestling opponent of Haywood) Etan Thomas’ career is in doubt after requiring surgery to repair a heart defect, which will press first round pick Oleksiy Pecherov into action sooner than expected.

The Wiz didn’t do anything of note with their roster, mostly because they were already right at the luxury tax line and they will also have to break the bank next offseason to extend Arenas’ contract. They let bust Jarvis Hayes go and resigned DeShawn Stevenson and Andray Blatche, so their 8 man rotation returns virtually unchanged.

The Wizards had a system that worked last year – score enough to keep it close until the 4^th quarter, then give it to Gilbert and get out of the way – and they are going to try it again. Assuming that Arenas comes back at full strength (and there is no reason to believe he wont) then this team is the class of the division. They should win 50, but that shaky defense makes them ripe for a first-round playoff upset.

2: Orlando: A couple of months ago I wrote that if the Magic wanted a scoring small forward then they should have tried to trade for Corey Maggette instead of signing Rashard Lewis. I still think that is true, and if they hadn’t committed so much money to Lewis then they might have been one of the few teams able to put together a somewhat reasonable offer for Kobe Bryant. Oh well, we’ll never know. Instead the Magic used all their cap room on Lewis and failed to address their real needs – power forward and shooting guard.

Last year Orlando had a very oddly-composed roster. Their top seven players were either centers (Howard and Darko Milicic), small forwards (Hidyaet Turkoglu, Grant Hill and Trevor Ariza) or point guards (Carlos Arroyo and Jameer Nelson). This made it very difficult for them to field a balanced team – they never could find the right player to pair with Howard, couldn’t use their small forwards together because none of them shot well enough or was quick enough to play the 2, and couldn’t use Arroyo and Nelson together because they were too small for the 2. It resulted in a team that was awful offensively, but at least because of the emergence of Howard played very well defensively. However, that roster imbalance caught up to them eventually, and they were dispatched with ease by Detroit in the first round.

After losing Milicic because they elected to sign Rashard Lewis (to a totally ridiculous contract) they still have a logjam at small forward and completely failed to address the gap at power forward. They signed Adonal Foyle intending for him to tag-team with Tony Battie at the 4, only to learn that Battie will miss the season with a torn rotator cuff. They also did nothing to fill in the shooting guard spot, apparently assuming that JJ Redick will be ready to step in as the starter. However, it appears that the college knock on Redick – that he’s not athletic enough – has carried over into the pros. While Redick shot okay his rookie year, his numbers of rebounds, blocks and steals were sorely lacking – which is a good indicator of ones athleticism.

By adding a 20 point per game scorer in Lewis, the Magic did address their most pressing need – scoring ability. This should not be one of the worst offenses in the league any more. However, they are so thin at power forward that Dwight Howard will have to pretty much do all the work himself, which probably won’t lead to many more wins or get the team any farther than it did last season – an improvement to 45 wins this year and another first round playoff exit.

3: Charlotte: For a short while, it appeared that the Bobcats were ready to make their big splash, fill up their salary cap, and make their move for the playoffs this season. But they made one big misstep – and now an early injury has short circuited their season before it began.

Michael Jordan showed he was serious about spending some money on draft night when they traded Brandan Wright for Jason Richardson. This was a big move because it allowed Gerald Wallace (who they would resign to a very reasonable contract) to concentrate on his natural small forward position and would banish Adam Morrison deep on the bench. But here is where Charlotte screwed up – before resigning Wallace, they should have jumped all over Anderson Varejao and tried offering him a contract in the 4 yr/$40 million range. Cleveland is right up against the luxury tax and should they have let Varejao go, he would have given Charlotte great depth at power forward – a defensive specialist alongside the offensive minded, defense-impaired Sean May and Walter Herrmann. However, Charlotte took the easy route – resigning Wallace and then using the remainder of the cap lavishing a bizarre 6 year, $27 million contract on shooting specialist Matt Carroll (think Charlie Bell without the ballhandling ability or defense – no wonder Bell is pissed) and trusting that May and Herrmann could handle the power forward position.

That plan lasted 1 week into training camp. May tore up his knee and will miss the season, so Herrmann becomes the de-facto starter. That puts tons of pressure on defensive maven Emeka Okafor and, an even bigger problem, will make Gerald Wallace spend some time at the 4. But now Charlotte is saying that Adam Morrison will likely miss the season with a knee injury. Morrison was so bad last season that he was on the short list of answers to the question “who was the worst player in the NBA last year who saw regular playing time?� (with the answer being either Morrison, Antonie Walker or Brian Scalabrine). For a shooting specialist, Morrison showed no shooting ability, putting up a lovely 37% from the field and unremarkable 71% from the line. He couldn’t rebound or pass either, averaging 3.9 rebounds per 40 minutes and 2.8 assists/40. At least his defense was comically bad, though. He was awful in every sense of the word, and can already pretty much be written off as a bust. On the bright side, Charlotte’s insistence on playing him nearly 30 mpg cost them several losses – so at least the team was better than their record last season. However, now that he is hurt, Charlotte has to wonder who will replace his meager production.

Charlotte was poised to make a big leap this season, but the injury bug has already started to hit them and unless they can get a solid 35 mpg from Walter Herrmann they will have to settle for a little hop. They now have a nice starting 5 – a developing point guard, an established 2 guard, a near-star at small forward and a dominant defender in the middle. A little turn of good luck somewhere could propel them to 40 wins and keep them in the mix for the playoffs.

4: Miami: The Heat put together the lamest championship defense since the 1999 Bulls. On one hand it wasn’t their entire fault as injuries claimed most of the roster. On the other hand, though, the roster was fatally flawed, and it seemed like motivation was a problem – other than Dwyane Wade and Alonzo Mourning, the whole team seemed content to half-ass it until the playoffs. You could sort of tell on opening night that Miami wouldn’t be around in the end when they started their title defense by losing 108-66 to the Bulls.

Predictably, Shaquille O’Neal promptly hit the DL to rest up for the playoffs, and the rest of the roster was on cruise control as well. Jason Williams always seems to be disinterested, and Antoine Walker was simply unconscious all season – but I don’t mean that in a good way. Walker’s game completely collapsed, as he set career lows in points and rebounds, and only shot 25% from 3 point range but still managed to fire up 4 per game. How many bricks can you lay before you give it up?

The one bright spot was Dwyane Wade, who simply did everything for this injury- and motivation-plagued team. He was the best player in the league until a shoulder injury ended his season, and he is not supposed to be back until mid-November at the earliest (ESPN recently reported that Wade would be unavailable until January, which Pat Riley denies). Honestly, probably the most amazing thing about Wade’s season was that he lasted as long as he did, given the constant punishment he takes with his all-out playing style. I thought it was interesting that Miami used their first round pick on a shooting guard this season – maybe they are thinking that the only way to keep Wade in one piece is to eventually reduce his minutes?

The luxury tax-strapped Heat had an oddball offseason as they tried to use the midlevel exception and the star power of Shaq and Wade to raid the Bucks’ roster, but would up being played like suckers instead. First Mo Williams made noise about loving Miami until the Bucks raised their contract offer, and then Charlie Bell inked a deal that was eventually matched by Milwaukee (much to Bell’s chagrin). Miami wound up doing little more than signing Smush Parker and sensibly picking up Alexander Johnson to be their backup power forward. Other than that, this team is about as shallow behind it’s superstars as Boston.

It makes me laugh how media types keep referring to Miami as a place to go “to compete for a championship.� While in a perfect world – everybody healthy, motivated and in shape – the Heat can throw out an imposing lineup, in reality they are so full of holes that … there are more holes than solid sections. Because of the “I’ll be there for the playoffs� mentality Shaq is becoming less and less of a factor in the regular season, plus this year has the distraction of an increasingly bitter divorce. When Wade will be at full strength is an open question, and behind Udonis Haslem and Mourning the roster is made up of a bunch of has-beens and never-will-be’s. I can’t imagine them getting Shaq and Wade together more than 50 times this season, and those other 30 games will be rough. I don’t think they win more than 37.

5: Atlanta: You’ve got to love a team whose idea of adding veteran leadership is drafting Shelden Williams and Al Horford. The continuing front office mess in Atlanta hamstrung yet another offseason for the Hawks, as their warring ownership group is court-ordered to agree amongst themselves on any player moves that involves anything more complex (or expensive) than draft picks and minimum-salary signings. As a result, the Hawks wont agree on anything and so were forced to shoot down a 3-way Kevin Garnett trade that would have netted Atlanta Amare Stoudamire. Oh well, so much for that.

So that means the only thing that GM Billy “who needs Chris Paul?� Knight could do is draft Horford and Acie Law. Horford is supposed to be as close to a sure-thing contributor at power forward as can be, which Atlanta needs since it appears that Marvin Williams is never going to be able to fill the bill and that Shelden Williams is already as good as he is going to get. I don’t like players like Law, though – point guards who spring onto the scene based on one good college season and people say things like; “he’s more of a born leader than a point guard� and “he’s got a habit of hitting big shots.� Last guy I heard described like this who got taken around the 10^th pick in the draft was Reece Gaines. Remember him?

The Hawks better hope I’m wrong about Law, because he’s pretty much all they’ve got at the position. Speedy Claxton’s game fell apart, and Tyronn Lue won’t bring home many wins. The rest of the roster is theoretically pretty talented – at least, they have a ton of guys who were high draft picks there. Joe Johnson had a mildly disappointing, injury-plagued season after his bust out the season before, and Josh Smith asserted himself as one of the most talented and most immature players in the league, as Smith put up all-star numbers but also got a 2-game suspension from his team for throwing a temper tantrum on the bench. As far as bench talent, Marvin Williams, Shelden Williams, and Josh Childress were all between the #2 and #15 picks in the draft, and the quietly effective Zaza Pachulia holds down the center position.

But this is still a roster of talented guys who have never done anything. And if the Hawks don’t get their management/front office situation settled, they never will. It’s going to be yet another 32 win season in the peach state.

• My dream of seeing Ray Allen and Allen Ray play on the court at the same time won’t happen. Allen Ray has taken a contract with a team in Europe.
• Gilbert Arenas is on a crazy quest to make 100,000 shots.
• Smush Parker has gone to Miami. Lakers fans actually seem happy about this.
• Caron Butler owns a Burger King now. Make that 18 of them between a group of pro athletes.
• Matt Geiger wants to build a helicopter pad on his house, his neighbors don’t want him to.
• Advice on how to cover a point spread if you’re a ref.