NBA, The Morning After 1/26/08

First, my apologies for not reporting as I should...between waking up at 10:30am this morning, and some craziness on the home front, my schedule's been pretty off.

A few observations from the 1/25 games:

The Phoenix @ Cleveland game was just a fantastic game. But, I'm not sure Cleveland is really as good as the score indicated.

• First, they are riding LeBron into the ground. You read it here first, in a couple of years, he's going to have a rash of injuries.
• Second, you see teams hang with Phoenix early (sometimes), but they just wear down by the end of the game. The 4th quarter, Cleveland started missing layups and jumpshots they were making earlier.
• Finally, I saw Cleveland try a strategy I haven't seen much. They just packed the lane in and left the 3-poiont line pretty much uncontested. The result? 55% shooting on 33 three pointers...that's 51 points from downtown for those scoring at home. I'm guess no one will try that strategy again...

The Minnesota @ Boston game was fascinating. I think there's a couple of things we have to look at:

• It looks like Boston is coming back down to earth, which was expected. Ray Allen and Paul Pierce combined to go 8 for 33, although Pierce had the better game by far. Pretty soon, we might have to look at Ray Allen as a marginal acquisition?
• Nice to see Al Jefferson come back to earth, too. 6-14 with 5 rebounds...hmmm, maybe the Suns interior defense really DOES suck.
• Wierd to see Sebastion Frigging Telfair lead his team in scoring - with 18.

The New Jersey Nets @ Denver Nuggets game was boring as all hell, only a homer could have watched that game:

• Denver's interior defense is just TOUGH. Between Camby and Kenyon Martin, they have 2 of the longest, most athletic big men in the league. What's more? They're mean, scrappy and relentless. When Nene comes back, they'll be able to compete with anyone in the league in the paint.
• Kenyon Martin is looking like the K-Mart of old. He looks like he's got about 5 more inches on his vertical, a quick second jump and remarkable quickness.

The Orlando Magic @ Detroit Pistons game was, well...

• ...proof that Detroit isn't ready to cede ground to the up-and-coming Eastern Conference teams. They came out hungry, played with a ton of energy, and just flat out beat Orlando. They played fairly well offensively, but had no answer for Detroit on the defensive end.
• When is Tayshaun going to start playing basketball again? Detroit won easily, and only 8 points on 3-12 shooting. I know he had 8 rebounds and 6 assists, but he's got to shoot the ball better than that.