NBA Notes: Packing it In Down the Stretch
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| Jim Feist - 4/6/2015 4:46 PM |
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by Jim Feist
There is a week to go in the NBA regular season. This means there are professional athletes in the NBA who will be going on vacation in a month, and other players who will be working hard, huffing and puffing 40 minutes per game, right on through until June. Now let me ask you - Will the majority of the players on the Magic, 76ers, Knicks, T-Wolves and Kings be working as hard as those teams on the NBA playoff bubble, like the Thunder, Suns, Pacers and Celtics? It's also been an unusual year in that coaches in the second half of the season have given rest to key starters. San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich leaned on this the last few years and now more teams are following. When the Warriors played at Denver last month they opened a 9-point favorite, then plummeted to a 1-point favorite when Coach Steve Kerr announced he was sitting key starters. It's the time of year when some disappointed teams play out the schedule and think less about preparing for their next opponent and think more about golf and early spring/summer family vacations. This is understandable, as losing is no fun. Many players on losing teams realize they have no shot at the postseason. Some fans and local newspapers are focused more on where their team will end up in the draft, rather than show an interest in the last few weeks of the season. Teams like the Knicks and Kings were hoping to have better campaigns. Sacramento is already on its second coach, while a team like Detroit got hot for a short time in mid-season only to fall back to their losing ways of late. A team like Philly has no offense, on a 26-11 run under the total against the Eastern Conference. And a team like the Kings doesn't care at all about defense, on a 15-5 run over the total. We saw this a year ago with the 76ers on a 6-22 ATS run at home while the Kings went 34-15-2over the total against a team with a winning record. The Suns traded away two of their top three offensive players at the trading deadline and struggled badly to win and score points, which deflated the whole team during a 2-7 SU, 3-6 ATS run. Meanwhile, one of the beneficiaries of the trade, the Celtics, starting clicking with an impressive three-guard attack anchored by Isiah Thomas Jr., acquired from the Suns. Injuries and new players added to the roster can make it tougher on bad teams, having to learn new chemistry while taking nightly drubbings. Most teams don't have to deal with learning how to play with new teammates at this point in the season. But this happened a few years ago with the Clippers, when they fired their head coach and played lethargic basketball down the stretch, particularly on defense. That season at the end of January Los Angeles went on a miserable 7-17 ATS run, and during one stretch gave up over 108 points in five consecutive games. There are also times when management doesn't really care (though no one will ever admit it). A few months before the Cavaliers drafted LeBron James, Cleveland seemed more interested in setting itself up for the LeBron sweepstakes than playing quality basketball, going 2-13-1 ATS down the stretch. Three years ago Portland cut Greg Oden, traded away Marcus Camby for nothing and fired Coach Nate McMillan - all in the same week! Think the players are disappointed or giving 100%? The Blazers went 6-18 ATS in their last 24 games as an underdog and 15-5-1 under the total against a team with a winning record. It's been the Year of the Atlanta Hawks. However, during one recent bad season the Hawks completely packed it in, going 6-24 SU/ATS to end the season! You don't always have to back the good teams to win and cover, as there are plenty of go-against spots this time of year! |
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