Packing it In Down the Stretch in the NBA
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| Jim Feist - 4/5/2016 12:53 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, Nets, Suns and Kings be working as hard as those teams on the NBA playoff bubble, like the Pistons, Bulls, Jazz, and Mavericks? It's also the time of year when those headed to the playoffs will rest veteran and key starters. San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich has leaned on this the last few years and now more teams are following. When the Warriors played at Denver last year 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, Pelicans and Kings were hoping to have better campaigns. Sacramento gave up on playing defense a long time ago and has two malcontents running the offense in pouting DeMarcus Cousins and Rajon Rondo. And the Bucks never regained the magic they had a year when they made the postseason. A team like Philly has little offense, while a team like Minnesota has no defense. Think they care about playing defense late in a lost season? The Timberwolves are 23-6 over the total after scoring 100 or more in their previous contest, alongside a recent run over 20-6-1 over. The Phoenix Suns have had back-to-back miserable campaigns. This current group is tough to back, 5-16 against the spread after a rare victory and 4-17 ATS after a spread cover. 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. The Lakers had that stunning upset of the defending champion Warriors last month, which shook the world. Kobe Bryant was intense, telling his teammates to "take it to them" in the second half. They players really only responded then, as LA went 1-4 SU/ATS after that upset. 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. Four 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. |
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