Mark WiedmerIf you’re really bored tonight or you just want to glimpse the two teams that might eventually meet in the NBA Finals, you might want to check out the Milwaukee Bucks’ attempt to sweep the Detroit Pistons out of the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, followed by the Houston Rockets’ goal to do the same to the Utah Jazz in the Western Conference. The first game starts at 8, and TNT will televise both.
Whether you watch those games or not, these playoffs are already remarkably different from the 13 straight that came before them because of the absence of LeBron James, whose self-centered move to the Los Angeles Lakers spectacularly backfired this season, if for this season only.
So in his place we have a slightly more intense focus on teams rather than individuals, though when the Rockets’ James Harden can start out 0-for-15 from the field – as he did in Saturday’s 104-101 win against the host Utah Jazz – but still keep shooting enough to finish with 22 points while making just three of 20 field-goal attempts (he hit 14 of 16 free throws), individual talent is still at the core of what wins in the pros.
Or as Utah coach Quin Snyder said about Harden after Saturday’s setback: “You’re going to give something up. The best thing you can do with him is just try to make it hard on him. Even when you do that, there’s times where he’s going to make plays.”
This is not to say talent alone will get you to the postseason (see James, LeBron, in paragraph two of this column), but it hugely beats the alternative.