nba playoffs and more

Mcilroy wins his first green jacket

Congrats to Rory McIlroy on winning his first green jacket and completing the career Grand Slam. Up and down fourth round for him. I was able to watch his double-bogey first hole before I had to go to work. That first hole dropped him to -10 par and a tie with DeChambeau. He would birdie three of the next eight holes to finish the front 9 at -13. The back nine was pretty rough as he went birdie, bogey, par, double-bogey, bogey, birdie, par, birdie and bogey to have a +2 back nine. That allowed Justin Rose to tie McIlroy to force a playoff. Rory birdied the first hole of the playoff to win the green jacket. He became only the sixth golfer ever to achieve the career grand slam joining Gene Sarazan, Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods. When CBS first mentioned that there were five other golfers to achieve the career slam, I new Woods and Nicklaus obviously. I also figured that Gary Player did it. I was surprised to learn that Arnold Palmer didn’t do it. But he was unable to win the PGA Championship in his career. Very surprising indeed.

nba playoffs

The play-in games start Tuesday to see who grabs the seventh and eighth seeds in each conference. Tuesday, April 15th has Atlanta in Orlando to face the Magic in the early game. Memphis at Golden State in the night cap. For me, Memphis is incredibly over-rated and Golden State should be able to beat them relatively easy. Golden State needs to win this game to grab the 7th seed. The eighth seed and a match-up against the Oklahoma City Thunder is a disaster waiting to happen. But a seventh seed and a date against Houston? A better match-up and a potential Draymond Green vs Dillon Brooks battle royal would be the icing on the cake.

With Atlanta vs Orlando; Orlando has the better team but they just can’t score. Orlando was the third worst team in terms of scoring at just 105.4 ppg. Slightly better than bottom feeders the Brooklyn Nets and Charlotte Hornets. They only give up 105.5 ppg; but they are going against a team that scored the fifth most points in the league at 118.2. Orlando was successful against Atlanta this year. Not counting the final game of the season when both teams held out most of their starters, Atlanta had a 1-2 record against Orlando and put up 112, 108, and 112 points in those three games. 110.7 ppg which is seven and a half points per game lower than the season average. I like Orlando to win and take the seventh seed but this will likely be an incredibly close game.

Then we have the games on Wednesday, April 16th. First is the Miami and Chicago game. The winner takes on the loser of the Atlanta/Orlando game to decide the 8th seed. The Bulls traded Zach Lavine on February 3rd and ironically they beat the Miami Heat the first game that they played without him. Then proceeded to lose 6 straight and 9 out of 11. They would then go 15-5 over the last 20 games of the season. Chicago beat Miami in all three games that they played, including an April 9th victory. On February 6th, Jimmy Butler was traded from Miami to Golden State. Since that time, the Heat went 12-21 which includes a 10 game losing streak. The Bulls had the 6 best points per game average in the NBA this season but they also give up a lot of points. They’ve been slightly better since trading away Lavine but it’s still a concern. The Heat, on the other hand, were 24th in scoring but gave up the 7th fewest points per game in the league. The Heat did reel off 6 straight wins after the 10 game losing streak but, I don’t think that Miami has the horse-power to beat the Bulls.

The late game on Wednesday is between Dallas and Sacramento to determine the team that will face the loser of the Golden State and Memphis game for the 8th seed. Sacramento should be able to beat Dallas. In fact, Dallas is only in the playoffs because Phoenix is terrible. More on Phoenix in a bit. Although, it would honestly not shock me too much if Sacramento did lose. They employ DeRozan and Lavine and we all saw how well that worked out in Chicago for three years. Sabonis is better than Vucevic, so there is that at least. Dallas is the deeper team assuming that they get minutes out of there typical starters. It’ll be interesting to see if they have Sabonis guarding AD or not. AD might have a big game no matter what, but it would be bigger against Keegan Murray. Also, Dallas just needs to attack Lavine and DeRozan every opportunity they get. I think Sacramento does get the win but again, I would not be surprised at all to see Dallas get the victory.

If this is how it plays out and Orlando and Golden State get the seventh seeds, the battle for the eighth and final seeds of each conference will come down to Chicago vs Atlanta and Memphis vs Sacramento. In Chicago and Atlanta, you have the fifth and sixth best teams in terms of scoring. But they also have a -1.6 and -1.1 differential respectively. What that means is that they are both not very good at defense. Further highlighted by the fact that they are 28th and 27th in opponents scoring respectively. The Bulls have been better defensively since they traded away Zach Lavine though. And that small change in team defense will be the difference in the game. The Bulls win to claim the 8th spot and a date to play the Cleveland Cavaliers in the playoffs.

Out West, Memphis vs Sacramento is a tough game to call. Even though I called Memphis over-rated, as a Bulls fan, I’ve seen the DeRozan and Lavine dynamic to know that those two have a ceiling. And it’s not very high. Which ever one of these teams win ends up being cannon-fodder for the Oklahoma City Thunder anyway. Memphis has the better bench and their ex-factor, Scottie Pippen Jr., has been playing really well the last couple weeks. Memphis gains the eighth seed and the chance to be decimated by OKC.

Mike Budenholzer fired into the sun

Or, fired from the Suns rather. By firing Budenholzer, the Suns are looking for their 4th coach in four years. Monty Williams was fired after the ‘22-’23 season. Frank Vogel was fired after the ‘23-’24 season. And now Bud being fired after this season. Firing Monty made sense. It didn’t seem like he cared anymore and quite clearly lost the locker room. Firing Frank Vogel was a mistake though. The Suns were 49-33 in his one season as the coach. They were 10th in scoring and 13th in opponents points per game. This year they scored roughly two and a half points less per game and gave up almost three and a half points more per game. They’ve flat out played worse than they did when Vogel was coaching. But it’s reported that the players were frustrated with Vogel and lost respect for him. And ownership was mad that they were swept by the Timberwolves in the playoffs. So, you fire Vogel and expect Mike Budenholzer to turn this thing around. Even though the Suns had worse depth than even Frank Vogel had. Now the Suns are looking for their fourth coach in four years. They will probably trade Durant, especially now since it is known that his name was floated at this past trade deadline. If they do trade Durant, they better get a king’s ransom for him and not a Luka type trade. A few young players and first rounds picks. Maybe with better bench depth, a Booker and Beal duo will work.

The big three era in the NBA is over. But that thinking was kind of a fallacy to begin with wasn’t it? You still had to have a good bench to be able to win it all. You look at the Golden State big three when they had Durant, Steph and Klay (Draymond also if you want to say a big four). Andre Iguodala and Kevon Looney were instrumental in winning those titles. Golden State in ‘21-’22 with Klay, Steph and Draymond relied on Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins. The Heatles with LeBron, D-Wade and Chris Bosh were helped immensely by Mario Chalmers and Udonis Haslem. You need bench depth and the Suns have not had that since they traded for Kevin Durant to begin with.

I wouldn’t want to even take the Suns job if I were a basketball coach. Ownerships unrealistic expectations would hamper that job. I do like the fact that they have an owner that wants to see the team win. You have to have more of a plan though. You can’t just make moves for the sake of making moves.