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Still No Shaq, Haslem

Shaquille O’Neal and Udonis Haslem were integral parts of the 2006 NBA Champion Miami HEAT, but suddenly that seems like eons ago. O’Neal, who now plays for the Celtics (well, he’s on their roster anyway) and Haslem, who is still with the HEAT, have been ruled out of Tuesday’s Game 2, reports the Associated Press.

O’Neal, who has been dealing with lingering calf problems, practiced on Monday, but Celtics coach Roc Rivers said that Saturday’s Game 3 was a much more likely scenario for his return. Meanwhile HEAT coach Erick Spoelstra put to rest the talk of Haslem returning from his ruptured foot ligament. The Miami power forward hasn’t played since November.

When O’Neal was healthy enough to play this season, he averaged 9.2 PPG and 4.8 RPG in 20.3 minutes of action per night.

Miami has a 1-0 lead on Boston after winning Game 1 on Sunday, 99-90.

So How did the Hawks do it?

Pulling an upset against Orlando was one thing. The Magic were only eight games better than the Hawks during the regular season, and the union of Dwight Howard with Gilbert Arenas, Jason Richardson and Hedo Turkoglu had grown stale by season’s end. Once the series began, Atlanta refused to double team Howard, Orlando’s usual helping of four or five open 3-poiners per game evaporated, and suddenly the Magic’s run was over.

But in Chicago on Monday night, the Hawks managed to raise every last stubborn eyebrow in the basketball-loving world. For those who dismissed the Hawks’ upset of the Magic, behold, the top-seeded Bulls—the league’s “it” franchise that sports both the Coach of the Year and the MVP—are down 1-0.

So how did Larry Drew’s Hawks pull off the Game 1 stunner in Chicago?

As you probably know by now, Atlanta’s Joe Johnson dropped 34 points on 12-of-18 shooting, including a perfect 5-for-5 mark from 3-point range. What you may not have known before Monday’s game—but were reminded of at least a dozen times on Monday—is that the Bulls don’t have anyone who is both fast and big enough to hang with Johnson.

It’s kind of an unexpected problem, considering the Bulls had the top-ranked defense in terms of efficiency (points per 100 possessions) during the regular season. And after all, Bulls guards Keith Bogans and Ronnie Brewer are credited as being solid defenders, while C.J. Watson, at the very least, should be fast enough to keep up with Johnson.

But none of that mattered Monday, as Johnson knocked down a dozen shots, all of which were from at least nine feet away. Bogans and Brewer each have a strength advantage on Johnson, but by staying out of the paint, Johnson was able to rely on his speed and quick release to torch the Bulls from the perimeter.

And as if Johnson’s speed and shooting ability wasn’t enough to worry about, Jamal Crawford came off the bench to drop 22 points on 8-of-16 shooting from the field. At 6-5, Crawford can conceivably be defended by the 6-4 Rose—who isn’t yet an elite defender, but has improved since the team hired Tom Thibodeau as coach—but that still leaves Johnson open on an island.

The Bulls are one of the most-improved teams in recent memory, but until Thibodeau comes up with a defensive remedy at shooting guard, “most-improved” might be the only superlative they earn this season.

{AUTHOR_BOX}Can the NBA Avoid the NFL’s Pitfall?

Before being edged by the Mavericks on Monday, Lakers point guard and NBA Players Association president Derek Fisher chatted with Stephen A. Smith on ESPN Radio Los Angeles (here’s the transcript from SportsRadioInterviews.com). Naturally, the subject of the possible upcoming lockout and its relationship to the current NFL lockout was discussed.

“Right now things are pretty much status quo in terms of the last discussions we had with the NBA,” Fisher told Smith. “They’ll be getting a proposal to us pretty soon and we’ll take a close look at the proposal, discuss it with out executive committee and our members and then start making decisions from there in terms of how best to move forward. But I think the NFL situation, everyone in the NBA, whether it’s the players’ side or the owners’ side, is watching the situation very closely. There’s a lot of differences between the two sports, in terms of how some of these legal decisions will be made, but here are enough similarities to where how this NFL situation plays out will definitely have an impact on the way that the NBA can negotiate and the way that the Players’ Association can negotiate in response.”

“We want to get a deal done,” Fisher continued. “NBA basketball has never been more popular and we don’t see any reason why it should stop.”

Well the ratings for the first round came out after Fisher’s interview and it turns out he was right: The game has never been more popular.

ABC, ESPN and TNT garnered an average audience of 4.15 million per game in the first round, according to a report by Rachel Cohen of the Associated Press, which is up from around 3 million per game last year. Back in 2007, Cohen wrote, the NBA was only getting 2.7 million per game.

TNT’s ratings are the best in history for NBA games on cable, while ESPN and ABC broke marks of their own.

Even commissioner David Stern couldn’t help but point the credit away from the executives and toward the players.

“I know it isn’t league management that’s responsible,” he said on Monday’s conference call. “I’m pretty sure it’s the compelling stories the players have been delivering on the court.”

While Stern may be right to credit the competition and players for the ratings, the league has also benefitted from a perfect storm of circumstances:

• Usually the start of the NFL’s free agency period gets a lot of attention, but this year’s  edition has been delayed by that league’s work stoppage.
• There have been major upsets (Spurs, Magic), but the victims happened to be good teams from smaller markets. America loves underdogs, just as long as they don’t bite the Lakers or the Bulls. (And heck, disgruntled Floridians can still watch the HEAT or perhaps former Gators like Mike Miller, Joakim Noah and Al Horford).
• And speaking of the Bulls, Chicago’s resurgence under new coach Tom Thibodeau and MVP Derrick Rose has reinvigorated the league’s third largest market and it’s army of fans.
• As for the NBA’s largest market, the Knicks returned to the playoffs and faced the Eastern Conference heavyweight Celtics in the first round. They may have lost in four, but Knicks fans certainly tuned in by the millions. 
• Miami’s Big 3 made their playoff debut as a unit.

Now that the second round includes matchups like Boston-Miami and Dallas-Los Angeles, it’s kind of hard to fathom why this league can’t avoid the pitfalls of the NFL. Yes football is more popular at the professional level, but the NBA playoffs have Americans absolutely giddy. We love to see Paul Pierce guard LeBron James. We want to see if Derrick Rose can play like this at the highest level. Can we guarantee that fans will feel the same way about football or basketball after another labor dispute?

From a business perspective, it would be a shame to interrupt the NBA next season. From a fan standpoint, it would be an absolute tragedy.

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