A Weekend of Upsets Have Teams Wondering Is It Time To Hit The Panic Button?

[Da Boss DJ Jo Corleone]

Wow what a weekend. Sure there were some blowouts, but MAN how about the close games and upsets! We expected Cleveland, and L.A. to win their first games, but the other teams were up in the air with the exception of a few, which led to a few upsets.
First off shouts out to rookie point guard Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls for leading the Bulls to a game 1 victory over the defending champion Boston Celtics. A rookie playing in his first ever NBA playoff game and he was unreal. The kid went for 36 points and 11 assist and hit a lot of clutch shots, and made a lot of big plays. The thing that was even more impressive was his composure. He seemed so calm and cool, that he should have been playing in a pair of sunshades.

Rose wasn’t the only impressive Bull though. Tyrus Thomas the third year player out of LSU looked really good as well, scoring 16 points most of them coming from jump shots. Ben Gordon also chipped in with 20, and Joakim Noah had 11 points and 17 rebounds.

These four guys blowing up the spot wasn’t the only problem in Boston on Saturday. They say bad things happen in threes and last week Boston took 3 major hits. First the loss of Kevin Garnett for the post season, then the mild heart attack suffered by Boston GM Danny Ainge, and then the poor shooting on Saturday.

Paul Pierce and Ray Allen combined to shoot 9 for 33. Allen went 0 for 6 from the 3-point line and 1 for 12 over all finishing with only had 4 points. And despite the 21 points from Pierce he shot 8 for 21, and missed a crucial free throw with 2.6 seconds left in regulation that could’ve won the game for Boston.

The big surprise for Boston was Rajon Rondo who led the Celtics in points, rebounds, and assist. He battled rose from start to finish, but unlike Rose, Rondo was the only one getting it done offensively for Boston. Defensively the entire team needs to take responsibility, because the Bulls got almost everything they wanted scoring wise. This performance has all the experts saying “No KG no title”.

Before Saturday everyone was picking Boston to lose to Orlando in the second round, but if they don’t adjust to the loss of KG soon we’ll be talking about Chicago and Orlando in the second round. Well pump your breaks before you go there because the Magic found a way to blow an 18-point lead. The end result Philadelphia 100 the Magic 98.

Two things cost the Magic this game, and the first thing Orlando’s failure to get the ball inside to Dwight Howard who had 31 points and 16 rebounds. He’s pretty much money from the inside, but the rest of the Magic decided to take the shots themselves. That brings up point number two, Orlando shooting themselves out of the game. If you live by the three you’ll die by the three and Orlando died Sunday. Defense wins championships ask the Phoenix Suns who were an offensive powerhouse, before Shaq got there and they never made it to the playoffs.

During the regular season you can be that 3 point shooting team but once the playoffs start you better know how to play defense and you better know how to slow down the pace and feed your big man. We’ll see in game two if Orlando can correct their mistakes.

Another unexpected beat down came from the Houston Rockets to the tune of 108-81 over Portland Trailblazers. The Blazers only shot 41.7 percent and that hurt, especially with Yao Ming going 9 for 9 from the field and 6 for 6 from the free throw line. Ming ended the game with 24 points and wasn’t even Houston’s leading scorer. That title belonged to Arron Brooks who scored 27 points, but the defensive title of course went to Ron Artest.

Though Brandon Roy had 21 points Artest made him earn every point, holding him to under 50 percent from the field. Game 1 showed the world that experience will trump youth in the playoffs every time, even if the youthful team has home floor advantage.

And the last upset of the weekend goes to the Dallas Mavericks who went into San Antonio and stole home court advantage from the Spurs winning game 1 105-97. The X factor was Josh Howard, who seemed like he had his playing legs under him again, scoring 21 points for the Mavs. Dirk Nowitzki had 19 points, but it was the Dallas bench that really got it done for Dallas.

To no surprise Jason Terry showed up scoring 12 points, Brandon Bass had 14, and Jose Juan Barea had 13 points. The Spurs have enough to worry about between the streaky shooting of Terry and Nowitzki, but now they have to worry about Tony Parker, who had 24 points, playing better defense against Barea as well.