In the postseason, there are essential elements of a formula for success. Experience, especially deep into playoff rounds past, is fundamental. A go-to guy, a player that can’t be stopped when the game grinds to a halfcourt scrum with nerves withered to their tips, is irreplaceable. And having Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant doesn’t hurt either.
While only the Lakers fill all three requirements, as NBA Playoffs 2002 dawns, there are at least four other teams in the Western Conference that believe this is the year that they can get past Shaq’s bulk, Phil Jackson’s Zen philosophies and Kobe’s acrobatics to win the NBA Finals. And in the East, there are eight teams of which several didn’t know if they’d even be in the postseason until the final buzzer sounded on the regular season.
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Jason Kidd led the Nets to a franchise-record 52 wins and the No. 1 seed in the East. Jesse Garrabrant NBAE/Getty Images |
“I've never seen either conference in this league as wide open as it's been this year,” said Detroit’s first-year head coach Rick Carlisle. “I believe it'll be wide open in the playoffs as well. I think there will be upsets and I think there will be surprises. That's the fun of it.
“With the injury situation still sort of being a factor on a lot of teams, you just never know. I think anything is possible. We'll see some surprises. I look forward to it. I think it will be a wild, wacky postseason. I really do.”
If that is the prevailing theory, is that a bit of a slap in the face to the Nets? After all, they wired the field this season, racing out to a 7-1 start and finishing with a franchise-record 52 victories. Do they take offense to the perception that they are not as dominant as any other team to control the race?
"Not really,” Byron Scott, the Nets head coach said. “I don't necessarily agree with it, but I agree that anybody can beat anybody. I'm not going to say it's wide open. But we can get beat in the first round just like anybody else.
"The sky's the limit,” Jason Kidd offered. “We feel we're the best in the East and we'll have home-court advantage. We feel we have to go out there and prove a point and answer all the critics and the questions people have about this team."
Ask the players who face these teams and you get a variety of opinions.
"More than anyone right now, Charlotte is the team that scares me,'' Orlando’s Tracy McGrady said.
Scott feels that his team can compete with any, a fact proven out over the regular season as the Nets beat every Western Conference team except Dallas at least once, including a 34-point win against the Kings, a sweep of the Spurs and a win over the Lakers. Their record of 17-13 against the West was the best in the Eastern Conference.
“What I tell our guys that the thing we have to guard against is coming out and playing with no intensity as we're trying to get ready for the playoffs,” Scott said. “That's just not the way we can do it. We don't have the type of team like the Lakers have where we can turn it on and off. They've got Kobe and Shaq. They might be the only team in the NBA that can say, 'You know what guys? It's time to play.' They can do that. There's not another team in this league that can do that."
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| "I think it is legitimate to say that the East is wide open. It is more legitimate to say that than to say that we can't compete with teams in the West because we have shown that we can compete with teams in the West." |
| -- Nets forward Keith Van Horn |
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“They're a team that's athletic. They're quick. They defend well. Those are things you have to respect. You can't thumb your nose at that. They have momentum and dominance, and an amazing tendency to roll games away and bury opponents in a matter of minutes. That's a quality we have to respect, for sure.”
The Nets, with Jason Kidd running the show and Kerry Kittles and Kenyon Martin on the wings, have managed to post the three biggest first-quarter scoring outbursts in the league this season. Before you know it, you’re 20 points in a hole and trying to figure out if it’s the Princeton offense or Loyola Marymount’s that you’re facing. But, the question remains, can they do it when it counts?
“Usually it takes the heat of the playoffs to temper the team in a way that they are tested and tried and have established the resolve to come back and show they are capable of winning,” Jackson said. “The experience of that comes in difficult times in the playoffs. But the East is generally so young. There's no team here that has great experience other than Philadelphia, and without Iverson, it's a long shot. Charlotte gave (Milwaukee) a good run in the playoffs, but they've only been healthy a month now, and they're playing well. Boston is a relatively new team that will have to get tried by the playoffs also. But the East may be an upstart this year. It may be one of those miraculous wire-to-wire finishes by the Nets.”
Or it could be anyone.
"I believe the Eastern Conference has a pack of nine or 10 pretty good basketball teams," Bucks coach George Karl said. "And for whatever reason, one of them is going to filter its way to the championship round."
“This is going to be tough,” said Chuck Daly, former coach of both the Pistons and the Nets. “There is a lot of parity. There won't be as much separation or advantage between 1 and 7 or 2 and 5. The Pistons could win the East or they could lose in the first round and neither would surprise me. It's going to be a very interesting playoffs to watch.”
Nets forward Keith Van Horn, one of the few players around when the team was last in the postseason, only to be disposed of in three straight games by Michael Jordan’s Bulls, added: “I think it is legitimate to say that the East is wide open. It is more legitimate to say that than to say that we can't compete with teams in the West because we have shown that we can compete with teams in the West. And we have struggled with some teams in the Eastern Conference. It is a fair assessment, but that is up to us to go out there and prove to ourselves that we can come out of the East.”
Whoever does get out of the East could find themselves facing a beaten-down shell of a team. While the West may boast the tropical locales of Survivor, surviving the West is a far tougher task than eating bugs. The Kings have the best record in the West, but an inferiority complex fueled by the Lakers' two straight titles. Portland, with four dismissals from the postseason in five years at the hands of the Lakers are just tired of the sight of the champs. And did we mention that San Antonio has Tim Duncan, a veteran cast and a winning streak that seems like it started in January (actually eight-straight heading into the season finale at Utah)?
Now, who’s best when it counts? Sacramento lost two of three to the Lakers before the season finale, and dropped three of four to Dallas. San Antonio beat Dallas in three of four and handled Portland just as easily, but lost three of four to the Lakers. The Mavs also dropped three of four to the Lakers, which leads us to one trend – not one of the seven other playoff teams in the West posted a better than .500 record against the Lakers. So, their finish out of the top spot in the regular season, whether due to injuries or boredom, might mean nothing at all.
And then there is Utah, led by 40-year-old John Stockton, which just wanted to get into the postseason. The reason? To earn experience for their young players. So that when they’re ready, they won’t face the questions that the top teams in the East are finding this season.
“We've got young people that need to learn how to get to the playoffs,'' Jerry Sloan said. "We've been in the playoffs a number of years here and young guys have got to know what it's like so they can improve and get better.”'
Steve Popper has spent the last five years following the Knicks and Nets for the New York Times, and has covered the NBA for more than 10 years.
