Schaller TPR - 2009 NBA Playoffs All-stars

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June 15, 2009

Joe Schaller

The Big Stories of the 2009 Playoffs- Denver and Orlando; It was no big surprise that the Lakers won the championship but nobody picked the Magic to attain the Finals. After Jameer Nelson went down I had pretty much written them off and I believe they would have won the Final series with him playing at his peak level.
Taking down both the Celtics and Cavs was quite a task and proved many of the pundits wrong who keep insisting you can't be an elite contender by specializing in three point shooting. Indeed it is the opposite, you can't be a contender without a strong three point presence and I believe it to be a key to team construction.

The Nuggets were also written off by many as a club which lacked the defense and discipline to go very far. Like the Magic they let a few crucial games slip away in crunch time and after 14 impressive playoff games fell apart in their last two. As my allstar lists indicate below they had maybe the most impressive run of all with stars and role players shining.

The Closer? I'm not sure if Kobe's 155 TPR for the Finals is good enough for John Hollinger's top 50 Finals performances however it can finally be said Kobe had an MVP worthy appearance.
Yet Kobe's reputation as the best closer was once again exposed as a myth. Imagine if Kobe's late game bungles of blocked shots, turnovers, and overall crunch time bricks had not been bailed out by Derek Fisher, Courtney Lee, Dwight Howard and Jameer Nelson. We would have been looking at game five with Orlando up three games to one and the pundits proclaiming Kobe as the goat of the Lakers misfortunes-- think about that.

Lebron's spectacular playoff performance exposed the limitations of the Cavs and once again proves that one man can't win a title. Kobe couldn't do it without Pau and Lebron still needs the side-kick that Mo Williams proved not to be.

Out of all the prolific scorers it was Pau Gasol with the highest adjusted fg%, a lofty .580 while taking barely half as many shots as Kobe (.492).

My playoff all-star teams are calculated by adding a minutes played bonus to TPR. Team defense was factored but game pace and one on one defense were not.

TPR scale: 180+ MVP, 140+ superstar, 110+ allstar, 85+ starter, 65+ bench

minutes__First Team__TPR__score