The Point Four-ward: The Ballad of the Slow Gunslinger

Four points I’m thinking about the NBA Playoffs and the Cleveland Cavaliers…

1.) Nothing about the Cavs overall performance in their first two playoff games against the Boston Celtics really qualifies as reason for alarm. The Cavs have taken care of business winning Games 1 and 2 by 11 and nine points respectively. Some expected the Cavs to steamroll the Celtics a little more than they have, but these games have shown the Boston squad to be made of just the type of pluck and gumption that makes for a good story this time of year.

A good story, though, does not a winning team make.

This doesn’t mean the Cavs have played fault-free ball since the league’s second season tipped off. In fact, one of the things that has been most troubling about this Cavs team so far is that they seem to need to take a good shot from a more spirited opponent before playing their best ball.

The Celtics, it turns out, are in no short supply of shots.

The Cavs have started both games slowly, giving the Celtics shooters (I mean, if that’s what you want to call Marcus Smart…) space and allowing relatively easy access to the rim, while the Celtics have been draped over LeBron James and Kyrie Irving from jump.

So far, this Cavs team is the rare slow gunslinger who may not get off the first shot, but, in the end, is still able to walk away from the showdown.

When the Cavs get locked in — to close the second quarter and open the third in Game 2, for instance — the Celtics just haven’t been able to stay with them. But they have been very reactive, needing to get beat to open the game before they mount their smothering comeback.

Maybe, it’s just the nature of the Cavs knowing they’re the better team — that, if they play the way they’re capable, Boston won’t be able to keep up. Right now, they can get away with that because it happens to be the truth. Beyond this round, though, the Cavs won’t always be able to come back so quickly if they keep digging themselves an early hole.

The life of the slow gunslinger may be charmed while it lasts. Too often, though, it doesn’t. Not for long.

2.) Watching the Celtics has actually made me a little envious. Everyone can talk about how fun it is to watch this Frankenstein monster of bench players where the whole is truly better than the sum of its parts, in part, because nothing was expected of this team heading into the season. So, to be here at playoff time with a team that (since the All-Star break, anyway) has beaten everyone’s expectations bloody and just won’t seem to go quietly into that good night, is just a thrill. I mean, I’m sure Celtics fans would argue that it would be a greater thrill to win this series — or even push it past four or five games — but watching a team shine through such low expectations is one of sports few truly guilt-free pleasures.

I’ve always wanted that team to be one of my teams, but alas…

So, in a way, whenever this happens, it gives the fans of underdogs everywhere a chance to live vicariously through the fans of this exciting brand of overachievement.

I never thought I’d talk about the virtues of living vicariously through a Celtics fan… but here we are.

3.) Onto the rest of the league:

Heading into the Golden State/New Orleans series, it wasn’t the top-seeded Warriors who had captured the attention basketball fans everywhere. That distinction went to the impending playoff debut of Anthony Davis, the Pelicans’ third year forward, and for good reason. Davis just wrapped up a season in which he averaged 24.4 points, 10.2 rebounds and nearly three blocks a game — along with a jaw-dropping 30.8 PER — that confirmed what we’d been told to expect from the big man out of Kentucky: he’s next up for the “best player in the NBA” debate (and some have him in there already).

So far, Davis hasn’t disappointed, averaging 30.5 points through the first two games of the series. But I was drawn more to watching his Pelicans teammates. After Davis, New Orleans is getting some good run out of Eric Gordon (19.5 points, 53% from three) and Quincy Pondexter has had moments (11.5 points/six rebounds/five assists). After those players, though, the New Orleans roster is giving me uncomfortable flashbacks to the playoff debut of another player who was once “next up for the ‘best player in the NBA’ debate,” LeBron James.

4.) James averaged 30.8 points per game during the 2006 NBA Playoffs, a run that, like Davis, came after his third year in the league. James led a similarly criticized roster that was built solely to help James get his first taste of the playoffs. The additions of Larry Hughes, Donyell Marshall and Damon Jones tied up the Cavs cap space for years and made roster flexibility seem like a dream.

Similarly, New Orleans traded a lottery pick for Jrue Holiday, another first round pick for Omer Asik, and added Tyreke Evans’s inflated contract to Gordon’s max deal that the team is still waiting for close to sufficient return on.

Injuries have slowed Evans this post-season, just as they did Hughes in 2006. And, in case I’m not being clear, these are similarities that do not bode well for the future of this New Orleans team.

But all is not lost. The Pelicans, unlike the Cavs teams of yesteryear, do get the benefit of a ballooning salary cap starting next off-season that will help mitigate some of their poor decisions. So, they still have the opportunity to build a better unit around Davis and keep him dominating the Big Easy for years to come.