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SAN ANTONIO
VS.
LOS ANGELES
PHILADELPHIA
VS.
MILWAUKEE
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Let's be honest -- this is a battle for second place
By Peter May
Special to ESPN.com
Allen Iverson says he's going to play in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference
Finals Monday. He's not at 100 percent, but his team trails the
Milwaukee Bucks 2-1 and neither the Answer nor his teammates want to return
for Game 5 on the edge of elimination.
Then again, you have to wonder, does it really matter whether he plays at
all in the big picture? Or if this series is cancelled due to lack of
interest? Given what happened out West, the Sixers and the Bucks appear to be
playing for the right to be the Lakers' last steppingstone to playoff
history and little else.
It wasn't supposed to be that way when the Sixers made the big,
midseason move to acquire Dikembe Mutombo. They already were the best team
in the conference and the logic behind the deal was that it offered
Philadelphia a chance in any matchup with one of the Western powers in the
Finals.
|  | | Allen Iverson said he'll play Monday against the Bucks. |
That still may be true, except there's this little thing called the
Eastern Conference playoffs which has stripped away much of the Sixers'
swagger and left them vulnerable. Philadelphia was taken to seven games by
Toronto, which was a rimmed fallaway jumper away from moving on. The Sixers
now trail Milwaukee 2-1 and Iverson is ailing, again. He did not play in
Saturday's 80-74 loss and who knows how effective he'll be in Game 4?
His season-long valiance has been one of the NBA's feel-good stories. He
won MVP honors, and rightly so. He has had a spate of injuries which he has
not only played through, but has done so without moaning and usually at a
high level of competition. No one would be surprised if he exploded for 40 in
Game 4; he has that capability every time he steps on the floor.
But so do a few of the Bucks and that is where Milwaukee has a decided
advantage. In a series where scoring is at a premium, the Bucks have many
more options. They also play serviceable defense to get by, even in the
postseason.
It used to be that the playoffs were all about defense and, to a certain
extent, they still are. But now, everyone plays defense -- the coaches are
obsessed with it to the point of turning down their offense -- and it's the
odd team that can break out offensively and actually score points with
regularity. (The Lakers, of course, do both.) The Bucks can beat you in a
running game or they can beat you as they did Saturday, grinding it out.
Eventually, the ball is likely to end up in the hands of Ray Allen, Glenn
Robinson or Sam Cassell and all three have no conscience. (That is presumed
to be a good thing.)
The Sixers have gotten to where they are -- and they still are far from
out of this thing -- with Iverson being the undisputed offensive mainstay. It
seems not to matter to Larry Brown that his best and most utilized scoring
option is as more likely to go 7-for-27 as he is to go 12-for-25. The Sixers
long ago accepted Iverson's wayward shooting as something they not only could
live with, but also had to live with. There is no other option.
But regardless of whether Iverson plays today, or how well he plays
today, the Sixers' hold over the East is tenuous at best, non-existent at
worst. Injuries have taken their toll. Their warts have shown. They may have
been a beast during the (ir)regular season, but, as the Lakers have shown us,
that means nothing when the real season arrives.
What Los Angeles has done, meanwhile, is nothing short of spectacular.
The only hope the Philadelphia-Milwaukee winner has is that Shaq and Kobe get
calcified waiting for the Finals to start. It could be a 10-day interregnum.
In addition to being NBC's worst nightmare, the Lakers are threatening to
rewrite the history books by running the table in the postseason. They've
already swept the first three series, which is what their 1989 forbears did
before hamstring injuries to Byron Scott and Magic Johnson made them toast
for the Pistons in the Finals.
This team not only is winning, it is dominating. The Spurs talked gamely
about keeping the series going after dropping the first two games in San
Antonio. They had won before in Los Angeles and they had had a big
opportunity to win Game 2 in the Alamodome. They had three days to prepare.
They were the best team in the league during the (ir)regular season. They
then went out and lost Game 3 by 39 points and Game 4 by 29. Both games were
over by halftime.
Time is now the Lakers' worst enemy and the Eastern survivor's best
friend. Boredom and ennui will be front and center as the Lakers sit back,
chill, and wait for the underlings in the East to settle matters. All kinds
of bad things can happen with too much time on your hands; just ask any
college coach who has to take his football team to New Orleans for the Sugar
Bowl.
We could note that players do get injured in practice (that was how Scott
hurt his hamstring in 1989) and there will be some inevitable rust caused by
the long delay. And if the Eastern Conference series goes the distance, the
Lakers will have only two days to prepare for their opponent. If Milwaukee
prevails, it will be duly noted that the Bucks were 2-0 against Los Angeles
in the (ir)regular season.
But all that is reach in a futile effort to try and inject some level of
evenness in the next, and last, playoff series of 2001. Yes, Shaq could pull
an abdominal muscle in practice. Yes, the Lakers could come out in Game 1 and
play like they had been off for 10 days. Yes, there is always the possibility
of an upset, although you probably have to go back 26 years (Golden State's
sweep of the Bullets) to find the last real stunner in the NBA Finals. Even
Houston's run in 1995, while remarkable, was made by a defending champ which
had added Clyde Drexler in midseason.
Whoever survives in the East will not be expected to win more than one
game, if that. The Lakers own the home court advantage and they will be
expected to take a 2-0 lead in the Staples Center before going East to finish
it off. Any other scenario at this point is unimaginable.
Peter May, who covers the NBA for the Boston Globe, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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ALSO SEE
Iverson not much better, but is playing in Game 4
Game 3: Bucks trudge past Iverson-less Sixers
Bucks out-Allen Sixers, tie East finals at a game apiece
Iverson's late 3-pointer holds off Bucks in Game 1
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