2011-12 Season, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets, Houston Rockets, L.A. Clippers, L.A. Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies,Air Jordan Retro 5
Minnesota Timberwolves, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers, Utah Jazz | Comments
It’s time to give up trying to figure out the Western Conference and just enjoy the ride, as 11 teams battle for eight playoff spots, and two others — the Suns and Warriors — improbably lurk just one game behind the 11th-place Trail Blazers in the loss column. I can’t remember a season in which it has been so difficult to get a firm grip on a simple question: How good is Team X? This is especially so in a lockout-shortened season, when veteran teams may well be saving something for the playoffs.
We’re nearly 40 games into this thing, and I feel comfortable saying two things about the Western Conference:
The Thunder are clear favorites, but their D needs improvement. (Layne Murdoch/NBAE/Getty Images)
1. The Thunder, as we all expected, are the clear favorites. They’re 31-8, rolling to home-court advantage, and even if their scoring margin (plus-6.0 points per game) paints them as a team that really should be something like 27-12 and not all that far ahead of their conference peers, that scoring margin is still nearly two full points ahead of the Spurs’ second-best mark.
That said, the Thunder, as documented here and here, are riding a ridiculous wave of super crunch-time play that has pushed their record above where it probably should be. They remain a so-so defensive team, except in the final minutes of close games, when they turn into the 2008 Celtics. They struggle to find any scoring at all beyond their top three players; Oklahoma City piled up 115 points last night against the Suns, and only five of their players scored any points. Floor-spacing can be an issue, Russell Westbrook remains addicted to pull-up 20-footers in the first five seconds of the shot clock and the three core big men –Serge Ibaka, Kendrick Perkins and Nick Collison — are almost total non-threats on the pick-and-roll.
If this team really has another gear on defense, as perhaps evidenced by its crunch-time play, they might be able to waltz through this conference. If they’ve been lucky, they could be had.
2. San Antonio is going to earn the No. 2 seed and no one will think much of them. The stink of last season’s first-round loss to the Grizzlies lingers over this team, as does concern over Manu Ginobili’s continued bad injury luck. The Spurs are humming along behind a motion-heavy offense that has ranked among the league’s top-five in points per possession almost all season, but they are playing so many inexperienced guys, and their defense, though improved over the last three weeks, remains mediocre. The Spurs rank 14th in points allowed per possession, and even as they’ve tightened up a bit in their last 16 games, they’ve still allowed nearly 99 points per 100 possession over that span – equivalent to about the 10th or 11th best defense in the league.
If they find themselves matched up against a team with two interior bullies, the same post-defense issues that undid them against Memphis will emerge as a potential killer flaw again this season. Matt Bonner has been better in the post this season, but neither he nor DeJuan Blair can guard good interior scorers one-on-one, and the Tim Duncan/Tiago Splitter pairing remains a novelty item.
Still, compared to the mess of the rest in the West, the Spurs are a model of stability sailing to the No. 2 spot.
What of the other nine teams?Jordan Sneakers

Dallas Mavericks
I’ve labeled the champs the league’s most intriguing team for the last few weeks, but there comes a point at which you have to shed the intrigue, set your rotation and just play well. Dallas is running out of time to do that, and the schedule is about to get absolutely brutal. The Mavs start with three straight road games at Phoenix, Sacramento and Golden State that should all be winnable, except that they come as part of a back-to-back-to-back. After that? Eleven of 12 games come against teams that would be in the playoffs as of today, and the one outlier is a home game against the Blazers.
The intrigue here is based upon Dallas’ unexpected play on defense, where it ranks third in points allowed per possession despite losing its best defender (Tyson Chandler). The Mavs historically are a top-10 offensive team every season, but they rank a shocking 20th in points per possession so far this season. If they could get their offense up to normal levels without compromising their defense, they could be dangerous.
Again, time is running out, and there are no signs of progress. In six of its last 10 games, the Mavs have scored at a rate below their own subpar points per possession average, while injuries and other personnel issues continue to rob Dallas of any chance at stability. You’ll recall last season, the Mavs went through similar late-season rotation shake-ups before righting themselves and setting their rotation just ahead of the playoffs. The difference, though, was that Dallas had shown over a 50-game sample size that their veteran core,Authentic Jordan Shoes
with Dirk Nowitzki healthy, was a championship-level team. When the playoffs began, they simply got that core healthy and reset the rotation, aided in part by an injury to Rodrigue Beaubois in the season finale that allowed Dallas to exile him quietly.
There is no such sample size of championship-level play this season. Can the Dallas vets turn it on when the playoffs start? Maybe. But they have to get there first.
Los Angeles Lakers
The Lakers, reeling from losses to the Pistons and Wizards, are struggling in Mike Brown's system. (AP)
More Hollywood drama, with some L.A players anonymously lobbying for a return to the triangle offense after depressing losses in Detroit and Washington, per ESPN.com’s Ramona Shelburne. The Lakers rank just 15th in points per possession, and as I’ve written before, teams that play such mediocre ball on one end of the floor rarely make the Finals — unless they are outstanding on the other end. The Lakers rank 10th in defensive efficiency, which is nice, but not nice enough to make L.A. a realistic contender.Cheap Jordans For Sale

The blame may fall on coach Mike Brown, who has admittedly stressed defense over offense and ditched a system that had the Lakers among the league’s five best offenses almost every season. The adjustment away from the triangle, and to a more post-heavy and traditional NBA offense with elements of the flex, was always going to be painful, especially without a reliable pick-and-roll creator other than Kobe Bryant. But that’s the point: L.A. has lost or jettisoned almost every decent perimeter shot creator it’s had over the last half-dozen seasons, instead relying on Bryant, jordan 2012
two elite centers with semi-overlapping skills and aging players either long in decline (Derek Fisher) or declining at turbo speed (Metta World Peace).
Bryant, at age 33 and flanked by two star big men, is using a higher percentage of Laker possessions than at any point in his career and posting his lowest field-goal percentage since 2004-05. The offense is out of balance, but given the lack of scoring depth here, it’s unclear how much more efficient it could be with proper balance.
All of this said, would it be shocking if the Lakers ended up in the conference finals?

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