Playoff Talking Points: Dead Reckoning

No one with a wife and kids, or the need to eat leafy greens, has time to watch all this basketball. But we do. So, as a service to the public, here are the Playoff Talking Points you need to fake it at the water cooler:

• Pistols at Night: Like the forest, the playoffs have no shortage of stories. There are medium-sized mammals trying to spawn and raise families; ants fighting over food; patterns of slow growth that shape the vegetation over decades. So it is with this postseason that, depending on your mood, can either swallow you up quick (like a child taken in by wolves) or appear absolutely impenetrable.

Often, these levels co-exist in the same series. Lakers-Thunder feels at once like a battle for the future, and a near-scientific survey of whose arm was where when, and why that indicates advantage, Lakers (or Thunder). Hawks-Bucks raises all sorts of questions concerning experience and coherency -- more on that later -- while now threatening to shatter Atlanta's oh-so-recent sense of basketball pride. Not to mention tear the team asunder and leave Mike Woodson looking for work.

Nuggets-Jazz has Denver fighting as much for credibility, and the honor of the fallen George Karl, as any attempt to get past the ruthless Deron Williams. Brandon Roy's injury, Dwyane Wade's impending free agency ... these are the kind of stories that make this forest so darn funky. And, in a way, compensate for how hard it is to actually figure out which team's on top.

But there's one series so stark that it can make your hair stand on end. Spurs-Mavericks, meeting on the high plains, is that series. Maybe it's too soon for this heavy a series, especially one that eliminates a contender in the first round. And yet it has to be this way. One team comes out of Texas, the world trembles, and the other slinks off without any flash bulbs to trail whatever fallout happens next.



ShareThe Mavs are loaded-up beyond belief, with Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood joining the nucleus of Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, and Jason Terry. Once again, Dallas is expected to make a run, as their number two seed suggests. In keeping with Mark Cuban's tech-money, nouveau riche way of life, this team retools itself every few seasons.

The results range from near-misses (2006 Finals) to abysmal jokes (the Tawn/Toine teams). But like clockwork, Cuban makes sure that every failure is followed with a dramatic shift in coach, personnel, or at least attitude. It's a team whose superstar always gives them a shot -- no one from this era will end up more underrated than Dirk -- but one where the upheaval masks the lone constant. Also, a team you'd never call shy.

In the other corner, there's the Spurs. Plenty has been written already about San Antonio's seflessness, the genius of Gregg Popovich, and the greatness of Tim Duncan. But the Spurs are a team unafraid to search its own soul. That's how, even if iconic guards Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker are back for another run, Parker's coming off the bench and no one's fretting over it. The exotic-yet-generic George Hill is starting alongside Manu and arguably fitting better with Ginobili, where both share the ball-handling and play-making responsibilities.

Still, all seems calm, since there's still Tim Duncan and Pop. The paradox is that, were it not for this constant tinkering, this steadfast run might not have lasted over a decade. Pop and Duncan mask the constant change, no more dramatically than this season.

Then there's Duncan vs. Dirk. Timmy has staked out his claim as one of the greatest big man of all-time; go along with his wishes to be labeled a power forward, and he's almost peerless. As Duncan starts to slow down, the somewhat younger Nowitzki just gets better and better. Duncan is the consummate winner; Dirk, not so much so. But of the last generation, it's Nowtizki who compares most favorably to Duncan as a franchise centerpiece. Yes, more than Kevin Garnett, more than Chris Webber.

These teams are total opposites, and yet they are not so different. The playoffs is only big enough for one of them, and this series settles it. It also has precious few side-plots going. Sure, there's my LeBron-Dirk pipe dream, and questions of whether Parker is expendable. But those are thoughts for another day. In this series, nothing will be revealed but winner and loser.

This series is two old friends beating the crap out of each other. Right when one gouges out an eye, they might just realize that they're indeed brothers. The real message of Cain and Abel: closeness breeds contempt, and vice-versa.

• Simple Deduction: And now for something a little less stark. I'm driving myself batty trying to make sense of some of these losses; the trouble really began when I tried to think about Bucks-Hawks. When trying to make sense of youth, experience, and wisdom in that series, I spit out the following:

There's no question that the Hawks will be better tonight than they were on Monday. The question is, will they pick up where they left off before going to Milwaukee, or find themselves dealing with a team that's looking to bring some of its own home court mojo to Phillips Arena? ... On the other hand, if the Bucks keep this one close, then they're the one's making progress.

The Bucks are figuring things out, and the Hawks either regressing or proving their limitations -- and making it clear that reports of their season were greatly exaggerated. By this calculus, there's no way around it: Milwaukee's the grown team here, and the Hawks still immature.

That's not a knock on Atlanta, really -- I mean it more about the team than any individuals on it. But watching them late once Joe Johnson had fouled out versus the balanced effort of Brandon Jennings, Ersan Ilyasova, and Carlos Delfino, it was pretty obvious which team had the slightest sense of how to solve basketball problems.

With Johnson out, the Hawks has nothing resembling an offensive structure -- those last possessions were like watching a boneless chicken hit the gym. At the same time, if Josh Smith doesn't make a big play, the team's not fired up, and suddenly they're susceptible to a team that's bringing more collective mayhem. The Hawks are weak on two fronts, since they depend so heavily on two players not merely for production, but for their identity as a team.

The Bucks, on the other hand, are totally decentralized. They may be pesky, organized like a peasant uprising, and lacking Atlanta's firepower. But they're adaptive and consistently aggressive. By my own logic, the Bucks aren't just the more mature team. They're the ones really winning this series -- the first time I've felt comfortable saying that about a series that wasn't already on the books. Okay, I never really thought Charlotte had a chance. The question is, whose limitations are the Hawks proving here?

Clearly, something's gone horribly wrong -- this is a team that could compete with Orlando in the next round, while the Bucks will get flayed -- and it makes you wonder if this "team on the rise" has arrived only to find out its built on a faulty foundation, has a rotten core, or never really made it past Go. And then what?

Speaking of Ilyasova and greatness:


• Bad News Nuggets: Jazz fans, I don't dislike your team. Deron Williams has been a joy to behold. It's great to see C.J. Miles freed. Paul Millsap is a monster. But the Nuggets are one of those love/hate teams, and I happen to fall on the kinder side of that divide. So, especially after the Thunder and Hawks losing, that Denver win made me happy. It's way too predictable for that team to utterly self-destruct.

Plus, as I realized last night, they're stuck with this team for at least a few more seasons. Like it or not -- and whether the Nuggets like it or not -- they're an institution. And it's a bummer to think that they're getting progressively less and less stable. I don't know if having a J.R. Smith barrage save the day is exactly the right way to deliver this message, or akin to robbing a bank to save a baby from a burning building.