In The Playoffs, Old Teams Look Old

That headline says it all, really. The teams whose core players are nearing 30, or have passed it, certainly looked aged last weekend. The Lakers lost, as did the Spurs, while the Celtics, Mavericks and Heat escaped by the skin of their teeth in about as exciting a first round of playoffs as I can remember.

Rarely is the end for basketball players both extreme and definitive; instead, often a gradual deterioration takes place. Players will start getting beaten off the dribble or having their shots blocked — signs that don’t immediately show up in the traditional stats line. But a decline in skills becomes more noticeable when the playoffs arrive and there’s no more scrub teams left to feast upon. Locked in a struggle with younger, fresher, hungrier opponents, older players will look — well, old. Every year there is one such match-up. Last weekend, by my reckoning, there were five. Either that, or it was just a really super-crappy weekend for favorites.

Both may be true. Had the Bulls been playing anyone other than the Indiana Pacers, the 2011 NBA Playoffs’ weakest team, they would’ve lost Game 1. I’ve never seen a player like Derrick Rose. He sleepwalked through much of the second half and yet still scored 39, with 19 points from the line. They were down by ten with three minutes-plus left, and while still maintaining that bored expression, he knifed through the Pacers defense again and again. In Game 2, there was more of the same, although Rose had an off-shooting night. For him.

If Carmelo Anthony hadn’t gone ice-cold at the wrong time and his team all rec-league in the last 45 seconds of the game — a recurring theme for the Knicks’ playoff teams — the Celtics would’ve dug themselves into a hole on Sunday night. Their defense was dogged, but their offense was mediocre. What can you say about Jermaine O’Neal? Nothing, except that he had 12 points and 5 blocks, and probably saved the Celtics season. Out west, the Mavericks, who came a hair from fulfilling the destiny that I laid out for them last week, were one truly otherworldly shooting performance from Jason Kidd (the likes of which I have never seen before from him) away from losing to Portland. And making Mark Cuban cry. It would’ve been so perfect.

The Spurs lost to the Grizzlies after a last-second shot from an unlikely source: Shane Battier. It was a great shot, but had Richard Jefferson hit a wide-open trey at the buzzer to send the game to OT we probably wouldn’t even be having this conversation. So I’m not really worried about the team with the Western Conference’s best record. The Spurs were missing their second-best player in Manu Ginobili, who will return for Game Two on Wednesday. And I don’t know if the Grizz can count on that kind of performance from Zach Randolph for the next six games.

The Hawks did to the Magic what I thought they would (just like I told you — once out of eight games) and beat Orlando, in spite of 2,000 points and 1,500 rebounds from Dwight Howard (okay, 46 and 19). I see Orlando winning the next one at home and then losing in Atlanta. And although I think the Nuggets played ably in Oklahoma City, the game still felt like the Thunder are the better team, preserving their energy. The Thunder have two of the better players in the NBA and I still don’t see the Nuggets having any answer for them, no matter how close Game One was.

Shockingly, the two teams that should be the most concerned are the sluggish Lakers, who Hornets point guard Chris Paul tormented so thoroughly, and the thin Heat, against whom a clear roadmap to victory has emerged — have more than the two good players and run them until they need to rest their starters. Both will still win their first-round matchups (the Heat convincingly clobbered the Sixers last night) but I could envision both of them losing in the second round. If either of them lose, it’s a disaster for the league. If both go down, the NBA headquarters will fly their flag at half-mast, for the next decade.

I’m being completely serious.

Tony Gervino is a New York City-based editor and writer obsessed with honing his bio to make him sound quirky. He can also be found here.

Photo by Keith Allison.