Because Griffin is a terrible shotblocker and paint protector? You can't really win in the NBA with zero guys who can protect the rim on the court and that's what the Clippers are going to be turning to the playoffs again. The Spurs played Kawhi at PF, but they also had one of the best paint protectors of all time next to him. The only team that made it out of the first-round without a big man who was great defensively was the Heat (and Bosh is still good on that end and way above Griffin's level on defense) and they have LeBron (and Wade to also block shots)
Yeah, I think they're still short too. But matchups matter, it depends who they play. Usually there's 1 or 2 teams above the rest but right now I don't think any of the 6 are better than all the others. I think depending who plays who could determine who moves on.
I look at the Spurs and often see big men take a big step back at age 37 so that worries me about the Spurs (though I love the Bellinelli signing). If Duncan can be 95% of what he was last year, then I think they can make it.
Warriors worry me with Bogut's injury prone body and Lee on defense.
Memphis still has no shooting.
LAC have bad interior defense when Jordan can't play in the 4th (but if they get Odom it's not bad).
Rockets have no perimeter D. Or really any D outside of Howard and Asik.
OKC has Perkins still. And until I see Lamb actually play, a big hole on the perimeter to go with the gaping one at C.
deandre jordan literally can't play in the 4th quarter of games because it becomes 4 on 5 for the clippers. while i love jj, he's a smaller 2 guard with a tiny wingspan. dudley is the only guy in the starting lineup who can really matchup on defense with cp3 and jj being passable at best. in order to cover for blake and deandre, the perimeter needs to be airtight. i don't see it happening. the clippers will be really really good on offense though.
as for the rockets, i fully anticipate dwight will actually try this time. i know it's popular to assume that he'll be miserable like he was last season but houston has almost everything he's looking for. that said, i think 2011 mvp-spec dwight is gone and never coming back but him being like 85% of that seems reasonable. and the rockets will try and copy the svg magic in terms of offensive schemes except hedouche will be replaced by harden.
Dwight can't be any worse, so I know that. Again, in order for their defense to improve a lot, which a title team must do, it would mean Howard >>>>> Asik on defense. I don't see it, unless the improvement comes elsewhere.
Howard will help on offense over Asik but they're already quite good so unless you think it will become legendary, I have a hard time seeing a big improvement. And that will depend on Howard actually not trying to post up 100 times like McHale has told him he'll let him do.
I don't believe Asik will stay a Rocket very long and thus I won't really write them off. The key will be the piece(s) they get back for him. That will determine if they're a title contender or not. As currently constructed with Asik just backing Howard up (together would be a mess on offense) I just don't see enough improvement from a team that would have been easily swept by OKC if YNB wasn't injured to a WCF team.
