One Last Time, For All the Marbles

Fast and furious, my friends. These last few weeks of Western Conference ball have been/will be like those cute and fraught tournaments that lead into March Madness. This isn’t just a stretch run, it’s the preamble to a street fight.↵↵Last night, the Suns topped the Spurs, a win that I’m sure most San Antonio fans will find some way to dismiss. Phoenix got control of the game despite a mere 21 points from Amare. Bruce Bowen had to resort to spilling blood, Shaq carried his team for a quarter, and all in all, D’Antoni’s beginning to look like quite the chessman.↵

↵↵But tonight’s the night that some of us have had circled on our calendars for weeks: Nuggets/Warriors, for all the marbles. In this case, the marbles being the right to claim “moderately insane, talent-heavy team that no one wants to play as an eighth seed and just might pull a repeat of last year’s Dallas upset.” Worth noting that, with the Hornets at the top, the league’s ultimate Cinderella story will be going up against one of two absolute berserker squadrons. Whose effectiveness, of course, depends on whether or not they can realize they’re in a playoff series.↵

↵↵I’d say that carries over to tonight’s game, which goes down at the Oracle. There will be over 300 total points scored. There will be Monta. George Karl will play J.R. Smith extensively and be blamed for it, or keep him on the bench for past missed dunk misdeeds and be blamed for that. In the end, though, one team is going to have to get serious, and stem the back-and-forth tide of scoring, or gut out points when the fun house shuts down.↵

↵↵It will be a sensory overload no matter what. But if you’re looking for predictors of future success, for evidence that there might be another 1-8 surprise in the offing, it’s those key plays by Jackson, Iverson, Davis, or Melo that will point past that “YES! WE JUST NARROWLY MADE IT INTO THE MOST COMPETITIVE PLAYOFF FIELD IN NBA HISTORY” euphoria.↵

↵↵FYI, Denver finishes the season at Utah, and then Houston and Memphis at home. Golden State has the Clippers at home, a visit to Phoenix, and Bay Area engagement with those giant-killing Sonics. Really, reports of “it ends tonight” are greatly exaggerated because of these two teams’ utter unpredictability. But there’s a good chance that, after this game, both go 2-1. If not, all bets are off.↵

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