NBA Playoffs 2011 Memes: Derrick Rose Isn’t Himself, Drama In LA, Dirk Nowitzki Rocks And More

There are a lot of reasons for Rose’s issues, and none of them are particularly encouraging. The Hawks defended him extremely well, dropping way back and cheating off the Bulls’ shooters and big men to clog the lane. I’d say more on this topic, but Sports Illustrated’s Zach Lowe covered this more extensively than any writer alive possibly could (though I’m more skeptical than him that these simple adjustments he discussed will work wonders). Then, there’s the injury issue. Rose claims he’s fine, because he has to think he’s superman and all that, but it’s clear the ankle injury he suffered in the first round is affecting him. Now, he has a second ankle injury. That’s bad.

All this means that there will be one of two scenarios playing out. Either Rose rises above his own pain and delivers, or he can’t and the Bulls don’t reach the NBA Finals. If it’s the former, there will be way too much “will to win” and happy talk for me to take. If it’s the latter, I fear that we’ll all turn on such a special player because he’s not as superhuman as we may think. Either way, I think we lose. That’s how narratives work, I guess.

Most of the time, that intrigue is pointless, but it’ll never stop the conversations from taking place. That’s just the way it is. So in the end, let’s just reserve a permanent spot for this on the meme power rankings for whenever the Lakers lose.

Eventually, Charles got his point out. I’m paraphrasing, but this is what he essentially said.

Win or lose, hopefully we can all appreciate the Big German.

In fact, is there really any regression to the mean going on at all? During the regular season, the Hawks shot 43 percent from 16-23 feet as a team. That led the league. During the playoffs, Atlanta has hit 72 of their 186 shot attempts from that same range. Pull out a calculator, and you’ll find that’s ... just under 39 percent. In this supposed unsustainable hot streak of shooting, the Hawks are somehow managing to shoot worse from mid-range than they did in the regular season?

How do you explain that? Maybe the reality is that Atlanta is a better team than we realize.

Everyone who follows the NBA yearns to find that preverbal “diamond in the rough,” that guy who comes out of nowhere to provide his team a lift when you least expect it. This search ignores the reality that almost everyone in the NBA is capable of helping in some capacity some of the time if given a chance. The talent level is distributed so evenly that it still boggles my mind that role players get paid so much money. But that’s a subject for another day.

Without their contributions, neither of those teams win Game 1. Now, let’s sit back and wait for these players to go from being underrated to wildly overrated.