The Irrational Confidence Guys: Mr and Mr Smith

Two Smiths, two irrational confidence guys and two players who have won important playoff games for their teams. In fact, both came up absolutely huge, and thats the point of an irrational confidence guy, sometimes it pays off.

Josh Smith

Houstons mid-season acquisition paid off. Josh Smith was essentially dropped by the Pistons this year due to his poor fit in the team. Again and again he has been critiqued for the extreme amount of deep two's and threes he takes as the athletic big man that he can be. Although the thing that makes Josh irrational, is despite the lack of success as a shooter, he just keeps on pulling the trigger. Now we look now with him at Houston and think yeah its fine, thats the offence, shoot lots of threes, but he was doing this well before he put on a rockets uniform.
In recent past it has been almost laughable how eager he can be to get up ill-advised shots, although isn't that why you want an ICG on you team, because one day, it might just work out.

That day eventually came for  Josh Smith, game 6 of the western conference semi-finals, a closeout game where the Clippers had the Rockets on the ropes. Yet with Harden on the bench, all those ridiculous threes seemed to be just fine.

 on'ya JSmooth.

JR Smith

A rather different ICG, although one just the same. JR is the guy that can go 3 of 18 for a game, or 8 of 12 from 3, you never know. Although today he is growing up slightly, having played beside a leader such as Lebron in a winning environment and not have the temptation of the raging night life available in NYC.

You never know what you are gonna get with JR, sometimes he can be massive. Ignite the offence with he shot making ability whilst playing reasonable defence, although other times he get punches someone and gets ejected.
You just never know -

Although he absolutely mutilated the Hawks in game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals. When it goes right with JR, it goes right.

Breaking News: Austin Rivers takes over GM Responsibilities for Reeling Father

The Clippers Clipped.

Personally, in the past, I have disliked the notion of calling the clippers chokers because they have been unable to reach the conference finals. Sure they haven't made it and they have been good enough, although its not like they are playing in the NBA's 2nd division (the East). They have been competing with the likes of the OKC Thunder and Spurs for the last 4 playoffs, and to say they choked because they didn't win is ridiculous, they just got beaten by different teams.

Although after this 7 game series with the Houston Rockets, I'm not too sure. They were the better team, playing better basketball, and had a 3-1 lead in the series. This year is the first in which they have been the favorites to make the conference finals (after beating the spurs). They were comfortably favoured, yet they couldn't finish the job. So maybe now we can justify calling them chokers, but ill leave that up to you.

Game 7 was a mess for the Clippers, after watching it again, they just got beaten. From the get go they just didn't look like the team they were in game the first 4. They were shaken. Their big three had great statistical games sure, but that's what happens when you play just about every minute. And to me, that was the biggest problem. For Game 7 the Clippers came out slow, they didn't have the urgency they needed to be playing with, and they couldn't match the Rockets. Chris Paul didn't start aggressive enough, and when he really started to get it going it almost felt too late. A lot of the problems we all knew the Clippers had, ended up coming back to bite them, they just didn't have enough players they could rely on in the playoffs. And it resulted in a team, that just seemed mentally, not to mention physically, exhausted.

Since the crushing game 7 loss, fingers are being pointed. Because who put this team together for the 2014-15 NBA season anyway, Coach/GM Doc Rivers. Doc is undeniably one of the best Coaches in the league, although his tenure as the general manager of the Clippers has not been as successful as many expected. With the Dudley trade, Hawes accusation (and burying) and the self sacrificing effort to keep his own son in the league, Doc created a title contender with only 6.25 capable players, sometimes less.

The avalanche of expectations is now crashing down upon the champion head coach.

Although in breaking news, sources report that the Head Coaches favourite son has stepped up and taken the role as general manager to allow his father to focus more on leading the team.

After an up and down postseason Austin felt like he wasn't being utilised how he had hoped. He admitted that after being purchased, at the high cost of his fathers human soul, he would be given a high position in the team, simply because of his dads favour.
Austin has thus decided to step up and take over management responsibilities for the basketball organisation.
Clearly covering up the frustration he is experiencing due to his lack of minutes, he said about the move "That's what we do in this family, when one of us is struggling the rest of us are here to help out."

In response to the move, Doc refused to respond although was obviously disgusted and disappointed with this offsprings actions. He was heard mentioning off record "that at least I don't have to coach his arse anymore."

We imagine that this may cause an extreme rift in both the family life and working life of the duo. As we have seen around the head office tension can be the undoing of teams, although we can only hope that that this Rivers duo turns out more successful than Docs solo escapades.

- Sorry for the Satire

Can the Conference Finals redeem the Eastern Conference?

Really, it was all heading to this, even though for most of the time, it didn't seem like it at all. The Atlanta Hawks, the epitome of team basketball in the modern era. Or at least they can be, or we think they can because they once were, for a bit.
Earlier this year they went on a 19 game win streak, driven by team basketball which shocked everyone. They moved the ball, stretched the floor, Kyle Korver shot the crap out of it from the two spot in their Eastern All Star line-up. A "star studded" team which many have agreed doesn't have a star at all. seriously, who is their best player? It can be each of their starting five at any given time.

Although, they ended the season playing reasonably average basketball, and through the first few rounds of the playoffs were not impressing anyone despite finishing with the Easts best record (60-22).

Say what you like about the awfully miserable, catastrophically old, even laughable NBA organisation we know as the Brooklyn Nets, yet they did put up some sort of fight and gave the Easts one seed a bit of trouble. And even without John Wall for the most part the Wizards had many people thinking that we were going to be seeing BB's delicious jumper for at least another round. The Hawks seemed to have lost their flair, some games they just couldn't hit shots, and others their team defence just wasn't up to scratch, and now many are left wondering if we are ever going to see the team that shocked the East.
Although despite the adversity they faced in the playoffs, they are still here, and so are the Cavs.

Whom have had to overcome their fair share of problems. Primarily coming in the form of injuries. Unlike Atlanta the Cavs started off the year in an absolute mess, which is expected. No team who has brought a whole new design together, is good straight away. Especially when three high ego players who demand a lot of the ball play together for the first time.


Although they made some major changes, got their defence sorted out and brought it all together to finish the season on a high. Then the playoffs hit, along with the plague of injuries. Yet, they are still here. Due to some outrageous play from those they had left, and a supporting cast carrying Lebron's poor efficiency (for him), both shooting the ball and controlling it.
Last year in the playoffs he averaged 56% from the field and 40% from deep, this year so far just 42% FG and an abysmal 14% from three (Per: basketball-reference.com). Got to mention also the apocalyptic failure, collapse, choke, whatever you want to call it from the Bulls which did help them out some. Seriously the Bulls couldn't have had a much better opportunity to finally beat Lebron. But again he knocked them down like a teenage guys confidence that just cant get his high school sweetheart to go out with him.

Think about this, if I told you at the start of the playoffs that the 4 top seeds from each conference would be playing each other in the conference finals; you would have laughed at me, or at least have had a great deal of questions. Sure the Cavs and Warriors were favourites to come out, but you would have said, "are you sure, are Houston even a real 2 seed, and the Hawks haven't been playing great, and don't count out the Spurs and Clippers man?"
So we get to the 2nd round and all is on track, and I tell you again, that 1 and 2 seeds will make the conference finals.
After game 1 of each we defiantly wouldn't have believed it, each team lost, Kevin love is out, the Bulls are looking pretty good. The Clippers just passed the Spurs and look like they may sweep the Rockets and the Hawks continue to be average.
So many times throughout the last few weeks it seemed highly unlikely that we would be where we are now. JR suspension, Kyrie injury, Clippers go up 3 to 1, The Truth (PP) trash talking the Hawks bench and then nailing the 3 in game 5.
Yet somehow, even though several times we may not have been able to believe it, the four teams with the "best chance" of making it are here.

And now, in the East at least, bias's aside, we have what we have all really been wanting to see. Hawks-Cavs.
All season long we have been whinging about the peasants that make up the Eastern conference compared to the kings of the West.
The only real beacons of hope were a transcendent basketball machine that went on a regular season tear before slowing down, and a team lead by its super star that once got rejigged starting to make some noise.

And now they are the two that are left. At the climax of the conference the two that kept us interested through the season are the only ones which remain. The Cavs a few men down from where they started and the Hawks still underachieving, yet that may just create the best result for all us fans. There is a chance that this matchup may single handily reconcile and rectify the rubble that has been the 2014-15 East Coast basketball venture.