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Nba Playoffs - D Comes Before O!
By http://www.card-game-poker.com/

It a little grammar lesson might be helpful for sports bettors this time of the season: D Comes before O. In the alphabet, it D comes significantly before O. And in the NBA playoffs, D, as in defense, will take on great significance. Just think to any fourth quarter of playoff action. Many games are close, and what do coaches ask of their players at that point? EVERY possession could mean the game!

Which means he will ask his players to play all-out defense on every possession. No open shots. No easy lay ups. No wide open threes. All of which makes it harder to shoot. This is something to keep in mind because the last few weeks we’ve seen a lot of NBA teams play NO defense. The reason was that the season was over for half the teams, and most didn’t care.

When you don’t care you’re more likely to try and have some fun at the offensive end, but ignore the fundamentals of defense. Defense takes hard work, and for teams that are way out of it, who cares about D? The fans know the season is over and would rather see me get 45 points than to prevent my man from reaching his scoring average, at least that’s what many think.

But now the gears completely shift. Think back to the 2006 playoffs. LeBron James made his first postseason appearance with the Cleveland Cavaliers. Instead of letting the talented LeBron create, Coach Mike Brown asked his players to slow the pace down and play aggressive defense for 48 minutes. After giving up 95 points per game during the regular season, the Cavaliers took on the run-and-gun Washington Wizards in the first round of the playoffs and held them to 86, 89 and 96 points the first three games. All three sailed under the total. The Cavaliers went 8-5 under the total during the playoffs.

Remember

the Pistons under first-year coach Flip Saunders last season? Saunders brought in an uptempo offensive attack, a stark contrast to the Larry Brown-led Pistons, who attacked and strangled opponents at the defensive end. But notice that the Pistons were forced to play a more defensive style, going 11-0 under the total their final 11 playoff games of 2006! Even uptempo teams like the Wizards, Warriors or Pistons can be forced to slow the pace down and play more D.

A lot depends on the players and a lot on the coaches. Pat Riley, Gregg Popovich and Jeff Van Gundy are coaches who demand defense from their players and know how to teach it. Young Chicago coach Scott Skiles appears to be fitting into that mold, as well, with the Bulls one of the top defensive teams the last two seasons. It helps to have some role players who can focus on defense. Odds are that Chicago center Ben Wallace will not win a fifth award as the NBA's defensive player of the year, but the Bulls center is one of three players to rank among the league's top 20 in average rebounds (10.7), blocks (2.07), and steals (1.45).

The run-and-gun Denver Nuggets of Allen Iverson and Carmelo Anthony are also in the playoffs. Denver was an uptempo team a year ago, as well, but look what happened in their opening round playoff series against the LA Clippers: All 5 games went under the total by 19, 5, 14, 7 and 6 points! Fans may like scoring and offense, but defense rears its head more this time of the season – a boon to smart bettors who like to play totals.

Lenny Del Genio is a documented member of the Professional Handicappers League. Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com/Lenny_Del_Genio.htm

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