Blog Focus: The NBA is Back

Author: Patrick Hayes
Published: October 28, 2009 at 2:27 pm

Blog Focus is Technorati's daily roundup of the top stories as told by the bloggers of the world. Each day five posts, no matter how popular or nascent, will be selected by editors to portray a general unscientific reaction to discussion points around the 'Net.

After what is an insufferably long preseason, the NBA finally returned last night with Eastern Conference favorites Boston and Cleveland facing each other and the Lakers getting their championship rings in L.A.

Obviously, the blogosphere was ready to talk some NBA so they could quit writing about Steve Phillips.

Basketbawful: "Anyway, the Celtics showed once again that offensive firepower — however awesome, again, on paper — can and will wilt under furious defensive pressure. The Boston D held the Cleveland O to 41 percent shooting, in part because Mike Brown didn't add many new wrinkles to his generic "Give LeBron the ball and let everybody watch" offense set, unless you count occasionally posting Shaq as a new wrinkle."

Court Surfing: "Gilbert Arenas and Brendan Haywood are back in business and so are the Washington Wizards. After going 19-63 last season, the Wiz are primed to be one of the league's most improved teams if last night's performance is any indication. Washington took the lead early and benefited from the bench scoring of Andray Blatche (20 points) and new Wizard Randy Foye (19 points). And Gil was Gil, scoring like the Agent Zero of old while dishing dimes like he's version 2.0."

Sparty and Friends: "he Lakers did what most teams do on ring night and played kind of a sloppy game versus the Clips who were looking like a playoff team until the Curse of the Sacred Buffalo took Blake Griffin for six weeks via a hairline fracture of his off kneecap on a wide open dunk in the last preseason game. It doesn’t get much more poetic than that."

Wages of Wins: "I think the NBA championship will be won by Cleveland, Boston, or Orlando. But only one of the Eastern Conference titans will appear in the Finals. Who will this team play? The Western Conference Champion will probably be Dallas, the LA Lakers, Portland, or San Antonio."

Cavs the Blog: "I’m really not sold on starting two guys who can’t shoot, and I remain more convinced than ever that Shaq should be coming off the bench."