National Basketball Association

NBA playoffs turned upside down

Published Apr. 27, 2011 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Memphis owner Michael Heisley couldn’t quite believe what he had just seen, as his eighth-seeded and new-to-the-playoffs Grizzlies dominated the top-seeded, battle-tested San Antonio Spurs to take a 3-1 first-round lead.

"I don’t know what to say," Heisley said afterward. "I think I might faint."

Break out the smelling salts.

For Heisley.

For San Antonio's Gregg Popovich.

And while you’re at it, for the rest of America, too.

Here we are, only 12 days into the playoffs, and already the NBA is in an absolute upheaval:

-- Popovich's Spurs, coming off a 61-win season and seen as the Lakers' top challenger to emerge from the West when the playoffs began, are on the brink of elimination Wednesday night at home against a team that had never won a playoff game before this spring.

-- The Lakers, the heavy favorites to record a fourth three-peat in Phil Jackson's last hurrah, are going back to New Orleans to play a Game 6 Thursday against an undermanned, undersized opponent they were expected to sweep.

-- The Bulls, the top seed in the East after winning a league-high 62 games, did not have the cakewalk against No. 8 Indiana that everyone expected, completing a very tough five-game series in which they could have easily lost three games.

"I really can't believe it," said Derrick Rose, after leading the Bulls to the second round. "It’s a great accomplishment.’’

Huh?

The Bulls were heavy favorites to sweep the Pacers and quickly move on to face the winner of Orlando-Atlanta. But they had to overcome Rose’s sprained ankle and needed one more scoring outburst from the MVP favorite to clinch the series.

That the Spurs, Lakers and Bulls have been looking shaky makes it even harder to predict who will be playing in June. Going into the playoffs, the smart money had Lakers-Celtics or Lakers-Heat in the Finals. Sure, the Celtics and Heat have looked strong. But even after the Lakers’ Game 5 win on Tuesday, it’s not a stretch to see Oklahoma City emerging from the West. If that happens, David Stern might need some smelling salts.

Counting all the opening matchups, only the Knicks failed to produce a win in the first round, and they easily could have left Boston up 2-0.

“We had our chances,’’ said team president Donnie Walsh. “But at the end of those games, they made the plays and we didn’t. Their playoff experience really helped them, and our lack of experience might have hurt us.’’

But what about the Spurs? They’re as battle-tested as the Celtics, and yet that hasn’t made one bit of difference against the Grizzlies. In San Antonio’s case, they got stuck with a bad matchup. The Grizzlies might have been 0-12 in their three previous first-round series, but that string of failure was from 2004-06, and had nothing to do with this team.

While the Spurs went 32-17 after Jan. 2 to win the West, guess what the Grizzlies did? They posted the very same record. So they deserved eighth place in the super-competitive West. In this series, the Spurs have encountered a team that is younger, more athletic on the perimeter, taller on the baseline, tougher and way better on defense.

Nobody will be surprised now if the Grizzlies go on to become the first No. 8 seed to advance since Golden State shocked top-seeded Dallas in 2007.

"The Grizzlies really have it dialed in,’’ said Tim Duncan, after Memphis routed the Spurs in Game 4. “They got a game plan that's working and they are sticking to it. They are being ultra-aggressive and we're not making shots to make them pay for it. From top to bottom, they've outplayed us in every facet.’’

The Pacers were not nearly as good as the Grizzlies. But even after winning just 37 games -- 25 less than the Bulls -- they provided a blueprint on how to play Chicago. Three of the Bulls wins were by only a total of 15 points and could have gone either way.

Even before Rose sprained his ankle, the Bulls looked like they were ripe for an upset. The Pacers showed that if you force Rose to choose between shooting jumpers and passing to teammates, the Bulls can be beaten. What saved Chicago was its superior defense and Rose’s ability to take over games with his scoring, as he did in the third quarter of Game 5. They also made 14 of 31 3-pointers -- but only 23 in 74 attempts in the other four games combined. Obviously, they showed that they’re going to have problems going to the next level, given the fact they have to fight and scratch for points when Rose is not getting to the basket or draining jumpers.

Case in point: Carlos Boozer had a dreadful series for the Bulls. Brought in as a free agent to give Chicago a second scoring option, he averaged only 10 points on 36 percent shooting after averaging 17.5 ppg on 51 percent in the regular season.

But first-year coach Tom Thibodeau, a veteran of playoff wars in New York, Houston and Boston, isn’t reaching for the panic button.

“The playoffs are always tough,’’ he said before Game 5. “There's always a grind. As great as Boston has been since 2008, that was their first sweep. You just have to take it game by game. Everything is hard-fought. You have to earn everything. Nothing is given to you in the playoffs."

The Bulls also understand that they ran into an underdog that didn’t fear them. Same with the Lakers. The Hornets came into the playoffs without David West, their top frontcourt player, and hardly looked like a team that could get two games off the Lakers after finishing 5-5 in the regular-season.

The Hornets didn’t have an answer for Kobe Bryant when the Lakers took a 3-2 series lead on Tuesday, even if Bryant had to play on a sore left ankle. Two days after needing crutches to get to the team bus after the Lakers’ Game 4 loss in the Big Easy, Bryant went from limping to soaring, throwing in some classic dunks in the Lakers’ 106-90 romp.

“It's the beauty of modern medicine," Bryant said afterward.

Or was it just a little deception on his part?

“All the talk about his ankle,” said Hornets coach Monty Williams, “it didn't look like his ankle was hurting."

No it didn’t. But the Lakers have been hurting in this series. Chris Paul has once again exposed their lack of a perimeter defender who can stay in front of a smaller, quicker guard. Before Game 5 the Hornets had held their own on the glass with the taller Lakers, who finally dominated the offensive boards in their win on Tuesday by grabbing 15 offensive rebounds and converting those into 22 points.

“We don't fear them," the Hornets’ Carl Landry said. "We're not going to be some pushovers for them. We're going to keep punching them. You can tell in the second quarter (of Game 4) that they were getting frustrated with one another, and we knew if we kept punching they would break, and they did."

It’s hard to see the Lakers breaking now, knowing they’ll have a Game 7 on their home floor on Saturday if they can’t get the clincher in New Orleans. But who ever thought they’d even need to go this far to escape out of the first round?

If Jerry Buss is packing smelling salts these days, no one would be surprised.

Mitch Lawrence covers the NBA for the New York Daily News.