The Season is Here

Your weekly NBA Pacific Division Update

By Tara Sadat-Tehrani

Frederic J. Brown / Getty Images

The time has come, and the NBA season has started.  Rankings and predictions were made all of preseason and during training camp, but how have teams done keeping these projections of their performance in mind.  For the NBA Pacific Division, the predictions and guesses have been quite on point with a little surprise for some teams, but I believe that there is always rust when it comes to the beginning of an 82-game season.  Let’s see which teams are on the road to success in the West, and which others may have no hope even though there has only been up to four games.

First place goes to the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Clippers did lose to the Lakers opening night, but since then, they have put the Warriors to shame and “Lob City” has yet to leave its game plan like originally wanted by Doc Rivers.  Chris Paul and Blake Griffin have had chemistry from anywhere on the court, and the Clippers should come out as No. 1 in the Pacific Division and the Western Conference based on their talent and other analyst opinions.

Golden State Warriors take second.

 This is a whole new team this year.  People doubted the trade of Monta Ellis two years ago, but the team has only improved.  Andre Iguodala has brought tenacity, and Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson have already showed that they are going to play their best this year.  With the Warriors’ fan base and young exciting team, there is a huge chance that they will make it far in the West this year. 

The Phoenix Suns have been the most shocking so far this season after three games coming in at third.

 No one has paid attention to the Suns for the past years after Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion left the team.  The team’s struggles just kept going, and nobody noticed them like they used to.  But with players like Goran Dragic, Eric Bledsoe and Archie Goodwin, anything can change.  Give them a couple of seasons for this roster to spark and change people’s views of the Suns.  Hopefully they can keep this streak going, but it’s likely that their chemistry won’t outlast the rest of this competitive West.

Lastly, the Los Angeles Lakers (2-2) and the Sacramento Kings (1-2) place last, but that should not be a shock for most NBA fans. 

The Lakers had an impressive performance against the Clippers without Kobe Bryant, but without their franchise player, clutch moments will probably not come in clutch times.  The Lakers need Kobe Bryant even if he does not fully come back with his star power.  They need his support on the floor either way.  The Sacramento Kings, on the other hand, need to make more changes and mature before the team have any chance of having a new appearance in the West, let alone the Pacific Division.

Overall, the West once again is looking like a dominant conference that will have close calls when it comes to entering the playoffs.  Forgetting about predictions and analysts, it is time for these teams play their hardest and win games if they want to live up to what people think of them. 

Celtics Win Four Straight, Despite Loss of Rondo

Boston Starts to Win After Losing Rajon Rondo to a Torn ACL

By Ali Koskoris

Last Sunday it was confirmed that Celtics’ star point guard Rajon Rondo had a torn ACL and would be out for the rest of the season.  The loss of Rondo is a big blow to Boston, a team that is not performing as well as they hoped they might this season.

Reportedly, Rondo injured himself in a loss to the Hawks, but finished out the double-overtime game, thinking he had only tweaked his hamstring.  He was in Doc Rivers’ starting lineup for last Sunday’s game against Miami until about 25 minutes before the start.  Instead, Rondo headed to the hospital to get an MRI.

AP Photo/ Tony Dejak

Boston players played against the Heat in an epic double-overtime win without knowing that the situation with Rondo would be dire, and were not told until after the game was over.

The win against Miami broke a six-game losing streak, and started a four-game winning streak.  The Celtics have gone on to defeat the Kings, the Magic, and the Clippers. 

The wins against the Heat and Los Angeles are especially important because Miami leads the Eastern Conference and the Clippers lead the Pacific division of the Western Conference. 

The Kings and the Magic both have losing records, so, although the wins are important in the standings, they are less important to the mental state of the team.  It is important for Boston, now exactly .500, with 23 wins and 23 losses, to defeat teams with .500 records and higher—and the fact that the Celtics have done that without Rondo is significant.

When Rivers found out the news of Rondo, his main concern was ball-handling, not assists. “We have a lot of guards,” he said, “we just don’t have a lot of point guards.”  Rivers said the situation is going to be addressed on a game-to-game basis.

His plan is to have two guards and a forward who can handle the ball well enough. That way, if one is pressured, one of the others can bring the ball up.  Courtney Lee has taken Rondo’s place in the lineup, but Leandro Barbosa, Paul Pierce, Jeff Green and maybe even Avery Bradley will have to take the responsibility as well.

In the past four games, Pierce has stepped up his game, scoring, rebounding, and assisting.  The Celtics will need him, as well as many others on the team, to continue to play well (even above average) if they want to continue to win and make it to the playoffs.