Cleaves no stranger to playoff format
| Monday, Apr 13 2009 11:18 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Apr 14 2009 10:52 AM
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Jam guard Mateen Cleaves looks to dish off after driving the baseline past Idaho's Jermareo Davidson.
The NBA's D-League is trying to bring March Madness to April with its do-or-die playoff format.
And who better to be the face of that idea than the Bakersfield Jam's Mateen Cleaves?
It was Cleaves, after all, who led an iconic, senior-laden Michigan State team through the 2000 version of March Madness to a national championship, after which he was named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player.
"You can't look past no one," Cleaves said. "It's really just putting basketball, putting the task at hand, first. That's what I did when I was in college, when I was at Michigan State, and it worked."
Just one problem with that marketing scheme: Cleaves might not be around for the whole show. His Jam is a sizable underdog in its first-round game at Utah at 6 p.m. Wednesday.
The Flash chose to play Bakersfield after finishing with the D-League's second-best record, 32-18. The Jam limped into the playoffs at 26-24 after losing five of its final six games.
That's a far cry from Cleaves' college championship run, when Michigan State was a No. 1 seed and won all six of its tournament games by double digits.
"I've been the hunted; I've been the one everybody was coming after," Cleaves said. "And I've been on the other team. It's no thing. People, the media, it's fun and games with the records and all that. The game still has to be played, and I'm excited to go down there and win."
There's a reason for Cleaves' confidence. The 6-foot-2 point guard has played in 167 NBA games -- by far the most on the Jam roster -- and set Bakersfield's single-season record for assists with 294 despite missing 14 games with a hamstring injury.
The Jam went 6-8 without him, then immediately won four of five when he returned to the lineup. Whether he can spark a similar turnaround with his postseason experience remains to be seen.
"We are the underdogs, so we're going to go in and play loose and easy," Jam coach Scott Roth said. "There's no pressure on us; (Utah is) probably thinking they're supposed to win. But we're not intimidated by them. I'm excited to go in there, and I know our players are."
That brings up another March Madness parallel: In a one-and-done format, anything can happen.
"The biggest thing is getting in," Roth said. "I think all eight teams are capable of winning the championship, and I don't say that just to say it. All it takes is a week to 10 days of playing good basketball, and before you know it, you're in the finals."
Just rewind nine years, and a younger Cleaves would tell you the same thing.
"One and done, I've been through that before," he said. "Had some success."
