NBA Continued - Conference, Finals, and Beyond

[Relic]

Old thread at 400. Spurs and Heat. Heat in 7 again? I hope not.

[Ziggy Targdust]

I'm going hipster and saying Durant vs Lebron finals

[Littlefingers In The Air]

Thunder in 7.

Pacers in 7.

[C0bR]

Heat in 6 - Pacers are trainwreck waiting to crash and Bosh & Wade can hardly play any worse than they did last year. Double Hibbert from the start and attack him on defense to erase any confidence he may have coming into the series and you win.

Spurs in 6 - Ibaka is big for the Thunder. He is probably the best 3rd option in the league (12/7/3 on 66% TS in the playoffs) and a perennial DPOY candidate. I think that they could do without him on offense (Durant has to step up, he has been having subpar playoffs so far), but he covers the flaws in their perimeter defense which will be exposed by the great passing SA offense. The Thunder are the worst team in the league at contesting threes - they will be pouring down on them in this series.

[Calibandar]

Can't believe Ibaka is out, that is such a blow. They need every one of that flawed roster fit and up to their best to have an outsider's chance against the Spurs. Or the Heat if they make the finals.

Without Ibaka they just lose so much as a team, his strength and his intensity. Plus he's a decent 3rd option. They'll have Nick Collison doing huge minutes here. Durant at 4 means he probably plays Splitter. That might not be that bad actually, even though Splitter has been in the form of his life this playoffs. Ibaka did not have a clear threat to guard in the Spurs series as Griffin was in the Clippers series, but you'd still need him badly when bumping up against Duncan, Splitter and Diaw. Maybe there's an outside chance Ibaka could return for the finals if they make it?

[Rhom]

Was too late to respond in the earlier thread, but loved the Game of Zones.

It was nice to see Jodie Meeks get a nod. :lol:

[Relic]

Good lord Indiana is hard to understand.

[Littlefingers In The Air]

I think we all knew it would play out this way for game one. Playing Miami does something to them. The question is whether it's sustainable. I'm thinking the Heat might want to consider starting Haslam over Bosh. The latter is just not bulky or physical enough to bang with Hibbert and West and it's gonna be a quick series if they don't find a way to stop dribble penetration.

[Rhom]

How long before that other thread gets locked?!!? Good god. This thing has been up for two days!

Anyways, back on topic... The Pacers were clearly built to handle Miami. Teams like Atlanta and Washington were really bad match ups complicated by a major collective head case. For now, it would appear that they have sorted that out.

[Sir Thursday]

Well, I'm certainly feeling happier about my Pacers pick now :). Indiana seem to be very comfortable picking apart their trapping scheme. And I know the series is not going to be as one-sided as that game suggested (I'd expect Miami to be better defensively and perhaps get slightly fewer whistles against them in subsequent games), but with home court advantage on their side I'd have said that performance probably makes them slight favourites. Maybe that's being a bit hasty and tossing out half a season's worth of awfulness, but if they can play at or near that level for three of the remaining six games they should take it.

ST

[Greywolf2375]

For those teams so far down the list they are pack-muling in sunlight, a glimmer for the Celtics...the Kevin Love lottery is heating up & they aren't absolutely out of the question.

So for funs...your team (and lets pretend they need a PF) has a lottery pick...and gets any of the 1-3 spots. Would you package that for Love or take the one and done? With Love being 26, I think I make the deal.

[Calibandar]

Depends on your team I think. Or maybe not.

I'd say that if even getting Kevin Love doesn't make you a playoffs contender, see what you get from that possibly super special Wiggins/Parker/Embiid/Exum pick.

Other than that though, I'd take Kevin Love. He's awesome, a one man army in the offense that instantly makes your team ten times more dangerous.

[Rhom]

Depends on your team I think. Or maybe not.

I'd say that if even getting Kevin Love doesn't make you a playoffs contender, see what you get from that possibly super special Wiggins/Parker/Embiid/Exum pick.

Other than that though, I'd take Kevin Love. He's awesome, a one man army in the offense that instantly makes your team ten times more dangerous.

I wouldn't touch Embiid with a ten foot pole. There's no way that any medical evidence is going to be strong enough to convince me that he won't break down on a regular basis. Considering that by passing on him you still get to pick from Parker, Randle, or Wiggins; its totally worth it.

As to the original K-Love question. I like him. He's obviously a known commodity in the league. He's also going to be much more expensive than the rookie you can take in the lotto. I wouldn't give up a top five pick for him. Once you've gone that far and the "sure bets" are off the draft board, then I would absolutely give up a first rounder for him.

[Rhom]

Seriously! How many times do you have to bump a new thread?!!?

To respond from the other thread:

Not to mention the rotation is just being weird. No sighting of Beasley despite needing extra offense and length? James Jones sitting and going with two guard sets in Chalmers/Cole?

Miami needs to play interested defense, the Pacers offense is one that struggles to put up even 90 points a game, giving them wide open looks all game and inspiring confidence isn't exactly a game winning plan.

Miami was dreadful from range even with some good looks. You have to figure that will return to the mean at some point. After Bosh missed those two early threes it changed the entire tone of the game.

[Relic]

Seriously! How many times do you have to bump a new thread?!!?

Hahaha. With rule of law (mods) all is chaos. Let's go Spurs!

[David Selig]

As expected, OKC's interior defence was a joke without Ibaka. Brooks trying some weird lineups like Durant at center didn't help either.

[Greywolf2375]

I wouldn't touch Embiid with a ten foot pole. There's no way that any medical evidence is going to be strong enough to convince me that he won't break down on a regular basis. Considering that by passing on him you still get to pick from Parker, Randle, or Wiggins; its totally worth it.

As to the original K-Love question. I like him. He's obviously a known commodity in the league. He's also going to be much more expensive than the rookie you can take in the lotto. I wouldn't give up a top five pick for him. Once you've gone that far and the "sure bets" are off the draft board, then I would absolutely give up a first rounder for him.

the question then is will Minnesota take less than a package with a top 5 in it. At some point they might have to - if no trade comes up and the deadline (in season) is coming otherwise he will walk and they get the Smails treatment - nothing and like it.

[Ferrum Aeternum]

So the Grizzlies fired half their front office yesterday (CEO Jason Levien and player personnel director Stu Lash), completely out of the blue. It's a bizarre move but that looks to be par for the course from this owner. I thought both those guys did a decent enough job but apparently there was an 'internal schism.' Same shit excuse for firing Lionel Hollins last year.

[Fez]

The league office released its formal summary of charges against Sterling last night.

Interestingly, one of the four listed violations is:

Various provisions of the Constitution were willfully violated when LAC

destroyed evidence, provided false and misleading evidence, and

issued a false and misleading public statement, as described above.

Unlike some of the other violations, that one's extremely clear-cut and there's no obfuscating if the league has proof that evidence was destroyed. I wonder if this will be yet another example of the cover-up being what actually brought someone done (although I wonder what was actually destroyed; where there other tapes maybe?).

[Calibandar]

Spurs vs OKC last night was a good game. Very frantic, lot of good stuff to see.
Westbrook and Durant played well and showed some truly amazing skills. Unfortunately they didn't get that much from the rest of the roster, but no one's surprised by that. I'm sure several players will come out stronger the next game.

Even though the final score made it look easy, it wasn't that big a difference until the Spurs ran away in the end. At one point in the 3rd quarter OKC looked like leaping away to me. I really question whether the Spurs are able to keep up this pace and continue to be this good. They looked far from old.