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NBA Finals: TRILOGY Edition!!!


Mr. Chatywin et al.

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50 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Pretty cool I guess but naturally my reaction is....There are homes that nice in Cleveland??? That can't be right.

Cleveland gets a bad rap.  Downtown has been really nice for around a decade now, especially the area around where the Cavs and Indians play.  Lots of great bars and restaurants.  There are quite a few rich suburbs too like the one pictured above.

I'd consider moving back there, but I've lived in the south too long now to put up with Lake Erie winters.  Fuck that shit.  

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Really don't think this series is going to live up to the hype.  The games will probably be close, but in the end GSW is just too much, and I think they'll take it in five.  I don't think Lebron's supporting cast is good enough to really hang in this series.  The Warriors are not going to make the mental mistakes they did last year, and Curry is fully healthy.  Durant is a huge mismatch and an underrated defender.  The Warriors have at least three different guys they can throw at Lebron (Iggy, Green, Durant) and Irving (Thompson, Livingston, Clark).  The Cavs don't have that kind of defensive flexibility or as many offensive mismatches to exploit.

The only question for me is if Mike Brown somehow blows this series.  Which isn't completely out of the question, but in the NBA, talent wins over coaching most of the time. 

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4 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Really don't think this series is going to live up to the hype.  The games will probably be close, but in the end GSW is just too much, and I think they'll take it in five.  I don't think Lebron's supporting cast is good enough to really hang in this series.  The Warriors are not going to make the mental mistakes they did last year, and Curry is fully healthy.  Durant is a huge mismatch and an underrated defender.  The Warriors have at least three different guys they can throw at Lebron (Iggy, Green, Durant) and Irving (Thompson, Livingston, Clark).  The Cavs don't have that kind of defensive flexibility or as many offensive mismatches to exploit.

The only question for me is if Mike Brown somehow blows this series.  Which isn't completely out of the question, but in the NBA, talent wins over coaching most of the time

Yeah, I think Warriors in 6 is probably about right. 

 

To the bolded bit, do we have any proof that Lue is any better? 

 

Anyway, I'm ready to see some Bron-Bron whining. Bring on Game One...

Cry%20Moar%20Bron%20Bron_zpskqttdplf.gif

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17 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

To the bolded bit, do we have any proof that Lue is any better?

Too early to say if Lue is a great coach, but he seems at the very least competent.  His work in the Finals last year was solid, and in this year's playoffs the Cavs were consistently ready to play (save for one half against Boston).  That is a lot more than I've ever seen from Brown.

3 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

About the only thing iggy can throw at Lebron is some fouls. Which does have value but every team has extra bodies to go in a rough up a superstar for a bit.

If Iggy is hurt, then he can't cover Lebron and won't see much playing time.  If he is healthy, he can absolutely make Lebron work hard for what he gets, and that was been the formula to beat Lebron in 2014 and 2015. 

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1 minute ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Fair point. That said I think he's a knucklehead.

LeBron respects him, though, and that's really the only thing that matters.  I like him because he's not afraid to challenge LeBron.  The main reason Blatt failed was because he kissed LeBron's ass and was afraid to speak up to him, and he held him to a different standard than the rest of the team, which pissed guys off.  Lue doesn't do that, and so they respect him.

I was very skeptical of Lue throughout the year as the Cavs just looked horrid on defense, but they really turned it up in the playoffs, which shows that he just didn't give a shit during the regular season.  I also read the Cavs went like an entire month during winter without holding a practice, which led to some shitty play but kept guys well rested.  

Lue, though, unlike Brown, seems very good at changing up his strategy to attack each new playoff opponent.  Brown always went in with one strategy and, if it didn't work, that was that.  When Orlando was murdering the Cavs from three, Brown never wavered in his strategy of doubling Howard and hoping they'd miss.  I personally thought he should have been fired the second that series ended.  The obvious strategy was to use single coverage on Howard and force him to beat the Cavs by himself, which he probably wouldn't have been able to do.  As Bill Simmons was fond of saying, Dwight Howard couldn't score fifty points if he was defended by Yi Jianlian's chair.  Instead, Brown kept throwing doubles at Howard and the Magic kept draining threes, and that, to me, is the reason LeBron went to Miami.  The Cavs might have been able to salvage things if they had fired Brown after that series and brought in a competent coach, but they waited a year too long, and even then hired possibly the least competent coach imaginable in Byron Scott.  

This image pretty much sums up Mike Brown as a basketball coach:
http://slamdumb.com/images/new_comics/c10.jpg

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2 hours ago, DunderMifflin said:

About the only thing iggy can throw at Lebron is some fouls. Which does have value but every team has extra bodies to go in a rough up a superstar for a bit.

Iggy is a solid wing defender. He can slow down LeBron somewhat iff he's healthy.

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I never thought I would root for Lebron in the Finals, but here we are (apparently a 73 win team adding a top 3 talent was my tipping point). Although I'm thinking Warriors in 7 and wouldn't be surprised if it went much less. 

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Said it earlier so I'll post it here in the finals thread, I'm rooting for Cleveland. I think they have a decent chance. Until proven otherwise Lebron is still the man among boys, imo he has a huge series (as will Irving) and pulls off the upset.

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