NBA playoffs 2018 - Raptors over Cavs in 6

[TheKitttenGuard]

9 minutes ago, briantw said:

You could literally make the same argument about LeBron and the Western teams he's had to face.  He's gone up against some of the best teams of all time in his career.

No it is not the same going against the Western team in the finals. It will be the same if Lebron played in the West since it is the dominant Conference like the East was in the '80s.

[briantw]

23 minutes ago, TheKitttenGuard said:

No it is not the same going against the Western team in the finals. It will be the same if Lebron played in the West since it is the dominant Conference like the East was in the '80s.

It's basically the opposite of Jordan.  He faced the best teams in the East and then shit teams in the Finals.  LeBron has faced mostly shit teams in the East and some of the best teams ever in the Finals.

I really don't see what the difference is, and I still think that getting to the Finals and losing is better than losing in the first or second round and really don't see the argument otherwise.  "I made it to the championship game and then lost" is always better than "I got knocked out in round one."

[TheKitttenGuard]

37 minutes ago, briantw said:

It's basically the opposite of Jordan.  He faced the best teams in the East and then shit teams in the Finals.  LeBron has faced mostly shit teams in the East and some of the best teams ever in the Finals.

I really don't see what the difference is, and I still think that getting to the Finals and losing is better than losing in the first or second round and really don't see the argument otherwise.  "I made it to the championship game and then lost" is always better than "I got knocked out in round one."

I think the '90s West was overall better then the East during Lebron time. Having sub .500 teams as 7th seed is disgraceful. Also, it is dealing with the best teams for season and then the Playoffs.

 The East was weaker during Jordan dominance in the '90s than when he entered in the '80s. The '80s East was just incredible, and Jordan was a one man show for the Bulls. Those playoff loses are not held against Jordan for he is the only reason '80s Bull team made the playoff before Pippen.

[Relic]

Quote

 

You have no idea the pain you've brought upon yourself. Ever see Mad Max? I'm about to build a motherfucking thunderdome.

I just had to read two pages of racist shitmongering that hasn't been banned yet for inexplicable... there are no reasons.

You commin' after Tywin? Now why you goin' do that? Why you got to be harshin on my man like that?

This my day off, man.

I ain't even put on pants yet. I take one hit off my medcin and now I gots to leave the chain?

Who you? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU, RELIC?

You're hot, you're cold.

My man @Tywin et al. 's fuckin bold!

Sit pretty with no predi

Give no calls

Guess @Relic got no balls

Take a step towards my Pacers

I'mma paste your Centers

Up and down the court

Like a crime

They gonna take me to court

looooool. that was worth it. Tell yo man to start making some legit predictions tho @Pony Empress Jace. He's making you both look bad

[Relic]

damn it, have no clue how to quote from another thread properly. oh well.

sorry for the previous derailing, im just beyond sick of that shit. 

[DanteGabriel]

So Philly was obviously rusty, and the Celtics had an unsustainably good shooting night. It is still pretty amazing that they were able to win so authoritatively with Kyrie and now Jaylen Brown out.

It's great to see Rozier stepping up and Horford doing so many big and little things. And Jayson Tatum needs some kind of snake-based nickname the way he slithers to the hoop before the defender can adjust. It almost felt cruel to have the camera focus on Fultz while Tatum was at the free throw line late in the 4th.

[Rhom]

Scorching Hot Take!

Celtics will knock off the media darling Sixers.  Raptors will continue their deer in the headlights act with LeBron.

Cavs beat the depleted Celtics and go back to the Finals again.

[Red Tiger]

Catchy

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

5 hours ago, Relic said:

damn it, have no clue how to quote from another thread properly. oh well.

sorry for the previous derailing, im just beyond sick of that shit. 

Nearly 30,000 posts and you don’t know how to quote?

Give it to him again @Pony Empress Jace!

[TheKitttenGuard]

The Sixers played poor and they are a very young team and had almost a week off. I was thinking they would of win and think it is a good lesson. They are having a great run and now are facing some adversity.

Also the idea of an easy Boston series is that of a sticky sweet treat that is sickening.

 

[James Arryn]

Whoops, missed new thread. Copy and paste from other:

 

 two points; the Rockets and Jazz actually played a game, not that anyone would know, and the Raps LBJ thing feels really unpredictable to me. It could honestly go anything from a sweep either way to a 7 game nail biter. On the one hand, much as they deny it, LBJ is absolutely in the Raps’ heads, and if Cleveland takes game 1 I could envision a complete implosion. Also, even though no one has anyone who can actually ‘cover’ Bron, the Raps have fewer quasi-covers than, say, Indy did, ie big/strong/athletic enough to actually stay with him and make him work. Serge used to be kinda that type, but he’s a couple years past it now. The rest of their athletes are way too small, the kind LBJ just eats up.

OTH this Cavs team feels so fragile, and if Raps kinda let LBJ get his but make everyone else earn it, and DD and Lowry don’t disappear, they can probably afford to trade baskets and come out on top and that could happen every game without seeming weird. 

 

[James Arryn]

18 hours ago, Rhom said:

Do we have to carry on though?  Can we skip the last couple pages and talk basketball?

So anyways, I get tired of the LeBron vs MJ debate I always hear drudged up on ESPN Radio.  Seriously?  Is there anyone out there who honestly thinks LeBron is better than Mike?!!?

But one thing I get absolutely tired of hearing is the "Jordan was 6-0 in the Finals" argument.  Yes.  He was.  And if he hadn't gone to play baseball, he would have a very good shot at 8 straight Finals wins.  But with the exception of maybe the Bulls win over the Lakers in his first appearance, he was always on the appreciably better team.  The season after he left, the Bulls were the 3 seed and won 55 games.  When LeBron leaves this year, does anyone expect Cleveland to win 10 games next year?  I can also only think of one year where LeBron had what I thought was the better team and lost in the Finals, that first year in Miami where they inexplicably lost to Dirk.  To LeBron's credit, I think two of his titles have been won over teams that were likely better than his.  San Antonio and Golden State.

To sum up... yes, Jordan is miles ahead of LeBron and will be no matter what happens in the next 5 years of LeBron's career.  But Jordan never had to carry garbage uphill on his back the way LeBron does.

In terms of baseball, the Hakeem Rockets owned MJ’s Bulls in that period, and he even publicly said as much (though double edged) saying he was glad he’d never have to face them in the Finals because they had no answer for Hakeem, whereas Vernon Maxwell was (in his opinion) maybe the guy that guarded him the best. 

[Jaime L]

3 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

So Philly was obviously rusty, and the Celtics had an unsustainably good shooting night. It is still pretty amazing that they were able to win so authoritatively with Kyrie and now Jaylen Brown out.

It's great to see Rozier stepping up and Horford doing so many big and little things. And Jayson Tatum needs some kind of snake-based nickname the way he slithers to the hoop before the defender can adjust. It almost felt cruel to have the camera focus on Fultz while Tatum was at the free throw line late in the 4th.

It kills me every single day seeing all the little things Al Horford does to help Boston win and know how perfect he'd be on the Wizards and that he almost came here. There's a Sliding Doors scenario where he picks DC instead of Boston and the Wizards are actual contenders in the East. Instead Horford chose Boston and Grunfeld used that Horford allocated cap space on Ian Mahimni and that was all she wrote for the Wizards as a relevant franchise.

Of course he made the smart choice. You take the team run by Ainge/Stevens and with a million draft picks over Grunfeld/Brooks 100 times out of 100. And I think what this season has made clear is he's the one truly indispensable piece on Boston. Moreso than Kyrie or Hayward. They have guys that replicate 80% of their skillsets but there isn't anyone else that replicates all the things Horford does for them. Let's just say if they had a healthy Kyrie but Aron Baynes is manning the 5 all game...they're not beating the Bucks. I firmly believe this.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Tatum, Rozier and Horford scored more combined points than Garnett, Allen and Pierce ever did. I wouldn’t bank on that happening again. I still got Sixers in six.

Bet the opposite, given my recent run.

29 minutes ago, Jaime L said:

It kills me every single day seeing all the little things Al Horford does to help Boston win and know how perfect he'd be on the Wizards and that he almost came here. There's a Sliding Doors scenario where he picks DC instead of Boston and the Wizards are actual contenders in the East. Instead Horford chose Boston and Grunfeld used that Horford allocated cap space on Ian Mahimni and that was all she wrote for the Wizards as a relevant franchise.

Of course he made the smart choice. You take the team run by Ainge/Stevens and with a million draft picks over Grunfeld/Brooks 100 times out of 100. And I think what this season has made clear is he's the one truly indispensable piece on Boston. Moreso than Kyrie or Hayward. They have guys that replicate 80% of their skillsets but there isn't anyone else that replicates all the things Horford does for them. Let's just say if they had a healthy Kyrie but Aron Baynes is manning the 5 all game...they're not beating the Bucks. I firmly believe this.

Funny how last year people were blasting Horford, and deservingly so. He was so easy to score on.

Anyways, is it time to blow up the Wizards? You guys look like you’re trapped in the worst area of the sport. You have stars, but no true number one and I don’t think your ceiling is any higher than a second round exit.

[Jaime L]

14 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Funny how last year people were blasting Horford, and deservingly so. He was so easy to score on.

Anyways, is it time to blow up the Wizards? You guys look like you’re trapped in the worst area of the sport. You have stars, but no true number one and I don’t think your ceiling is any higher than a second round exit.

Huh? Horford is one of the best team defenders in the game. There's a reason Boston has been just about the best defense in the NBA, and it's not cause of Kyrie. 

As for the Wizards - yes, this is the time to blow things up. The issue though is there's no flexibility. All their cap space is locked into Wall, Beal, Porter and Mahimni for the next few years. And the only guy that's easy to move, Beal, is the guy you most want to hold onto. The only move I can see them doing that would give this team upside is trading Porter for DeMarcus Cousins and rolling the dice he gets back to something close to what he was. Of course who knows what New Orleans is planning with Cousins. Most likely, the Wizards are going to keep Brooks and Grunfeld and run it all back with only minor tweaks in a hellish Groundhogs Day because that's the easiest thing to do...which is what the Wizards always do. 

Also I got bad news for you Tywin. The T'Wolves are in the same boat. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, Jaime L said:

Huh? Horford is one of the best team defenders in the game. There's a reason Boston has been just about the best defense in the NBA, and it's not cause of Kyrie. 

As for the Wizards - yes, this is the time to blow things up. The issue though is there's no flexibility. All their cap space is locked into Wall, Beal, Porter and Mahimni for the next few years. And the only guy that's easy to move, Beal, is the guy you most want to hold onto. The only move I can see them doing that would give this team upside is trading Porter for DeMarcus Cousins and rolling the dice he gets back to something close to what he was. Of course who knows what New Orleans is planning with Cousins. Most likely, the Wizards are going to keep Brooks and Grunfeld and run it all back with only minor tweaks in a hellish Groundhogs Day because that's the easiest thing to do...which is what the Wizards always do. 

Also I got bad news for you Tywin. The T'Wolves are in the same boat. 

Why say you that?

Butler is better than Wall and Beal and KAT is going to be better than all three of them, if he’s not already there. He just needs to get some more muscle on him so he can’t get pushed around in the post. This postseason is validating literally everything I said about getting rid of Rubio and replacing him with Teague, but it is what it is. He still one of the better PGs in the NBA, even if the fit is bad. Wiggins….sigh……he was awful this year, but I think that was largely based on the way he was used. He’s an elite slasher and a very average, at best, shooter who can be very streaky. Thibs solution to this? Turn him into a 3 and D guy who stands boredly out on the wing and never gets the ball. I still think he can be great, but he’s going to get so dejected if this keeps up. The rest of the roster is solid, though poorly used. It’s a shame the rookie we got is a 7 footer who has already had two foot surgeries, but he was just supposed to be the cherry on top.

The problem is entirely Thibs. This is why you don’t make coaches GMs or team Presidents. It makes them a lot harder to fire, and he needs to go. I was excited when he first got here, but I said there were two things that make me nervous and he has to evolve: play players less and modernize your system. Not only has he not done either, which he promised to do, he’s actually been more egregious. Last year I believe Wiggins, Towns and LaVine were all top 5 in either total minutes played or average minutes per game. LaVine was the league leader on the former when he tore up his knee. This year Butler was the same when he got hurt. And again Wiggins and Towns where very high up in both categories. Is Thibs the only one who is shocked they were burnt out at the end of the season?

His style of play might be even worse than the overuse of the starters. On defense, they still do what Thibs was coaching 20 years ago and pack the paint and dare other teams to shoot. That is literally the dumbest thing you can do in today’s NBA, and it’s why Houston feasted on us. On offense, he constructed a roster that doesn’t have great 3 point shooters and designed a system that shot bottom of the league in both makes and attempts. He’s got scorers galore, but not pure shooters, and that was his doing.  Furthermore, he won’t let one of the most athletic teams in the league run. Other great teams allow their guys to play and design a call out of time outs or when the team needs a reset. The Wolves run a set play on literally every possession that isn’t a fast break. It’s infuriating.

Still, all that said, we are not in the same place as the Zardos. We were the fifth best team in the league before Butler went down. They just had nothing left in the tank when the playoffs started and they got a bad matchup. They needed an easy opponent to season themselves in the playoffs, and instead they got the worst team to face. Hopefully they learn from their mistakes and become the team they were predicted to be.

[Jaime L]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Why say you that?

I don't see the T'Wolves getting out of the second round short of making a fundamental change to their roster. And the Wiggins contract is now an albatross that denies the Wolves from having the flexibility to improve themselves. He's got a 90s mentality of what it takes to be successful in the NBA - he's an excellent slasher and can score some but is flat bad at virtually every other aspect of the game (defense, rebounding, shooting from distance, passing etc.) and that kind of guy absolutely murders you in the modern NBA. It's a blow to me too man. I was sure he'd be good. But he just doesn't get it and that this point I'm not sure he ever will. 

Yes, your top two are better than what the Wizards have but the West is also tougher AND those are also the only two definitely above average players on the roster. With the depth of PG in the NBA, Teague is the definition of league average. And the biggest issue is you need like 3-4 more good shooters than you have currently and very little means to get it.

Replacing Thibs with a coach more in tune with the modern game will help but don't think it's enough. What moves can you make to be competitive with Houston and Golden State? Let alone better than Utah or New Orleans or any other team that emerges next season once Lebron, George and Kawhi decide where they want to be. 

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, Jaime L said:

What moves can you make to be competitive with Houston and Golden State? Let alone better than Utah or New Orleans or any other team that emerges next season once Lebron, George and Kawhi decide where they want to be. 

That's kind of an underrated aspect of this year's playoffs.  The strong performance of New Orleans, Utah and Philly indicate that they might be just one more superstar away from being a real contender.  OKC, Washington, Portland, San Antonio, they just look like pretenders that got exposed. 

[DanteGabriel]

3 hours ago, Jaime L said:

It kills me every single day seeing all the little things Al Horford does to help Boston win and know how perfect he'd be on the Wizards and that he almost came here. There's a Sliding Doors scenario where he picks DC instead of Boston and the Wizards are actual contenders in the East. Instead Horford chose Boston and Grunfeld used that Horford allocated cap space on Ian Mahimni and that was all she wrote for the Wizards as a relevant franchise.

Of course he made the smart choice. You take the team run by Ainge/Stevens and with a million draft picks over Grunfeld/Brooks 100 times out of 100. And I think what this season has made clear is he's the one truly indispensable piece on Boston. Moreso than Kyrie or Hayward. They have guys that replicate 80% of their skillsets but there isn't anyone else that replicates all the things Horford does for them. Let's just say if they had a healthy Kyrie but Aron Baynes is manning the 5 all game...they're not beating the Bucks. I firmly believe this.

I'm still a little up and down on Horford. It was really frustrating watching him in the playoffs last year, seemed like they couldn't get a rebound in critical moments. But yeah, he's been so vital as the anchor and nerve center of the team. His contributions have been easy to overlook when the hyped stories have been IT, then Kyrie, then Tatum and Brown. I'm not sure I buy that the Bucks would have won if they'd had Kyrie but not Horford, but it's at least plausible to me now, and I wouldn't have thought that even a couple of months ago.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Jaime L said:

I don't see the T'Wolves getting out of the second round short of making a fundamental change to their roster. And the Wiggins contract is now an albatross that denies the Wolves from having the flexibility to improve themselves. He's got a 90s mentality of what it takes to be successful in the NBA - he's an excellent slasher and can score some but is flat bad at virtually every other aspect of the game (defense, rebounding, shooting from distance, passing etc.) and that kind of guy absolutely murders you in the modern NBA. It's a blow to me too man. I was sure he'd be good. But he just doesn't get it and that this point I'm not sure he ever will. 

Yes, your top two are better than what the Wizards have but the West is also tougher AND those are also the only two definitely above average players on the roster. With the depth of PG in the NBA, Teague is the definition of league average. And the biggest issue is you need like 3-4 more good shooters than you have currently and very little means to get it.

Replacing Thibs with a coach more in tune with the modern game will help but don't think it's enough. What moves can you make to be competitive with Houston and Golden State? Let alone better than Utah or New Orleans or any other team that emerges next season once Lebron, George and Kawhi decide where they want to be. 

I need to address the last part of your post first. Golden State's window is closing after next season. I fully believe it might just be Curry and Green left on that team in two years. Huston is a little harder to predict. The moves have to make is get rid of everyone outside of the core and look for cheap shooters and a PG who will look to set up KAT, Wiggins and Butler if he stays rather than calling his own number all the time. 

Wiggins has only one flaw, but unfortunately it's a major one: He lacks a killer mentality. That's the difference between him and say Butler. Wiggins is bigger and more talented in every way, but he had an easy life growing up so he never had to fight for anything. Butler, OTOH, had a path to the NBA that can only be defined as the ultimate struggle. Just read about it. You can see why he developed the mentality Wiggins lacks, and I am unsure if that can ever change. If only I could send a pretty white woman to date him, bring him up to her parents up state New York mansion while a party was going on that Michael Jordan was attending. Jokes aside, coaches need to understand what motivates their players. Wiggins is passive and responded poorly to the way Thibs and Mitchell treated him. If you know you have an uber talented player with tendencies to check out if he doesn't get early touches, tell Teague and Butler to pass him the freaking ball. Wiggins is not an albatross yet, but poor management of him guarantees that he will become one.

The rest of the roster two years from now can be totally redone to fit KAT. KAT is all that matters. If he plateaus soon, then yeah, we'll be where the Wizards are now. If he becomes Shaq with a jumper, then anything is possible. You can do serious damage with a roster built around KAT, Butler and Wiggins, you just need the right the right role players and a better coach, and with regards to the former, they're not far off. Philly took a huge leap when they signed Belinelli and Ilyasova. If the Wolves had made those moves and Butler stays healthy, we might have caught GS for the second seed.