NBA playoffs 2018: Will the Celtics be Raptored?

[briantw]

Just now, Rhom said:

Wow... this thing escalated quickly.

0-12 from three will do that for you.

Well, they would have had at least one three if the refs hadn't fucked them.

[KingintheNorth4]

Rockets are doing their best Celtics impression by bricking a bunch of threes. Fucking hell.

[IamMe90]

12 minutes ago, briantw said:

Well, they would have had at least one three if the refs hadn't fucked them.

Yeah, but now it’s just inexcusable how terrible they are from 3. What an atrocious quarter

ETA: 0 of their last 25. Fucking el oh el.

[briantw]

Boston: Man, we really shot like shit from three last night.

Houston: Hold my beer.

[briantw]

1 minute ago, Triskele said:

27 straight missed three...seems almost mathematically impossible.

Makes it all the more frustrating when the refs clearly favor the other team.  The Warriors don't need the help.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Ariza, Gordon and Harden going a combined 4 for 34 from behind the Arc, Houston as a team held to under 16% 3pt FG shooting. What a shitfest.

[Jaime L]

It was bizarre to me how little urgency Durant and Curry played with in the first half. Durant especially wasn't getting rebounds and was getting completely outworked by Capela and Tucker. And then they awaken in the 3rd quarter, as they did all series, and flex their absurd talent and they take over a game they were getting dominated in. But it's a team that's fine only being sporadically great. They coasted all season and even in a game 7, they still seemed to be coasting. No wonder Draymond was losing his fucking mind. 

As for the 27 missed 3's that's a function of D'Antoni playing 6-7 guys all series. Same thing undid the Suns years ago. Having a healthy Paul or even Mbah-Moute could've made a huge difference. 

 

[KingintheNorth4]

The sequel that nobody asked for, but still getting it anyway. 

[Relic]

Well, i guess jump shooting teams DON'T win championships...unless you have three of the best shooters of all time. 

RIP Rockets. RIP NBA season.

 

 

[Red Tiger]

Congratulations to the Warriors for winning the 2018 NBA championship.

Well then, shall we discuss free agency, gentlemen?

[Relic]

1 hour ago, Red Tiger said:

Congratulations to the Warriors for winning the 2018 NBA championship.

Well then, shall we discuss free agency, gentlemen?

Ryan Anderson and a late pick to OCK for Melo. LeBron to Houston via...sign and trade? 

 

[Rhom]

5 minutes ago, Relic said:

Ryan Anderson and a late pick to OCK for Melo. LeBron to Houston via...sign and trade? 

 

In the second quarter last night, I began to think “Well... Houston is out for Lebron.  He won’t pull a Durant and go to the champ.”

But the Rockets are obviously back on the table.

[Rhom]

3 hours ago, Relic said:

Well, i guess jump shooting teams DON'T win championships...unless you have three of the best shooters of all time. 

RIP Rockets. RIP NBA season.

 

 

All the talk about metrics and a new style in the NBA... but the stark reality is that if Houston had driven to the hoop on those 27 shots and hit just 50% of them; they’d have won by double digits. (To say nothing of the additional foul shots they would have earned.)

 

[Maithanet]

1 hour ago, Rhom said:

All the talk about metrics and a new style in the NBA... but the stark reality is that if Houston had driven to the hoop on those 27 shots and hit just 50% of them; they’d have won by double digits. (To say nothing of the additional foul shots they would have earned.)

 

Shooting 50% isn't exactly a given, plenty of teams struggle to do that against good defense.  Last year OKC missed 24 shots in a row against Washington, and GSW has a better defense than the Wizards.  You could just as easily say "if OKC had just shot 3 pointers and hit just 33% of them, they would have won, instead of losing by 20."

The problem wasn't that they were shooting 3s.  The problem was that they were missing them.  The reason they were missing them is because everyone's shot gets worse when they're exhausted, and clearly Harden, Gordon and Ariza had played too many minutes.  Playing a 6 man rotation in elimination games vs the Warriors who can comfortably play 2 all stars + 3 bench guys for long periods is asking for trouble.  Not that the Rockets really had much other choice. 

[sperry]

Shooting 3s is still the best thing you can be doing in the NBA. Don't let a sample size of one get you confused. Rockets just made this series way more competitive than most expected, and honestly probably would have won if their 2nd best player and future hall of fame point guard hadn't missed the final two games of the series.

[Argonath Diver]

Is it draft day yet? Fuck these finals.

[Relic]

We had two game 7's, the losers of which shot a combined 14 for 83 from deep. 

Could dead legs be partially responsible? Yes. But the old saying about jumpshooting teams not being able to win a ring has got to be considered, because shooters sometimes go cold. If your tight, shook, nervous, your shot is gonna brick, and the more you miss the tighter you get. 

[sperry]

39 minutes ago, Relic said:

We had two game 7's, the losers of which shot a combined 14 for 83 from deep. 

Could dead legs be partially responsible? Yes. But the old saying about jumpshooting teams not being able to win a ring has got to be considered, because shooters sometimes go cold. If your tight, shook, nervous, your shot is gonna brick, and the more you miss the tighter you get. 

A jump shooting team has won 2 of the last 3 finals, and is about to win a 4th.

 

The bigger problem for the Rockets was not their reliance on the 3. It's the fact that refs don't send guys to the line 18 times a game in the conference finals, especially late in the series. When shots aren't dropping in the regular season, Harden can go drive to the lane lean into the defender, whip his head back and get a whistle. They don't call that in the playoffs, and it takes away a big part of his game.

 

But with that being said, they were missing Chris Paul. With Chris Paul, they beat the Rockets 3 out of 5 games. They didn't have him for the last two, and lost.

[Relic]

1 minute ago, sperry said:

A jump shooting team has won 2 of the last 3 finals, and is about to win a 4th.

 

The bigger problem for the Rockets was not their reliance on the 3. It's the fact that refs don't send guys to the line 18 times a game in the conference finals, especially late in the series. When shots aren't dropping in the regular season, Harden can go drive to the lane lean into the defender, whip his head back and get a whistle. They don't call that in the playoffs, and it takes away a big part of his game.

The warriors have three of the best shooters ever. Name another jump shooting team to win a title in the last 25 years. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Per 538 , there was a 1 in 72,000 chance that the Rockets would miss that many consecutive threes.