NBA Playoffs 2020: Mamba Out

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Ramsay B. said:

Damn. I was wondering who it was. He will be missed here.

Indeed, by a lot. 

4 minutes ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

Well, Billy Donovan can't be any worse than Jim Boylen was.

Donovan is an upgrade, but I think it's clear his shine is gone. He won those collegiate titles because he had three lottery picks.

[Rhom]

10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Indeed, by a lot. 

Donovan is an upgrade, but I think it's clear his shine is gone. He won those collegiate titles because he had three lottery picks.

Would point out that none of those lotto picks were projected to be that when they arrived on campus.

And, he took a Thunder team that was projected as a high lottery team and had them one win from the Western semis.  Was a heckuva coaching job.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

14 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Would point out that none of those lotto picks were projected to be that when they arrived on campus.

And, he took a Thunder team that was projected as a high lottery team and had them one win from the Western semis.  Was a heckuva coaching job.

I didn't say he was a bad coach, just that it's been a while now since he won those chips. And in hindsight perhaps CP3 was just better than Westbrook. I sure hope he gets traded to the Bucks.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Murray is >50/>60/100 in the fourth and OT this series. Wtf is that?!?!?

[Calibandar]

Man a couple of Denver guys not playing well last night.

Jokic only 16 points and another game this series where he is not doing enough.

Gary Harris for 3 points....wtf....you're the starting shooting guard dude, come on.

Millsap for 5 points only...far too little, even though this has been par for the course for him all playoffs. Just disappointing how little he produced this season, he's gone off the cliff.

As long as Murray and Jokic are both on fire its still doable for this Nuggets team vs these Lakers, who are really not that great, we can see it. But oif Jokic is gonna have bad games too...

[Maithanet]

12 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

As long as Murray and Jokic are both on fire its still doable for this Nuggets team vs these Lakers, who are really not that great, we can see it. But oif Jokic is gonna have bad games too...

The Lakers are better defensively than a lot of people give them credit for (much better than their offense).  I don't know that there's any other team in the league that have two athletes like Howard and Davis to throw at Jokic.  Yes, they don't have a good matchup for Murray (does anyone?) but the rest of the Denver squad presents very little matchup problems.  I'm not at all surprised to see Denver's offense struggling. 

[Relic]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

The Lakers are better defensively than a lot of people give them credit for (much better than their offense).  I don't know that there's any other team in the league that have two athletes like Howard and Davis to throw at Jokic.  Yes, they don't have a good matchup for Murray (does anyone?) but the rest of the Denver squad presents very little matchup problems.  I'm not at all surprised to see Denver's offense struggling. 

Yup, pretty much. They just have too many bodies to throw at Jokic. Howard had himself a great first quarter last night, seemed to take Jokic out of rhythm. Good decision to start DH. 

[Maithanet]

I'm pleasantly surprised to see Howard and Rondo both playing well this playoffs.  Kinda nice to see guys who were once great, then got cast aside by the league, seemingly never to return, only to fight their way back to relevance. 

[Calibandar]

Jokic just looks out of sorts though, he was just having a real bad game last night for his usual standards. Its not like he was really contained by the Lakers the first 3 games. But thats always going to be the question, is Jokic just falling off a bit because of fatigue, or an injury, or do you put that credit on the Lakers defense? To me he just underperformed last night and they need a bounce back game from him.

And then these other guys...youre not gonna get monster nights from Jerami Grant every night so you need at least league average production from your power forward and shooting guard...and they're just not getting it.

Feels like the Nuggets could do another upset here based on potential of the teams...Lakers not playing great.

[Relic]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

I'm pleasantly surprised to see Howard and Rondo both playing well this playoffs.  Kinda nice to see guys who were once great, then got cast aside by the league, seemingly never to return, only to fight their way back to relevance. 

Yeah, im a fan of that as well. Never actively disliked Howard, thought that Orlando team he was on that one year was pretty cool. 

[Maithanet]

2 minutes ago, Relic said:

Yeah, im a fan of that as well. Never actively disliked Howard, thought that Orlando team he was on that one year was pretty cool. 

Yeah, Howard is a bit of a goofball, but there's nothing wrong with that.  He's never come across as a bad dude to me (not that I've followed his career closely). 

 

5 minutes ago, Calibandar said:

But thats always going to be the question, is Jokic just falling off a bit because of fatigue, or an injury, or do you put that credit on the Lakers defense? To me he just underperformed last night and they need a bounce back game from him.

Feels like the Nuggets could do another upset here based on potential of the teams...Lakers not playing great.

I'm not sure contained is really the word to use for Jokic, but the Lakers are making things difficult for him.  At times he's able to power through and have big games, but other times he seems out of rhythm.  That all seems fairly normal of a guy facing off against two former defensive MVPs. 

You can't count the Nuggets out because they still defend well and Murray has been so good he was able to throw the Jazz and Clippers off mentally.  But it's a tall tall order.

[Proudfeet]

Not sure what game you guys were watching, but its hard to score from the bench. Its not so much their offense but their defense that got them into trouble. I've been harping on the refs for awhile but for this game at least, Denver only has themselves to blame.

Also, their rebounding has to be better. They are giving up a bunch of offensive rebounds. There was even a sequence where LeBron caught his own missed free throw to complete a three point play. Not great.

 

[Calibandar]

Yes they do need to rebound better. But I'll disagree on the refs having no blame here, LeBron was getting tons of free throws here but Jamal Murray didnt get any 3 times in a row when he went to the basket. Mike Malone has a point here, that wasnt right, if youre not going to give fouls whenever he is hit driving to the basket...then dont give 'm to LeBron either.

Le Bron crying to the refs like a 5 year old a couple of times btw. He made a clear foul on Murray at one point and then he just stood there bawling his eyes out.

[Rhom]

[BigFatCoward]

5 hours ago, Rhom said:

The depth that US sports go into stats absolutely boggles my mind. I like it, but who is working this out? 

[Proudfeet]

Its probably a large and comprehensive database that is automated to flag things out. There's probably a few companies keeping track for analysis, betting, fantasy sports and trivia like this.

Personally not very interested in trivia but also depends on how it is used. Not great to extend to a half baked analysis. Good fun for banter.

On that note, the only non-Kentucky alumni team remaining managed to stave off elimination. Boston are our only hope to survive Rhom's gloating. 

[Rhom]

3 hours ago, Proudfeet said:

Its probably a large and comprehensive database that is automated to flag things out. There's probably a few companies keeping track for analysis, betting, fantasy sports and trivia like this.

Personally not very interested in trivia but also depends on how it is used. Not great to extend to a half baked analysis. Good fun for banter.

On that note, the only non-Kentucky alumni team remaining managed to stave off elimination. Boston are our only hope to survive Rhom's gloating. 

Enes Kanter is on the Celtics.

If not for the clear prejudice and injustice of the NCAA, he would have played for Kentucky and won a national title in 2011.  (Clearly!)

He practiced with the team all year and attended class.  Even participated in Bug Blue Madness where he came out to the Undertaker’s intro music dressed in a long trench coat and hat.  

[Proudfeet]

14 minutes ago, Rhom said:

Enes Kanter is on the Celtics.

If not for the clear prejudice and injustice of the NCAA, he would have played for Kentucky and won a national title in 2011.  (Clearly!)

He practiced with the team all year and attended class.  Even participated in Bug Blue Madness where he came out to the Undertaker’s intro music dressed in a long trench coat and hat.  

No idea how I missed that. I checked the rosters awhile ago when you were hyping up the Kentucky players. I must have skipped him because I assumed he came from overseas. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

7 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

The depth that US sports go into stats absolutely boggles my mind. I like it, but who is working this out? 

Sorry there aren't many stats in soccer you Eurocommie!!!1!!1!!!

[Wilbur]

9 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

The depth that US sports go into stats absolutely boggles my mind. I like it, but who is working this out? 

Basketball reference for the win.  See every type of stat for everyone who has ever played in the NBA from their first college game to the end of their careers in the NBA.

Example with college: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/butleji01.html

Example with no college: https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/hawkico01.html

Today we have systems like HUDL that record middle school and high school players' games and track these same sort of stats from the video, so my guess is that twenty years from now, you will be able to look back into NBA players' high school and AAU game stats as well.

As a coach, these systems are awesome for understanding what players do and don't do.  College recruiters also have a much easier time and have to spend less time traveling to Nitro, West Virginia and eating at greasy spoons to find the real talents, too.