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NBA Playoffs - Play In? PLAY-IN It Cool


Relic

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I do like some of their support guys a lot. But I absolutely loathe Harden's game, even if it is extremely successful with the NBA's whistle these days. He exemplifies so much of what I don't like about today's game - while being, in my opinion, the most impactful player in the league when healthy. Durant is phenomenal as well, I just dislike his bizarre online pettiness so much. Kyrie sometimes says some very on-point things and has an incredibly elegant game, in between being completely full of shit or being a major distraction to his team. Griffin, well, I've never liked him either and didn't expect him to be so good after how he truly didn't give a fuck for two years in Detroit. 

I generally dislike the incredibly mercenary creation of the team. They could have been the Albuquerque Alpacas and dominated with these guys who were elsewhere two years ago. 

I love pro basketball, but I am more of the cranky  Grandpa Simpson meme for this sport than any other, and I'm only going to get worse with time.

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On 6/5/2021 at 2:15 AM, Red Tiger said:

Cleveland - 1 title (Now if you wanna talk about a disappointment, THIS team should have won more than 1 title and they probably would have if it hadn't been for those meddling 2015 injuries to Love and Kyrie)

But one could also say that they wouldn't have had that one title had the loss of Draymond Green as a result of a suspension, which definitely changed the momentum of the series. 

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1 hour ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

But one could also say that they wouldn't have had that one title had the loss of Draymond Green as a result of a suspension, which definitely changed the momentum of the series. 

Or LeBron being allowed to commit 50 fouls per game. That also helped.

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2 hours ago, Matrim Fox Cauthon said:

But one could also say that they wouldn't have had that one title had the loss of Draymond Green as a result of a suspension, which definitely changed the momentum of the series. 

True. You could say that the basketball gods took away one title (2015) and gave another (2016).

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so glad the Knicks got rid of the incredibly over rated Porzingis. What a huge zero this series. It incredible that Luka can got for 40+ with 10+ assists and still lose. the Mavs need to get him some veteran help. 

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5 minutes ago, Relic said:

so glad the Knicks got rid of the incredibly over rated Porzingis. What a huge zero this series. It incredible that Luka can got for 40+ with 10+ assists and still lose, and the Mavs need to get him some veteran help. 

Agreed. KP is not a reliable second option and Dallas badly needs to totally revamp their roster. 

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3 hours ago, Relic said:

so glad the Knicks got rid of the incredibly over rated Porzingis. What a huge zero this series. 

I think its more on Carlisle than Porzingis. I read that this was the game plan for him. Not much he can do if he's relegated to the corners. I thought he did fine defensively too. 

That said, is that game plan a lack of trust of Porzingis to play at centre or lack of trust in the backup wings so Porzingis needs to play there or Carlisle really thinks that this is the optimal strategy? I think Porzingis played well in his role, but that's not the role of a max salaried player. 

Also, the Mavs already outperformed expectations. Coming into the series, everyone was predicting that they would get blown out. Just because Hardaway was on a good shooting streak to start the series doesn't make them favourites and the Mavs fell off as he did.

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15 minutes ago, Proudfeet said:

I think its more on Carlisle than Porzingis. I read that this was the game plan for him. Not much he can do if he's relegated to the corners. I thought he did fine defensively too...

I think that Carlisle is a fine coach, but Porzingis did seem to be playing to a plan, and that plan obviously didn't work to deliver a win.

Sometimes when I watch Luka Doncic play, I think to myself, "He is amazing, but is he playing to optimize the chances of winning?"  Or other times, "Why haven't the Mavs scored for the last X times down the court?"

I don't know the answer, but something just seems off about the Mavs.

Doncic is amazing, and Porzingis has a different body type (ie. is taller) than most people want a wing player to be but is otherwise an excellent player, and Carlisle is a good coach.  But something seems like it is missing, as I expect that they should win more than they do.

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I don't think the answer is all that complicated. Luka is streaky as hell. When he's shooting well he's near impossible to guard. When he's not he has to create for everyone around him and the talent is average at best. He doesn't have to be brilliant night in and out if you surrounded him with a quality team. 

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47 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

I think that Carlisle is a fine coach, but Porzingis did seem to be playing to a plan, and that plan obviously didn't work to deliver a win.

Sometimes when I watch Luka Doncic play, I think to myself, "He is amazing, but is he playing to optimize the chances of winning?"  Or other times, "Why haven't the Mavs scored for the last X times down the court?"

I don't know the answer, but something just seems off about the Mavs.

Doncic is amazing, and Porzingis has a different body type (ie. is taller) than most people want a wing player to be but is otherwise an excellent player, and Carlisle is a good coach.  But something seems like it is missing, as I expect that they should win more than they do.

Yeah. Not saying Carlisle is bad, just saying that that was the role Porzingis was given.

I haven't watched much of the Mavs outside of the playoffs, so I can't speak to any of their problems, but when it comes to the post-mortem, I think its worth noting that they are playing the Clippers who are all-in which attracts veterans on the cheap similar to the Nets. They have Ibaka injured and Zubac and Beverley played out of the rotation but also have Batum and Jackson on minimum deals to fill in. Against most other teams, you probably don't have the depth to do the same.

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Porzingis could have been better for sure, but I think the Mavs' main problem was lack of perimeter depth, they were getting destroyed every time Finney-Smith went to the bench and he's not exactly world beater. Nobody else was able to provide much. The Josh Richardson - Seth Curry trade looks like a major mistake in retrospect. Richardson was pretty much unplayable in this series and he was supposed to be a very good perimeter defender who can hit the 3, exactly the type of player any team badly needs against the Clippers. Curry was the player who last season usually kept the Dallas offense going in the playoffs when Doncic was on the bench, this year their offense was terrible pretty much every time Doncic had to sit.

Dallas also badly need another good ballhandler and passer to help Luka so he doesn't have to create everything.

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Porzingis looked like just a guy out there.  Not bad, but nothing special, definitely not what you'd expect from a player earning max money.  His game would seem well suited for the modern NBA, but for whatever reason it just isn't coming together for him. 

Some of that can be laid at the feet of coaching.  Planting Porzingis in the corner does open up room for Doncic to drive, but it also means that he has to do everything.  By game 7, it looked like Luka was exhausted trying to beat the Clippers singlehandedly.  When the Clippers went small (which they did often), the Mavs didn't counter by giving Porzingis the chance to use his size to dominate the boards or do post-up offense.  If he could have done so successfully, the Mavs probably win the series, because the Clippers really wanted to go small, and the Mavs were unable to punish. 

I assume that the reason the Mavs didn't do that is because the coaches didn't have confidence that Porzingis could actually dominate smaller players like Batum, George or Morris (all three are 6-8).  Which for a 7-3 guy is pretty awful. 

But for the time being, there's not much the Mavs can do about it.  Porzingus is under contract for the next 3 years and they are going to pay Doncic max money, so they aren't going to have a lot of cash available until 2024.  They could potentially trade Porzingus for a different guy with a terrible contract like John Wall, Kevin Love or Kemba Walker (all three of those guys have contracts up in 2023).  But that's about it.  The Mavs gambled on Porzingis realizing his potential, and it looks like that gamble has failed. 

 

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