yeah, i know the knicks fans are jazzed and the team's in a good place, but the FO is going to have to get him under control. there's middle ground between clippers-level load management and running at the red line at all times, bro.
Zingus was out, so I'm sure that helped. Would be crazy if Cleveland somehow survived and won the chip without Lebron and with that roster. potentially with a star who can't wait to leave....
Game 3 in MIN and one team didn't show up mentally and it wasn't the team up 2-0. Crowd in MIN ready to go wild but you had to actually play the game, MIN. My gawd they looked bad. While DEN played their A game for the first time in the series. Down 15 at the half, MIN needed to come out strong in the 3rd, get the crowd back in it. Instead DEN won the 3rd 37-25 and 20,000 fans sounded like 20 with 5:54 left in the game and DEN up 34. Should be a wake-up call. DEN are the champs, Wolves. It won't be easy. Take game 4 and put 'em on the ropes. Make Malone squirm. “I’ll take the blame for this loss. I came out with no energy at all. I can’t afford to do that for my team. I let my team down, coaches down, fans down," Edwards said. "I’ll be ready Sunday.” Ya better hope so!
that's a leader, even if it wasn't his fault. Pretty rare to hear a leader on our team do that. Not naming names, but you might know who. He's my favorite player.
Game 4 in MIN: Ant came out and did what he said he'd do: 44/5/5 with 2 steals and a block on 16 for 25 from the field. Problem is: his teammates didn't pick him up, esp KAT, who afterwards whined about not getting calls on Mothers Day. 13/12/3 on 5 of 18. Nugs even series at 2-2, 115-107. Not like the same Game 3 sleepwalking Wolves showed up: they played way better. But DEN brought another A game. Weird series so far with no home team winning a game. Tho I really don't have any stake in the series, I do think either one of these teams will make BOS work in the Finals. And I'd like to see MIN bring it in Game 5 in DEN...but a home team's gotta win a game, don't they? At any rate, the winner of Game 5 will win the series, beat either OKC or DAL, and face BOS. Bank on it. Callin' "BANK!" Game 4 in IND: my gawd what a massacre. 67 secs into the game: NYK 2; IND 2. End of 1st Q: Knicks 14; IND 34 End of 2nd Q: Knicks 41; IND 69 You think that's bad? End of 3rd Q: Knicks 63; IND 101 Pacers up 38 going into the 4th: absolute garbage time from then on out. One of the worst massacres I've seen in the playoffs, ever. Knicks had been in a long string of very close games that came down to the last minute, and they'd been winning 'em, mostly. Today they had NUTHIN. Just make Brunson work, double him, harass Jalen: win. Who's gonna take over and score? If Divincenzo hits from 3, you live with it. He went 1-6 from long. No other Knick starter hit a 3, not even Jalen. They get to go home now, but I think Carlisle hit on a winning formula: pound Brunson. Knicks have no one else to really score. I think it's over, but we'll see. Home team fans, in a 180 from the DEN/MIN series, are having a great time. But if IND wins in the Garden on Tue, forget it, Knicks fans. Waittlenexyea, Spike. One Brunson does not a team make.
i think both series go 7. denver will win game 7 at home. not sure about the knicks. depends on how many more players thibs loses by running them at full bore for 40 minutes. you can tell carlisle's working this. he plays 9 guys, with the 4 bench players playing nearly 20mpg and his starters topping out at 36ish in the close games. thibs plays 7 with hart going 48 and divincenzo and brunson going 40+. so carlisle is ramping up the pressure as the series wears on, and you can tell the knicks guys are starting to wear down, imo.
Think what Thibs would have done with Kobe .... sure Kob I got your back here you want to play 48 we'll do it every night.
He's not wrong. Guy that size and athletic what are you going to do. Same thing if AD could get to (back to?) knocking down mid range Js .... how would you stop that?
lol, AD did better by himself than minny's two-big combos are doing. yeah, after game 3 i was like, no way gordon knocks down outside shots again. then he did it in game 4. but i kinda agree with rudy--what's the game plan against jokic/murry/porter/kcp if gordon is going to knock down outside shots with regularity? there isn't one.
Jeez. There was one play that made me shake my head: clock's running down, Gordon has the ball 17 feet out on the wing with a defender in his jock, and he shoots - ideal for MIN - and it swishes. You gotta wonder if it's your day when a shot like that goes in.
OKC did what young teams like they are do not do: come from behind late on the road to win. Luka's gotta be ailin' something fierce but he's playing through it. Another bad shooting night from him. 18/12/10 trip-dub from him but 6 for 20, and you need Kyrie to go off, but OKC played really good D on him - as much as that's possible - and he didn't answer the bell: 41 mins: 9/1/9 on 4 of 11 and 0-for-2 from deep. The story was: DAL couldn't make FTs. 12 of 23. That kind of chokage will end your season. PJ Washington bricking his first of two with 3 secs left, then making the 2nd to make it a 2-point game: you HAVE to miss the 2nd there. He made it, and they went down. To be able to throw it against the front of the rim in order to get a long board: very rare talent indeed. It's like you've got to practice it regularly and hope it doesn't screw up your form at the line. They shouldn't even have been in that situation: missing 11 FTs. We missed 9 in our final game against DEN when we lost by 2 points. You just cannot do that. As you all know... Alright: Game 5 is the pivotal one here, of course. Both Luka and Kyrie have to step up or it's over. The BOS@CLE game was exactly what I thought it would be with Donovan out. "Nuff said.
Knicks owned the paint and apparently IND didn't pound Brunson like I thought they would, what I thought was Carlisle's winning strategy. Either that or Jalen's unguardable: 44 points: Knicks win by 30 in MSG. This might go 7. Brunson made a shot on a hezzy that was some sick-azz jit ya hadda see. Hits floaters when Turner has his hand up 13 feet off the floor: over the hand, off the glass, in. Jeeez. Rebounds: IND: 29 NYK: 53 (maybe that's the only stat you really needed to look at) That neither team plays all that well on the road bodes ill for any one of us wishing someone would give the damned Bags trouble. CLE is now hobbled even further: LeVert is now out. Seriously: CLE vs. BOS even with a healthy LeVert/Mitchell/Allen was implausible. Amazing CLE got one in that series, but it's over but for the formality of playing another game. Tomorrow night will be a great time to be a drunken racist POS Bags fan, or is that redundant? In Game 5 in DEN, the MVP was out of his mind, and thus MIN perished. And they might be done. A home team finally won a game and...will this go 7? I'm not so sure now that DEN seems to have figured MIN out. As with so many of these big games - in the regular season, but esp. the playoffs - tell me who won the 3rd Q and I'll tell you who won the game. DEN won it 38-30. KAT had a decent game, but Ant in 44 mins had 18/4/9 on 5 for 15, and maybe it's next year that he rises to world-class superstar level. I also think Conley sitting out with a sore achilles hurt MIN. And then there was The Joker. With the DPOtY on him, he just bodied up and went for it. Shouldda won MVP last year for 4 years straight, but I suspect I care more about that than he does. 40 with 13 dimes, and one of those patented gawky 3s as the clock expired: swish. He's unreal. Un-real. Getting the board and whirling around to hit Murray with a length of court pass for a lay-up: stunning. Joker even scored on a give-and-go with two guys on his back, hacking away. Lawdamercy!
