Yea, but their D is even better this year, Chet is stying healthy and these guys have been playing together for awhile now and their chemistry is fantastic. I hope you're right, abeer. I'd love to see someone knock them off. When the GSW went 73-9, Lebron's Cavs beat them in the Finals, so of course anything is possible. When I watch OKC it looks like the entire team has telepathy, readin' each others' minds. Their defense looks awesome.
it's a long season. will chet be there in the end? is their defense as fearsome without him? will they look different in the playoffs again? anyway, no point in being doom and gloom about it. you do the best you can and hope to capitalize if something happens to them. history says it does.
We need the refs to clamp down on their fouling. I'm happy that Wemby backed up his trash talk yesterday. Caruso/Dort playing football out there at times with their hacking. Look at Alex Caruso crying over the lack of fouls when the dude hacked wemby like 2 times before!
dort's ridiculous, imo. he jerry sloane-ed the refs into 100 million dollars, lol. really, just draft a linebacker and tell him to grab guys on every play until the refs get tired of calling it bc it's his brand or whatever. edit: in the same breath: feed thiero dort clips. he's bigger and more athletic than dort.
Yeah OKC seems to get away with a LOT on D. It's almost as if the entire team gets superstar treatment on that end. Which is kind of unfair, especially considering how good they are without any outside help.
it can open them up for playoff trouble, though, should they run into a physical team that is allowed to grab and hack with equal impunity. i guess that's kind of what happened with denver and indy last year to some extent. the physicality ramped up and was allowed on both sides, and that helps negate okc's huge speed advantage on the other end.
I was wondering the same thing. Foul baiting is clearly not as effective in the playoffs, maybe this kind of special treatment will also stop or at the very least decrease in intensity. On top of that, a huge part of OKC's dominance is their incredible depth, which also becomes less impactful in the PO. I still have Denver as the favorites to win it all.
Watched Pistons at Bags today: really great game. A burner. One team would go up 8 or 10, then the other team would go up 7 or 9. Pistons won and I was startled at how physical they are now. It's as if they were taught to mimic the early 1990s DET teams. Two years ago they won 14; last year 44; this year they're 21-5 so far. Front Office deserves mads props. Their D is really good and they space the floor well; Cade can create a shot anytime and hit 'em. He's their only superstar and so far, underrated. This game had a bunch of technicals and I was sure there'd be a fight at some point but there wasn't. Always good to see the Bags lose at home; we need some serious revenge when they come into the Crypt on 2/22/26.
denver improved their roster substantially over the summer and were very close to beating okc last year. okc is returning the same team. it's not unreasonable to think denver could take them down this time. they'll have the best player in the series again. i will say, however, that okc successfully exploited jokic on defense using SGA's midrange dominance, and that problem isn't going away for denver. of course, we didn't get wall-to-wall coverage of that like minny going at luka because the media doesn't hate denver.
Chris Finch lol tired of OKC's BS with their football defense. Why is Adam Silver propping up SGA and OKC so badly?
i watched the last quarter-plus of that game last night, and it was weird. lots of fouls called, of course, but at odd times. like, man, the refs really protect holmgren. i get that he's skinny, but i feel like they let shawn bradley just get tossed around, but with chet, they're like "don't touch my baby!". if you want to play in the paint and you weigh the same as me but are a foot taller, stuff is going to happen. on the other end, what will be playing today is ant's heroics at the end--which were great (amazing step back three after a clutch elbow jumper, a great block as a helper, and he took SGA's lunch money when SGA was trying to get a shot to tie it). but imo, he was a big reason his team lost the lead. he's just still not a great decision maker. one of the announcers tried to subtly draw attention to it--when you send a double at him, he's just not great at making the pass that leads to the pass, if you will. considering minny has no real pg, this is an issue and will be why they get beat in the playoffs. lots of shaky decision making, and their offense depends too much on ant and randle isos. they were better before conley died, and dillingham isn't ready, imo (and even when he gets there, his size will always be an issue). i get why they're scouring the market for a pg. i just don't know who's out there and if they can meet the price. if i had a serviceable pg to spare, i'd ask for dillingham or at least shannon (or beringer, but i wouldn't trade him if i were minny). i hear they were looking at ddv for coby white, but i don't like that move for them--white's not really a pg, and ddv is a guy they need, imo.
I think James Harden would be what Minny is looking for with that play making ability, but yeah i guess to match his money that's one of Randle/Reid gone.
