Random Other NBA Teams Discussion

yeah, okc and SA getting an easy route to the conference finals; boston getting an absolute cakewalk to the finals.

i imagine the betting markets for anyone but those three teams are insane right now.

 

what the fresh hell is happening in the knicks/hawks game?

 

I'm out of words.
Glad it overlapped with Philly, that game was over mid Q1

Hope Philly wins today.
I love Maxey, he's so fun to watch and root for

 

How did we get here? I don't understand.

 

Watched Knicks @ Hawks, and I see some of y'all did too. Hawks fans all amped-up to force a Game 7. Knicks jump out to an early lead. Then it gets worse. Worser...worsiest? 40-15 Knicks at the end of the 1st Q. Crowd subdued with 36 mins left to play. I know I would be, too. I changed the channel to watch baseball when the Knicks were up 60-19 in the 2nd Q. Well, one team didn't show up, while the other one showed with their best game faces. Gawd that was fugly. Later checked back in to see if the Hawks made a little run. Naw: 99-38 with nine minutes left in the 3rd. I wonder how many fans asked for their money back? Not since General Sherman has anything from the North come into Atlanta and burnt the place that badly. Carnage!

Bags@76ers was a different story: a good game, with Maxey leading the way to a 106-93 win, forcing Game 7. We could breathe an early sigh of relief if the 76ers somehow manage to pull out Game 7, but I think BOS will win. But we can hope, eh?

DEN goes into MIN in a must-win to force Game 7. MIN doesn't have Ant, Donte (who will be out for a looong time), Dosunmu, and then Slo-Mo Anderson got a flu. But led by Baby-Faced Assassin Jaden McD (who this year gave me minor Ron-Ron vibes), another reserve guard, Terence Shannon Jr, Julius, and Lil' Naz Reid X (6'9", 264), MIN eliminated DEN in 6, first round. Aside from doing it mostly without Antman and other guys stepping up, Jaden played Jamaal as well as anyone can. Murray was 4 for 17 in this elimination game.

 

great example of not over-worrying about shooting when drafting guys (or maybe using ft% instead of 3pfg% as the metric?). taken 21st overall behind several guards who are out of the league, i think.

to be fair, haliburton went 11th in that same draft, lol.

 

I think the Sixers have a good chance to win tomorrow, they've won the last two games decisively and Nate Duncan had some stat about when a team down 3-1 wins Games 5 and 6 decisively, they usually win the series. Tatum also might have a calf injury now (on his other leg, not the Achilles one) which isn't something to play around with.

Embiid has been up and down since he came back, but his presence has overall really helped them. It forces the C Bags to play one of Queta or Vuc and not go with Tatum at the 5. Queta is good but cannot stop fouling and Vuc is a bad player at this stage of his career.

 

don't let anyone hear you...

 

i think they're kind of spread out in different threads, but yeah, i think it's kind of a big deal that they went out to minny without ant (and ddv, but that's meh). hell, even dosunmu missed the last one.

very curious to see how they maneuver this summer. this will sound wild, but i'd sell high on jamal murray. he had his best season this year, but he's expensive and can be taken out by good defenses--sometimes, as we just saw, by a single good defender.

he's a good fit offensively with jokic, though, and replacing that won't be easy. short of that, you're parting with one of gordon (who appears to be your mvp?!), johnson, watson, or braun (whom you might have to pay to get off, imo). i thought they did a good job moving off mpj last summer, so maybe they have a plan. but i don't love their spot right now.

 

It was atrocious. That was shameful. Not the Lakers losing the 3-0 lead. This Denver loss is reason to fire people and do a major shake up. They can't lose this series and roll it back

 

I've said this before, but if you look at it this Denver core has been around longer than you think. Jokic and Murray first made the playoffs as the best two games on that team in 2019. Their championship window didn't open in 2023, it opened in 2021. When they first traded for Gordon in 2021 they looked like they might be the best team in the West for 9 or so games until Murray tore his ACL. I remember them coming to LA in April 2021and beating the Clippers in a game the Clips were really trying to win at home and being unsure if we could beat them even if LeBron and AD got healthy. Their 2021 and 2022 playoff runs were washed out by the Murray and MPJ injuries, but that doesn't mean they don't count as years in their championship window. If you think about it from the perspective of this being the 6th year of that core trying to win a championship, it's not that surprising they went out with a whimper. You typically don't see teams contend that long.

 

I think probably easiest to move Cam Johnson away. Murray and Braun I doubt anyone would have interest. They just have to hope Braun was hampered by his ankle and can improve off the bench or something.

They should dump Adelman and get a different coach in, which is kind of working for the Knicks right now. Dude abused his starters harder than thibs and JJ. Jokic can't be playing 40 minutes consistently for you to win, he looked like a shell of himself at times this series. It shouldn't be that to run pick and rolls to attack someone other than Jaden Mcdaniels on offense.

 

just now saw this, Cookie: I woke up today, coming out of dreamy-time, and something about Mikey the Lisp smiling hit me, then I thought about it. Of course. Their current coach Adelman looks like he's 19 years old to me, but then maybe that's what happens to yas when yas gets olde. Everyone looks like a chile.

I get the feeling Jokic truly plays to win, but when they don't, he's cool with going back to Serbia to be with family, friends, horses.

 

I've always liked RJ Barrett for some reason, glad to see him have a nice moment with that game winner. If the Cavs lose to the Raptors at home in Game 7 of the first round....that is a disaster for them. Like a blow it up level disaster.

 

He said when it hit the back of the rim and went up, he thought it would go in, which is...it's probably what he believes now. Good for him. Very exciting game 6 in TOR. Everyone calls it a Halliburton shot, but we olde timers link that very late in the game, consequential shot that bounces off the back, goes straight up and drops in: a Don Nelson. And for Laker fans it wasn't a good time. Ancient history...

 

Man, when ORL was up 22 at home, to close out the #1 seed, I was very surprised DET wasn't bringin' it, like what happened to them, who will get fired, etc. Then ORL missed 23 straight shots and the Pistons erased the deficit, went up 10. Wow. I don't think ORL can overcome that sort of head-game collapse in Game 7 in DET, but who knows.

Epic. After the 10th straight miss, all of them were showing it in their body language, and then it just got worse and worse. It was weird, like that bizarre game when HOU played the GSW in the WCF in 2018 and missed 27 straight 3s.

Still: can't be too hard on ORL. Even though they missed 23 straight shots they ended up with 79 points. Another team finished the night with only 78, and for that, they were eliminated. Forgot who did it to 'em.

 

Just checkin' in to say: good Game 7 in BOS!

C-Bags: ELIMINATED in the first round!

 

Blowing up a 3-1 lead with a HCA makes it even more "special"

 

Genuinely happy for Embiid. He can be annoying and is one of the biggest flop artists, but he's a great player and I feel bad for the great players whose careers get derailed by injuries. Glad he and the Sixers got this moment against the C Bags after a few disappointing series losses against them in the Embiid era.