Something tells me Del would have traded whoever it was (Buddy, Murray, Lebron, etc.) in order to get Boogie. Jeez, Demps was a moronOriginally Posted by Taker597
 |
| . |
|
Something tells me Del would have traded whoever it was (Buddy, Murray, Lebron, etc.) in order to get Boogie. Jeez, Demps was a moron
If you Jimmer it, they will come.
Refs make a good game ugly. Screw the NBA and this narrative.
It was so terrible!
Dell was mandated from above to win now above all else
Lakers made the finals. I'll admit, when this season started, I did not predict this to happen: I thought they'd get bounced in the second round maybe.
In fairness, there's a lot of weirdnesses with this year's playoffs that change things, but you also have to give credit to AD for having what might be literally his best career shooting stretch of all time in these playoffs.
Usually when you get AD settling for 20 foot jumpers, you're happy as a defense because he never really shoots much better than low 40%s on that shot. He's shot 52% on them in these playoffs, I think. 33% shooter from 3 all year, 36% in the playoffs. Been awesome on defense.
Combine that with Lebron playing mostly pretty well, as well as not having to deal with travel or anything, and the Laker's outlook changed and they've made the most of it. Good for them.
Still want to see them get smashed by the Heat though.
Basketball.
Who do you think has the best chance against the Lakers?
That's who I want to proceed to the Finals.
I think Miami is the best match up.
Bam on Davis while Crowder and Butler on LeBron.
Miami. At least partially because Spoelstra would have the clear, enormous coaching advantage. Stevens is good but he's not quite in that top top level: Spo might well be top 5 all time as a coach.
Yes and he would know Lebrons game better than Stevens.
It's difficult because on one hand, the Celtics probably have a better defensive wing rotation than the Heat, who mostly have Butler (who is great) but then guys like Robinson who are really mediocre and guys like Iguodala who are kind of past it, and against a Lebron team defensive wings are very important.
But then, the Celtics have a lot of trouble when it comes to interior defense: Theis is very good, but Kanter is very much not and Williams is hit or miss. Grant is good when he gets those minutes but he's a rookie and besides, Stevens barely plays him anyway. On the other hand, the Heat have Bam there who is fantastic.
The main issue I have with the Heat is that they've used a lot of Zone these playoffs and I feel like Lebron is precisely the kind of passer who can dismantle a zone without difficulty: but then, Spo is smart enough to know that Lebron was always likely for them if they made it to the finals and therefore I'd be shocked if he didn't have some sort of plan in mind, and it's not like the Lakers have a million shooters if the Heat decide to go paint packing. In fact, packing the paint was where Denver had the most success against LA on defense.
Ultimately I feel like Miami have a better shot at winning, but I wouldn't put it past the Celtics either. The Finals should be tough for LA either way.
Bam is so good.
Bam now has at least 20pts and 10rbds for the 7th time this playoffs.
Last time a Heat player had more in a single playoff run was Lebron in 2012.
Heat to the Finals, after going 12-3 through the East.
Bam finished with 32/14/5 on 11/15 shooting and 10/11 from the FT line.
19/5/7 from Herro, even if it wasn't his most efficient night.
Butler's shooting was bad but he was generally good elsewhere.
This Heat team is for real. Gonna be a slugfest in the finals as long as the reffing is anywhere remotely fair: Heat have the better depth, and the better coach, but Lebron is Lebron and AD is still a top 10 player even if he doesn't have a real argument for top 4 anymore.
Also watching Bam:
Draft Okongwu you cowards
Okongwu is #2 on my board, so I love him. But I dont get this comp. What separates Bam is his ball handling and playmaking and that is not Okongwu's game at all. To me, he is more skilled, bigger Thunder Ibaka.
@mcnamara247
Okongwu is smaller than Ibaka.
I think you have to project a little because Bam also didn't show the ball handling and playmaking at anything like this level when he was in college: he was on a Calipari team, so that's no surprise. One of the largest critiques Cal gets as a college coach is that he doesn't really tailor his strategy to fit his players, he just kind of runs stuff. Same reason KAT basically never shot threes in college and then suddenly became arguably the greatest shooting big of all time in the NBA.
Okongwu wasn't used in a ballhandling role this year, and that's understandable, but he did show positive passing flashes particularly on the roll. While Bam is an upper end outcome (obviously, he's amazing) I do think Okongwu could be a sort of Bam-lite outcome without it being too unreasonable. Given his mobility and his touch I wouldn't be shocked if he had some handling and passing equity in the league even if it takes a few years to get there.
Bigger as in more filled out...broader than 19/20 year old Ibaka.
And Bam might not have shown the ballhandling, but he had it. Cal said he handled the ball like a guard. Has that quote about him saying exactly that. Cal just dont know how to use those guys.
And seeing that almost nobody in the league at his size has that combination of handling and passing, I would heavily bet against Okongwu (or anyone else) having it one day. You dont just develop outlier skills.
Again, I LOVE Okongwu, but that would be similar to me saying "We need a guy like Tyler Herro...we should draft Deni Avdija!" I mean, yeah Avdija might turn into an elite shooter, but thats not his game now or even close. Just different skill sets. But I do agree with your main premise -- draft Okongwu!
Gotcha, fair enough about Ibaka. I just took size as referring to frame, height, wingspan, that kind of thing.
As for betting against Okongwu ever developing quite to Bam's level, I think scepticism is absolutely warranted, but that's kind of why I said Bam-lite in that second post. That is to say, not quite on Bam's level, but good enough for it to be a functional skill.
Still, ultimately the point is draft Okongwu he's good. We agree on that much.
It's going to be a real chess match, but I think Lak3rs completely wrecked the Heats zone defense.
Sure but I don't think Spoelstra is a one trick pony as a coach. He's one of the few coaches that I expect to adjust the gameplan: it's one thing to wreck a defense in one game in the regular season, it's another thing to wreck it 4 times out of 7 in the playoffs. Even Denver's defense had started to come around on the Lakers offense in their last few games, the lopsided reffing just made it a moot point.
IDk... the match up that I'm seeing is tailor made for Lebron to put up crazy stats. Lebron pandering going to be an all time high after this series. Be watching this dude cry while he's allow to hack everybody. I'm so sick of him
I've been watching hockey the past month as my team, the Stars, had a great run and was getting livid with the officiating. Which has never really happened with me and the NHL before. NBA and NFL, absolutely. US World Cup, oh yeah. But never the NHL.
Which brought me down this train of thought that I always had trouble seeing really clearly what was happening in the hockey match. The picture used to be fuzzier. Colors would blend together. But now TVs are bigger, picture is much clearer, more cameras leads to more angles. It's like, is the officiating really getting this much worse throughout the sporting world or are we just actually able to finally see how bad it's been the entire time?
BI, Zion, and CJ had a net rating of +3 when on the court together. BI and Zion had a +13.4, BI and CJ had a +13.2, Zion and CJ was just +5.4.
BI and Zion worked. BI and CJ worked. It was CJ and Zion and all three together that didn't work.
Mid-season I was thinking that the wheel would fall off of the LAL bus. They were running AD and Bron on some massive mins and both of those guys tend to wear down. They were also playing hard. Maybe not full playoff mode but harder than the other superstars. I felt like one or both would fade out in the playoffs. I think the break GREATLY benefited them.
Absolutely. Even during the Denver series, Lebron looked absolutely gassed at points. Which isn't surprising, he has more minutes on his body over the last 15 years or so than literally anyone, and he's done so many deep postseason runs that it's absurd: 10 finals trips now. Giving them literally months off to recover did wonders for Lebron: if the normal schedule goes ahead, I don't think LA gets past Denver.
Heat in 7, only the strong survive.
i think the 4 month layoff benefitted AD the most because it kept AD healthy for the playoffs and you see the results....
There are currently 2 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 2 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote