NFT: NBA Playoffs thread

Draft and free agency...

Of fireworks. At least, I HOPE they are fireworks.

and its very well deserved.

winning MVP over LeBron and Curry.

You have got to be fucking kidding me.

In comment 12331291 MookGiants said:

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not going to trade Barnes, that would be very stupid. Iguodala worked in this specific series as a starter, but they are far better over the long term hanging onto Barnes.

Barnes is likely not someone they'll keep when his contract is up... especially if Klay Thompson's dad is right about how they'll pursue: Kevin Durant!!

NBA finals mvp

could have been he or steph imo- their offense every shot is a direct result of the steph double team.
but iggy shifted the mo of the series. good for him.

best player to a shooting percentage in the 30s, you earned it. Throw in 17-5-4 offensively with a shit load of steals....

What LeBron did in this finals is completely, utterly historic.

with a straight face actually say Andre Iguodala was more valuable than LeBron in this series?

missed 118 shots in this series. Holy fuck lord.

were leaving Iguodala wide open on nearly every possession.

I would sure fucking hope he could hit some of those shots.

wasn't shooting the ball well in this series before they put Iguodala into the starting lineup and on LeBron most of the time.

The series turned when Steph Curry decided to show up. Not because of Andre Iguodala

My guess was if they won the title, he would retire.

Congrats SC! Nothing better than seeing your favorite team winning a title for the first time in your life.

East Bay basketball fans are seriously as legit as it gets in the NBA. I've been to Oracle countless time when the Warriors sucked and it was rocking and packed. The average fan is also a notch above knowledgeable. I miss watching basketball at George and Walt's. The fans in New York by and large don't know shit here about basketball when you're out.

The Warriors played a parameter focused game all year that I can't believe stayed effective and won a ring. They've been an insanely entertaining team and they have a core that honestly should improve.

Great, great win for the East Bay.

the Warriors had a special year. They were the best team in basketball this year. 67 wins and a Championship.

As much as I want to hate the Warriors, I find them to be a likeable bunch outside of Draymond and Bogut. But every team needs a couple of assholes. Curry and Kerr are pure class all the way, nothing but respect for the both of them. And the Bay Area has some of the best NBA fans in the world, those guys always bring it and I'm pretty happy those guys finally have a Championship of their own after decades of Lakers ownage in Cali.

Iggy is my favorite player on the Warriors. He's the guy I'm happiest to see win a ring. And he had a tremendous series. He more than made up for Klay Thompson's poor Finals showing.

But Steph Curry was the MVP. And if it wasn't Steph it was LeBron in a losing effort. Iggy was awesome but you don't give the MVP to a guy who was THOROUGHLY outplayed by the guy he was guarding. Still I'm happy for Iggy and his son's reaction is what it's all about.

Bill Russell might be the GOAT American athlete, sad to see him look so weak and old.

seeing how big of a deal people are making about a 40 year drought, and then you realize the Knicks are in a 45 year drought, and that drought will at the minimum be 47 years without question. And to end it at 47 years the Knicks would need an insane amount of good fortune. in reality we're looking at at least a 50 year drought. Probably more like 75 years or 100 years

win anything until Dolan's gone. He's made the gods angry.

Osi great point. The Lakers being total trash and the Warriors winning is total icing.

I said this before, Lebron is just snake bit in Cleveland. The cast of clowns he was on the court with this time was far worse than when he lost in Cleveland last time and orders of magnitude worse than any of the Heat teams. But to his legacy despite being the most talented NBA player probably ever he just keeps losing finals. Unfair to him, but just keeps happening.

always have been and probably always will be. Wade was perennially banged up in Miami. It sucks.

LeBron has maybe 3 years left of MVP play left. Looking at the pathetic EC landscape, I would be shocked if anyone but the Cavs make the Finals next year. The Hawks will take a dip and it will be some other team's turn to challenge LeBron like the Pacers and Bulls before them. I'm guessing it will be Washington's turn.

Hopefully Durant is healthy out West. He makes the West so much more interesting. Kanter gives the Russ/KD/Ibaka trio a big man who can finally score in the post. I think they could've won the title this year had KD come back healthy.

I wonder how the Spurs play next year. They lost a bloodbath to the Clippers but I still think they were the team with the best chance of exposing the Warriors' weaknesses.

I love the Rockets and I'm proud of their comeback against the Clippers. But the 4 teams who could've dethroned the Warriors this year were #1 the Spurs, #2 a healthy Cavs squad, #3 a healthy Thunder squad, #4 the Clippers. 67 wins and the Championship, but I hesitate on calling Golden State one of the best NBA teams I've ever seen because they had a relatively easy road to the Finals. Doesn't take anything away from the accomplishment but just trying to put them in historical perspective.

But Kyrie and Love playing big minutes, I don't think that changes anything. That makes them a worse defensive team and defense is how they had even the smallest punchers' chance.

In comment 12331338 Ten Ton Hammer said:

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But Kyrie and Love playing big minutes, I don't think that changes anything. That makes them a worse defensive team and defense is how they had even the smallest punchers' chance.

Kyrie and Love playing changes everything. Especially Kyrie. The difference between him and Delly alters everything for Cleveland offensively.

that much worse defensively. Dellavadova is not a good defender. Curry was missing shots he hits in his sleep, that changed in game 4. Thompson isn't a great defender, either. And with Love/Irving on the floor that frees up LeBron to guard one of their better players as he doesn't need to conserve nearly as much energy for offense. They would have had Shumpert on Curry and LeBron on Thompson a lot.

They would have been a million times better offensively.

I dont think this series is all that close if they have Love and Irving. Their defense was aided in this series significantly by slowing the game down on offense because of the lack of firepower.

but they had James Jones on the floor quite a bit, and he belongs no where near an NBA finals game.

Put Love in for those minutes and they are that much better.

Their chances to actually win this series rested on the shoulders of JR Smith, in other words they had no chance.

In comment 12331340 Osi Osi Osi OyOyOy said:

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In comment 12331338 Ten Ton Hammer said: Quote: But Kyrie and Love playing big minutes, I don't think that changes anything. That makes them a worse defensive team and defense is how they had even the smallest punchers' chance. Kyrie and Love playing changes everything. Especially Kyrie. The difference between him and Delly alters everything for Cleveland offensively.

they're not good defensive players thought.

replaced by good defensive players, so what does it really matter?

and was only because of this narrative that he shut down LeBron and because of his story of taking a backseat this season. But the MVP is not about who had the nicest storyline. And I say this as a fan of Iguodala's game and career.

Iguodala played strong defense on LeBron for the times that he guarded him, which wasn't even close to the entire series. But let's be real, here. The Warriors offense runs through Steph Curry. Were people not watching how he draws out the defender beyond the 3-point line-- and often gets double-teamed beyond the 3-point line because of his shooting ability, and then it's his quickness that allows him to pass out of it, and it causes a Warrior to be wide open attacking the hoop, or wide open for a wing 3, or wide open for a corner 3. Steph Curry makes it so that his teammates have the easiest shots in the game.

Saying Iguodala was the MVP over Steph is akin to saying that after seeing the Warriors play for the last 6 games against Cleveland, that if we went back to the first play of Game 1, and one of them would suffer a season-ending injury, that it would have been more detrimental for Iguodala to suffer the injury than Steph. That is absolutely absurd.

they'd take on defense would be made up for 10x over on offense.

The entire dynamic of the series changes. It goes from ugly low-scoring series to a high-octane "my offense is better" series.

And that would've put tons more pressure on Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Iggy, and all of these GS offensive players to hit their shots. They would've needed a much better Klay Thompson performance if they wanted to beat a healthy Cavs team.

Cleveland overachieved defensively early on in the series, and I think that is what had a hand In golden state not looking remotely like the team the were in the regular season until game 5.

Dellavadova is no star, but I don't think Irving wins any kind of defensive matchup against curry the way GS schemes to get him open.

because of the injuries to Love and Irving, LeBron was not able to impact the game on the defensive end nearly as much as he usually does.

Dellavadova played as hard as you could ever ask a player to play, but the bottom line is that he's simply not very good. Terrible offensively and just OK defensively. Curry was missing shots, then he stopped missing them.

in defensively, Irving played until middle of overtime when he got hurt. So his defensive liabilities didn't seem to impact them in that game, did it?

It was more Curry missing shots he hits with his eyes closed than it was anything the Cavs were doing. And the Cavs were griding those games to a halt.

And Golden State looked like Golden State starting in the 4th quarter of game 3 and never looked back after that

so you think losing an All-Star PG and an All-Star PF and replacing them in the rotation with a guys who belong in the NBDL (Delly and James Jones) actually gave the Cavs a better chance in this series?

Come on.

had zero bench and were playing two complete scrubs as part of their rotation, one of them starting.

And somehow having Love and Irving would not have mattered. In a series where the Cavs won two games, had another one go to overtime, and were down by 2 points in the 4th quarter of another.

Amazing.

I have never seen a player carry a team like what he did.

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SportsCenterVerified account ‏@SportsCenter LeBron James is 1st player in NBA Finals history to lead BOTH teams in points, assists & rebounds for entire series.

Missing Love and Kyrie were enormous losses. The Cavaliers didn't have a single other competent ball-handler besides LeBron. This idea that they were okay with Cinderellavedova is absurd. In the 5 games he played since Kyrie went down, he shot 15-for-53 (28%), had 45 points, 16 assists, and 15 turnovers.

And Love would have given the Cavaliers someone who could not only shoot very well and stretch the defense, but also a fantastic passer and rebounder we he stays down low. Even if Tristan gives the team more rim-protecting size, Love is more versatile and not only that, it allows the team to throw in different lineups and keep legs fresher.

In comment 12331352 Osi Osi Osi OyOyOy said:

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so you think losing an All-Star PG and an All-Star PF and replacing them in the rotation with a guys who belong in the NBDL (Delly and James Jones) actually gave the Cavs a better chance in this series? Come on.

I think even if they had those guys at full strength Golden State is the better team. They didn't even make it thru the regular season without benching love for game-deciding minutes because of his defense. I feel like GS could have handled them. They're not just a showtime, 3-bombing team. They play hellacious defense,

The only way Cleveland was going to have a chance was to play the type of physical game I don't think Irving and love could play.

Aren't assholes. Sure, they may be feisty and chippy and in Green's case, boisterous, but they're not, like, Matt Barnes or something.

Bogut in particular is a super candid, thoughtful, respectful interview who often has a lot of good stuff to say about his opponent.

GS deserved the title. Best team all year. I'm rooting for LeBron to eventually bring one home.

only Barnes can be an asshole?

Draymond Green is most certainly an asshole.

he probably yells more than any player in the league. Just a very annoying player. One of those guys I'd hate to play against but probably be a big fan of if he were on my team.

Bogut actually seems cool like you said, but he's a big dirty mofo. Could literally be called for illegal screens every single time he does it, he gets away with it like KG used to get away with it.

Green out of the game just for being a douche when he was signaling for a flagrant foul review tonight. How fucking lame was that?

☕netw3rk @netw3rk
Shumpert shot 11 percent inside five feet for the finals
12:32 AM - 17 Jun 2015
207 207 Retweets 192 192 favorites

one of the more impressive stats ive ever seen.

You have to actually try to suck that bad from that close to put up those type of numbers. Impressive

which is why he took all those awful pull-up mid range jumpers in this series when he should've been taking it to the hole.

JR and Shump are two guys whose lack of confidence was easy to see. As much as Delly sucked, atleast he battled out there and didn't back down. JR and Shump just looked like losers out there, aside from the occasional JR hot streak and Shumps' good hands on the defensive side.

In comment 12331357 Ten Ton Hammer said:

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In comment 12331352 Osi Osi Osi OyOyOy said: Quote: so you think losing an All-Star PG and an All-Star PF and replacing them in the rotation with a guys who belong in the NBDL (Delly and James Jones) actually gave the Cavs a better chance in this series? Come on. I think even if they had those guys at full strength Golden State is the better team. They didn't even make it thru the regular season without benching love for game-deciding minutes because of his defense. I feel like GS could have handled them. They're not just a showtime, 3-bombing team. They play hellacious defense, The only way Cleveland was going to have a chance was to play the type of physical game I don't think Irving and love could play.

I have to disagree with you. Cleveland was the hottest team after the Mozgov trade, I think they'd have more than a puncher's chance. Kyrie and Love would not only allow Lebron to take longer breaks, but they would have kept guys like Delladedova (players who are playing longer minutes and much larger responsibilities than they've ever been asked of before) fresher.

Cavaliers Offense

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..............James created....James didn't create Points.........346.....................215 FG pct........43.2....................31.3 3-pt pct......37.3....................16.9

In comment 12331361 Osi Osi Osi OyOyOy said:

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Bogut actually seems cool like you said, but he's a big dirty mofo. Could literally be called for illegal screens every single time he does it, he gets away with it like KG used to get away with it.

He has actually all but admitted doing that in interviews with innuendo.

Sports sure turns people into judgemental and hateful people. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that I've heard Draymond Green speak and have read more about him than anyone here, and to assume he's an assholes strikes me as having an axe to grind. In Mook's case I can only guess he went to a school Mook hates, but Osi? C'mom man!

have nothing against Michigan State. I'm a big Izzo fan.

I just don't like Draymond. He is annoying as hell.

I just find him to be really annoying in the NBA. I'll back off from the "asshole" comment and just stick with really annoying. He's just so over the top with all the theatrics.

you've heard him speak. Woopty fucking doo. We're talking about the type of guy he is on the basketball court. We don't know him in real life. He's an asshole on the basketball court.