NBA Playoffs 2014

Paully D

Could be the defining moment for them getting back on track if they pull this comeback off.

Nuri Sahin

Paully D wrote: »

Could be the defining moment for them getting back on track if they pull this comeback off.

Both teams should be demoted to the D League. One for being down 30 to a team with near 20 turnovers, and the other for potentially the biggest choke job in NBA history. Pacers were 20/1 straight up at the start of the 4Q.

Nuri Sahin

Nuri Sahin wrote: »

Both teams should be demoted to the D League. One for being down 30 to a team with near 20 turnovers, and the other for potentially the biggest choke job in NBA history. Pacers were 20/1 straight up at the start of the 4Q.

You didn't actually back them. Did you?

Paully D

Kyle Korver!

I was shouting "what the **** are you shooting from there for Ky......, oh"

:pac:

Dublin Red Devil

ouch that korver 3 is a killer

Nuri Sahin

Korver.. 0_0

Nuri Sahin

Deleted User wrote: »

You didn't actually back them. Did you?

Nah. I'm loco, just not that much loco :pac:

My Twitter future is on the line though

Nuri Sahin

Lawler's Law, yo.

Was Hibbert dropped?

Paully D

Nuri Sahin wrote: »

Lawler's Law, yo.

91%-92% accuracy rate. This one should be done.

Dublin Red Devil

Ahh! gonna come up just short, It was just too much of a mountain to climb

Paully D

Hopefully that's not a rib injury for Teague, extremely painful and he might find it tough to play the next game properly if it is.

Crap, just noticed the time, I'm up in 4 hours. FFS. Goodnight lads.

NufcNavan

Joke.


Going to be a VERY interesting off-season in Bankers Life Fieldhouse.

Dublin Red Devil

Love the big man but right now hes a liability on the floor

Nuri Sahin

Hawks win. Both really, both teams are losers. Hopefully Game 6 is just as comical.



Iz dah winnar!

Dublin Red Devil

Series not over yet. We have shown that we can win in Atlanta. We square it up away, Then take it home for a game 7 win.

Nuri Sahin

Spurs resembling the team that are the number 1 seed right now. About damn time.

Nuri Sahin

Them stats, them stats need calcium.

ESPN Stats & Info
@ESPNStatsInfo
Pacers are 0-10 all-time in series in which they trailed 3-games-to-2

Nuri Sahin

Damn entertaining game. Spurs dodge a MAJOR bullet. Series levelled two a piece.

ButtersSuki

Bitches of the night?

Miami for the shirt thing - stop acting like a bunch of high school girls. Seriously, can you not see the irony of throwing down YOUR team warm ups? If this continues, expect an NBA fine/sanction.
LeBron for kissing MJ's ass at the end of the game after LeStare.
Born Ready for being well, Not Ready.

ButtersSuki

At last, a calm and measured summation (from si.com) of what the NBA can actually do re. Sterling:

What should the NBA do about Donald Sterling? The answer is easy if you are a columnist, or Magic Johnson or Michael Jordan or LeBron James, or a fan disgusted by the Clippers owner's racist rant. You can say you are "obviously disgusted" (Jordan), that you will never attend a Clippers game as long as Sterling owns the team (Johnson) or that there is "no room" for Sterling in the NBA (James). You can be proud, knowing you took a stand.
But if you are commissioner Adam Silver, the question gets complicated. People demanding that Silver get rid of Sterling are missing the point. It just isn't easy to force a man to sell a business. Sterling does not work for Silver; Silver works for Sterling and other owners. Sterling owns his team. The NBA does not have a mechanism in place to get rid of a racist owner. As long as Sterling pays his bills, his ownership of the Clippers is inviolate. And within the legal system, Sterling plays hard.
Silver's challenge now: He has to show Sterling the door, but he probably can't force him out. This is like trying to get a man to leave your party when he owns the building.

Sterling, 80, created this firestorm with his idiotic racist comments to his nubile young "girlfriend," V. Stiviano. (The "V," surely, stands for "Valentine," and I certainly hope Sterling and Stiviano can rekindle their romance, though this seems unlikely, since Sterling is married, his family is suing her for embezzling almost $2 million, and she recorded him saying nasty things about people with her racial background and leaked the recording to TMZ. Well, Harry and Sally had a rough start, too.)
Sterling gave Silver his first enormous headache as commissioner. Sterling did not attend Game 4 of the Clippers-Warriors series Sunday, but he hovered over it anyway. The NBA can't let him hang over Tuesday's Game 5, too. That one is in Los Angeles. So you can expect Silver to do something about Sterling in the next two days.
But what will Silver do?
And why did the NBA wait so long to deal with its Sterling problem, when his views were well-known within the league for years?
First question first. The smart money is on a lengthy suspension -- as long as Silver can get away with, and long enough to accomplish a few objectives. Silver has to get Sterling out of the national conversation, as much as he can, during the time of year when the country pays the most attention to the NBA. The Clippers are championship contenders. Silver can't risk the possibility of Sterling's hoisting the Larry O'Brien Trophy in June.
So you can expect Sterling to be suspended for a year, with the likelihood of extending the suspension at the owners' meetings in July. Doing it that way would give Silver cover if Sterling sues and says Silver is abusing his powers. It would also allow Silver to accomplish another objective: setting up an exit for Sterling.
This is a delicate dance for Silver. But perhaps Silver can get the Board of Governors to change its bylaws to cover situations like these, so that if (when?) Sterling says something racist again, Silver can punish him even more severely. Or he can suspend Sterling for a long time, fine him a large amount and find a buyer to pay a premium price for the Clippers -- a combination of factors that would make it in Sterling's best interest to sell his franchise.

Sterling can decide he wants to own the Clippers at any cost. He can (and probably will) sue. This is why Silver has been measured in his comments so far. Everything he says can and will be used against him later.
And this brings us to Silver's predecessor, David Stern. It is fair to wonder why Stern never punished Sterling for being a bumbling racist jackass, especially because Stern did pretty much anything he wanted for the last few years of his reign. I do think Stern could have done something, but it's not as easy as it sounds.
Two aspects of Stern's personality come into play here. One is that he is a political liberal, and he is proud of it. On a personal level, he has no use for somebody who thinks like Sterling, and he wants people to know that. But the other thing is that Stern is a lawyer. The liberal Stern surely would have loved to kick Sterling out of the owners' club. The lawyer Stern knew it was hard to do.
The much-publicized real-estate lawsuits gave Stern an opening, but they were small openings. Sterling was accused of choosing tenants based on race, and for making horribly racist comments while he ran his real-estate business. But Sterling settled the lawsuits and did not admit wrongdoing.
Mostly, there is this: Sterling may be a racist scoundrel, but he did not run the Clippers like a racist scoundrel. He hired an African-American, Elgin Baylor, as his general manager in 1986. That was extremely progressive move in 1986 --- the next year, when former Dodgers general manager got in trouble for saying blacks may lack "some of the necessities" for certain management jobs, there were only two African-American general managers in the NBA: Baylor and Cleveland's Wayne Embry.

Sterling stuck with Baylor through many losing seasons. You could not find another owner in that era who would have let an African-American run his team for as long with so little success. Last year, Sterling fired a white coach, Vinny Del Negro, who was coming off a 56-win season (the most successful in franchise history), so he could hire an African-American, Doc Rivers.
Now, do you see why this is complicated?
Sterling's racism comes from an extremely cynical and small mind. The Los Angeles Times reported that in one lawsuit, Sterling was accused of saying Korean-Americans "will live in whatever conditions he gives them and still pay the rent without complaint." This is how he treated Clippers fans for many years, too.
Sterling's views are still wrong, obviously -- and hurtful, too. But if you were NBA commissioner, how would you punish an owner for privately held beliefs when his public actions in that arena were not just acceptable, but admirable?
Stern probably should have found a way to do something, anyway. The liberal in him wanted to do it. But the lawyer was wary.
Stern never had the opportunity that Silver has now. He didn't have a recording that all of America could hear. The latest evidence against Sterling is overwhelming, and LeBron James is right: Donald Sterling should be out of the NBA. Adam Silver surely knows it. The trick is making it happen.


And a bit on the Chris Paul trade veto:
The uproar among the Lakers and their fans over the vetoed Chris Paul trade of Dec. 2011 was inspired mainly by self-interest. The Lakers wanted Paul to assume the franchise mantle from Kobe Bryant. They planned to eventually partner him with Dwight Howard. And they were understandably enraged when then-Commissioner David Stern scuttled their super team. But after Stern reversed course and sent Paul across town instead, their anger was intensified by moral outrage. The Lakers were incredulous that Stern, acting as temporary steward of the New Orleans Pelicans, would capsize the NBA's flagship franchise so he could throw a lifeboat to the bigot, the cheapskate, the miscreant who owned the Clippers. Stern was punishing the club that brought his league nothing but plaudits and riches while rewarding the one that brought nothing but embarrassment and shame. It was like handing a Ferrari to a juvenile delinquent and expecting his behavior to improve.

Stern claimed he was working in the best interest of the Pelicans, as if Al-Farouq Aminu was a more appealing prospect than Goran Dragic, but the only person he helped was Sterling. Stern had spent years hearing Sterling's racist commentary, often through court documents, and declined to discipline him. Ignoring Sterling was reprehensible, but no one in the NBA took the old fool seriously. All he did, besides spew venom, was bungle draft picks and free-agent signings. He wasn't a threat to anybody but himself and his woebegone organization. And that's how he would have continued for perpetuity, seen only on Lottery Night, had Stern not intervened and made him more dangerous.



Superstars are all that really matter in the NBA. Get one and you can land another. Get two and a third will join. Championship parades ensue. Sterling didn't acquire Paul through any kind of deal-making savvy. Paul was a gift from Stern, a lifetime underachievement award and a pawn who allowed the outgoing commissioner to prove a point. Stern wants to believe any team can compete in the modern NBA, even one as dramatically mismanaged as the Clippers, and he stacked the deck in their favor. Without Stern's philanthropic act, Paul is a Laker, Doc Rivers is a Celtic, and Blake Griffin is either already gone or on his way out. And Sterling hasn't hijacked arguably the best first round in the history of the playoffs with a screenplay that sounds like it was written by Paula Deen. Sterling took the Ferrari, all right, and crashed it right into the NBA offices.



Sterling was a racist before the Paul trade, and he'd have remained one regardless, but the NBA validated him. They emboldened him. They transported him, in one motion, from the margin of the league to the forefront of it. They provided him a bigger voice, knowing full well the ugliness that could emanate. Under Paul's leadership -- not Sterling's -- the Clippers predictably became a top-three team in the Western Conference, re-signing Griffin, luring Rivers, and attracting a bevy of the usual ring chasers. From his courtside seat, Sterling savored the wins, the sellout crowds and the playoff appearances. He looked like a maitre d' whose restaurant sat empty for three decades and suddenly had a line snaking around the block.

Given the Lakers' plunge into irrelevance, the Clippers threatened to capture a generation of L.A. basketball fans, seduced by Paul-to-Griffin half-court alley-oops. They envisioned a 10-year-run, cutting into the Laker monopoly, turning L.A. into a Clipper town. That fantasy, while enticing, is over. Hollywood tolerates eccentrics, not bigots. Just check the IMDB database for Mel Gibson. Staples Center will still be packed for Game 5 with Clipper diehards, but swing voters won't support a Sterling enterprise, and neither will one very significant potential free agent. If LeBron James opts out of his contract in Miami after this season, there aren't many teams he'd consider, but the Clippers were one. He admires Rivers. He loves Paul. L.A. offers a massive market with boundless sunshine. But given how strongly James condemned Sterling on Saturday, he seemed to be crossing the Clippers off the list.

Of course, few players share James' social conscience, and most will still line up to catch passes from Paul, throw lobs to Griffin, and take money from Sterling. As long as Sterling owns the Clippers, and as long as Paul plays for them, there's really no adequate punishment. New commissioner Adam Silver could suspend Sterling for the next 500 games, but that's just another reward. Considering Sterling's basketball acumen and public persona, the Clippers benefit most from his absence. The fairest solution, while admittedly farfetched, is to take back what was given. Void the contract Paul signed last summer. Make him a free agent again. Let him schedule a meeting with Sterling on July 1, look the man in the eye, and decide if he wants to keep carrying dead weight. The NBA has lost all credibility on this case.

For Forks Sake

ButtersSuki

For Forks Sake wrote: »

That's prob a double double in his eyes.

BQQ

Dublin Red Devil wrote: »

Love the big man but right now hes a liability on the floor

Hibbert is a problem (I've been saying that since before the All-Star break), but he's not the only problem.
His +/- last night was only -7. He was on the bench for most of the 30pt lead the Hawks built up.
I think he's been made the scapegoat, but the problems run a lot deeper.

*can't believe I'm actually sticking up for Roy now. Kind of.*

Nuri Sahin wrote: »

Them stats, them stats need calcium.

And that's a natural law.

ButtersSuki

I just can't help but be cynical as to some people's (Magic esp.) motives on Sterling, and now here's another from The Preacher Man:


Golden State Warriors head coach Mark Jackson says he thinks that fans in Los Angeles should stay away from Game 5 of their first-round series against the Clippers due to racist comments allegedly made by Clippers owner Donald Sterling.

Game 5 is Tuesday night at the Staples Center. The best-of-seven series is tied at two games a piece after the Warriors routed Los Angeles 118-97 on Sunday.
“I believe if it was me, I wouldn’t come to the game. I believe the fans, the loudest statement that they can make as fans is to not show up to the game,” Jackson said, via the Associated Press.

Jackson’s statement is one of many from around the league to condemn Sterling after the owner’s comments surfaced this past weekend.
Charlotte Bobcats owner Michael Jordan said he was “completely outraged” and “appalled” by the Sterling’s comments, and the reigning NBA Most Valuable Player LeBron James said “there is no room for Donald Sterling in our league.”

More from Jackson:
“As an African-American man that’s a fan of the game of basketball and knows its history and knows what’s right and what’s wrong, I would not come to the game tomorrow, whether I was a Clipper fan or a Warrior fan, in the Staples Center tomorrow,” Jackson said.

Paully D

There's no ulterior motive from Jackson there at all, is there? :pac:

Bateman

That is very insincere to be honest, how can anyone take that as a serious contribution to the debate?

The Clippers have their best chance in years and opposition coach wants their fans to stay at home for a 2-2 Game 5...

ButtersSuki

It's a disgrace Joe.

D2D

Jesus, it never rains but it pours for PG right now

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/home-of-pacers-paul-george-burglarized

padraig_f

Sounds like a healthy environment in Golden State...

Scalabrine Went Five Weeks Without Speaking To Jackson Before Reassignment

Warriors Assistant Coach Darren Erman Reportedly Fired for Taping Conversations


Will be interesting to see what form this takes:

@BillSimmons: "Hearing Adam Silver is dropping the nukes on Donald Sterling today. Everything short of a big mushroom cloud shaped like the NBA logo."