NBA Regular Season & Playoffs 2017-18

ButtersSuki

Exhausted but tempted to stay up for the Boston game. Think the Cavs win handily enough tonight; if they don't it's all over.

ButtersSuki

Just saw the score. Predictable enough I guess. Glad I didn’t stay up but awake now anyway and still exhausted. FML.

kmart6

Stayed up for the 1st and a bit of a the 2nd. Cavs were hot to start off and IMO were being helped by some very soft calls against the Celtics, got bored and went to bed.

ButtersSuki

Watched it all this morning.

Boston went 20-4 down and just never recovered. Whole team looked flat but in fairness to the Cavs they all looked much more energetic and up for it throughout the whole game than any game in this series to date. Boston look so different at home v away in the play offs though, very strange. Cavs likely to take game 4 and set up the steal for a monster game 5 in Beantown.

Dunc’d on (very short one today) gave out a stat stating there have been 5 30+ point wins at conf finals stage in recent years (weren’t more specific than that) and Cavs involved in all of them. This is the 3rd Cavs Celtics 30+ Point game of that 5 too (2 last year and this).

evil_seed

Marcel Delightful Viewfinder wrote: »

Loves a very good player who managed to get Minnesota to the playoffs a grand total of 0 times.

Name me a superstar who has won a championship without another all-star?

I'm far from lebrons biggest fan but Jesus the guys amazing

Dirk

2smiggy

not surprised the celtics lost game 3, I was thinking they would target game 4 as possibly one they could win. The cavs were always going to come out strong after the first 2 results. Think tonight's game will be fairly tight, even if celtics do lose again.

Paully D

The Cavs are 11/10 to win the series.

Fantastic price. I thought they’d be odds against not after winning game 3.

LuckyLloyd

Paully D wrote: »

The Cavs are 11/10 to win the series.

Fantastic price. I thought they’d be odds against not after winning game 3.

Meh, they're dogs for various good reasons imo. I expect tomorrow night to be very different to Saturday.

snotboogie

Paully D wrote: »

The Cavs are 11/10 to win the series.

Fantastic price. I thought they’d be odds against not after winning game 3.

I'm not saying the Cavs can't win, they can but 11/10 is a terrible price for a team down 2-1 without homecourt

K.O.Kiki

Who's ready for Curry vs LeBron part 4?

NufcNavan

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Who's ready for Curry vs LeBron part 4?

Enough to put you to sleep.

Gregk961

evil_seed wrote: »

Dirk

Well that blows up that argument!

LuckyLloyd

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

Who's ready for Curry vs LeBron part 4?

It's not really Curry vs LeBron tbf, if it does come to pass.

ButtersSuki

Going to watch it all tonight but that 41 point blowout is the largest Play Off win in GS history, and the biggest Play Off loss in Houston history.

Stat I found this morning: the average margin of victory in the Conf. Finals is the widest in NBA history at 24+. The 2nd highest was last year at 18+. Very uncompetitive and makes it less watchable if you're a neutral.

ButtersSuki

snotboogie wrote: »

I'm not saying the Cavs can't win, they can but 11/10 is a terrible price for a team down 2-1 without homecourt

With or without homecourt, that's a great price for a LeBron team in the East playing a team without it's two best players and no-one (bar Horford) having Conf. Finals experience.

snotboogie

ButtersSuki wrote: »

snotboogie wrote: »

I'm not saying the Cavs can't win, they can but 11/10 is a terrible price for a team down 2-1 without homecourt

With or without homecourt, that's a great price for a LeBron team in the East playing a team without it's two best players and no-one (bar Horford) having Conf. Finals experience.

If you ignore the fact that the Celtics are still the stronger team.

NufcNavan

snotboogie wrote: »

If you ignore the fact that the Celtics are still the stronger team.

Pacers were stronger than the Cavs. But it didn't matter. Lebron is Lebron.

Not to count out the Celtics. I still give them a good chance obviously.

Joe Dog

Once again the NBA playoffs have been unbelievably poor entertainment.

Any other league in the sporting world and you'd have serious criticism of the product but it seems that for whatever reason the NBA is completely immune from criticism.

Considering the 82 game regular season is simply a warm up event for the supposed main action makes things even more disappointing, the NFL,NHL and MLB playoffs deliver drama and excitement each year, the NBA playoffs deliver disappointment year after year.Surely they need to shorten the length of the playoffs and reduce them to 12 teams or maybe do something that will at least improve the regular season so there is some sort of high quality competition delivered by the league.

ButtersSuki

Joe Dog wrote: »

Once again the NBA playoffs have been unbelievably poor entertainment.

Any other league in the sporting world and you'd have serious criticism of the product but it seems that for whatever reason the NBA is completely immune from criticism.

Considering the 82 game regular season is simply a warm up event for the supposed main action makes things even more disappointing, the NFL,NHL and MLB playoffs deliver drama and excitement each year, the NBA playoffs deliver disappointment year after year.Surely they need to shorten the length of the playoffs and reduce them to 12 teams or maybe do something that will at least improve the regular season so there is some sort of high quality competition delivered by the league.

Lots of people have been calling for 1-16 seeding regardless of Conference positions for years, I don't think it's fair to say no-one is criticising the results.

ButtersSuki

snotboogie wrote: »

If you ignore the fact that the Celtics are still the stronger team.

I'm a Celtics fan but I'm sorry on paper I don't agree. Boston are without their 2 best players, have a very young team with very little Play Off experience going up a team who've won it all as recently as 2 years ago and have the 2nd best player of all time (playing arguably as well as if not better than ever) on their roster, along with another perennial All Star in Kevin Love. If it goes to 2-2 which I think it does, I'd still be very worried about Cleveland's ability to steal one game in Boston and take the series.

K.O.Kiki

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

It's not really Curry vs LeBron tbf, if it does come to pass.

I know GSW are a "team" team, but Curry is the most valuable player whenever he steps on or off the floor - look at metrics like offensive plus/minus and you'll see the difference he makes.

LuckyLloyd

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

I know GSW are a "team" team, but Curry is the most valuable player whenever he steps on or off the floor - look at metrics like offensive plus/minus and you'll see the difference he makes.

Providing you can’t make him defend much, he’s obviously lightning on the other end of the floor and arguably the most dynamic offensive player of all time. But in a matchup between the two teams, GS have four of the five best players in the series. Durant joining just titled the scales unreasonably in one direction over a potential seven game series.

Itssoeasy

The rockets beat the warriors and now both series are tied 2-2. Well at least the Celtics won't have what happened to them last year happen this year.

Carcharodon

Warriors left that game behind them big time, give credit to Houston but some really poor decision making and maybe even complacency when they had big leads.
No iggy is a big loss on defense, Thompson took a knock early and didn’t look the same. Looney gave max effort but he did look quite vulnerable at times.
At least it was a close game, the blowouts are very poor for the nuetrals, doesn’t even make sense how a team can lose by 40 and then turn around and win the next game.
I know a lot is to do with the 3 pt shot but I think a lot is to do with modern athlete just giving up and not being held accountable

mixery

I absolutely agree. I'm disgusted by the body language of some of these modern stars. It's hard to maintain ideals in corporate NBA of today. Usage optimisation, career prolongation and what not unfortunately took over from the will to win and joy to just play. I wonder how much pick up ball does LeBron play?

LuckyLloyd

LeBron might not be the best example to pick on there, given the minutes he plays; his injury rate; his production in all sorts of situations throughout his career.

I don't agree on a general level with the assertion that players give up or aren't accountable or whatever. The importance of the three point shot significantly ups the variance of any individual particular game. I don't have the stats to hand, but over a long sample of games an 11 point lead or more is thrown away a very low percentage of the time. Way lower than you might assume. Teams are also not limited anymore in how they defend so can offer a variety of looks from one game to the next or one quarter to the next, etc.

It's harder than ever to get into the NBA and stay there long term. Particularly for teams that have made it to the final four of the season I just struggle to buy into the idea that they are stuffed with quitters.

Gregk961

The 3 alone can't explain how a team can get blown away by 30 or 40 points and then win the next game though. It has to be players throwing in the towel and/or coaches pulling off the throttle. You can see where a coach would be tempted to discourage his players from running themselves into the ground to get back into a game when they have another one in a couple of days.

Joe Dog

Gregk961 wrote: »

The 3 alone can't explain how a team can get blown away by 30 or 40 points and then win the next game though. It has to be players throwing in the towel and/or coaches pulling off the throttle. You can see where a coach would be tempted to discourage his players from running themselves into the ground to get back into a game when they have another one in a couple of days.

Losing by more than 20 is the same result as losing by a small margin and if anything it's probably somewhat better because if you basically quit before the 4th quarter you don't carry the same sense of loss as you would if you fought to the death and still lost.I'd imagine fighting hard and losing is much more difficult to deal with than simply taking your beating and moving on to the next game not to mention that it would tire you out more physically.In tennis you often see players who just don't bother when they pretty much know the set is done and save their energy for the next set.

Gregk961

Joe Dog wrote: »

Losing by more than 20 is the same result as losing by a small margin and if anything it's probably somewhat better because if you basically quit before the 4th quarter you don't carry the same sense of loss as you would if you fought to the death and still lost.I'd imagine fighting hard and losing is much more difficult to deal with than simply taking your beating and moving on to the next game not to mention that it would tire you out more physically.In tennis you often see players who just don't bother when they pretty much know the set is done and save their energy for the next set.

Oh yeah I understand the logic behind it but it doesn't make it any easier to watch

2smiggy

only got to see the 3rd quarter of the celtics game, and went to bed early in the 4th. LeBron did look a bit tired, maybe holding it back fora possible last 2 games. Celtics do look completely different at home ! Tatum and Brown leading scorers again for the celtics ! Even Smart was knocking in a few long threes from what i seen of the match.