NBA playoffs 2018

In my lifetime · May 25, 2018

Watching the game between two insanely talented teams ironically showed me how fortunate Celtic fans are in having Stevens as coach. It seemed in the 4th quarter most shots were heavily contested shots taken by superstars with little effort made to find the open man. I can't imagine that Steven's would be okay with Kyrie just forcing shot after shot without making an effort to move the ball around to the open man.

The Celtic style is not only more entertaining to watch, but more effective especially in the playoffs when teams clamp down on the superstars. In addition, moving the ball clearly helps develop all the players on the floor. What mid-tier player wouldn't want to play for Steven's instead of these star-centric teams?

Sam Ray Not · May 25, 2018

AMS25 said:
For the non-Warriors fan, GSOM is a must-read after Warrior losses. The responses range from very thoughtful to apocalyptic. Just don't try to post any snarky comments; GSOM is a "safe space" for Warrior fans, and warnings and bans are handed out like candy.

Haha, yeah, I'm a mod there, so I can attest that we/they can be a li'l touchy when unfamiliar lurkers stop by to talk smack after a tough loss. That said, there are plenty of fans of other teams who visit regularly and are pretty warmly welcomed as long as they keep it fact-based, dispassionate and too trash-talky. The Celtics fan who stopped by last by last night to say " Haha, suck it, 17 > 5!!!" was not that guy, lol. How does a guy who's also presumably a Sox fan / MFY hater bust out the "total championships" line?

DJnVa · May 25, 2018

AMS25 said:
For the non-Warriors fan, GSOM is a must-read after Warrior losses. The responses range from very thoughtful to apocalyptic. Just don't try to post any snarky comments; GSOM is a "safe space" for Warrior fans, and warnings and bans are handed out like candy.

Where's the forum there? Fanposts? I don't see anything posted in last 2 days.

Cesar Crespo · May 25, 2018

Sam Ray Not said:
Haha, yeah, I'm a mod there, so I can attest that we/they can be a li'l touchy when unfamiliar lurkers stop by to talk smack after a tough loss. That said, there are plenty of fans of other teams who visit regularly and are pretty warmly welcomed as long as they keep it fact-based, dispassionate and too trash-talky. The Celtics fan who stopped by last by last night to say " Haha, suck it, 17 > 5!!!" was not that guy, lol. How does a guy who's also presumably a Sox fan / MFY hater bust out the "total championships" line?

You would think but there are a lot of Celtic/Yankee front runner fans.

Sam Ray Not · May 25, 2018

In my lifetime said:
Watching the game between two insanely talented teams ironically showed me how fortunate Celtic fans are in having Stevens as coach. It seemed in the 4th quarter most shots were heavily contested shots taken by superstars with little effort made to find the open man. I can't imagine that Steven's would be okay with Kyrie just forcing shot after shot without making an effort to move the ball around to the open man.

The Celtic style is not only more entertaining to watch, but more effective especially in the playoffs when teams clamp down on the superstars. In addition, moving the ball clearly helps develop all the players on the floor. What mid-tier player wouldn't want to play for Steven's instead of these star-centric teams?

That style of play is extremely uncharacteristic of the Kerr Warriors though. They lead the league in assists every season, and are typically top 2-3 in passes per possession. The Rockets' D — probably together with impatience by the players, overly lax coaching by Kerr and co., and the crutch of having Durant to dump it into — succeeded in taking them out of their game in Games 4-5. Big props to the Rockets, whose D has been massively underrated all year, but the style of play we've seen the last two games is definitely the exception and not the rule.

Sam Ray Not · May 25, 2018

DrewDawg said:
Where's the forum there? Fanposts? I don't see anything posted in last 2 days.

https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2018/5/24/17392602/nba-scores-2018-playoffs-warriors-vs-rockets-game-five-win-kevin-durant-klay-thompson-steph-curry

coremiller · May 25, 2018

In my lifetime said:
Watching the game between two insanely talented teams ironically showed me how fortunate Celtic fans are in having Stevens as coach. It seemed in the 4th quarter most shots were heavily contested shots taken by superstars with little effort made to find the open man. I can't imagine that Steven's would be okay with Kyrie just forcing shot after shot without making an effort to move the ball around to the open man.

The Celtic style is not only more entertaining to watch, but more effective especially in the playoffs when teams clamp down on the superstars. In addition, moving the ball clearly helps develop all the players on the floor. What mid-tier player wouldn't want to play for Steven's instead of these star-centric teams?

Motion-based passing offenses don't work that well against teams like the Rockets and Warriors that can switch everything 1 through 5. The Warriors' resort to iso on offense isn't about their stars' egos, it's because Houston is taking away their primary actions and iso is what they have left. Iso is a useful strategy against switching because you can get some favorable 1 on 1 matchups that way.

There are some more things the Warriors could be doing on offense to get better looks, but it's not as simple as "these greedy stars need to pass the ball more."

the moops · May 25, 2018

In my lifetime said:
Watching the game between two insanely talented teams ironically showed me how fortunate Celtic fans are in having Stevens as coach. It seemed in the 4th quarter most shots were heavily contested shots taken by superstars with little effort made to find the open man. I can't imagine that Steven's would be okay with Kyrie just forcing shot after shot without making an effort to move the ball around to the open man.

The Celtic style is not only more entertaining to watch, but more effective especially in the playoffs when teams clamp down on the superstars. In addition, moving the ball clearly helps develop all the players on the floor. What mid-tier player wouldn't want to play for Steven's instead of these star-centric teams?

If/when BOS faces HOU in the finals, we will be begging for some Kyrie ISO plays. HOU switchy defense has been ridiculously awesome this playoffs and has forced GSW into the ISO as their only option many times. Issue is they do still have Curry and Durant, where we don't.

Apisith · May 25, 2018

coremiller said:
Motion-based passing offenses don't work that well against teams like the Rockets and Warriors that can switch everything 1 through 5. The Warriors' resort to iso on offense isn't about their stars' egos, it's because Houston is taking away their primary actions and iso is what they have left. Iso is a useful strategy against switching because you can get some favorable 1 on 1 matchups that way.

There are some more things the Warriors could be doing on offense to get better looks, but it's not as simple as "these greedy stars need to pass the ball more."

Pretty much. Morey’s built our team, specifically the defense, to beat the Warriors. We’re switching everything and forcing them to iso. I didn’t think we would be this successful but that shows you what I know (fuck all).

Spelunker · May 25, 2018

the moops said:
If/when BOS faces HOU in the finals, we will be begging for some Kyrie ISO plays. HOU switchy defense has been ridiculously awesome this playoffs and has forced GSW into the ISO as their only option many times. Issue is they do still have Curry and Durant, where we don't.

Tatum's load on offense would definitely increase.

Sam Ray Not · May 25, 2018

coremiller said:
Motion-based passing offenses don't work that well against teams like the Rockets and Warriors that can switch everything 1 through 5. The Warriors' resort to iso on offense isn't about their stars' egos, it's because Houston is taking away their primary actions and iso is what they have left. Iso is a useful strategy against switching because you can get some favorable 1 on 1 matchups that way.

There are some more things the Warriors could be doing on offense to get better looks, but it's not as simple as "these greedy stars need to pass the ball more."

Agreed. Probably also worth noting that the Warriors' D has been mucking up the Rockets' historically good offense as least as badly as the Rockets have been mucking up theirs. (Ws actually have a significant lead in O-Rating in the series at 113.4 to 108.1, though a lot of that was from the one game 3 blowout). The Rockets have looked more like their regular-season selves in the brief stretches where the Ws have tried to play a traditional big (David West last night, e.g.) but when they run Hamptons Five or Looney or Bell it gets tougher for them to run their bread-and-butter P&Rs and get the mismatches they want.

Curry was the one nominal mismatch they hunted with some success early in the series, but he looks healthier the last few games, and has been defending Harden in particular a lot better than he did earlier.

coremiller · May 25, 2018

The one place where Boston would have an advantage against Houston's D that the Warriors don't is that the Warriors don't have any natural post-up players. Durant is the closest and but he's not great at it and even when they post him, he rarely gets down to the low block. Boston could ran some screens to get a smaller guy switched on Horford and then post Horford down low, which is an option the Warriors don't have. David West can do that occasionally but he's old and too much of a defensive liability against Houston to play more than a few minutes a game.

Cleveland is actually a worse matchup for Houston though, because LeBron is the ultimate antidote to switching. The Cavs could get LeBron matched up on Harden or Paul or Gordon, and those guys would just have no chance against him. And unlike Durant, LeBron is the best guy in the league at anticipating double-teams and rotations and passing out of them to open shooters. I'd still favor Houston in that matchup, because I think they'd score at will at the other end, but the Cavs pose unique problems for teams that like to switch a lot.

RedOctober3829 · May 25, 2018

Rockets just announced CP3 is out Game 6 with a hamstring strain.

BigSoxFan · May 25, 2018

DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
Houston forcing the Warriors into Durant ISOs is kind of funny considering that the Warriors effectively did this to OKC two years ago and essentially gave KD the push to leave there for Oakland.

I will be surprised if this series doesn't go seven, especially with a hobbled CP3. He simply cannot stay healthy for a whole postseason run - its surprising it took this long for him to hurt himself. And kicking his leg out to draw a foul no less.

Yeah, this Houston team ain’t closing out a Warriors dynasty team on the road without Paul. This is going 7 and I still expect the Warriors to win.

Apisith · May 25, 2018

God damn it. That leaves, what, 4 days until Game 7? Paul might not even be ready for that.

BigSoxFan · May 25, 2018

Apisith said:
God damn it. That leaves, what, 4 days until Game 7? Paul might not even be ready for that.

I’d say there’s a very good chance he’s done for the series. If he plays, he’ll be a shell of himself. Absolutely devastating injury for Houston.

Apisith · May 25, 2018

Fuck. During the game today was really the first time I believed we could win the series. And now this shit.

OurF'ingCity · May 25, 2018

BigSoxFan said:
I’d say there’s a very good chance he’s done for the series. If he plays, he’ll be a shell of himself. Absolutely devastating injury for Houston.

Yeah, I'm not a doctor but this seems very similar to Brown's injury, and he was out a week before coming back (and even then he had to push to be play in Game 2). Factor in the fact that Paul is older and I would be pretty surprised if he plays again this series.

DJnVa · May 25, 2018

Harden *really* needs to find his jump shot. If Houston wins this series, we're going to see at least one hellacious game from Harden.

Sam Ray Not · May 25, 2018

OurF'ingCity said:
Yeah, I'm not a doctor but this seems very similar to Brown's injury, and he was out a week before coming back (and even then he had to push to be play in Game 2). Factor in the fact that Paul is older and I would be pretty surprised if he plays again this series.

Also looked a lot like the Rubio injury that kept him the whole Jazz/Rockets series.

InstaFace · May 25, 2018

Sam Ray Not said:
Haha, yeah, I'm a mod there, so I can attest that we/they can be a li'l touchy when unfamiliar lurkers stop by to talk smack after a tough loss. That said, there are plenty of fans of other teams who visit regularly and are pretty warmly welcomed as long as they keep it fact-based, dispassionate and too trash-talky. The Celtics fan who stopped by last by last night to say " Haha, suck it, 17 > 5!!!" was not that guy, lol. How does a guy who's also presumably a Sox fan / MFY hater bust out the "total championships" line?

At this point, "COUNT DA RINGZ" works OK for Sox fans as long as they're not talking to Cardinals or Yankees fans. Doesn't make you less of an asshole but it's not as readily answerable as it was 15 years ago.

Cesar Crespo · May 25, 2018

DrewDawg said:
Harden *really* needs to find his jump shot. If Houston wins this series, we're going to see at least one hellacious game from Harden.

If Houston wins the series without Paul the last 2 games, that's a pretty big choke job by the Warriors.

Sam Ray Not · May 25, 2018

bosox79 said:
If Houston wins the series without Paul the last 2 games, that's a pretty big choke job by the Warriors.

Yeah, I hate that about the injury. Now it’s massive choke job if the Ws lose, lucky bastards if they win. I hope he’s back for an epic Game 7 with plenty of shimmying and hate-shimmying...

Cesar Crespo · May 25, 2018

Harden pretty much has to win a title to get rid of the choker tag because of the Spurs w/o Kawhi, doesn't he?

ElUno20 · May 25, 2018

The warriors injury luck strikes again. A truly remarkable streak they have going

TripleOT · May 25, 2018

Harden's going to have to put up a 50 point monster of a game for the Rockets to have a chance in Game 6. And/or the team could just get incredibly hot from three for just once

DeadlySplitter · May 25, 2018

It’s hard to win a game 7 in the NBA on the road, but Houston does have bad experience in that department...

SemperFidelisSox · May 25, 2018

ElUno20 said:
The warriors injury luck strikes again. A truly remarkable streak they have going

Huh? The Warriors win this series in 5 if Iguodala is healthy,

ElUno20 · May 25, 2018

DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
You, of all people on this site, know full well that this wasn't luck. It was an inevitability.

Death, taxes and a Chris Paul lower extremity injury are the only certainties in life.

That doesn't change the streak over their run.

Kliq · May 25, 2018

If we are going to act like the Iggu injury is a catastrophic loss for GS; then it should be mentioned that Houston has been without LRMM for the entire series; who would be another switchable wing that could shoot from outside.

HomeRunBaker · May 25, 2018

BigSoxFan said:
I’d say there’s a very good chance he’s done for the series. If he plays, he’ll be a shell of himself. Absolutely devastating injury for Houston.

Yeah from the sound of things coming out of Houston even before this announcement it appeared that he's finished for the series which likely means done for the year.

BigSoxFan · May 25, 2018

HomeRunBaker said:
Yeah from the sound of things coming out of Houston even before this announcement it appeared that he's finished for the series which likely means done for the year.

To me, his look on the sidelines yesterday kind of gave it away. This is a guy who has been injured a million times. He knows his body and I think he knew immediately last night that he was done for not only the game but the series. Anyone who has had any kind of hamstring strain knows just how difficult those injuries are to recover from. A minor strain can be dealt with in a few days. Anything more and you're talking at least a week and probably more.

Ale Xander · May 25, 2018

Just got around to watching last night

So much stupidity last minute

The Dray backtap to Houston
The inadvertent whistle when Beard took 6 steps
The Quinn cook shot of all people
The Dray dribble with 5 seconds
The pass before the TO

Sam Ray Not · May 25, 2018

SemperFidelisSox said:
Huh? The Warriors win this series in 5 if Iguodala is healthy,

And they probably win in 2016 if Bogut, Iguodala and Curry aren’t injured.

Fwiw, the Cavs team they smacked down last year was fully healthy. In 2015 they had injury luck (no Love or Kyrie) but given that they were the much better team during the season, you can’t assume they would have lost that series with them.

I’m not too objective, obviously, but I do think the “luck” charge rings a little hollow when applied to the team that was by far the best team in the regular season. Indeed the 2014-2017 teams were three of the top 10-15 regular season teams in NBA history.

And just in general: no sports champion ever has done it without a measure of good injury luck.

Anyway: the Rockets could still win this. Harden+Gordon is a killer backcourt. Next man up!

DJnVa · May 25, 2018

SemperFidelisSox said:
Huh? The Warriors win this series in 5 if Iguodala is healthy,

This has flown around twitter and some basketball guys more knowledgeable than I am have eviscerated it. If Curry, Thompson, Green, and Durant need Iguadola to babysit them then perhaps we need to back off all the plaudits.

SemperFidelisSox · May 25, 2018

Iguodala can still be an elite defender. That’s why Kerr was starting him in this series.

Durant cried in the locker room when he found out Iguodala was out for Game 4. The guy is their Big Papi, not a babysitter.

Red Averages · May 25, 2018

Nice leadership by Durant if that’s true...

DJnVa · May 25, 2018

SemperFidelisSox said:
Iguodala can still be an elite defender. That’s why Kerr was starting him in this series.

Durant cried in the locker room when he found out Iguodala was out for Game 4. The guy is their Big Papi, not a babysitter.

Big Papi was their best player. That’s not a good comparison. This team should not fall apart with Iggy. Who I love.

DJnVa · May 25, 2018

SemperFidelisSox said:
Iguodala can still be an elite defender. That’s why Kerr was starting him in this series.

Durant cried in the locker room when he found out Iguodala was out for Game 4. The guy is their Big Papi, not a babysitter.

By the way, Kerr was the one that called Iggy their babysitter.

nighthob · May 25, 2018

SemperFidelisSox said:
Huh? The Warriors win this series in 5 if Iguodala is healthy,

Yeah, sorry, teams with two of the top five players in the NBA and two more top 15 guys don't get to cite the injury to their version of Marcus Smart as an excuse. You're basically fielding an All-NBA Team, you man up and win no matter which of your roleplayers is ailing.

Jed Zeppelin · May 25, 2018

Anyways their biggest problems have been with offensive execution, not defense. If they need Iguodala to teach them to move the ball instead of handing it to Durant and staring at him while he does nothing, they deserve to lose.

nighthob · May 25, 2018

Jed Zeppelin said:
Anyways their biggest problems have been with offensive execution, not defense. If they need Iguodala to teach them to move the ball instead of handing it to Durant and staring at him while he does nothing, they deserve to lose.

The constant switching on defense makes moving the ball harder (watch how many deflections Boston generates with that same defense), and Houston is absurdly good at that style of defense. You know how you torch it? With some really good isolation scoring. You keep running pick & rolls and hunt out a matchup that you can exploit (like teams did constantly to the 2016 & 2017 Celtics).

Guess what the Warriors have, in theory? Two really fucking lethal isolation scorers. So they should be able to get by this. But Durant took a giant dump in the fourth quarter last night.

coremiller · May 25, 2018

Iggy is not a catastrophic loss, but he's a very good two-way player and his absence is felt. The Warriors lost both of the last two games on the last possession. It's certainly plausible they would have won both games with him, as it is that they could have won both games without him if they'd played a little better.

Reverend · May 25, 2018

DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
I don't know which one of you miscreants is Janos but kudos on the fine work:

Janos: I am read small insurance guy is hurt leg so now Rocket Beard is ready for big choke when team is need on him most . he is maybe prefer on loose . he is scare of Marvin Smart who make him look like big fool do foul .

This guy has a gift.

InstaFace · May 25, 2018

I for one appreciate the continuous updates from Janos whenever he offers his thoughts, like manna crumbs from heaven.

johnmd20 · May 25, 2018

"I am read small insurance guy is hurt leg" is funny for about 5 different reasons. He most certainly has a gift.

SemperFidelisSox · May 25, 2018

Cavs by 10+ tonight.

NBA playoffs 2018

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