2021 NBA Playoffs Gamethread
- Thread starter JohnnyTheBone
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Seems crazy to let him back in without an MRI for clarity, especially up 2-1 in the series and losing big in the game.
It is unreal how many of those “automatic” boosts get ruined by ridiculous circumstances.
Freakonomics did an episode years back where they said what makes sports entertaining is the something like the tradeoff of skill and randomness. I liked this framing. The NBA this year and the NHL regularly are a bit too random for my liking (generally the NBA is the opposite ie too predictable). The NFL seems to be right in my sweet spot.
View: https://twitter.com/Farbod_E/status/1410078754135703557?s=20
Sources: People within the Milwaukee Bucks organization fear that Giannis Antetokounmpo has suffered a severe ACL injury. However, no MRI has been done yet.
Sources: People within the Milwaukee Bucks organization fear that Giannis Antetokounmpo has suffered a severe ACL injury. However, no MRI has been done yet.
This sounds like the Lachman test shows the tear and they are holding on to the 6-8% chance that it wasn’t accurate.
Fuck. An ACL this late in the season is doubly catastrophic, since it hoses your team's title chances just as surely as an early season injury, while also destroying your entire next season. Secular-sports-praying that it's not as bad as feared...
When KD and Klay went down to catastrophic injury in the 2019 Finals, it was — to the best of my recollection, correct me if I'm wrong — the first time in the NBA's 70+ year history that a superstar in their prime had ever suffered a career-threatening injury (i.e. blown ACL or Achilles) in the playoffs. I could not and still cannot fathom how that could happen twice to the same team in the same playoffs, in consecutive games no less. And now we could be seeing it happen to both Kawhi and Giannis. (What's up with Kawhi, btw?) Is it just coincidence that something that never used to happen now seems to be happening somewhat regularly? Or are there some similarly catastrophic-injury-plagued postseasons of yore that I'm forgetting about?
Almost has to be random imo--these things do happen a fair amount.
I usually agree with the "no asterisks on a title approach", and I think last year's playoffs were totally legit. This feels really off, however. I can sort of squint and see the Suns as legit, but if the Kawhi-less Clippers or Hawks win, you'd be talking about an unprecedentedly bad title winner.
The Suns are legit but every team they have played has been missing one of their two best players: Anthony Davis, Jamal Murray, Kawhi.
To me it's been a kind of disastrous playoffs in the end, I was so hyped for the balance and openness with maybe 10 teams coming into it with a legit chance, and now 3 of the 4 teams left are playing without their best player.
Thanks... figured there was some rooting-interest bias therein. But it definitely was *way* rarer back in the day, right? I'd guess it's some combo of the increased strength/speed/explosiveness of the game due to weight training (etc.), along with the arduousness of four rounds of seven-game series. Plus I guess a bit of random variation...
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Andrew Bynum screwed Perk out of an ACL, and the Celtics out of a championship. I’m still bitter about it.
According to this article - https://www.sportscasting.com/most-significant-nba-playoffs-injuries-all-time/ - Yao Ming broken foot in 2009 Western semis was career-ending. It also mentioned two other examples: Walton broken foot in 1977-78 playoffs and Ewing achilles tear in 1999 Eastern Finals.
With respect to injuries, one of the things people have said over the years (no idea if this is true or not) that the year-round and constant working on players' bodies have lead to more injuries as they are bigger and don't let their bodies rest enough. Like I said, I have no idea if that's true or not but it makes some sense on a gut level.
This NBA playoff is setting injury record: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/16/sports/basketball/nba-record-all-stars-playoffs-injuries.html
Great find, thanks. So, not unprecedented, but rare.
In related news: if the Hawks win it all this year, it will not be the first time their title path was cleared by injury to their opponent's irreplaceable MVP big man. But it'll be the first time in a while...
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The idea of new teams being in the mix for the title sounds interesting on paper, but with all the injuries this year the playoffs have come off as really flat and haven’t held my interest. I think we are going to end with a champion that wasn’t one of the five best teams in the league, which is just crazy to think about.
Wade intentionally hurt Rondo which basically ended that years run. The past twenty years at least have had a ton of injuries that changed everything. LeBron has benefitted a lot from having a lot of teams with tremendous injury luck.. his teams have stayed healthy while key players have gotten injured on rivals teams.
The Celts should have had two or three more if not for injuries to Rondo, Garnett, and Perkins. Even this year their fate was pretty much sealed with Jaylen being out. There was also the year that IT lost his sister during the playoffs. Winning is a lot about skill, but you have to have a ton of luck as well.
YMMV, but these playoffs have been a joy for me. Nothing to do with new blood, but lots of damn tight games. Good story lines too...Playoff P finally showing up, Trae going bonkers, watching the Suns and Hawks explode onto the scene. I'm enjoying this as much as last year, except for the whole "no Celtics" part of it.
For sure. I was trying to draw a bit of a distinction between the injuries that knock players out of the playoffs (ankles, hammies, other strains and sprains, mild fractures, family tragedies, etc.) and the catastrophic ones that keep them out for the following season and threaten or alter their careers thereafter. But yeah… if we’re talking about the full gamut, I’d guess nearly every playoffs has been decided to one degree or another by injury.
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I would say pre-Giannis injury I was enjoying the playoffs greatly; at least because I think there was a lot of legitmacy to a Bucks vs Suns Finals which felt like it was heading there. Now, I think it's probably going to be a pretty questionable title when he look back at the season historically, but flags fly forever and I hope that fans of the franchise that does win it all this year are not immediately hit with the narrative that this year didn't count because so many people got hurt.
That being said, someone posted the other day that this year might not be an outlier as much as a changing of the guard. Older players break down in the playoffs, and it's not surprising that LeBron and his 50,000 career minutes wasn't super-healthy in the playoffs. A lot of the other bad injuries (Kyrie, Harden, Kawhi, Davis) came to players who are injured a lot, or in the case of Harden, doesn't take care of their body.
That being said, someone posted the other day that this year might not be an outlier as much as a changing of the guard. Older players break down in the playoffs, and it's not surprising that LeBron and his 50,000 career minutes wasn't super-healthy in the playoffs. A lot of the other bad injuries (Kyrie, Harden, Kawhi, Davis) came to players who are injured a lot, or in the case of Harden, doesn't take care of their body.
This is where I'd be even without the Hawks' involvement. And I can't believe the Hawks were playing so well without Trae for the first two-and-a-half quarters last night. But I did not want a Giannis injury, no matter what it means for the ATL.
(That said...if the Hawks win the title? I'm not going to care or long remember what happened to our opponents along the way. I've said all along that I thought Atlanta had the best #5 to #15 players of any roster in the league, and if it so happens that this postseason winds up being a depth referendum, I'll take it. I mean, it's not like Atlanta has had better injury luck than anyone else.)
*Head explodes*
Giannis, like AD’s and others, occurred when they left the ground and had mid-air contact causing them to land....if not awkwardly then in an unnatural position. These guys haven’t played a B2B in forever so yeah feel free to light my fire with the condensed schedule bullsh*t.
I have enjoyed these playoffs.
Also, I think 3 of the 4 teams left were arguably top 5 in the league teams.
If you asked me who the best fully healthy teams were I'd have gone:
Clippers, Lakers, Nets, Bucks as my locks (2 of those alive) and I'd have strongly considered Suns as #5 (other contenders were 76ers and Nuggets)
61,000+ if you count the playoffs. Magic and Bird were both done right around 40K, Jordan just short of 50K.
Yeah like, this might be it for LeBron being the dependable terminator that we have come to know and fear.
Celtics would have had a title in 1973 had Havlicek not hurt his shoulder against the Knicks in the ECF.
FYI, not sure where you heard that Harden doesn’t take care of his body. He has the reputation of one of the hardest workers off the floor in the league and has his workout videos online. Here’s one of them.
View: https://youtu.be/H2vtOdsXhig
Harden is definitely a hard worker in the gym and has added a lot of his game and has been historically been durable. I also have eyes and you can't tell me the guy is in peak physical shape, or he dedicates himself physically at the same level as the other elite players in the NBA. I wouldn't be shocked if his 30s are not kind to him.
I think the knock on Harden has traditionally been that his diet isn't great and he parties a lot and comes into camp with extra weight from the diet and booze.
I liked things a whole lot better a couple days ago, says the person that had been throwing a few bucks here and there on futures the last few months of the season, with the majority being on the Bucks, Suns and a Bucks/Suns finals.
Did throw a whole $1 on the Hawks at 1:110 so I have that at least...though now pretty much guarantees a Clippers championship.
As for the injuries, I do think muscle fatigue can play a role in any of these cases, even if it just seems like “bad luck”, but that said, I think it’s more realistic that this is more so a new normal (maybe just not to this extreme each year) and is a result of guys pushing their bodies to the brink (and possibly beyond) what should be humanly possible.
When you have 7 footers who can now play like point guards, I’m not really shocked if their bodies can’t hold up to that. And it’s not just the big guys, as the speed and ferocity in which smaller plays jump, stop and cut, at rimes seems inhuman as well, so again, it’s not really shocking when it proves to be too much for the body to handle and why I fear this could be the new norm.
Did throw a whole $1 on the Hawks at 1:110 so I have that at least...though now pretty much guarantees a Clippers championship.
As for the injuries, I do think muscle fatigue can play a role in any of these cases, even if it just seems like “bad luck”, but that said, I think it’s more realistic that this is more so a new normal (maybe just not to this extreme each year) and is a result of guys pushing their bodies to the brink (and possibly beyond) what should be humanly possible.
When you have 7 footers who can now play like point guards, I’m not really shocked if their bodies can’t hold up to that. And it’s not just the big guys, as the speed and ferocity in which smaller plays jump, stop and cut, at rimes seems inhuman as well, so again, it’s not really shocking when it proves to be too much for the body to handle and why I fear this could be the new norm.
Great news!
I find it almost impossible he doesn’t have some degree of bone bruising and a posterior capsular sprain, but those probably don’t fit “structural damage” criteria.
Will be interested to see if he makes it back at all this series or the potential finals, that would be impressive.
Regardless, next year he should be good to go. An ACL tear in June would have ruined next year as well.
Wow. Fantastic news, even if he misses the rest of the playoffs.
That jagoff who tweeted about it being a torn ACL (or “feared to be a severe ACL injury”) can go suck an egg.
Edit @ Zach Lowe: it’s “Woj and me.” Kinda surprising coming from a such a skilled wordsmith. Maybe he was just rushing to scoop Woj…?
Woj got it right!
View: https://twitter.com/wojespn/status/1410330506487492612
Gotta doubt he can come back in the next couple weeks regardless. That looked awful.
“severe ACL injury” in that report was a bit of a giveaway it could have been made up.
What does that mean? If it’s unstable they fear a torn ACL. Doesn’t get more severe than that but kind of weird terminology to refer to it as a “severe ACL injury”
This YouTube doc (in my lay opinion, one of the more reliable and informative sports injury sources this side of radsoxfan) seems to have nailed it:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUOTZFDNcac
As RSF says: near-certain damage to the posterior capsule, along with bone bruising where tibia and femur collide at the front of the knee. But it seems like the lack of lateral movement spared the ACL and PCL. Whew.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUOTZFDNcac
As RSF says: near-certain damage to the posterior capsule, along with bone bruising where tibia and femur collide at the front of the knee. But it seems like the lack of lateral movement spared the ACL and PCL. Whew.
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