Let’s not celebrate anything just yet. At least unless Denver wins one in LA where they are going to be facing the full fury of 8 on 5 basketball.
2023 NBA Playoffs
- Thread starter BaseballJones
- Start date
It's delicious that Lebron's shot selection has been a key reason why Lakers have lost both games.
Based on what? Denver has been the better team all year.. even after the Lakers made their trades and started playing better
From the trade deadline to the end of the regular season, the Lakers were 3.5 games better than Denver (19-8 for LA, 15-11 for Denver). The Nuggets basically took the final month of the season off so that alone isn't worth much, but for a top seed their playoff experience isn't great, and they were never much more than average defensively (solidly worse than the Lakers in that regard). It's still early in the series, but Lebron in particular looks tired. All those bricked 3s, the two easy layups he missed, them being in playoff mode for months is hopefully finally taking its toll.
.. Based on record.. ok. But where did they start from? Nuggets had the top seed rapped up I'd imagine.. like you said.
Based on how the first two series have gone.. I'm just not sure why anyone is picking the Lakers over Denver at this point.
I've been skeptical about the Nuggets because of their very average defense (and area in which the Lakers have always had the edge), and it's not hard to be bullish about the Lakers post trade deadline considering how they finished the regular season (lots of close games against average teams and lucky wins against better teams missing key players, but winning 70% of your games is nice no matter how you slice it) and how they beat the Warriors in round 2. The Nuggets were slight favorites heading into the series, and I imagine few are better against them now.
If the Cs end up shitting the bed, I'm a Nuggets fan from here on out, and probably into next year. Insanely fun team.
It also worked out well for them to not play GSW, since Curry would be really tough for them, as we've seen in the past.
(If the Celtics do advance, and it's Denver in the Finals, going to be really tough.)
It also worked out well for them to not play GSW, since Curry would be really tough for them, as we've seen in the past.
(If the Celtics do advance, and it's Denver in the Finals, going to be really tough.)
Yup. Denver is looking like the best team left. I would love a Celtics/Nuggets series. I wouldn’t be overly confident about winning but losing to Jokic wouldn’t sting like losing to the Heat, Lakers, Warriors, etc. Let’s hope they can get one in LA. Won’t be easy.
(and a win tonight would be appreciated, Celtics)
Jokes aside, Hachimura was not only on fire on offense (a mini LeBron, honestly, in how easily he was getting to the rim and getting layups and dunks, though it was mostly off of action not creating his own shot), and was definitely put on Jokic for brief stretches. The Lakers' plan was clearly to stay home and not help on Jokic, not let him beat them with his passing, and see if he could beat them with his scoring. They found out.
While there are no bad shooters among the Denver starters, I have to imagine there are some who are at least as bad as PJ Tucker, and they could thus run the Celtics' plan for Embiid: put LeBron on Jokic, have Davis cheat off the weak side and be ready to help at the rim. I believe they were doing this for stretches in both games. But I'll have to wait for Ben Thompson to tell us whether it was working (in the aggregate) or not.
Also, we all deserve a tweet clip or a GIF of LeBron totally blowing the breakaway dunk and fumbling it out of bounds. I think it would get some use around here as a reply GIF.
I never understand why people discount the Lakers' 2020 title. Was I happy about it? Absolutely fucking not. But the lack of travel was the same for all teams, and it's not a game of "who can put up with flights and hotels the most", it's a game of basketball. They had to win 4 out of 7 of those games of basketball, for the usual 4 consecutive rounds - there wasn't, I dunno, some single-elimination tournament to decide the title and they won it on a fluke. Oh, so the Lakers' injury-prone stars managed to stay healthy for once? Yeah, that's the thing with injuries and injury-prone-ness: sometimes they happen, sometimes they don't. We were not entitled, as Lakers haters, to them being permanently injured and broken down. We should be thankful they only pulled it all together and had everything line up just that once.
I'm upset that they were able to survive that tournament, and I'm upset that we didn't take our chances to be the one to stop them. But I don't think it's any more fair to say there should be an asterisk there than it is to say that the Celtics won 8 in a row in an era with only 8 teams, 2 playoff rounds and no salary cap, therefore those are all suspect. Winning in today's 30-team league is fucking hard, and there was nothing cheap or exceptional about the Lakers' 2020 title or any way in which they were favored relative to any other team.
I don't know what you're referring to, or what you think you're arguing with. I was laughing along with your teasing of the people who hastily predicted doom for the Nuggets, and using that as a jumping-off point to remark on some things I thought notable about the game last night.
Phil Jackson put a giant asterisk on the Spurs’ 1999 title so I will gladly discount the Lakers’ 2020 one because, fuck them, that’s why.
I couldn't agree with this more. I wouldn't cheer for the Lakers against Al Qaeda, but I still wouldn't back an asterisk on that win. It's nice to say that shit to a Lakers fan just to get a rise out of them, but titles in strike-shortened years and covid years count the same as the others.
what if the Al Qaeda paid James Harden, Kyle Lowry and Trae Young to join their squad?
Look, fuck Phil Jackson and all (and good callout), but his argument was that it was a 50-game lockout-shortened season. And it was a bullshit argument because 16 teams still made the playoffs, and the Lakers got swept 4-0 by the Spurs in the second round (under coach Kurt Rambis, so real manna from heaven for Lakers haters). If Jackson had been coaching that year and his team had missed the playoffs by one game or something, I might've left the door open for those sour grapes, but really, over 50+ games, any team that's a serious championship contender should be able to make it into the top half of the league standings.
And it's not like that's the only strike-shortened season in NBA history, either. The 2011-2012 campaign was lockout-shortened and they played 66 regular-season games, and Derrick Rose tore his ACL, leading to a LeBron / Heatles cakewalk to the title. Is anyone out there saying that trophy should be a miniature version? How about how half of the Auerbach / Russell titles being played before they went to an 82-game season, the first few were 72-game seasons, and a lot of playoff series prior to the Finals were best-of-5 or even best-of-3 in those days, so we better throw some asterisks around liberally, hadn't we?
Well, look, in 2020 they played about 64-67 games before the stoppage, and then in the bubble, what was it, the top 12 teams from each conference played 8 more regular-season games? That's absolutely enough to have a valid playoff field. And having qualified a bunch of teams for the playoffs, there was nothing unusual about the playoffs, it was 4x rounds of best-of-7 against the other best teams. Not even Phil Jackson would put down his peyote and complain about the validity of that format.
I agree the Lakers Covid title was fairly legit (the TB Bucs were the most legit IMO since they played a full, continuous season, albeit without fans)... but the Dodgers title? After 50 regular season games? Blech
Yeah, it was pretty obvious that Lakers team was the best team that year. I just like giving Lakers fans a hard time about it. If anything, winning in the bubble shows even greater resilience than a normal champion.
fair enough, yeah we should continue to give Lakers fans a hard time about that and everything else.
I prefer "Jeanie Buss is the Eric Trump of NBA owners", myself.
I prefer "Jeanie Buss is the Eric Trump of NBA owners", myself.
Let's say there's a marathon, and after mile 17, everyone stops where they are and goes home. 4 months later the race resumes, with everyone just running 3 more miles, on treadmills, in their living rooms.
Did the winner deserve to win? Definitely, they competed under the same circumstances as everyone else, they were the best runner in that race. Do they deserve the same accolades, glory and recognition as other marathon winners? No, they do not. They competed in and won something slightly different, and definitely lesser than. One of the major points in a marathon (and the NBA season) is the ability to hold up over an 8 month slog, and the Lakers didn't have to do what every other nba champion has had to do. That this benefited them over other teams (considering their health and age concerns) isn't really relevant, but still fun to bring up. Playing in a hostile playoff atmosphere? No, they didn't have to do that either. All teams were under identical circumstances, but they just didn't have to do as much as other NBA champions. That's all.
The lakers and their fans should enjoy their mickey mouse title, but I reserve the right to give them shit every stop of the way about it, especially considering Phil Jackson trying to put an asterisk on the 99 spurs.
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This is exactly how I feel. If the Celtics lose to the Heat, I am going to have to take a break from basketball until next season. I can’t take listening to podcasts or watching the games and hearing about “Heat Culture”, I will literally vomit.
Losing to the Lakers will also be incredibly annoying but I’d take a little more solace in reaching the Finals before losing.
The reason one might is that from a durability standpoint the Lakers (a relatively old/injury prone roster) got to have several months off before it and thus had a mini-playoffs very different than they otherwise would have. But one has to assume injuries/fatigue affected them materailly differently than other teams for this to matter. That's not unreasonable at all, but also not a certainty. It is a real difference from bubble season to any other.
I do not, personally, find any other explanation to be credible---shorter season has happened other times; lack of fans is a 'who cares/who knows' for me, etc.
I think the bubble playoffs comprised a unique and difficult situation to win a championship. I'm not sure it is "lesser" than a normal title, but it's certainly different. It definitely gave a veteran team like the Lakers a better chance, having a break between the regular season and the playoffs for veteran players to regain their strength, than in a traditional season. But I wouldn't put an asterisk on the title.
However, if we are looking to docking the Lakers a title or two, the real focus should be on how the Minneapolis titles should not count for the grand total. It was a different city, not to mention during an era with no shot clock and virtually no Black players.
However, if we are looking to docking the Lakers a title or two, the real focus should be on how the Minneapolis titles should not count for the grand total. It was a different city, not to mention during an era with no shot clock and virtually no Black players.
Oh I heartily agree with you and others who point out that extra rest and diminished travel was a mighty tailwind to that Lakers title. Honestly it's indisputable.
But that's life. If the weather affects your knuckleball pitcher, or if there is an especially sunny day that costs your team a first round bye because your punt returner takes one in the mask at 4PM on a late December afternoon, shit happens. Sometimes the elements, acts of God, or labor negotiations affect one team more than others. Doesn't mean that it counts less.
For sure, and we'd be flipping it around - no team has ever won a title under those circumstances, isolated from friends and family and under the threat of a global pandemic, what mental toughness! And if it were 28 other teams, I'd never give a shit one way or the other.
But it's the Lakers, so fuck them them and their mickey mouse title.
First of all, it was bad enough when this board added a Yankee forum and wanted me to applaud the farewell tour of Captin Overrated, but demanding I respect the Lakers? Get bent.
The Lakers were an older team and would have had much more trouble with normal travel. There was a massive amount of luck that the Laker's poorly constructed roster could survive and thrive in a situation that favored veteran teams, just as the travel-heavy post-strike season hurt older teams in other years.
I am entitled to point out the massive amount of luck, and the incredible amount of favoritism the league shows the Lakers, and you are entitled to tell to me you think I am wrong, despite your being wrong.
An organization and fanbase that embraces the baseless ideas that the Celtics have been a racist organization because Larry Bird was white, while counting 5 segregation-era titles won in another city, and some in another league, deserves no allowances. Nor does the team that can openly, publically get away with criticizing officials in a way no other team is allowed. We all know LBJ will get FTS next game. We know it.
This off-season and every off-season a top-five player in the league will threaten to hold his breath until he is traded to the Lakers. And somehow, the league will allow it and if it turns out he sucks, the league will find a way for somebody else to take that contract off their hands. We live in a world where Kobe is in every GOAT conversation but Tim Duncan, Hakeem, and Larry Bird are not.
With all due respect. Fuck the Lakers and their cheap-ass bubble title.
yeah I'm not even going to reply, that post stands on its own merits, and I feel dirty even proposing that something about the Lakers isn't fundamentally perverted and bullshit.
Bravo.
When I worked in Merrill Lynch's back office in 1984 (RIP Boston ROC and Traveller's Building), we exchanged 'wires' (text-like communiques that would print out in the office) with the LA operations center. It was good-natured at first: 'Go Celts,' 'Lakers in 5,' 'Bird > Magic ' etc.--but after Game 3 and Bird's calling out himself and his teammates, it devolved into scurrilous remarks, most of which involved Kareem and Magic being overrated crybabies (we added Rambis post-McHale clothesline) from our side and condemnations of the thuggery of Boston, especially that doltish brute McHale, from theirs. It grew so heated and obscene (lots of stuff about Magic's mom and Bird being straight out of the cast of Deliverance) that everyone in each office was threatened with disciplinary action, including potential termination, if a single, non-business related message was sent.
Anyway, f*ck the Lakers.
The bat signal has gone out to “The Extender” Scott Foster. I was hoping he would be in Miami for Game 3.
kind of surprising. Lakers are at least at home, would have thought Foster got the Miami game
8:40 tip-off tonight
Edit: 8:42. Hopefully these are helpful so people don’t waste time.
Edit: 8:42. Hopefully these are helpful so people don’t waste time.
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They gotta throw him a bone. He's trying to pace himself for a 2nd half explosion