The 2nd Season - 2019 Playoff Thread

Pablo's TB Lover

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I mean these guys were practically a guaranteed 110-120 against the C's every night during their series. True they are tight but Toronto is really clamping down.
 

CreedBratton

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I kind of still can’t believe Celtics got punked by these bums. Giannis taking himself out of the game. Can’t handle the pressure
 

Kliq

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Jeez, how do you give up that offensive rebound? How does the ball BOUNCE before someone touches it?
 

Kliq

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I don’t even know how they can fix that call. They can’t wave off the basket and give Lowry two free throws, can they?
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Interesting sidenote for Boston fans. If Toronto wins this series, the chances of Kawhi staying there doesn't necessarily go up but the Bucks have a lot of guys hitting the market this offseason. There exists a distinct possibility that both these teams could be one and done this deep in the playoffs, even with Giannis' greatness.
 

BigSoxFan

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Interesting sidenote for Boston fans. If Toronto wins this series, the chances of Kawhi staying there doesn't necessarily go up but the Bucks have a lot of guys hitting the market this offseason. There exists a distinct possibility that both these teams could be one and done this deep in the playoffs, even with Giannis' greatness.
Yup. AD still looks pretty damn enticing to me.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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Yup. AD still looks pretty damn enticing to me.
Meanwhile, your boy Kawhi Leonard is proving that he is still in the conversation as the best player in the NBA. That was impressive as hell. His defense this series has been even better than you could have hoped, especially on one leg. He is a beast.
 

ElUno20

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This will be the biggest finals mismatch since baby lebron vs the spurs.


Coach Bud deserves a ton of shit. Zero adjustments to the Raptors defense all 2nd half. They basically just played streetball and hoped for the best.
 

BigSoxFan

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Meanwhile, your boy Kawhi Leonard is proving that he is still in the conversation as the best player in the NBA. That was impressive as hell. His defense this series has been even better than you could have hoped, especially on one leg. He is a beast.
Absolutely. What a steal for Toronto, even if he stays only 1 year. Zaza may have cost the Spurs a title. We’ll never know but they were smoking GS in Game 1.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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This will be the biggest finals mismatch since baby lebron vs the spurs.
I know you are taking this position to manage your expectations but the reality is that the "Bucks as favorites" and "Bucks in five" comments upthread weren't good calls either. Either of these teams will give a hobbled Golden State a lot of trouble. No KD to start if at all and Iguodala hurting...
 

ElUno20

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I know you are taking this position to manage your expectations but the reality is that the "Bucks as favorites" and "Bucks in five" comments upthread weren't good calls either. Either of these teams will give a hobbled Golden State a lot of trouble. No KD to start if at all and Iguodala hurting...
I'm not managing squat. Steph is a damn supernova and Dray is playing with a huge chip on his shoulder. I'd guess the raps would open at best a +400 to win the series.
 

HomeRunBaker

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I'm not managing squat. Steph is a damn supernova and Dray is playing with a huge chip on his shoulder. I'd guess the raps would open at best a +400 to win the series.
Cousins return gives the Bucks/Raptors winner a shit ton of hope especially if Iguodala is out or less than 100%.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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I mean these guys were practically a guaranteed 110-120 against the C's every night during their series. True they are tight but Toronto is really clamping down.
I don't have the stats (and in fact don't know where to get them) but my feeling is that the Cs did okay to good in the half court but got killed in transition off missed shots and turnovers. I.e., if the Cs had made some shots/taken care of the ball, they would have held MIL to a much lower point total.
 

Pablo's TB Lover

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I don't have the stats (and in fact don't know where to get them) but my feeling is that the Cs did okay to good in the half court but got killed in transition off missed shots and turnovers. I.e., if the Cs had made some shots/taken care of the ball, they would have held MIL to a much lower point total.
Couldn't quite find the advanced options on NBA.com to sort this out, but for the entire playoffs the Bucks have averaged 10 more transition points than 2nd place out of all playoff teams (31 ppg vs 21 ppg second place). It stands to reason that Toronto has kept there transition opportunities in check, so that average was probably even higher during the Celtics series.
 

moondog80

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It will never happen but it would be pretty great for the Raptors to win it all.

I don't know...If I were betting I'd go with Golden State, but I feel like Toronto/Milwaukee has a shot in a way that I didn't feel about Cleveland the past few years. The stat about Portland having the lead for more minutes than GS in their series is very Duquetteian, but it has to mean *something*, right? They seem a bit vulnerable.
 

Sam Ray Not

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DeJesus may be the only one here will enjoy this half as much as I did, but this was really well done:


(El Uno, break out the Pepto Bismol, lol)
 

Sam Ray Not

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I'm not managing squat. Steph is a damn supernova and Dray is playing with a huge chip on his shoulder. I'd guess the raps would open at best a +400 to win the series.
For whatever reason — I'm assuming largely the news that KD won't be ready for Game 1? — 538 now has the Raptors as mild favorites, 47% to 41% GSW. Weird, cos right after the Blazers sweep I think it was like 63% GSW with TOR/MIL roughly splitting the remaining 37%.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2019-nba-predictions/
 

HowBoutDemSox

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For whatever reason — I'm assuming largely the news that KD won't be ready for Game 1? — 538 now has the Raptors as mild favorites, 47% to 41% GSW. Weird, cos right after the Blazers sweep I think it was like 63% GSW with TOR/MIL roughly splitting the remaining 37%.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2019-nba-predictions/
I’m still seeing GSW at around -285 to win the title, so Vegas appears to be less swayed by either Eastern team.
 

lovegtm

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Was this trade even possible? People around here state it as a fact when we have little evidence that this was even a possibility.
Jay King out with a story in the Athletic today, with more sources saying that the Celtics wouldn’t include Brown, and instead were trying to get it done with picks. Lowe’s sources are generally plugged in as well.

The thing is, this isn’t surprising at all. Jaylen, last summer, was one of the best young prospects in the league, turning 22, with 6-7 more years of team control, and tons of untapped upside that would have been an amazing fit anywhere, but particularly San Antonio. Kawhi at the time was a flight risk, and no one knew whether he’d end up as Andrew Bynum 2.0.

I didn’t want Danny to do that deal at the time. I was very, very wrong, but the idea that Brown wouldn’t have gotten it done, given both the reporting and the valuations of the players at the time, seems wrong.

A fun question: would Masai have traded 2018 Jaylen Brown for Kawhi?
 

coremiller

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For whatever reason — I'm assuming largely the news that KD won't be ready for Game 1? — 538 now has the Raptors as mild favorites, 47% to 41% GSW. Weird, cos right after the Blazers sweep I think it was like 63% GSW with TOR/MIL roughly splitting the remaining 37%.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2019-nba-predictions/
We all should have written off the 538 model after they had the Warriors at something like 5% to win the title at the start of the 2018 playoffs, which was plainly absurd. Their model depends on regular season performance being predictive of post-season performance, and teams like the Warriors that coast through the regular season and flip the switch in the playoffs screw up the model.
 

Sam Ray Not

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We all should have written off the 538 model after they had the Warriors at something like 5% to win the title at the start of the 2018 playoffs, which was plainly absurd. Their model depends on regular season performance being predictive of post-season performance, and teams like the Warriors that coast through the regular season and flip the switch in the playoffs screw up the model.
Mostly agreed, although I'm pretty sure 538 radically adjusted their model this season to decrease its absurd day-to-day volatility, weighing things like past performance and playoff experience much more heavily than they did before. They actually had TOR as mild favorites over MIL when they were down 0-2 and everyone was completely writing them off — I think largely due to the presence of Kawhi and the greenness of MIL. Their model is looking pretty good on that front right now.

As for the Ws, again, I'm assuming the recent ~20% drop is the KD news, which seems reasonable enough when talking about the two time defending Finals MVP who was putting up 34 ppg on .655 TS when he went down — although I have no idea how you quantify something like "Durant probably won't be ready for Game 1 but is making good progress and we hope to have him back during the series."
 

jon abbey

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Mostly agreed, although I'm pretty sure 538 radically adjusted their model this season to decrease its absurd day-to-day volatility, weighing things like past performance and playoff experience much more heavily than they did before. They actually had TOR as mild favorites over MIL when they were down 0-2 and everyone was completely writing them off — I think largely due to the presence of Kawhi and the greenness of MIL. Their model is looking pretty good on that front right now.

As for the Ws, again, I'm assuming the recent ~20% drop is the KD news, which seems reasonable enough when talking about the two time defending Finals MVP who was putting up 34 ppg on .655 TS when he went down — although I have no idea how you quantify something like "Durant probably won't be ready for Game 1 but is making good progress and we hope to have him back during the series."
Nate Silver tweeted the specifics yesterday:

“We're interpreting the Warriors' statement as meaning KD definitely won't be back until Game 3, then an increasing chance after that but no guarantee. For Cousins, we assume an outside chance for Game 1 and then the chances increase such that he's definitely back by Game 6.”
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Jay King out with a story in the Athletic today, with more sources saying that the Celtics wouldn’t include Brown, and instead were trying to get it done with picks. Lowe’s sources are generally plugged in as well.

The thing is, this isn’t surprising at all. Jaylen, last summer, was one of the best young prospects in the league, turning 22, with 6-7 more years of team control, and tons of untapped upside that would have been an amazing fit anywhere, but particularly San Antonio. Kawhi at the time was a flight risk, and no one knew whether he’d end up as Andrew Bynum 2.0.

I didn’t want Danny to do that deal at the time. I was very, very wrong, but the idea that Brown wouldn’t have gotten it done, given both the reporting and the valuations of the players at the time, seems wrong.

A fun question: would Masai have traded 2018 Jaylen Brown for Kawhi?
Obviously this is just speculation but I think DA would have done it if it was just that KL was a flight risk. But if you recall, the bigger risk was that how engaged KL would be coming back from his injury - in fact, teams had to worry whether he was going to play at all until he got where he wanted to be - and whether the injury would affect his play.

TOR was in a great position where they had an All-Star from whom they clearly wanted to move on plus Pops had no interest in a rebuild so I guess Pops was okay in going to the playoffs every year but not really having a chance to win it all.
 

tims4wins

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Obviously this is just speculation but I think DA would have done it if it was just that KL was a flight risk. But if you recall, the bigger risk was that how engaged KL would be coming back from his injury - in fact, teams had to worry whether he was going to play at all until he got where he wanted to be - and whether the injury would affect his play.

TOR was in a great position where they had an All-Star from whom they clearly wanted to move on plus Pops had no interest in a rebuild so I guess Pops was okay in going to the playoffs every year but not really having a chance to win it all.
Yeah not trading for Kawhi doesn't look awesome now, but a year ago there were huge huge question marks about his health, drive, etc. I bet if you polled this board (maybe we did, I can't remember) that the majority would have voted not to trade Jaylen for him.