NBA Regular Season & Playoffs 2018-19 Thread

shamrock55

Absolutely delighted that raps are in the final, I'm not a mad nba fan or anything but I've been following toronto for 5/6 yrs now, not so long ago they were pure ****e and I never wanted to see de rozan leave but kawhi is a serious player

Legion.

What a couple of days. Don't think I've stopped smiling. After so many near misses it feels so sweet, but the ride doesn't stop here. Excited to see what we can do vs the champs. But for a lot of Raptors fans we've been playing with house money since Game 7 vs Philly so to be in this position is just nuts.

Angliru

Stolen from reddit link. This blew my mind.

For Forks Sake

Good read on the Lakers circus: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26821790/lakers-20-failed-reboot-nba-crown-jewel

ButtersSuki

For Forks Sake wrote: »

Good read on the Lakers circus: http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26821790/lakers-20-failed-reboot-nba-crown-jewel

Read that (thanks for the link), and other sh*t show pieces on the Lakers this week. The shine is wearing off Magic Johnson pretty fast.....some pods really went to town on him too (the “movies” story was particularly insightful).

For Forks Sake

Rockets willing to trade anyone not named Harden.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26847098/rockets-making-cp3-others-available

Wonder which GM is dumb enough to consider paying $44.1 m to Chris Paul when he's nearly 40? *looks at Lakers*

ButtersSuki

For Forks Sake wrote: »

Rockets willing to trade anyone not named Harden.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/26847098/rockets-making-cp3-others-available

Wonder which GM is dumb enough to consider paying $44.1 m to Chris Paul when he's nearly 40? *looks at Lakers*

Simmons said it was a possibility about a month ago to be fair, given his relationship with Morey I’d assume he wasn’t saying that without some knowledge of Paul’s availability from a Rockets perspective at least. Only the Lakers/LeBron/Klutch would be daft enough to do it IMO.

Legion.

Analysis of the Raptors on the recent Simmons pod was pretty abysmal, as has a lot of the wider mainstream coverage. Still fine to listen to and all but when you're honed in on a particular team you really realise the tropes/nonsense thrown out when talking heads get rolling

Hitch2222

Legion. wrote: »

Analysis of the Raptors on the recent Simmons pod was pretty abysmal, as has a lot of the wider mainstream coverage. Still fine to listen to and all but when you're honed in on a particular team you really realise the tropes/nonsense thrown out when talking heads get rolling

Agreed with the media, now I do think Zach Lowe does a nice job of chopping down small pieces of tape to show different teams sets. He did a recent one for this, it's not long and while it'snarrative driven at least there is some logic beyond the chatter. Personally I think he's the best Grantland produced.

For me it simply comes down to the goal for the talking heads, say Stephen A, Skip etc, these guys are fully aware of what they're at, they know it's simply a controversial opinion delivered in a inflammatory manner, that's the audience, that's the goal and imo that's fine.
You know what you're getting.

The commentators that irk are the ones who are oblivious to their shortcomings. I know there are some Simmons fans and he's knowledgeable as is the rest of his staff but I think they sit in this odd space of not being Nate Silver/538, Thinking Basketball etc where their analytics aren't self derived, its "Heres an advanced metric, now let's run with that", kind of what I do tbf.
Conversely they don't have the inside scope of a WOJ or the "harder hitting" sports journalism of Jackie McMullan.
I think Kevin O'Conner is the best and could be very good moving forward, the new Zach Lowe but The Ringer leaves alot to be desired.
Simmons keeps it afloat but if you compare it to Grantland it's way off relative to it's time imo.

Carcharodon

On the off chance, anyone know any places that would be showing the game tonight in Madrid ? I could stream it on the phone but I know Madrid is a big basketball city and could be some place to watch it even if it’s late here.

Blinky Plebum

Carcharodon wrote: »

On the off chance, anyone know any places that would be showing the game tonight in Madrid ? I could stream it on the phone but I know Madrid is a big basketball city and could be some place to watch it even if it’s late here.

That's a very thinly veiled "I'm going to the champions league final" post.

You're better than that man.:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

simongurnick

Raps in 7! Kawhi stays, takes up skating as a hobby and leads the Leafs to the Stanley Cup the year after next.
You heard it here first folks!

Angliru

As long as they don't get swept I'll be happy.

Hitch2222

simongurnick wrote: »

Raps in 7! Kawhi stays, takes up skating as a hobby and leads the Leafs to the Stanley Cup the year after next.
You heard it here first folks!

He is being talked about as the most like Jordan now.

Mid career hiatus to take up Ice Hockey, abducted by Mickey Mouse & friends while hiking through Whistler with Steve Nash & Will Ferrell.

Needed to avert a 2nd a intergalactic takeover by the Monstars TV rivals who have stolen the talents of Yao Ming, Nate Robinson, Shaq, Chris Webber & Gilbert Arenas.

Plot writes itself really.

ButtersSuki

Carcharodon wrote: »

On the off chance, anyone know any places that would be showing the game tonight in Madrid ? I could stream it on the phone but I know Madrid is a big basketball city and could be some place to watch it even if it’s late here.

I was there for the Worlds a few years ago but I can’t remember any place as I was attending games. Considering the time difference I assume your only chance is your hotel...or streaming?

shamrock55

Think raps will win first 2 home games, if that's the case I think it'll go all the way with raps taking game 7,basically both teams win their home games

leggo

GSW in 5. The Raptors start series slowly then kick into another gear when their back is against the wall, they can’t do that here, especially with KD’s return looming. But to beat Golden State I think they’ll need to get a measure of them and adjust, and you can’t do that against them, especially when that adjustment could be countered by bringing back a 2-time Finals MVP and needing to then adjust to THAT. I’d love to be wrong. There’s a version in my head that says Raptors in 6/7. It’s just not the most realistic version.

simongurnick

It's on now...and kawhi was quiet

shamrock55

Great win for the raptors, brilliant game from siakam, drake being a dick again

Carcharodon

ButtersSuki wrote: »

I was there for the Worlds a few years ago but I can’t remember any place as I was attending games. Considering the time difference I assume your only chance is your hotel...or streaming?

Yea, followed it on my phone but to be honest I could of been looking at a rugby game the state I was in....

leggo

Really interested to see how Golden State adjust to Siakam without letting Kawhi go wild! We have a series!

simongurnick

shamrock55 wrote: »

Great win for the raptors, brilliant game from siakam, drake being a dick again

Drake is the man! Dell Curry shirt, sidestepping iggy and not taking any crap from draymond. The bucks hated him. It's just one more little thing to put the opposition off and make it uncomfortable to play in Toronto.

Hitch2222

leggo wrote: »

Really interested to see how Golden State adjust to Siakam without letting Kawhi go wild! We have a series!

I watched his highlights specifically and there's not much there that I think they'll be adjusting for, his passing was the most impressive part of that sequence imo, hit the open man quite often.

He got some shooter's rolls on a number of shots, a couple of hooks over Steph, one sweet move vs Greene and largely fastbreaks/open 3's.

I suspect if you told Kerr, you're going to lose tonight, how would you like to lose?

I don't think Kawhi shooting 20pts and Siakam going 14/17 while covered by Steph for large parts would be too far from the top of his list. It was a good solid performance but I don't think GSW will be overly disappointed having kept Kawhi relatively quiet.

simongurnick

Hitch2222 wrote: »

I watched his highlights specifically and there's not much there that I think they'll be adjusting for, his passing was the most impressive part of that sequence imo, hit the open man quite often.

He got some shooter's rolls on a number of shots, a couple of hooks over Steph, one sweet move vs Greene and largely fastbreaks/open 3's.

I suspect if you told Kerr, you're going to lose tonight, how would you like to lose?

I don't think Kawhi shooting 20pts and Siakam going 14/17 while covered by Steph for large parts would be too far from the top of his list. It was a good solid performance but I don't think GSW will be overly disappointed having kept Kawhi relatively quiet.

Raps defence did well too though. GSW average 117 pts and finished with 108

Hitch2222

simongurnick wrote: »

Raps defence did well too though. GSW average 117 pts and finished with 108

100% no doubts, I'm just saying I don't think Siakams offensive production last night is much for Kerr to adjust for.
He can live with what Siakam did offensively, he was excellent defensively as expected.

simongurnick

My worry as a Raps fan is the return of KD. But you have to beat the best to be the best.

Hitch2222

simongurnick wrote: »

My worry as a Raps fan is the return of KD. But you have to beat the best to be the best.

You need KD to be quite below his best to win imo.

What's funny about all this is that as Lloyd and I agreed on a week or so ago, I'm still not sure if the Raptors win the title that he stays which feels a little crazy.

leggo

Hitch2222 wrote: »

I watched his highlights specifically and there's not much there that I think they'll be adjusting for, his passing was the most impressive part of that sequence imo, hit the open man quite often.

He got some shooter's rolls on a number of shots, a couple of hooks over Steph, one sweet move vs Greene and largely fastbreaks/open 3's.

I suspect if you told Kerr, you're going to lose tonight, how would you like to lose?

I don't think Kawhi shooting 20pts and Siakam going 14/17 while covered by Steph for large parts would be too far from the top of his list. It was a good solid performance but I don't think GSW will be overly disappointed having kept Kawhi relatively quiet.

See I think a large part of what happened last night was that Toronto anticipated that GSW would try lock down Kawhi and made their peace with it in piling on responsibility to role players. If you look at a lot of Siakam’s open looks (and some of Green’s too), Kawhi is just hanging out disinterested in the corner or on the edge of the 3 taking up coverage, only drifting in if needed for the rebound. You’re right when you say that Siakam was the one who happened to perform on the night, so yeah they mightn’t need to specifically adjust for him, but if not him then Lowry or FVV or Green could be the guy on Sunday. Now they need to respect the Raptors’ role players and can’t go all-in on Kawhi because Toronto have shown they can win even with him at half-speed. So the flip side of that is less attention on Kawhi means risking opening him up.

I’m starting to convince myself Toronto will do this if KD doesn’t come back on time!

Hitch2222

Robin Lopez

Angliru

I wonder how many different burners Durant used to reply to that tweet.