NBA Playoffs 2016

[faldor]

I think OKC closes it out at Game 6.  Even with the win, GS did not look very convincing last night... I thought it was 8 against 5, as the refs were giving them every call. 

Also, I expect Cavs to take the East tonight.  And then beat OKC in the finals in 6. 

Agree. OKC played their worst game of the series last night...and probably their 2nd worst of the playoffs.

GS got the benefit of every call, and every no call, pretty much all night.

And yet....GS eked out the win. It was not all that convincing a victory, IMHO.

That's not to say they can't rebound and play better in OKC and steal another one, but....I'd agree that I think OKC takes game 6 to close it out.

Durant and Westbrook don't seem to be too worried about GS here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSs0bbdDhOA.  I know they were speaking only in reference to Curry as a defender, but when one team see's the other team's best player as a laughable, that is not a good sign.  Durant and Westbrook just come off as beyond convinced that the 2 of them can beat GS with any 3 random guys (even Jaeball, faldor and Baconman... ok, maybe not Baconman). 

Ha! I had some pretty sick post moves back in the day. I was like the Kevin McHale of youth basketball. But then I stopped growing. Not many 6' big men dominating the paint these days.

Big win for Golden St to say the least. Can't see them losing game 7 at home, but you never know. I think Cleveland has a solid shot in the finals.

[kaasupoltin]

Jeez, that game 6 was the opportunity of a lifetime for OKC but they just didn't make use of it. If Golden State doesn't take a step forward though, I think OKC still has a chance to grab the win tonight. It's just never easy at the Oracle...

Anyways, I'm all for Cleveland this time!

[GeorgeSteele]

Very weak performance by OKC in Game 6.  They should have brought their A game, would have still won if they just played their C game, but instead put up a stinking F.  Horrible shooting by Durant and Westbrook, 6 turnovers in the last 2:49... and yet still, GS barely eked out the win (and that's even with GS shooting near 50% from 3 and a playoff record 11 3s from Klay Thompson).  I can't remember the last 3-3 series where one team seemed so far superior to the other.  For that, I have to still give the edge to OKC in Game 7.  Right now, they look like the better team by a good margin; not to discount home court, momentum, a possible 3-pt barrage by GS, etc., but at the end of the day, I'm picking the better team to win. 

[tim_m]

The officiating in this league is a joke. How was Adams not given a flagrant 2 for DDTing Green?

[kaasupoltin]

Boooo

I haven't seen the game 7 yet, it was on around 4 in the morning here. But sucky result!

Go Cavs! I think they have every chance to win the title, GS hasn't convinced me at all in the playoffs.

[JAEBALL]

The officiating in this league is a joke. How was Adams not given a flagrant 2 for DDTing Green?

Oh come on ! Green pulled him down !

Not a shocker... after game 6...this was a formality. Feel for OKC fans.

[pilferk]

The officiating in this league is a joke. How was Adams not given a flagrant 2 for DDTing Green?

I mean...not for nothing....but GS got the better end of the officiating last night.  I saw both Westbrook and Durant take full blown karate chops across the forearms, more than once (sending the ball flying wildly on short range shot attempts), and not get calls. Never mind flagrants (hey, at least they weren't getting kicked in the nuts), they weren't getting simple FOUL calls.

I watched The Splash brothers get collectively breathed on and they got calls.

And to be clear, I'm not complaining about it.  Superstars and home teams get the calls.  That's the NBA. I don't think it really had any noteable effect on the outcome.

As an aside, last night was a prime example of why I hate regular season NBA games (even though this wasn't one, it had all the hallmarks of one).  Travelling every drive. Nobody can make the short range jumper (or layup, for gods sake). Drive by defense in the paint. Then the entire game decends into watching guys heave the ball from outside the arc, taking (and making, mostly) shots that my high school coach, and pretty much every college coach, would bench you for taking.

In the playoffs, that tends to go away, because both the offense and defenses are better.  I know that's a big part of GS's game, and generally I'm OK with it because, for the playoffs, they mix in other good fundamentals.

But not last night.  OKC couldn't defend the perimeter, completely lost focus in the 3rd quarter, and looked lost. GS's defense was NOT the cause of much of OKC's woes..they flat out were missing open, short range, looks. Over and over and over again.  GS just put up (and drilled) terrible looking bomb after bomb until they rattled OKC.  It's boring basketball to me (esp since I'm not a member of the fanbase of either team...which isn't to say I don't like them, but...I'm watching for good basketball and games, not to see "my" team win). It worked, so you can't fault the result for GS. But it's not the game I want to watch. The other 6 games in the series were, IMHO, much more fun to watch.

I keep seeing predictions and polls about who you think (or want) to win.  I could care less. Both make good stories. Both teams "deserve it".  I just want 7 close, hard fought, wars the do the sport proud.

[GeorgeSteele]

^ Very good points on GS.  I've been making and continue to make the same mistake about them constantly.  From a conventional standpoint, they're a good, not great, team, who you would expect a team like OKC to crush.  OKC dominated them in this series from just about every quantitative and qualitative angle you can name... rebounding, 2nd chance points, points in the paint, quickness off the dribble, etc.  Basketball, as I have known and understood it, has always been about getting the ball as close to the rim for the easiest possible shot, ideally a dunk or layup.  GS is just not very good at that.  So I always wrongly assume that they'll go down at some point... but they don't.  And it's simply because they've turned conventional basketball wisdom on its head.  Basically, they've embraced the obvious logic that a 3-point shot is worth more than a 2-pt shot, so it's better to take more 3-pt shots. And to stack the team with guys who are good at shooting 3s.  It won't be long before most teams start playing like this.  It's not pretty, at least IMO, but it works. 

[D-GenerationX]

Steph is kind of a jerk, no?

Pretty arrogant, preens a lot, and taunts the other team pretty openly.

[GeorgeSteele]

Steph is kind of a jerk, no?

Pretty arrogant, preens a lot, and taunts the other team pretty openly.

He stuck his fucking finger in Westbrook's eye at one point last night.  Vicious, disgusting, unsanitary and all that, but diabolical too, as I'm sure it fucked up Westbrook's vision enough to throw off his shooting a bit.  He should be suspended minimum 1 game for that. 

Plus, the mouth guard, ugh, beyond gross. 

[pilferk]

^ Very good points on GS.  I've been making and continue to make the same mistake about them constantly.  From a conventional standpoint, they're a good, not great, team, who you would expect a team like OKC to crush.  OKC dominated them in this series from just about every quantitative and qualitative angle you can name... rebounding, 2nd chance points, points in the paint, quickness off the dribble, etc.  Basketball, as I have known and understood it, has always been about getting the ball as close to the rim for the easiest possible shot, ideally a dunk or layup.  GS is just not very good at that.  So I always wrongly assume that they'll go down at some point... but they don't.  And it's simply because they've turned conventional basketball wisdom on its head.  Basically, they've embraced the obvious logic that a 3-point shot is worth more than a 2-pt shot, so it's better to take more 3-pt shots. And to stack the team with guys who are good at shooting 3s.  It won't be long before most teams start playing like this.  It's not pretty, at least IMO, but it works. 

Essentially.

Basically, there are 2 worthwhile shots that increase offensive efficiency: the dunk/layup, and the 3.  And the dunk/layup, only because/if it opens up from, or is the result of the defense overplaying, the 3. The make % is soooo high in that case (85% or more) it balances out the points "lost".

The midrange, and even short range, jumper is worthless. Largely because the make % of those shots isnt "enough" greater than the make % of the three to outweigh the 50% increase in points scored with the 3.

And it becomes sort of self fulfilling. Chicks dig the long ball, so fewer and fewer work on their short game. Which makes the offensive efficiency of the 3 even greater. And so on.

Thats todays nba. As i said, its less so in the playoffs. But, for me, tje regular season is almost unwatchable.

Honestly, i think the 3 line needs to come back 18 to 24 inches.....and no corner threes at all.  But that will never happen.

[GeorgeSteele]

^ Agree on the rule change, but also agree no chance of it happening.  So long as the average 3-pt shooting percentage is greater than 2/3rds of the 2-pt shooting percentage in the league (and it basically almost always is by a good margin), then the 3-pt concept as it is now is flawed.  I'm just amazed that it took all these decades before a team realized to exploit that flaw.  So now, 45 minutes of one team's dominance can be undone by isolated 3-pt shooting sprees. 

[JAEBALL]

It's bad for the sport because everybody is going to try to copy the formula ... But these two shooters are just not normal ...it won't work.

[pilferk]

It's bad for the sport because everybody is going to try to copy the formula ... But these two shooters are just not normal ...it won't work.

It will, actually. Hell, it has!

It might not work AS well...certainly not at the outset...because its going to be hard to get two shooters with high make %s on the same team. There are teams starting to do it, now. You can see the cavs doing quite a bit of it in the playoffs, this year, too.  Other teams were leaning that way, and hasdsuccess, in the regular season. They didn't win 73, or make the finals, but....improved results over previous years for those teams.

And those other 3pt shooting players exist to bring in, and given the numbers, i think you'll see more teams working to get those pairs, esp as the cap number baloons after next season. And you will see guys start working on their long game more, too, because it will mean bigger demand in the fa market.

They might not be exactly gs's guys, but they will be closer to that model than what most of us have thought of as the traditional nba model.

Its either move the line, or live with ths being the new nba status quo.

[GeorgeSteele]

I think GS will continue to have the edge over the rest of league in the near future simply because they constructed their roster for that purpose.  The rest of the league will follow their lead and start drafting and signing players who fit the Ray Allen prototype instead of the Jordan prototype.  Once the rest of the league catches up, I think we'll start seeing many 7- and 8-seeds winning NBA titles because this 'jack up as many 3s as possible' shit is a lot more random in a playoff series. 

As for my finals prediction, who the hell knows?  It was inconceivable that it would take GS 6 games to beat a one-man Lebron team last year... I could just as easily see them sweeping a stacked Cavs team this time around.  It all depends on the frequency and accuracy of their 3-bombs, which is impossible to predict for a short series. 

[tim_m]

The officiating in this league is a joke. How was Adams not given a flagrant 2 for DDTing Green?

Oh come on ! Green pulled him down !

Not a shocker... after game 6...this was a formality. Feel for OKC fans.

But he wrapped his arm around the guys neck!

[kaasupoltin]

Steph is kind of a jerk, no?

Pretty arrogant, preens a lot, and taunts the other team pretty openly.

Yeah, he seems to be pretty full of himself. Of course he's good, but I can't stand arrogant athletes at all, no matter how great one is.

By the way, I also agree with the talk about moving the 3pt line. But even more importantly I'd put the emphasis on making the court a little wider, thus allowing the arc to actually be an arc. That would reduce the number of easy 3's from the corners.

[pilferk]

Steph is kind of a jerk, no?

Pretty arrogant, preens a lot, and taunts the other team pretty openly.

Yeah, he seems to be pretty full of himself. Of course he's good, but I can't stand arrogant athletes at all, no matter how great one is.

By the way, I also agree with the talk about moving the 3pt line. But even more importantly I'd put the emphasis on making the court a little wider, thus allowing the arc to actually be an arc. That would reduce the number of easy 3's from the corners.

See, I'd leave the court width and just eliminate the corner 3 altogether.  Arc intersects the sideline and the corners are inside the 2pt area.  If you move the line up, the arc just intersects further up from the baseline.

That accomplishes two things: It makes the shots harder, and gives the defense less area to have to cover in the 3 point range..  On offense, your traditional 2 and 3 position players are now unable to set up on the wings and bury shorter 3 pointers and it makes them less effective distributors of the ball if they set up behind the arc, because it packs the 1,2, and 3 position players in a confined area.  And your 4 is going to have a much harder time popping out from down low to bury that corner 3 pointer, too.

But, this is all pipe dreams.  The NBA will never, ever go for it.  They LIKE the 3 ball, because they feel it makes the game "exciting".  To me, the over-emphasis on it, of late, just removes most of the strategy, positioning, and actual PLAYS from the game.  But I"m not their target audience, mostly.

[kaasupoltin]

To me, the over-emphasis on it, of late, just removes most of the strategy, positioning, and actual PLAYS from the game.

Exactly. Too much of standing and waiting for an easy 3pt shot these days. And too little actual physical play and use of brains.

It does give the shorter ones a possibility though, if they can shoot from the current arc.

[Layne Staley's Sunglasses]

Anyone but LeBron, I always say.