The lousy defense of those two in a series in which the other team actually targets them puts a really hard ceiling on Dallas. How often do teams make deep playoff runs when their two best players are defensive liabilities? I've been down on the Clippers most of the year (and they've been perfectly average for 2 months now), but assuming health, I'd still take them over the Mavs in round 1.
I don’t think Kyrie’s defense is a liability at all. Luka should have more energy to expend by not having to carry the entire offensive load but that didn’t seem to pan out last year. I think overall they are pretty average defensively with one of the most explosive offenses….that’s how they’ve won 14 of 16. They are peaking at the right time unlike say the Clippers whose came a little too early.
Before this current streak, they lost three in a row - to BOS (by 28), to PHI (without Embiid), and to IND (by 17). Since then they have beaten: MIA, DET, CHI, GSW (2x), DEN (on the insane Kyrie lefty hook shot and after Murray missed a pull-up jumper he normally makes like 85% of the time IMO), SAS, UT (2x), SAC (2x and 2nd game is when Monk got hurt), HOU (2x), and ATL. Not exactly murderers wow.
GM/Coach/Agent-speak is so funny sometimes. I’m a big fan of it. Lol “veteran presence” on an already veteran-laden team. One time I’d love to hear “Well there was an open roster spot, obv IT can’t play anymore but hey it’s a good match for Phoenix to do one of the top agency a solid and get our guy back in the league. Maybe one day we can help them out too wink wink.”
Yeah, they don't really need a veteran presence. Though, and I know some are bigger on KD than I, frankly IT is probably the best leader and most successful (team-wise) guy in the room, too.
I love ripping Booker and KD as much as the next guy, but this doesn't quite track. Even if we totally discount KD's warrior years, he still got to 4 WC finals with OKC (and one trip to the finals), and Booker got to the finals as well. I love IT, but his only trips to the playoffs were 2015-2017 with Boston. Two first round exits and an EC finals that ended with IT on the bench, getting pasted by Cleveland.
No Kawhi, no Harden, and Phoenix might need this game in order to avoid the play in (their last three are road games against the Clippers, Kings and Wolves). Phoenix really has a habit of totally disappearing in giant games from time to time.
It may be 2 weeks to recover but he is susceptible to doing it again as he just did last night. Those calves are tricky bc they can feel 100% then just blow again. Going full throttle in a playoff game is only going to increase the risk.
Exactly. Isn't that what happened to KD? Came back too quickly and then blew out his Achilles?
Yep, KD definitely didn't rush back. I thought he was out like a month with the calf strain before returning in the finals, and then blowing out the achilles.
Yeah, I follow Jesse Morse too for fantasy related stuff, and while his ortho-related stuff might be sound, once he started posting about ozone therapy, avoiding seed oils, and other pseudoscientific quackery I got curious and turns out his MD is from a diploma mill in the Caribbean. Doesn’t necessarily mean his insights on sport injuries are useless, but certainly gives me pause that this guy is more salesman than anything else
Seems like a HIPAA violation to just post someone’s scans, even if it’s anonymous. He doesn’t own that health data. Gross.
I scrolled through fast but where did he post scans of anyone? I only see the internet stock photo.
I'll save @radsoxfan the trouble but he posted this in one of the Trevor Story threads; personally I don't know anything about Morse but I know that radsoxfan is someone to listen to.
His post said: "Below I have attached an ultrasound photo of an NBA player I evaluated with a soleus strain."
Ty for posting. One of my follows shared it. To be fair, his take on this injury is similar to what I’ve heard from reputable doctors in the past which is why I posted. Bye bye Morse!
Yeah probably not something a doctor should do but there are countless X-rays like this online with a simple search.
This particular post of his is pretty standard stuff and I agree generally about Giannis' injury situation. Achilles sounds like it's fine, all depends on the degree of the calf "strain" for a return to play.
Hah, good to see suspicions confirmed by a real doc. Or X-ray technician, whatever
Fair enough, didn’t mean to paint them all in a bad light (I have a friend who went to one after getting shut out of med schools and she’s a serious person doing good things now) I just dug around a bit about the one he went to and it seems to have a poor reputation.
Very authoritative, lots of non-traditional methods, definitely takes advantage of patients by pretending to be on the "cutting edge".
He’s also been dealing with achilles tendonitis in the same leg leading up to this. Whether it contributed to this, who knows, but he’s not in a great situation.
Agree seems higher risk than the average calf strain in the near term, just sort of reading the tea leaves on the updates for him all month.
Yeah there sure are gullible Floridians out there. He tried the 5-10k deal on my left calf but I’m too smart for that….so I negotiated a 2-for-1 and he’s gonna do both calves for 5k!
