Playoff Game Thread
- Thread starter ElUno20
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and what a game for Nene off the bench. 12/12 28 points, 10 rebounds in 25 minutes. Rockets bench currently has 72 points, 25 rebounds.
80-77 Clippers after 3. Paul has 18 points, 11 assists, 9 boards.
Hayward played 9 minutes and is out for the rest of the game with food poisoning.
Hayward played 9 minutes and is out for the rest of the game with food poisoning.
I understand that are frustrated but Utah is a very good, deep team and they are peaking at the right time.
For all their talent, and I know they don't have Griffin, the Clippers are just a losing basketball team. Paul is super talented but it's a trend throughout his career that his teams are just not good in the playoffs.
You can't double ISO Joe, he just is too casual while splitting doubles and finding open shooters. One he made a couple shots LA was cooked.
You can't double ISO Joe, he just is too casual while splitting doubles and finding open shooters. One he made a couple shots LA was cooked.
Great coach (207-39 career??) but by all accounts an even greater person. Get well soon, Coach Kerr.
To the extent that worry about the Clips, I actually worry about them a bit more without Griffin than with. I think the Ws genuinely hate Griffin and his flopping and preening ways, which always gives them a little extra juice v. the Clips; and in hoops terms, Griffin forces the Clips to play a lot of two-big looks, which tend not to fly against the Ws. (For a 4, he's not horrific as a perimeter defender, but he's not Draymond or LeBron either).
But yeah, I definitely fear the Jazz more of the two teams, especially if Gobert is healthy. Nice combo of great D, great size, and disciplined O with good ball movement. And they remain the only team that has beaten the Warriors since Klay was asked to sign a toaster (even if it was a meaningless game for the Ws in which Klay didn't play). The Warriors are 18-1, or 18-0 with Thompson, since that historic moment...
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* Kerr always seemed like a class act. Wishing him a painless return.
* Lower back problems are the worst.
* Meh on the great coaching. Luke Walton was 39-4 leading this team last season.
While conferring daily with Kerr, in a system 100% designed and conceived by Kerr.
Kerr took a team that had been a 51-31 first-round exit the previous season — a team no one on this site or elsewhere in the hoops blogosphere pegged as a likely NBA champion, let alone a historically dominant team — to the greatest three-year run in NBA history. (Yeah, they added that Durant guy for 60 games of season three, but the initial 140-24 record and championship was with effectively the same roster Mark Jackson took to 51-31). The offensive turnaround was particularly mind-blowing: they went from the #12-ranked offense with the *fewest passes per possession in the NBA* to a historically dominant assist machine, with Green turning from scrappy sixth man / defensive energy guy into the best Spartan floor general since Magic; Curry going from a #6 in MVP voting (behind Joakim Noah!) to having the greatest offensive season of all time; and guys like Harrison Barnes and Mo Speights turning from totally useless to rather useful.
Meanwhile, Walton took over a young LOLakers team that had extremely modest expectations of marginal improvement ... and managed to fall well short of those expectations.
Kerr's always the first to deflect all credit to the greatness of his players and staff, but just 'cos he does that doesn't mean we have to.
I agree with you for the most part that he's an excellent coach and seems like an awesome guy in general. My only nitpick would be over Walton - that Lakers roster is sheer garbage and I think he did exactly what they needed him to do, which is finish in the top 3 to try and save the pick. It's the wrong situation to evaluate his ability as a coach in my opinion.
Two things.
I take umbrage at the suggestion that no one on this site saw the Warriors ascension into a championship contender or even Curry's evolution into a superstar. I caught a lot of grief for it (some of it deserved) early on.
Edit: I am no genius as everyone knows - I just had the benefit of living in the market and watching the team evolve night in and night out.
More importantly, you have to wonder what happens if Golden State wins this year or even If they don't.
If Kerr can't do the job physically, who replaces him? Is Walton, who must have some mixed feelings about the state of the Lakers, an option? Would Nash consider becoming a head coach? One thing this current Warriors ownership has shown is their preference to avoid conventional hires so it will be fascinating to see whom they pursue next if Kerr is forced to or simply chooses to step aside.
I take umbrage at the suggestion that no one on this site saw the Warriors ascension into a championship contender or even Curry's evolution into a superstar. I caught a lot of grief for it (some of it deserved) early on.
Edit: I am no genius as everyone knows - I just had the benefit of living in the market and watching the team evolve night in and night out.
More importantly, you have to wonder what happens if Golden State wins this year or even If they don't.
If Kerr can't do the job physically, who replaces him? Is Walton, who must have some mixed feelings about the state of the Lakers, an option? Would Nash consider becoming a head coach? One thing this current Warriors ownership has shown is their preference to avoid conventional hires so it will be fascinating to see whom they pursue next if Kerr is forced to or simply chooses to step aside.
It's always fun to check out the 2014-15 prediction thread...
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/2014-2015-nba-prediction-thread.6280/
I always love to troll-quote this comment in particular...
Are we sure the Warriors are that good? I think they are highly overrated and in a brutal west, no fucking way they are the top seed. They are relying on perhaps the most fragile player in the league to protect their rim, and have two horrifically bad defenders playing huge minutes in their starting five. They have a rookie coach who nobody knows if he is any good or not. They are bringing back largely the same team that lost in the first round, and they might not have even taken it to seven games if their other team wasn't going through an ownership crisis. I just don't see how anyone can think they are THAT good.
DeJesus and I both had the Ws in the 2015 finals (I had them beating the Cavs, hooray for me, DeJesus had them losing), but I mean, we're Warriors fans (as was Ethan Strauss, IIRC the only other mainstream pundit who thought of them as a legit contender). I think the general sentiment was much more along the lines of the quote above. The SlamOnline preview pegged them at 43-39, which is especially hilarious when you consider that Kerr is 207-39. (They nailed the loss total, just two seasons early!)
But heck, Lou, even you wrote this after the Mark Jackson firing...
That said, the Warriors are nowhere close to the elite in the West. Furthermore, while Jackson gets grief for his rotations, its unclear to me what sort of roster he really has. Andrew Bogut is showing signs of breaking down again, Lee is banged up, Curry isn't 100% and Andre Igoudala has been alarmingly fragile in the first year of his deal (the very reason that he is so effective defensively may also be contributing to his breaking down). And it was a flawed roster (thin and overly reliant on outside shooting...and note that the Warriors best bench scoring option is the one and only J-Turnover) to begin with so I am not sure if Jackson is bad at managing in-game or he simply doesn't have the horses. I'd vote the latter.
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/the-warriors-come-out-to-play.1106/page-2
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/2014-2015-nba-prediction-thread.6280/
I always love to troll-quote this comment in particular...
Are we sure the Warriors are that good? I think they are highly overrated and in a brutal west, no fucking way they are the top seed. They are relying on perhaps the most fragile player in the league to protect their rim, and have two horrifically bad defenders playing huge minutes in their starting five. They have a rookie coach who nobody knows if he is any good or not. They are bringing back largely the same team that lost in the first round, and they might not have even taken it to seven games if their other team wasn't going through an ownership crisis. I just don't see how anyone can think they are THAT good.
DeJesus and I both had the Ws in the 2015 finals (I had them beating the Cavs, hooray for me, DeJesus had them losing), but I mean, we're Warriors fans (as was Ethan Strauss, IIRC the only other mainstream pundit who thought of them as a legit contender). I think the general sentiment was much more along the lines of the quote above. The SlamOnline preview pegged them at 43-39, which is especially hilarious when you consider that Kerr is 207-39. (They nailed the loss total, just two seasons early!)
But heck, Lou, even you wrote this after the Mark Jackson firing...
That said, the Warriors are nowhere close to the elite in the West. Furthermore, while Jackson gets grief for his rotations, its unclear to me what sort of roster he really has. Andrew Bogut is showing signs of breaking down again, Lee is banged up, Curry isn't 100% and Andre Igoudala has been alarmingly fragile in the first year of his deal (the very reason that he is so effective defensively may also be contributing to his breaking down). And it was a flawed roster (thin and overly reliant on outside shooting...and note that the Warriors best bench scoring option is the one and only J-Turnover) to begin with so I am not sure if Jackson is bad at managing in-game or he simply doesn't have the horses. I'd vote the latter.
http://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/the-warriors-come-out-to-play.1106/page-2
I'm going to let the post stand because of the marginal relevance to assessing Kerr, but I personally, as a moderator and reader, am tired of reading about every time someone gave the Warriors side-eye, and the habit of pulling up old threads and messages just to trash them is pretty boring to everyone but the person doing it, and it's usually pretty crappy message-board behavior. Please consider this.
Second, this thread is largely a game thread it seems. Is there no substantive discussion to be had about the playoffs? Should we have a discussion thread? Serious question for the readers. I personally don't love when threads are a mix of news and instant reactions to games, but it might be just me.
Second, this thread is largely a game thread it seems. Is there no substantive discussion to be had about the playoffs? Should we have a discussion thread? Serious question for the readers. I personally don't love when threads are a mix of news and instant reactions to games, but it might be just me.
Sorry, Smas — fair points. I mean, the topic wasn't totally out of left field in the context of the Kerr health issues and trying to parse out his impact on the team's success. And of course the Warriors are always pretty relevant to any general 2017 NBA chatter. But as I noted in my post, there's a (friendly) Warrior-fan trolling/trashtalk aspect as well.
That said, my intent wasn't remotely to "trash" Kliq or DeJesus, who are two of my all-time favorite posters here (heck, I've gone out for drinks and watched the Warriors with DeJesus!) It was simply to point out that the Warriors when Kerr took over were not remotely the foregone conclusion that they seem to be now, in 20:20 hindsight. Heck, in my wildest dreams I didn't imagine they'd become what they've become.
Anyway, as you note, this is a game thread, consider this my last non-game-thready Warrior comment in here. If I want to talk Ws in the Port Cellar, I'll resurrect the old "Warriors Come Out to Play" thread so people who don't want to hear my fanboy slobbering can stay out.
That said, my intent wasn't remotely to "trash" Kliq or DeJesus, who are two of my all-time favorite posters here (heck, I've gone out for drinks and watched the Warriors with DeJesus!) It was simply to point out that the Warriors when Kerr took over were not remotely the foregone conclusion that they seem to be now, in 20:20 hindsight. Heck, in my wildest dreams I didn't imagine they'd become what they've become.
Anyway, as you note, this is a game thread, consider this my last non-game-thready Warrior comment in here. If I want to talk Ws in the Port Cellar, I'll resurrect the old "Warriors Come Out to Play" thread so people who don't want to hear my fanboy slobbering can stay out.
As the kids say, I am not mad at your post.
Back on topic, I am trying to think of a playoffs first round that has been as entertaining as this year's set of series. This has to be one of the best in recent years given how competitive all the games have been.
Back on topic, I am trying to think of a playoffs first round that has been as entertaining as this year's set of series. This has to be one of the best in recent years given how competitive all the games have been.
2014 sticks out in my mind; although I can barely recall specific moments, I remember very well being glued to the TV throughout that whole month of April (and a very strange conversation with an avid NBA fan who had somehow never heard of Zach Randolph in his entire life until those playoffs). Quickly checking Wikipedia, that was the year of Pierce's Game 7 block and the 8-seed Mavs almost knocking out San Antonio on their way to the title. 5/8 series went 7 games.
Regarding this thread specifically, as a (mostly) lurker, I don't expect these game threads to have one clear purpose and never waver over the course of several days. I for one welcome a wandering conversation, whether that's a nice back-and-forth about Steve Kerr's impact or not, to fill in the between-games lull -- but that's just me.
Well it certainly looks like the Warriors will win. This means the Celtics game will be at 8:30 Wednesday night.
If anyone predicted that the Cs and the Wiz would both be 2-2 before last Friday should be in Vegas making some real coin.
Amazing how inconsistent the 'Zards bench is.
Amazing how inconsistent the 'Zards bench is.
Was disappointed my nuggets didn't make the playoffs this year, but also relieved that they avoided playing GS. The nuggets probably match up better with GS than Portland does, but it still would have been a short series.
Series may have been a bit different if Nurkic played. Portland is a completely different team with him.
