I don't think Pitino is blameless.

Ehh, Westbrook may not be willing to run a great offensive system. However, nothing I have seen from Donovan in OKC or Scott Brooks in Washington indicates that Westbrook has ever been given even a good offensive system to run. Westbrook has his flaws for sure, but I am not sure how much blame he gets for driving to the hole, kicking it to a wide open Andre Roberson (or Carmelo Anthony) and having that player clang the shot.

I'm thinking that an "errant pass" might shut some of this sort of shit down.

Kendrick Perkins of Cleveland Cavaliers has heated exchange with entertainer Drake during and after Game 1 win over Toronto Raptors

Drake is not nearly strong enough to hurt Perk with a pass during the warm up line before the game.

Playing the Warriors is just soul draining.

Your team is playing all out, you get the sense that they are playing at, like, 90%, and you look up, and you are up by 3.

And then they decide to turn it on for a few minutes and put the game out of reach.

Their team building strategy of get a lot of great players and a great coach and implement a great system works really well.

That Toronto team has been frustrating to watch for years. What a choke job last night.

The sequence of four missed shots at the rim (in the same possession!) in a tie game at the end of regulation was brutal to watch.

Yeah, not sure why other teams aren't doing it. Just draft 3 superstars, bring in another at some point, and hire a rookie coach.

I'm thinking that a broken jaw for Drake might just be a benefit well beyond a stray NBA game.

Drake was a helluva ball player til that kid shot him in school

Twas but a flesh wound.

I've been watching Joe Ingles play basketball since he was a teenager and I still have no idea how he has turned out to be this type of player in the NBA.

:D

Dante Exum really shut down Harden when he was assigned to him. Harden scored 2 points on 22 possessions and was 0-7 from the field. Something to watch for going forward.

Pretty surreal time for Aussie basketball. Weird watching prime time news and getting NBA updates, which literally never happens except after the last game of the NBA finals.

Brutal regression past the mean on shooting to start, but a nice close to the half.

What's Kevin Hart going to do next round if Philly beats us and matches up vs LeBron? He's lucky Drake is sucking up all the negative NBA celebrity fan attention right now, because fake over laughing courtside will get old real quick as the 76ers have continued playoff appearances the next several years.

Re: the first game I wish the Raptors hadn't choked last game so it was still a series, but those "OG Anunoby: LeBron stopper" stories were laughable from the jump. Just like "Semi Ojeleye: LeBron stopper" stories will be if the Celtics get through!

Now the question is whether the series will end in Cleveland or if it will have to go back to LeBronto for a fifth game.

I imagine LeBron will dial it back down to 80% & Toronto can shoot well enough to "steal" a game.

The question in the other East series is whether Marcus Smart is so far inside Ben Simmons head that TJ McConnell is a better option.

What's the predicted spread on game 3, 76ers -4.5? (Ok, I actually think Philly will win game 3 & there is a good chance this series comes back to Boston tied 2-2, but Philly still being a 4.5 point favorite tonight seemed crazy to me.)

For the sake of Raptors fans I hope the Cavs wrap it up in Cleveland.

I wouldn't be shocked to see the Sixers swept. Going to be a major force if they keep their core components together, but this is probably a step too far for them right now.

I will be shocked if that happens. This was a game late in the 4th & Morris hit a ridiculous step back 3 after Redick missed one coming off a screen. And the Celtics play much worse on the road.

Long term, it's not exactly like they're losing to an older team. Horford is a veteran presence, and pulling a layup out after Rozier threw him the ball with like 4 seconds on the shot clock & a minute in the game was a veteran move, but these are mostly the same players who could be playing for the next 7 Eastern Conference titles.

I honestly don't understand why teams don't just double LeBron at half-court every time for at least a few possessions when he gets into a rhythm like that. Make someone else make shots for a while, even if it's wide-open. Doing the same thing and hoping he misses more just doesn't make sense.

Because NBA players are way too good at hitting open shots to make playing 3 on 4 D sensible even if he's on a roll.

I think Philly will win Game 3, or at least one of the two at home, but I thought people were joking when they said Philly was -9.5 point favorites for it. 9.5 points would be a high line for GS or Houston, let alone a team that's lost 2 straight and had it's best player on the bench for most of the 4th quarter because he was overwhelmed and playing poorly.

As a series-long strategy, that's probably true, but I'm not talking about doing that. Case in point: the game much earlier in LeBron's career when he scored the last 25 I think it was points of the game at the Palace against Detroit. Afterwards Flip Saunders said they did all they could to take it out of his hands -- which wasn't true. They doubled him about 40 feet away, James passed, eventually got it back with like 8-10 on the shot clock ... and then they just let him do whatever which usually ended in a made shot. Only a very few times did anyone else shoot -- and they missed every single time. Absolutely no good reason why they couldn't have doubled again, the only difference being this time there's a lot less time on the clock for the offense to do something.

I've also seen analyses at places like 538 which argued that a 'bad'
shot for an elite shooter like Curry(I think it applies to James when he's in the zone as well, esp. considering how much more accurate his deep ball is these days) is better than a good shot for almost anyone else. I just don't see a reason not to try it for a couple minutes to shake things up. If nothing else it can throw a team/player potentially out of the rhythm.

.02.

If you're advocating for early/aggressive doubles I like that. I thought you were arguing for doubling him off ball and playing 3v4 like Jimmy Patsos did once vs Steph Curry in college, which I do not think would work. It's a guaranteed open layup or open 3 for a guy like Korver, and puts you at a big disadvantage on the defensive glass even if they miss.

Philly unsure of the Process as to when to drop confetti.

Hint: Not for celebrating OT

JJ Redick having a hell of a game, but Sixers doing all they can to lose this game.

Yikes. Not sure what the Sixers were even planning then, I guess a hand off back to Simmons, but I wouldn't want Embiid even touching the ball there with how badly he bumbled the previous possession.

Everyone who had the Celtics taking the first three games of the Sixers series, raise your hands.



If you have your hands raised, you're a liar.

Brad Stevens for President

Jayson Tatum for Vice President

LeBron. Damn. He's still getting better. He might turn clutch yet.

/sarcasm

I haven't checked if it's true or not, but saw a tweet that LBJ has more playoff game-winning shots in these 2017-18 playoffs alone than MJ had in his entire career combined.

I do know that Jordan didn't have all that many of those as one would assume , both makes and attempts. One number i found was 9-18 game-tying or game-winning (in last 24 seconds). For all the "Jordan would have never passed here, LeBron is just a whimp" narrative from a few years back, Jordan was simply a very good decision maker down the stretch and opened up the court as a decoy/passer as much as he did actually take the big shot.

Didn't quickly find a comparable number or any sort of definition that has numbers for both, but didn't try that hard admittedly. But at a guess i would say that it seems likely that LeBron (and Kobe, for that matter) have the number of makes beat by a decent marging. Would also guess at a lower percentage ;)

23 stats for No. 23, Michael Jordan - Stats & Info- ESPN

Excerpts and quotes from columns advocating for the selection of Carmelo or Darko over LeBron in the 2003 draft - Freezing Cold Takes

This is a bit overblown, I think, because I don't recall any real doubt over LeBron at #1. But, fringe or not, these are funny to remember.

LeBron James was a consensus #1 pick since he was about 14 years old. Ignoring hindsight though, I was over the moon when the Cavs landed the #1 pick and LeBron but never did I imagine he'd come out of the gates averaging 20-5-6 as a rookie, and I doubt many others did either. I figured he'd develop into a star by his early 20s.

Not having followed the NBA much until the playoffs, this Cavs team doesn't look like it's got enough to really challenge for the title. Do they?

That's what makes this must see TV.

On paper, Golden State and Houston would seem to just be too talented to lose.

But would you really bet your house on it not being Cleveland? Or on LeBron not averaging a 40 pt. triple double in the Finals?

To me injuries are the thing there. A healthy Golden State or Houston beats Cleveland in probably five max even with LeBron doing a 40-point triple-double average IMO. But I wouldn't bet my house on the GS-HOU winner coming out fully intact. And if LeBron gets hurt Cleveland doesn't even get to the finals -- which is really overlooking Boston, clearly the story of these playoffs IMO. Forget about Coach of the Year, they should just put Brad Stevens on Mount Rushmore and be done with it.

Yeah, I don't think Cavs are a lock to beat the Celtics. Cavs beat the Raptors mentally in game 1, and history has shown that this side does not respond well to that. The Celtics... well... a lot of pressure on Tatum and/or Brown defending LeBron, but offensively they should get the looks they want against this defense. Only way Cavs win is if the game today signals that the other Cavs are going to contribute consistently alongside LeBron. Love in particular was significantly better this series, but how is he going to do matched up on Horford? He doesn't have the same advantage that he did against the Raptors, especially Jonas.

Rumor: NBA executives anticipate Raptors firing Dwane Casey – ProBasketballTalk

Gotta fire Casey, man. It's a rough business, but bringing that offense back again just so they can lay an egg...doesn't matter what personnel you get, you've gotta get another voice in that locker room.

It's a tough decision. Would another coach get more out of these guys? IMO they don't have a superstar or the obvious resources to get one, just a couple of really good players and a solid rotation of contributors. DeRozan just shows time and time again that the way he gets his points in the regular season is too easy to neutralize in the post-season when you are playing the same team night in, night out.

I think they should get rid of him, and I say that knowing that whoever they get instead might well end up being worse. But you have to try something different. I don't totally buy the 'too easy to defend in the playoffs' thing. Unless the organization is happy with contending for the conference in the regular season and then losing in the second round, they have to try something else.

Obvious a huge interview question would be 'what needs to change to get to the next level'.

If they could acquire someone (somehow) that would make DeRozan the #2 guy on that squad without completely gutting a lot of the useful depth they've built over the past couple of years with decent drafting I think that would go a long way towards solving their issues. I just feel they are a super middle-heavy team, and come the 2nd round of the playoffs they are unlikely to have the single best player on the court wearing their roster.

How many rounds of the playoffs / matchups would they even have the clearly second best player on the court wearing their jersey?

Then again, maybe that makes a reasonable argument that Casey isn't the issue (despite the fact I think I'd pull the trigger on him if I were Toronto)

Firing Casey is dumb. I think you give him 1 more chance cause it's far from certain the Cavs retain LeBron. The case for firing Casey is basically that he lost to a team with a dog starting at center, a Roomba starting at PG and a chain-smoking girl who was the #2 scorer?

I'm 100% keep Casey. You just had your most successful regular season ever, managed to noticeably change the way you play all while developing the rotation for the next solid Raptors team. I think DeRozan (on defense, his offense was feast or famine) and Ibaka really let him down with their play. As a Raptors fan, the sweep sucked, but this is a million times better than what we've been through in the past. They're not competitive with LeBron, so what? Maybe only 2 teams in the league can beat a LeBron led team. There's no shame in that. If you want to be ringz or bust, fine, but then you need a transcendent superstar or get really lucky with the league being down on talent.

Pacers have to be kicking themselves...

Yes, I would probably bet my house on LeBron not averaging a 40/10/10 in the Finals :cool:

NBA coaches: Haters gonna hate.

Just tuned in to the game. Have the refs been allowing the Sixers to be physical with the C’s all games?

Yeah, that was kinda cold.