4/2 - 4/10 Games Discussion Thread

[DieHardYankee26]

"20+20+20, they know what that means."

This man really went out and just decided to do this. Russ is unreal.

[jeebs9]

Quote: Originally Posted by CaVsFaN2273

Offensively, they're as good as anyone in the league. I don't trust their defense enough though.

Agree here

Quote: Originally Posted by ojandpizza

I’ve never been there, could be fake as ****. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

LMFAO

I was only asking because I was thinking about how Raptors have to prove because of their reputation.

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[Fresh Tendrils]

Quote: Originally Posted by Fresh Tendrils

Suffering through C. Webb during the NCAA games is bad enough. Now he's on the halftime show.

Was I the only one watching? The hell were they smoking last night?

Lance must have been on the same ****. Straight up slapping people lol.

Denver: The scary thing about them is all the power they still have on the bench.

[jeebs9]

Quote: Originally Posted by Fresh Tendrils

Was I the only one watching? The hell were they smoking last night? Lance must have been on the same ****. Straight up slapping people lol. Denver: The scary thing about them is all the power they still have on the bench.

But man the playoffs is different beast. Players shooting gets really exposed.

[King_B_Mack]

Quote: Originally Posted by jeebs9

Agree hereLMFAO I was only asking because I was thinking about how Raptors have to prove because of their reputation. Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk

There’s a difference there though. Denver is a completely different team from top to bottom from the days that they were contending team with Melo. Not to mention the time that has past since then. That’s still not even touching the fact that even when Melo was there and they were contenders, they were never talked about and hyped up to be a team that’s going to win their conference every single year only to flame out embarrassingly every single year.

The Raptors have the rep they have because they kept that core together as long as they did with minimal to no changes to the team and coaching staff in a weak conference and every year got hyped as the team that everybody should watch out for or was going to make noise in May only for their two best players to choke in the playoffs every year. There’s definitely a legit reason they get what they get.


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[ojandpizza]

On a serious note with Denver, in the regular season I think they are about as good as any team in the league. They can score, pass, rebound, play good enough defense, and they are insanely deep. All the talk last year was about Toronto's depth, and this Denver team's depth blows that group out of the water IMO. They punish teams who go small on them, they are hard to game plan for because they are untraditional in the sense of they pair scoring guards with the play making coming from heir bigs. they have a lot going for them.

My only concern with Denver come playoff time is that when the game slows down do they have a way to score effectively enough to make up for the fact that they won't be dominating teams defensively.. NBA pace slows down substantially when the playoffs start, even the teams out West. I look at this Denver team and wonder where the scoring output comes from. Jokic is good, but he's not going to take over games scoring the ball, Murray is far too streaky, and everyone else is just great compliments to those two.

Guys like LeBron, Shaq, Jordan, they are able to make the finals year in and year out with different casts because they are/were the best in the league at maximizing possessions. And when the possessions are fewer, and more important, in the playoffs you can win games with players who can get the most out of them.

The only teams I can think of who won it all without having something like that is San Antonio in 2014, and Detroit in 2004. Both were top level defensive teams. It's possible for Denver to have 8-9 guys making seemingly everything they threw at the rim like San Antonio did, but it's un-likely especially with them being so young. Even Detroit had Billups and Rip giving them 20+ in the finals off mostly half-court stuff, which at that type of pace would be more like 25+ each in a regular season game today.. I'm not sure Denver has even one guy like that, much less two.

[ProfessaPackMan]

How much does it slow down nowadays?

I know the scores always look high but I know that doesn’t always reflect in the actual pace of the game.

[ojandpizza]

League average pace last season was 97.3, the finals was played at 90.7. Not sure how much the payoffs overall dropped, likely not as much. Worth mentioning though that both the Cavs and Warriors played a bit above league average pace in the regular season, so that could be accounted for as well.

In 2004 the pace dropped from league average of 90.1 to finals of 83.4. Lower overall, but not a huge difference in the drop.


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