NBA Games Discussion Thread - Part 4

tontoz · Post #841 » by **tontoz** » Sun Apr 22, 2018 12:52 pm

Does anyone think the Pels sweep Portland if Cousins was healthy?

Post #842 » by **Ruzious** » Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:12 pm

tontoz wrote:Does anyone think the Pels sweep Portland if Cousins was healthy?

I don't know, but I thought Portland was built to lose in the playoffs. I think even I could score against their backcourt. You can get by with one bad defender in the backcourt, but they've got 2 matadors, and neither has enough length to cover ANY NBA 2. They may Jrue look like a giant, and he knows he can just shoot right over the top of either of them. They've rejuvenated Rondo's career. And playing Nurcic at center... another defensive disaster. Mirotic without the beard is a helluva player.

Post #843 » by **Ruzious** » Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:15 pm

That Boston combo of Jaylen Brown and Justin Tatum... crazy good. And Tatum's 20 and Brown's 21. Both are phenoms. We haven't seen how good Brown's going to be. He takes crazy looking shots without even setting his feet, and they go in - and his athleticism is off the charts. Tatum - so fundamentally sound for a 20 year old. Amazing young combo.

Post #844 » by **Ruzious** » Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:30 pm

This Boston/Milwaukee series has been wildly entertaining. So many great plays. Jaylen Brown is amazing.

Post #845 » by **Ruzious** » Sun Apr 22, 2018 7:36 pm

Marcus Morris ends up the goat (not GOAT) missing the last second shot with Bahston behind by 2. He took a lot of bad shots this game. Wiz probably shouldn't play Keif at the end today if it's close.

FAH1223 · Post #846 » by **FAH1223** » Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:00 pm

Read on Twitter

Post #847 » by **Ruzious** » Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:14 pm

Ironic that Milwaukee wins it with a tip-in considering they were out-rebounded on offensive boards 16-2 for the game. Yes, it was 16-1 before the Giannis tip-in.

That has been a huge problem for the Bucks all season.

queridiculo · Post #848 » by **queridiculo** » Sun Apr 22, 2018 8:30 pm

tontoz wrote:Does anyone think the Pels sweep Portland if Cousins was healthy?

Do the Pels make the playoffs?

The combo of Davis and Mirotic was more efficient than the Cousins/Boogie combo even before Mirotic started with his playoff heroics.

Chocolate City Jordanaire · Post #849 » by **Chocolate City Jordanaire** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:49 am

Kanyewest wrote:
Chocolate City Jordanaire wrote:
Dat2U wrote:I told you guys the Cavs didn't scare me. Yeah, LeBron is great but there's no Kyrie to get easy buckets anymore. Not even a healthy Isaiah. There's LeBron and a bunch of role players. Love becomes a role player in the playoffs for some reason.

Philly did scare me. At this moment I think Philly makes it out of the East.

It sure would be nice for the IMPROBABLE to happen. Wizards win games 4, 5 and either 6 or 7.
Weird thing is that Wade and Rose are both playing well for their respective playoff teams. Wade had 28 points in game 2. Rose had 17 points tonight and is now averaging 14 points per game this season. And Bojan is the one that is killing the Cavs, I believe he only had 2 or 3 shots in game 7 last season against Boston. Anyways, still a long way for the Cavs to get eliminated, and the Wizards to move on to round 2.

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WASHINGTON WILL MAKE IT IF THEY BEAT TORONTO

zero2hero · Post #850 » by **zero2hero** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:03 am

Damn Indiana completely shut down this game and the Cavs pulled away. Was hoping that they'd be up 3-1 to sweeten our potential ECF run. Ah well :-?

TGW · Post #851 » by **TGW** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 4:30 am

queridiculo wrote:
tontoz wrote:Does anyone think the Pels sweep Portland if Cousins was healthy?

Do the Pels make the playoffs?

The combo of Davis and Mirotic was more efficient than the Cousins/Boogie combo even before Mirotic started with his playoff heroics.

Yup. All Cousins does is clog up the lane and make poor selfish decisions. Moronic spreads the floor efficiently and allows brow the space to operate.

Cousins is just a negative in pretty much every phase of the game except rebounding.

Kanyewest · Post #852 » by **Kanyewest** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 4:42 am

TGW wrote:
queridiculo wrote:
tontoz wrote:Does anyone think the Pels sweep Portland if Cousins was healthy?

Do the Pels make the playoffs?

The combo of Davis and Mirotic was more efficient than the Cousins/Boogie combo even before Mirotic started with his playoff heroics.

Yup. All Cousins does is clog up the lane and make poor selfish decisions. Moronic spreads the floor efficiently and allows brow the space to operate.

Cousins is just a negative in pretty much every phase of the game except rebounding.

I'm not prepared to call the Pelicans as being significantly better without a healthy DeMarcus Cousins. The Pelicans winning percentage with Cousins this season was .563. With Cousins/Davis their winning percentage was at .568. In Cousins last game, the Pelicans beat the Rockets. The addition of Nikola Mirotic can't be discounted either. Same goes for the Bulls who were 14-11 with Mirotic and 13-44 without Mirotic.

tontoz · Post #853 » by **tontoz** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 10:25 am

Kanyewest wrote:

I'm not prepared to call the Pelicans as being significantly better without a healthy DeMarcus Cousins. The Pelicans winning percentage with Cousins this season was .563. With Cousins/Davis their winning percentage was at .568. In Cousins last game, the Pelicans beat the Rockets. The addition of Nikola Mirotic can't be discounted either. Same goes for the Bulls who were 14-11 with Mirotic and 13-44 without Mirotic.

When cousins went down they kept winning even without bringing in a replacement. Then they traded for mirotic, not exactly a star, and got significantly better.

Kanyewest · Post #854 » by **Kanyewest** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:16 pm

tontoz wrote:
Kanyewest wrote:

I'm not prepared to call the Pelicans as being significantly better without a healthy DeMarcus Cousins. The Pelicans winning percentage with Cousins this season was .563. With Cousins/Davis their winning percentage was at .568. In Cousins last game, the Pelicans beat the Rockets. The addition of Nikola Mirotic can't be discounted either. Same goes for the Bulls who were 14-11 with Mirotic and 13-44 without Mirotic.

When cousins went down they kept winning even without bringing in a replacement. Then they traded for mirotic, not exactly a star, and got significantly better.

Mirotic was Cousins' replacement. The Pelicans did not go on a winning streak without Cousins and Mirotic. Mirotic has picked up lately. But I don't think the Pelicans were significantly better (or worse)without Cousins in the regular season.

BTW, I think the Pelicans are significantly better now because playoff Rondo has been activated and Mirotic right now is playing out of his mind.

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tontoz · Post #855 » by **tontoz** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 2:33 pm

Pels were 27/21 with cousins. They are 25/13 without him and just swept the 3 seed, which rarely happens.

If he was there the spacing would be far worse and rondo wouldn't have the ball in his hands nearly as much. Holiday wouldn't be going off like this either.

Kanyewest · Post #856 » by **Kanyewest** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 3:59 pm

tontoz wrote:Pels were 27/21 with cousins. They are 25/13 without him and just swept the 3 seed, which rarely happens.

If he was there the spacing would be far worse and rondo wouldn't have the ball in his hands nearly as much. Holiday wouldn't be going off like this either.

The Pelicans didn't have Davis for 5 of those games with Cousins. Could have potentially been 30-18 if Davis was healthy. A grand total of 1 win separated the Blazers and the Pelicans. Lillard had less than 20 points in both games 1 and game 2 at home and that was pretty much the series. With Cousins, the Pelicans were 2-1 against the Blazers. And in that one loss, Davis only played 5 minutes. Rondo also shot 40% from 3 in the series.

The Pelicans were 9-3 in the month of January before Cousins was injured, with wins over the Rockets, Blazers, and Celtics.

tontoz · Post #857 » by **tontoz** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 4:26 pm

Kanyewest wrote:
tontoz wrote:Pels were 27/21 with cousins. They are 25/13 without him and just swept the 3 seed, which rarely happens.

If he was there the spacing would be far worse and rondo wouldn't have the ball in his hands nearly as much. Holiday wouldn't be going off like this either.

The Pelicans didn't have Davis for 5 of those games with Cousins. Could have potentially been 30-18 if Davis was healthy. A grand total of 1 win separated the Blazers and the Pelicans. Lillard had less than 20 points in both games 1 and game 2 at home and that was pretty much the series. With Cousins, the Pelicans were 2-1 against the Blazers. And in that one loss, Davis only played 5 minutes. Rondo also shot 40% from 3 in the series.

The Pelicans were 9-3 in the month of January before Cousins was injured, with wins over the Rockets, Blazers, and Celtics.

If you want to believe they could sweep Portland with cousins then feel free. I am not buying it and I don't expect them to resign him.

Mirotic didnt know their system and had a TS.of only 54%, 8% worse than with the bulls, in his last 30 regular season games with the pels yet they didn't miss a beat.

Kanyewest · Post #858 » by **Kanyewest** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 4:35 pm

tontoz wrote:
Kanyewest wrote:
tontoz wrote:Pels were 27/21 with cousins. They are 25/13 without him and just swept the 3 seed, which rarely happens.

If he was there the spacing would be far worse and rondo wouldn't have the ball in his hands nearly as much. Holiday wouldn't be going off like this either.

The Pelicans didn't have Davis for 5 of those games with Cousins. Could have potentially been 30-18 if Davis was healthy. A grand total of 1 win separated the Blazers and the Pelicans. Lillard had less than 20 points in both games 1 and game 2 at home and that was pretty much the series. With Cousins, the Pelicans were 2-1 against the Blazers. And in that one loss, Davis only played 5 minutes. Rondo also shot 40% from 3 in the series.

The Pelicans were 9-3 in the month of January before Cousins was injured, with wins over the Rockets, Blazers, and Celtics.

If you want to believe they could sweep Portland with cousins then feel free. I am not buying it and I don't expect them to resign him.

Mirotic didnt know their system and had a TS.of only 54%, 8% worse than with the bulls, in his last 30 regular season games with the pels yet they didn't miss a beat.

I think having a healthy Rondo helped who missed 10+ games to start the season. With Cousins, Rondo, and Davis, the Pelicans were 18-11 which is the same pace to win 51 games and Rondo was also playing himself into shape. The Pelicans regular season record without Cousins was worse than that (20-14 with a .58) and good enough for a 48 win pace. A big reason why Rondo signed with the Pelicnas according to Pels fans/interviews was to play with Cousins.

I_Like_Dirt · Post #859 » by **I_Like_Dirt** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 6:37 pm

tontoz wrote:If you want to believe they could sweep Portland with cousins then feel free. I am not buying it and I don't expect them to resign him.

Mirotic didnt know their system and had a TS.of only 54%, 8% worse than with the bulls, in his last 30 regular season games with the pels yet they didn't miss a beat.

I expect the Pelicans will re-sign him because that's what they do. I think it's awn awful idea, though. Cousins is really, really good, but he's also really tough to actually build a winning team around and an awful fit for them. Mirotic isn't nearly as good as him but is a much better fit overall.

For Cousins, you basically have to treat him like a frontcourt equivalent to the likes of Allen Iverson or Russell Westbrook. You need to surround him with a bunch of utility players who can shoot and defend and pass, but don't need the ball in their hands and won't see their games suffer if they don't touch the ball much. I'm not sure how good that kind of team is, but I'd like to see some competent franchise try it with Cousins at some point, just hopefully not a team I cheer for as I think there is a rather limited ceiling with that kind of team. Cousins might possibly care too much and clearly trusts himself more than his teammates. To a point, he's right, because he's better than his teammates for the most part, but he would still be better off trusting them and letting them do their jobs, too, rather than trying to do everything himself in certain situations.

Kanyewest · Post #860 » by **Kanyewest** » Mon Apr 23, 2018 7:10 pm

I_Like_Dirt wrote:
tontoz wrote:If you want to believe they could sweep Portland with cousins then feel free. I am not buying it and I don't expect them to resign him.

Mirotic didnt know their system and had a TS.of only 54%, 8% worse than with the bulls, in his last 30 regular season games with the pels yet they didn't miss a beat.

I expect the Pelicans will re-sign him because that's what they do. I think it's awn awful idea, though. Cousins is really, really good, but he's also really tough to actually build a winning team around and an awful fit for them. Mirotic isn't nearly as good as him but is a much better fit overall.

For Cousins, you basically have to treat him like a frontcourt equivalent to the likes of Allen Iverson or Russell Westbrook. You need to surround him with a bunch of utility players who can shoot and defend and pass, but don't need the ball in their hands and won't see their games suffer if they don't touch the ball much. I'm not sure how good that kind of team is, but I'd like to see some competent franchise try it with Cousins at some point, just hopefully not a team I cheer for as I think there is a rather limited ceiling with that kind of team. Cousins might possibly care too much and clearly trusts himself more than his teammates. To a point, he's right, because he's better than his teammates for the most part, but he would still be better off trusting them and letting them do their jobs, too, rather than trying to do everything himself in certain situations.

The big thing now is that he suffered an Achilles injury. I don't think he wil come back close to 100% although given how Rudy Gay has recovered, maybe there is hope for Cousins. Anyways, the Pelicans were playing just fine when Cousins was healthy (18-11 when Cousins/Davis/Rondo were all in the lineup). I think if Cousins recovers, they can also move him in a trade for an upgrade at the small forward position.