Sunday 4/3 Game Thread

[The High Cyde]

Haliburton with 17 assists & no turnovers?

Heir apparent to CP

[Tracymcgoaty]

Damn Ronaldinho was a coke head? He was my fav player when I was in HS, shoot

Nah my bad i was thinking of someone else. But he was a extreme party goer even during his prime. Probably hindered his play drastically as the years progressed. Dont really think it had anything to do with him not loving football anymore. He just loved partying way too much. Cant have both and expect to maintain the highest level of performance you once had.

[Tracymcgoaty]

In theory, yes. But who knows. Ronaldinho wasn't the same once he stopped enjoying soccer.
Maybe it's enough as a start if Doncic just stops being fat. And goes on a run with weights every now and then.

I thought Ronaldinho wasn't the same when he started doing cocaine.

Ronaldinho started partying long before he fell from his peak.

Yup like most superstar Brazilians. He loved partying way too much.

[Kalela]

Lowry vs. VanVleet. Barnes vs Adebayo. This should be a fun game to watch.

[LivingLegend]

James Harden is 1/9 shooting with 10pts because he has made 7 FTs at halftime.

He's on pace to score 20pts this game on 2 made shots.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa

[Gimli]

Naw it’s just not a real arguement at this point-

Luka great- Giannis great- I think Giannis better but honestly Luka could have a better game any day… it’s not a fight- if you on RealGM you know I bet the mavs go to finals this year because Luka always plays best in big games- today was a big game and Luka came through.

You want it to be Luka vs Giannis for real… and I don’t think that’s fair considering Giannis has accomplished so much more than Luka and is going to get more mvp votes than Luka this year.

If you think Luka is better than Giannis this year… I want to know by what measure… and why the mvp voters not gonna see it that way?

It's simple. Doncic can't be stopped. No one has prevented Doncic from scoring the ball himself or getting his teammates open looks. He can't be stopped. It's not possible. You can't prevent both. You can either stop Doncic from getting the open looks or you can stop his teammates. You can't stop both. No 1 vs 1 defense will stop him, maybe Kawhi can, but Doncic will just call a screen and Kawhi can't fight over a screen. Maybe if he was younger. And the moment he gets a screen, it's either lob to powell, open three somewhere or Doncic finishes himself. It's unguardable play. And Doncic does it by himself.

Jokic needs other players for that. He needs guy circling around him, cutting to the basket and so on. Doncic only needs people to stand at the 3 point line. But he does need a solid screener, though he doesn't have to be really anything special. He did magic with Mike Tobey and the Olympics as well, and Toby is an average spanish league starting center.

And Doncic has never been stopped. Jokic was against the best possible defense against him, AD + Lebron + Howard. Jokic had very bad series against them. On the other hand, Doncic demolished the best possible defense against him. And Jokic lost without a fight against the Suns. Everyone excepcted the Mavs to lose 4-1 or 4-0, they almost won the series. Everyone also excepted the Suns to win what 4-1, 4-2, 4-0, well they lost 4-0.

Today Giannis had difficulty scoring at the rim. Did he pass the ball good enough out of double teams? No he didn't. He didn't create good enough opportunites for his teammates, Doncic did. It's either Doncic or his teammates, that wasn't the case for Giannis today.

And Embiid needs someone to feed him in the post, you need to have a proper PG for him, no one else needs that. And Embiid isn't on the same level as a playmaker as Joker and Doncic.

And if you bring defense into it, fine, Doncic isn't as good. But the Mavs still have very good defense with him and also Brunson on the floor. You've seen it today against the Bucks. Doncic can't be so bad at defense, if you can still have good team defense with him. And if you still keep bringing defense into it, how did this 2x DPOY help the Bucks tonight? They couldn't stop Doncic and the Mavs. Neither did the Clipps. What good is defense if you can't prevent the Mavs team from getting open looks? I'm not sure why I should be bother with how good Giannis is on defense, if he can't stop Doncic anyway, and Giannis today was stopped, mainly by DFS, Bullock and Powell... Like these are some all-nba defenders... Okay DFS is.


As for MVP, Doncic didn't have good enough stats at the start. I think a lot of people say if he had the current stats early, he would be the MVP. The same effect Doncic had on people when he played against the Clippers, I see pretty much everytime Doncic plays. Other people just don't, I don't know why. I guess if DFS misses a corner three, they're just like "ehh".... I see an open look generated by Doncic, that just happened to be missed. Perhaps they look at the points at the end of the game, at the %, at the TS% and are not impressed. All I see is, how many good looks did Doncic create. And I can't find this with any other player and no one so far has managed to stop this.

Watch Jokic play. He will wait until someone gets open. I mean he that does quite a lot of the time. Doncic doesn't wait for anyone. Doncic creates the open look, pretty much always. Jokic, on the other hand, doesn't play 1 vs 1 often enough, so he also can't create often enough and he also doesn't have gravity enough like Curry somehow. Thus Jokic isn't as good. Jokic needs someone else, Doncic doesn't.

Doncic is like Steve Nash and LBJ combined on offense, without the athleticism of LBJ, but the same strength. Put Doncic's body into Nash, you'll get the same result.

Maybe you right...but I would be willing to bet you any money amount of money that Luka won’t get more mvp votes than Giannis this year...Luka won’t get more mvp votes than Embiid, and Luka won’t come close to Jokic in mvp votes....so at best he is 4th....

Your opinions are cool but the 4th guy in the mvp race isn’t worth arguing about.

File your Luka love letters in the all nba first team section with Trae young, Booker, Curry, KD and all the other great players not named Jokic, Embiid, or Giannis- This year Luka hasn’t ascended to Mount Olympus with the MVPs...he is great but not on that level yet....

Eh, I don't really care about MVPs... It's almost an empty stat to me. We all know LBJ was clearly the best player from 2010+, and he didn't get the MVP each year, because MVP has its own "rules" who should get an award. I was mainly arguing that Doncic is the best in the nba right now (and has been for some time).

Well, let's hope the Mavs play the Nuggets then in the 1st round. I like such direct matchups...

PS: since you think the mavs will get to the finals as well... Let's just hope they don't have to play both GSW with Curry and the Suns. Imo Doncic gets tired, they can beat any of those two teams if they have some luck, but not both.

[The High Cyde]

Damn Ronaldinho was a coke head? He was my fav player when I was in HS, shoot

Nah my bad i was thinking of someone else. But he was a extreme party goer even during his prime. Probably hindered his play drastically as the years progressed. Dont really think it had anything to do with him not loving football anymore. He just loved partying way too much. Cant have both and expect to maintain the highest level of performance you once had.

Yeah it's unfortunate how he flamed out, I used to watch his highlights all the time on youtube back in the day haha

[cgf]

I thought Ronaldinho wasn't the same when he started doing cocaine.

Ronaldinho started partying long before he fell from his peak.

Yup like most superstar Brazilians. He loved partying way too much.

...from that generation.

That doesn't seem to be the case with Neymar & co. People complain about how he reacts to the constant fouling on the pitch, but none of the off-field stuff that hit brazilian stars of the past.

...and in the Bundesliga, we've had a lot more problematic french & german players than hard-partying south-americans in recent years.

[DowJones]

The officials in this Cavs-Sixers game are awful. Philly fans must be loving it.

[LivingLegend]

The officials in this Cavs-Sixers game are awful. Philly fans must be loving it.

What. The fact that Embiid/Harden have attempted 20FTs combined at halftime and Garland has not been to the line yet?

[BigDan245]

I wonder what the chances are the Suns play all of their starters one last time just to give the Lakers the middle finger on Tuesday.

[yoyoboy]

I hope Philly never sniffs the Finals. The refereeing this team gets is such a joke.

[tdot_steel]

The stuff refs call for Embiid and Harden are disgraceful to the game of basketball.

[Tracymcgoaty]

Ronaldinho started partying long before he fell from his peak.

Yup like most superstar Brazilians. He loved partying way too much.

...from that generation.

That doesn't seem to be the case with Neymar & co. People complain about how he reacts to the constant fouling on the pitch, but none of the off-field stuff that hit brazilian stars of the past.

...and in the Bundesliga, we've had a lot more problematic french & german players than hard-partying south-americans in recent years.

Yeah Neymar seems like he just wants to chill. I dont see people partying as problematic lol. I mean it's a choice and for the longest time people saw no noticeable change in how the superstars played. I mean Romario was notorious for partying. So was R9 Maradona etc. Thing was they were so good it didn't matter. Ronaldinho for a while was like that. But as a Milan fan his dip in play was noticeable. He was still pretty good but he wasn't close to the same player he once was. Which was evident in his last years at barca.

But really there are no real superstars of that mold anymore. Feels like football players have become more robotic as the years go on. The flair that past superstars had has also been lost in my opinion.

Messi is the only one that reminds me of why i love football nowadays. Before i had like 20 players i would personally watch just because i loved the way they played football.

[Domejandro]

Houston is putting on arguably the worst transition defense performance in the history of the NBA, in this game.

[GeorgeSears]

Embiid is just going off on the Cavs.

[eyeatoma]

You guys are hilarious, every single time Embiid was fouled, he drew contact. Cry more.

[eyeatoma]

Embiid is just going off on the Cavs.

He is on one, those threes are ridiculous for someone that size.

[DowJones]

The officials in this Cavs-Sixers game are awful. Philly fans must be loving it.

What. The fact that Embiid/Harden have attempted 20FTs combined at halftime and Garland has not been to the line yet?

I would take them now blowing a call when Philly casually tossed the ball out of bounds. They inexplicably missed that call and Philly immediately hits a 3.

[yoyoboy]

You guys are hilarious, every single time Embiid was fouled, he drew contact. Cry more.

Oh he draws contact alright. By lowering his shoulder and barreling straight into the defender. There's a reason every team's fanbase except yours criticizes your team for the reffing they get. Half of these free throws are complete jokes.