2024 NBA Playoffs: West Semifinals: #1 Oklahoma City Thunder vs #5 Dallas Mavericks (DAL WINS 4-2)

[MrGoat]

Mavs fans you're welcome.

PJ Washington should have never been traded. Can't believe they chose Miles Bridges over PJ smh.

I remember asking Hornets fans after the trade what they thought about PJ Washington, you guys mostly completely dumped on him and I was panicking. I hated it at the time because PJ also had no playoff experience and then proceeded to be largely brick city the rest of the regular season for us. Boy I'm glad I was wrong, the guy clearly has a playoff gear that has been lying dormant

It was mixed, some fans were really unhappy he got traded and said they hated the deal.
Mavs fans on our board wanted him when he was RFA over Grant Williams, but Grant was more attainable back then.

I'm talking specifically about the February trade, and the responses I saw from Hornets fans in particular at the time. There was no way to predict PJ Washington had this kind of playoff gear because he'd never even been in the playoffs before. I do remember Washington's name coming up some in the offseason because his contract negotiations took a while and he was one of the best remaining free agents on the market for quite a bit before Charlotte resigned him

[B-easy]

Weird to say this. But it feels like the better team lost. If Dallas and OKC play 50 games I feel like OKC wins.

[Devilanche]

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Send this stat to Presti .

[Sgt Major]

Kyrie needed a true Slavic heavy drinker, eater of bad food, to get to know real emotion and bromance, and he's thriving now.

[MrGoat]

I’ve got one question: Spencer Dinwiddie, who is your daddy now?!?

Dinwiddie on signing with Lakers over Mavs: "The two situations kinda felt like this, right? Let's say you were a kid, and you got your ass whooped by the bully. Dallas would've been like your momma being like, 'It's OK, baby. Don't worry about it.' Lakers are like your dad: 'Nah, you better go out there and fight till you win.'

This win was for you too Kyle Kuzma!!

The crazier part is with the way Exum has played in the playoffs the Mavs have been desperate enough to give Jaden Hardy real playoff minutes. Spencer certainly could have had those minutes in Dallas

[Gatorade Sax]

Weird to say this. But it feels like the better team lost. If Dallas and OKC play 50 games I feel like OKC wins.

Why on earth would you think that?

This could’ve been over in 5 if Dallas didn’t **** the bed in the 4th the other day. Okc had a huge lead today and it felt inevitable that they were still going to lose.

[C3H6N6O6]

This defeat is purely on OKC front office.
They saw their team getting killed because of size against teams like the Lakers and still didn't trade for a good rebounder or big man.

This season would have been depressing for fans if they got Lakers in the first round. It is not like Lakers are the only team with size. Minnesota would have also beaten then purely because of size. Dallas did beat them because of rebounding.

[sunsbg]

Kyrie needed a true Slavic heavy drinker, eater of bad food, to get to know real emotion and bromance, and he's thriving now.

Celebrating with Lepa Brena music right now going by the Mavs practice video posted in previous game thread.

[AdagioPace]

Lively +26
Gafford -25

Yin and Yang lol

Not making excuses but Gafford dislocated his finger in Game 1 I believe. He hasn't been the same since. I love Lively.

+/- is the most overrated stat in the NBA, don't know why people use it as if it means something. Just based off the plus mins Aaron Wiggins outplayed SGA. Chet played well despite being bodied all night and having 3 rebounds. It's a ridiculous stat when used alone.

I don't know what other people do but it was interesting to see the almost mirror-like difference between the two Mavs bigs. No need to be tranchant towards any tool we have. The fact that single game +/- is very noisy doesn't mean that it's useless to joke about and discuss.

[madskillz8]

Weird to say this. But it feels like the better team lost. If Dallas and OKC play 50 games I feel like OKC wins.

Yes, OKC would win 50-game series because their core is younger, but not because they are better. That's also why they fared better in regular season and get the 1st spot IMHO. I expect some of those 50 games would somehow overlap with Ramadan and at one point Doncic would start to rely more on his recovery beers.

[MrGoat]

Mavs have to be thrilled to end this now, would have been nice to finish off game 4 but... Luka is starting to look healthier (or getting better at faking it). Not having to play another game against Fat Beverly will be nothing but good for his knees. And now they get to sit and wait tomorrow to even see who their opponent is

[Mavrelous]

Not making excuses but Gafford dislocated his finger in Game 1 I believe. He hasn't been the same since. I love Lively.

+/- is the most overrated stat in the NBA, don't know why people use it as if it means something. Just based off the plus mins Aaron Wiggins outplayed SGA. Chet played well despite being bodied all night and having 3 rebounds. It's a ridiculous stat when used alone.

I don't know what other people do but it was interesting to see the almost mirror-like difference between the two Mavs bigs. No need to be tranchant towards any tool we have. The fact that single game +/- is very noisy doesn't mean that it's useless to joke about and discuss.

In this case the stat reflected reality...
Lively's size and quick feet allows him to cover a lot of space and it helped tremendously on defense (recovery from blow bys and close outs) and offense (offensive boards), Lively was like a daemon on both ends, Gafford better strengths wasn't translated and he was exploited.

[durden_tyler]

tried telling people. Luka vs Jokic is pre-ordained since the all-star game. Luka winning a championship will happen this season because the NBA wants to lock him in as one of the faces of the league. They want that Euro market fully invested in him and the NBA. He can't ascend without first winning a title. League is rigged y'all. Doesn't mean you can't still enjoy watching world-class athletes play the game you love. Like a scripted TV show it's still enjoyable

Show us proof that you really believe this. Mortgage your house, bet your family savings all in on the Mavs futures to win the NBA title then show us the receipts. LOL


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[lambchop]

Kyrie needed a true Slavic heavy drinker, eater of bad food, to get to know real emotion and bromance, and he's thriving now.

Celebrating with Lepa Brena music right now going by the Mavs practice video posted in previous game thread.

to to to je to hajde da se volimo . Anyway, I think sometimes it's precisely that little language barrier that helps people get along better. It's true for SOME romantic relationships too. You simply have no choice but to be friendly to one another and get along.

[WestGOAT]

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Send this stat to Presti .

What Presti has done to try to fix the lack of team rebounding borders on malpractice.

Chet was OKC's sole rim protector and was the only one really challenging shots at the rim while having to rebound at the same time. Dallas got a lot of rebounds off of misses that Chet forced, but there was no one to clean up after him.

It was obvious OKC weakness was rebounding and to have a rookie Chet as your only real big-man is insane. OKC is actually very fortunate he didn't get an injury playing all of the regular season and playoffs. Jaylin Williams (not J-Dub) looked terrible as a 5.

Kinda feels Presti threw away a year of OKC being true contenders.

[lambchop]

Weird to say this. But it feels like the better team lost. If Dallas and OKC play 50 games I feel like OKC wins.

If they play 50 random games, I agree that OKC probably wins. But if they play 7 best of 7 series, Dallas probably wins most them, cause they understand how to closeout teams and get multiple wins on the road during a seven game series.

[ChipotleWest]

I think we as Mavs fans have to root for Minnesota tomorrow. While there's pros and cons to both I just think we match up better Ant is great but also is prone to have a stinker every now and again a little more often than Joker and sometimes KAT is inconsistent on offense as well. Great defensive team but so are we. I think we can make things tougher on them than they can us. Their third best scorer is actually Rudy Gobert, I'd take that over Denver's Michael Porter Jr.

The only thing is Jamal Murray has been pretty awful this playoffs but you don't choose the defending champs and reigning MVP over a team that's never done this before. But Minnesota has a better bench than Dallas or Denver.

Having said that I do think it's most likely it'll be Denver to win at home tomorrow. Historically home team wins game 7 75% of the time in the playoffs. I don't overreact to the fact they lost by 45 in Game 6 even though it's a huge blowout it's weird how each game is different and it just doesn't matter what you did in the last game but that's the playoffs.

[Devilanche]

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Send this stat to Presti .

What Presti has done to try to fix the lack of team rebounding borders on malpractice.

Chet was OKC's sole rim protector and was the only one really challenging shots at the rim while having to rebound at the same time. Dallas got a lot of rebounds off of misses that Chet forced, but there was no one to clean up after him.

It was obvious OKC weakness was rebounding and to have a rookie Chet as your only real big-man is insane. OKC is actually very fortunate he didn't get an injury playing all of the regular season and playoffs. Jaylin Williams (not J-Dub) looked terrible as a 5.

Kinda feels Presti threw away a year of OKC being true contenders.

That’s the thing. He didn’t really try .

[ChipotleWest]

If you compare the two teams they did it totally differently OKC did it completely through the draft with mostly all high first round draft picks, while Mavs have only drafted Dereck Lively and Josh Green in the first round this decade. They also drafted Wendell Moore Jr. who they immediately traded to Houston for Christian Wood who's no longer in Dallas and Tyrell Terry in the 2nd round who retired. They also turned a trade player exception into trading for Oliver-Maxence Prosper who the Kings had just drafted, he may turn out to be someone or no one. That's every Mavs draft pick this decade and their 2024 first round pick goes to Knicks in the Porzingis trade, and they've already traded most of their first round picks for the rest of the decade.

Every other player was acquired through free agency or trades. They turned Dorian-Finney Smith and Spencer Dimwiddie into Kyrie Irving, signed Grant Williams then after he didn't work out only months later traded him and a first round pick for PJ Washington, also signed Richaun Holmes who barely played and ended up trading him a first round pick for Daniel Gafford, signed Derrick Jones Jr. for just 2 million.

They turned a lot of bad players into good players and got Derrick Jones Jr. off the scrapheap when no one wanted him. Kind of crazy. Great job by the front office.

[ChipotleWest]

Brothers let OKC get away with physical violence, who could have predicted it? Oh wait everyone did outside of OKC fans when we saw who was reffing.

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