2014 NBA Playoffs Semi-Finals: MIA (2) vs BKN (6)

[dr3am]

Still boggles my mind that they decided not to go for the 4th seed knowing that the Heat were set in on the 2nd.

They fell in love with their regular season success & besides, they're just as bad as Miami is at rebounding. They would get destroyed on the boards against Indiana or Chicago

[Tai]

The Raptors are the better team and would have put up a better fight.The Nets had a favourable sched against the Raps with the extra time off between games and the short travel time. Now they are 7 hard games deep and with far less rest between games.
This whole "reputation" based refereeing system is hurting the league more than it is helping.

The refs in the NBA are the worst thing it has going for it and it seems to be doing nothing to fix it.

The Raptors were the better team how? By dropping Game 7 at home?

What "reputation" based reffing? You mean people claiming D-Will should have fouled out on a flop and the foul was on KG instead? :I can't believe the Raptors got that call.

Please. BOTH teams played seven games while the Heat sat around for a week and a half developing new plays. People say it's the Heat and the rest of the league; you can't go back and spin that to fit your beef with the refs. The Raptors would have put up a better fight but can't beat an "old" team in Game 7 at home? And you blame the refs?

I'm not blaming the loss squarely on the refs, but the Raptors are more talented. I don't care much about the refs obvious pandering to Deron Williams so he wouldn't foul out, it's more the 3 invisible fouls on Amir Johnson that rubbed me the wrong way.

More talented, or younger? KG/Pierce/JJ/Deron/Blatche is less talented on paper than the Raptors HOW?

[Yaphet Kotto]

just quickly browsed a couple pages in this thread. it seems like the real story here is the schadenfreude displayed by a legion of still bitter raptors fans.

guys, the nba doesn't revolve around the raptors. the world has moved on. this current series is about 2 teams that are unrelated to toronto in any way. please wipe away the tears and show some grace in defeat.

Joined the forum 10 years ago: has only two And1's.



Shocking.

[Zedders]

I will not be surprised if Heat go into the finals 12-0.

[BetterCallSaul]

The Raptors were the better team how? By dropping Game 7 at home?

What "reputation" based reffing? You mean people claiming D-Will should have fouled out on a flop and the foul was on KG instead? :I can't believe the Raptors got that call.

Please. BOTH teams played seven games while the Heat sat around for a week and a half developing new plays. People say it's the Heat and the rest of the league; you can't go back and spin that to fit your beef with the refs. The Raptors would have put up a better fight but can't beat an "old" team in Game 7 at home? And you blame the refs?

I'm not blaming the loss squarely on the refs, but the Raptors are more talented. I don't care much about the refs obvious pandering to Deron Williams so he wouldn't foul out, it's more the 3 invisible fouls on Amir Johnson that rubbed me the wrong way.

More talented, or younger? KG/Pierce/JJ/Deron/Blatche is less talented on paper than the Raptors HOW?

The fact that you included Blatche on that list, that's all the proof I need.

[mopper8]

It's a pretty good rule of thumb that in the NBA, the better team wins in a 7-game series, because the sample size is large enough that you expect all the random variations to even out by then.

But if the series does go 7 games, and game 7 is decided by 1 point, literally at the buzzer, I'd say it's a toss-up as to whether the better team won. For the entire series, the Nets only outscored Toronto by 11 points..an average of less than 2 a game.

[R-DAWG]

Toronto fans need to ease up. You guys had a great season and the league gained great respect for your fan base. Sure the 50-50 calls went the Nets way, but at the end of the day you had the ball in your front court down 1 with 6 seconds left on your home court with a chance to win the series. What more can you ask for? It just didn't bounce your way.

I think Toronto and Brooklyn are evenly matched. Miami is better.

[60cent]

Toronto fans need to ease up. You guys had a great season and the league gained great respect for your fan base. Sure the 50-50 calls went the Nets way, but at the end of the day you had the ball in your front court down 1 with 6 seconds left on your home court with a chance to win the series. What more can you ask for? It just didn't bounce your way.

I think Toronto and Brooklyn are evenly matched. Miami is better.

And the refs helped them Raptors and gave them a chance to win the game by not calling TRoss out of bounds when he stole the ball. His right foot touched the floor before he threw the ball to Pierce. Too bad their best player in Lowry, and the best flopper, played hero ball

Correction: Nets and Raptors are not evenly matched. Raptors gave the Nets a hard fought match but they are in no way even.

[EH15]

It's a pretty good rule of thumb that in the NBA, the better team wins in a 7-game series, because the sample size is large enough that you expect all the random variations to even out by then.

But if the series does go 7 games, and game 7 is decided by 1 point, literally at the buzzer, I'd say it's a toss-up as to whether the better team won. For the entire series, the Nets only outscored Toronto by 11 points..an average of less than 2 a game.

And if you add the 4 regular season games played, for a total of 11 games, both teams scored the exact number of points. That's how even they were.

Raps would've probably been a sweep as well, but a better series to watch because of the different styles. They could at least exploit the Heat's rebounding weakness.

[60cent]

The Nets are not gonna be a bad team even if our oldies retire next season. People are forgetting we still have Brook Lopez in this team, who is better than any big man in the East. Actually, teams are lucky right now that we have don't him in this playoffs stretch because he pose a lot of match up problems with his offensive skills as a big man. And by the time his contract and DWill's contract ends, we'd be in line to sign some big name players on 2016 that includes Kevin Durant. We are not a team that relies on draft picks, so who cares if we don't have one. With the owner we have and the Brooklyn brand, we look to trade more and sign FAs. As a big market team, with the richest owner in the NBA and not afraid to spend the money, I don't think the Brooklyn haters are gonna get their wish of us going down as a franchise. It will never happen as long as we have Prokhorov.

I'm tired of people thinking and wishing that we'd become a team not making the playoffs every year again like we were when the team was still in NJ. Those times are gone. This is BROOKLYN.

[R-DAWG]

Toronto fans need to ease up. You guys had a great season and the league gained great respect for your fan base. Sure the 50-50 calls went the Nets way, but at the end of the day you had the ball in your front court down 1 with 6 seconds left on your home court with a chance to win the series. What more can you ask for? It just didn't bounce your way.

I think Toronto and Brooklyn are evenly matched. Miami is better.

And the refs helped them Raptors and gave them a chance to win the game by not calling TRoss out of bounds when he stole the ball. His right foot touched the floor before he threw the ball to Pierce. Too bad their best player in Lowry, and the best flopper, played hero ball

Correction: Nets and Raptors are not evenly matched. Raptors gave the Nets a hard fought match but they are in no way even.

there series I watched was pretty evenly matched. A 1 point game in game 7 and all but 1 game coming down to the wire. Why can't we just appreciate what a great series it was.

[erekose200]

Another tortuously difficult game for the heat as they face their biggest challenge yet from the 45-win nets and barely escape with the victory. What an achievement, this heat team will surely go down in history.

[brick_wall_55]

there series I watched was pretty evenly matched. A 1 point game in game 7 and all but 1 game coming down to the wire. Why can't we just appreciate what a great series it was.

Most members of both fanbases do, but it's kinda hard when people are still trying to pretend Toronto outplayed the Nets in some way or are more "talented". They definitively outplayed Brooklyn zero times to their one (in seven attempts), and on paper the Nets are arguably the more "talented" group of players, despite their age. So claims like "Raptors are the more talented team" are unfounded and it's a bit of a wonder where a claim like that actually comes from. I'm not acting like there's some big gap between the teams, there's not, they're two very well-matched teams, but saying TOR is clearly better is flat out false.

I've actually never seen more unjustified referee complaints (relative to reality) in my life. The Raptors got a TON of calls. Countless times Kyle Lowry got away with crucial 3rd and 4th fouls at would-be critical times. The Ross out-of-bounds missed call came within a decent Casey playcall of costing us the series. Missed calls happen every series, and every game. So after awhile it's kinda like, get over it. I know a series win is nice, but let's be honest. These teams were competing to see who gets to be eliminated by a top-2 player of all time in convincing fashion.

I want to drop it but it's just so difficult when people continue to subtly discredit the Nets hard-fought series win by essentially saying they didn't earn it. They clearly earned it.

[Gwynplaine]

Good efficient game from us. Need this focus and play for the remaining games too.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[JVL]

Can we cut the Toronto vs. Brooklyn crap? This is another series, and it's certainly more interesting to discuss how everyone thinks this is going to be tight, close and taken all the way to 7 games.

Easy efficient win for the Heat, and it looks like they didn't even have to push themselves. Allen is going to make a statement this series, taking pressure of Wade/Lebron. Should be good.

Still have Heat in 5. With ease.

[SlowPaced]

Another tortuously difficult game for the heat as they face their biggest challenge yet from the 45-win nets and barely escape with the victory. What an achievement, this heat team will surely go down in history.

NaCl

[Prestige]

It's only been one game, no need to draw any conclusions. Even if the Heat take game 2, that's to be expected. It's game 3 where the series will likely be decided. Nets have to protect home court.

[MMyhre]

Good efficient game from us. Need this focus and play for the remaining games too.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using RealGM Forums mobile app

Thanks Magic.

Sent from my GT-I8190N using RealGM Forums mobile app

[Froob]

Still boggles my mind that they decided not to go for the 4th seed knowing that the Heat were set in on the 2nd.

I don't really understand this line of thinking, you're going to have to play the heat no matter what. Better of playing them early in the playoffs before Pierce and KG get worn out (more worn out). I don't think the nets will win the series but, I love how realgm declares every series over after game 1.

[mopper8]

It's only been one game, no need to draw any conclusions. Even if the Heat take game 2, that's to be expected. It's game 3 where the series will likely be decided. Nets have to protect home court.

While that's certainly true, a lot of what's going on here relates to the two vastly different viewpoints of this series heading into it.

View 1 said, essentially, "Miami had a better record than Brooklyn on the season by a significant margin. Miami had a much better SRS (adjusted margin of victory) than them, too. The Heat swept the first round, looking great doing it, and teams historically benefit greatly from that. Nets looked mediocre going 7 with the Raptors. Logical conclusion: Miami is the heavy favorite, should be an easy series for them. Yeah, Nets beat them head-to-head this year, but the scores at the end of regulation in those games was +1, +1, tie, +1. And that was with the Heat in regular season coast mode; everyone knows they turn it up in the postseason."

View 2 said, essentially, "Look at the head-to-heads here. Brooklyn was 4-0. 4-0! No team in NBA history has ever gone 0-4 against another team in the regular season and then turned around and beat that team in the postseason. None. Were they close? Sure. But the Nets have been playing their best ball to close the season, so the team record is a bit deceiving, it doesn't reflect how well they've been playing. And that fact is, Brooklyn gives Miami real matchup problems. They don't care if Miami goes small because they have Pierce at the 4. They have big guards that can exploit Chalmers/Cole/Allen in the post. Miami's biggest strength on D is that they destroy pick-n-rolls, but Nets are one of the teams least reliant on pick-n-roll for offense in the league. Miami likes to get out in transition and the Nets prevent that. And while Miami got to coast in the first round against a 7 seed who's best player was playing injured, Nets had to go on the road and beat the young, athletic, balanced 3-seed. This is going to be a close series (Pierce & Kg vs the Heat practically guarantees it!), and Brooklyn might even be able to take it."


There's actually not a ton of middle ground between these views, either. So a lot of people saw game 1 as vindication for the first viewpoint. It might still end up that View 2 is closer to reality, hard to tell, but it's always nice to see a little confirmation for how you were arguing this series will go.