Around the NBA: Playoff Edition #2

[R3AL1TY]

The NBA product is getting poor. Just two teams being dominant as if there is only 8-12 teams in the entire league + the playoffs not being competitive = fans not caring more and more. People might as well just wait for the Finals each year, but if the same two teams go again the next couple seasons, I can see ABC losing major ratings for that too.

[Vee-Rex]

you're really twisting logic into a pretzel

saying that thompson is not a great player and that their competition in the playoffs has been soft have nothing to do with each other other than that they both explain the results that we see.

great teams don't coast to 50 win seasons in a weak conference, and teams with 4 great players (including one of the best to ever play the game) don't end up with 50 wins

how does the best player on the planet (arguably) play alongside 3 studs and they're not torching the league?

A: he doesn't play alongside 3 studs

This was your question. You brought up the point of not torching the league means he's not playing with 3 studs

yes. and he's NOT! which is strictly a critique of tristan thompson

Apparently, if you're only torching the playoffs then it's an issue of competition and has nothing to do with Thompson being any good. If he was good, they'd torch the regular season too which is filled with even weaker teams. That's the point your making I guess

you're having a logic disconnect here. i'm saying that if they were that great they would have crushed the east in the regular season as well. a string of a few good games (which is what they've had in the playoffs) does not cancel out much of the suckage they displayed toward the end of the regular season

And coasting is just that. That's why we use that word. Great teams taking it easy in the regular season

that's not how i was using the word. i was using it as "crushing the competition." the way it is used when a team blows out another, for example ("the cavs went up 19 late in the 3rd and coasted to victory"). when they're so far ahead they don't HAVE to put forth any more effort. that was not the cavs in the regular season

so...they intentionally left out superior defensive sets, and yet they all expressed frustration with their defense toward the end of the regular season. acting?

why didn't they intentionally lose more games LAST season?

Lol Why intentionally? I don't know dude. Maybe they decided to use specific sets more frequently depending on the playoff match ups? They haven't been running the same **** they did in the regular season. Don't tell me they do

don't tell me they've drastically changed their defense. the burden of proof is on you to show me something has significantly changed. i've heard no such analysis

guess what? their defense wasn't any good the first 6 games of the playoffs either. then lowry got injured. if you wanna say they've played amazing defense in 2 games against boston, have at it. but don't claim that they suddenly decided to flip the playoff switch or some such nonsense

And the frustration was more about effort than anything else (especially in the open court)

that may be. but your suggestion is that the team wasn't listening to the coach or lebron when they expressed that frustration, but now suddenly they are

You'd have to be pretty dense to think 51 wins is indicative of how good the Cavs really are. Why doesn't this simple win/loss rating work with Boston? They're clearly the better team with 53 wins, right?

i never suggested either. don't distort my argument to puff up your own flat one

if you'd like to go back and read what i actually DID say (multiple times!), it was that no great team squeaks out 50 regular season wins (barring major injury issues). none. not in the history of the game. which is not to say they're a typical 50 win team. they're certainly better than that. just not so much better as to be great

I don't mean to impose upon your conversation, but the Cavs are absolutely running different defensive sets. In the regular season we always played OVER the PnR, and a huge lack of effort resulted in easy baskets for opposing teams. Right now? We're blitzing the hell out of the PnR and LeBron is playing free safety and closing out on whoever they pass it to. Our halfcourt defense was top 10 in the regular season, but we were dead last in transition defense. However in the playoffs our transition defense has improved remarkably.

Frustration sets in with losing, and a lot of our regular season defensive woes were because of effort. Even so, we had a 'normal' defense in the regular season and the playoffs have brought out better sets.

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2017/03/tyronn_lues_secret_plan_to_fix.html

Even Tyronn Lue acknowledged this at the end of March (when we were losing). He said:

"We've got to hold back. We can't show our hand early because ... these are some good teams and we don't want them to be able to come into a series and be able to adjust to what we do. We just have to be able to play our normal defense until we get there and then we will see what happens."

Our rebounding was absolutely horrendous, particularly when both TT and Love were subbed out and/or Love was hurt (and we had Frye playing heavy minutes at center). Lue addressed this:

"I think the rebounding hurt us. Rebounding. But it will be different once some other things happen. ... Their two-guards, their threes, they still crashed the boards. But we have something to fix that. Just not right now."

Indiana played incredibly well but if you can't see that as a possibility then you'll never see the truth. Paul George was an absolute superstar in games 1-3, Lance Stephenson catapulted them to a different level. You can't just look at their regular season record and correlate that to the team in the playoffs. Lance was signed late in the year and he had the BEST playoff performance of his career. Jeff Teague had the best playoff performance of his career.

Guess what? Indiana shot a ton of contested shots and were 3rd in the league in converting contested shots. Guess who was near the bottom? Portland. They had a HIGH number of uncontested shots and couldn't deliver.

Toronto was getting smashed with Lowry playing and actually played better when he was out (certainly due to being at home and CoJo getting more minutes to contain Kyrie). Still, the Cavs D-Rtg jumped up to top 3 in the playoffs and I'm sure it's #2 (if not #1 right now but I'd have to check).

Remember, the Cavs dealt with heavy injuries in the regular season. JR Smith is one of our best perimeter defenders and missed a big portion of the season. Kevin Love missed a big portion (and affected our rebounding rate). We were running lineups featuring Kay Felder and Deandre Liggins all season. Deron Williams was a new addition. Kyle Korver was a new addition. Derrick Williams was a new addition and got a lot of minutes during both of his 10-day contracts.

No, the regular season is not completely meaningless but it still doesn't hold an ounce of weight compared to the playoffs. I'm not lying to you, bro, the Cavs went through a ton of obstacles during the regular season while not giving all their effort and using all their sets.

With full health, continuity/chemistry, and full effort, they're easily a 60-win team and I think you're being naive suggesting otherwise.

[TheSuzerain]

The NBA product is getting poor. Just two teams being dominant as if there is only 8-12 teams in the entire league + the playoffs not being competitive = fans not caring more and more. People might as well just wait for the Finals each year, but if the same two teams go again the next couple seasons, I can see ABC losing major ratings for that too.

Historically, the league has been its most popular when there is a lack of parity.

[R3AL1TY]

No one seriously could've watched the last Celtics game and came out with the thought that a good number of shots were contested by the Lebrons. Even during the half-time break, Kenny and the guys were breaking down how many good looks they had but shots weren't falling. The easy counter to a team blitzing a pick n roll is passing to the player left open from the guy who is double teaming or helping with a trap, which Celtics did but guys like Horford and Crowder were missing their shots.

Indiana is a dumb team offensively especially Rated G (Paul George). They will shoot themselves out of a lead or not make an extra pass. Weak teams that don't play smart can make a bad defensive team look good.

[R3AL1TY]

The NBA product is getting poor. Just two teams being dominant as if there is only 8-12 teams in the entire league + the playoffs not being competitive = fans not caring more and more. People might as well just wait for the Finals each year, but if the same two teams go again the next couple seasons, I can see ABC losing major ratings for that too.

Historically, the league has been its most popular when there is a lack of parity.

yeah, but for the most part, the games were still quite competitive despite predicting the certain few who will be there in the Finals. Even during Jordan's era of the 2 three-peats, the playoff games were still competitive in general.

[dice]

This was your question. You brought up the point of not torching the league means he's not playing with 3 studs

yes. and he's NOT! which is strictly a critique of tristan thompson

Apparently, if you're only torching the playoffs then it's an issue of competition and has nothing to do with Thompson being any good. If he was good, they'd torch the regular season too which is filled with even weaker teams. That's the point your making I guess

you're having a logic disconnect here. i'm saying that if they were that great they would have crushed the east in the regular season as well. a string of a few good games (which is what they've had in the playoffs) does not cancel out much of the suckage they displayed toward the end of the regular season

And coasting is just that. That's why we use that word. Great teams taking it easy in the regular season

that's not how i was using the word. i was using it as "crushing the competition." the way it is used when a team blows out another, for example ("the cavs went up 19 late in the 3rd and coasted to victory"). when they're so far ahead they don't HAVE to put forth any more effort. that was not the cavs in the regular season

Lol Why intentionally? I don't know dude. Maybe they decided to use specific sets more frequently depending on the playoff match ups? They haven't been running the same **** they did in the regular season. Don't tell me they do

don't tell me they've drastically changed their defense. the burden of proof is on you to show me something has significantly changed. i've heard no such analysis

guess what? their defense wasn't any good the first 6 games of the playoffs either. then lowry got injured. if you wanna say they've played amazing defense in 2 games against boston, have at it. but don't claim that they suddenly decided to flip the playoff switch or some such nonsense

And the frustration was more about effort than anything else (especially in the open court)

that may be. but your suggestion is that the team wasn't listening to the coach or lebron when they expressed that frustration, but now suddenly they are

You'd have to be pretty dense to think 51 wins is indicative of how good the Cavs really are. Why doesn't this simple win/loss rating work with Boston? They're clearly the better team with 53 wins, right?

i never suggested either. don't distort my argument to puff up your own flat one

if you'd like to go back and read what i actually DID say (multiple times!), it was that no great team squeaks out 50 regular season wins (barring major injury issues). none. not in the history of the game. which is not to say they're a typical 50 win team. they're certainly better than that. just not so much better as to be great

I don't mean to impose upon your conversation, but the Cavs are absolutely running different defensive sets. In the regular season we always played OVER the PnR, and a huge lack of effort resulted in easy baskets for opposing teams. Right now? We're blitzing the hell out of the PnR and LeBron is playing free safety and closing out on whoever they pass it to. Our halfcourt defense was top 10 in the regular season, but we were dead last in transition defense. However in the playoffs our transition defense has improved remarkably.

Frustration sets in with losing, and a lot of our regular season defensive woes were because of effort. Even so, we had a 'normal' defense in the regular season and the playoffs have brought out better sets.

http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2017/03/tyronn_lues_secret_plan_to_fix.html

Even Tyronn Lue acknowledged this at the end of March (when we were losing). He said:

"We've got to hold back. We can't show our hand early because ... these are some good teams and we don't want them to be able to come into a series and be able to adjust to what we do. We just have to be able to play our normal defense until we get there and then we will see what happens."

Our rebounding was absolutely horrendous, particularly when both TT and Love were subbed out and/or Love was hurt (and we had Frye playing heavy minutes at center). Lue addressed this:

"I think the rebounding hurt us. Rebounding. But it will be different once some other things happen. ... Their two-guards, their threes, they still crashed the boards. But we have something to fix that. Just not right now."

Indiana played incredibly well but if you can't see that as a possibility then you'll never see the truth. Paul George was an absolute superstar in games 1-3, Lance Stephenson catapulted them to a different level. You can't just look at their regular season record and correlate that to the team in the playoffs. Lance was signed late in the year and he had the BEST playoff performance of his career. Jeff Teague had the best playoff performance of his career.

Guess what? Indiana shot a ton of contested shots and were 3rd in the league in converting contested shots. Guess who was near the bottom? Portland. They had a HIGH number of uncontested shots and couldn't deliver.

Toronto was getting smashed with Lowry playing and actually played better when he was out (certainly due to being at home and CoJo getting more minutes to contain Kyrie). Still, the Cavs D-Rtg jumped up to top 3 in the playoffs and I'm sure it's #2 (if not #1 right now but I'd have to check).

Remember, the Cavs dealt with heavy injuries in the regular season. JR Smith is one of our best perimeter defenders and missed a big portion of the season. Kevin Love missed a big portion (and affected our rebounding rate). We were running lineups featuring Kay Felder and Deandre Liggins all season. Deron Williams was a new addition. Kyle Korver was a new addition. Derrick Williams was a new addition and got a lot of minutes during both of his 10-day contracts.

No, the regular season is not completely meaningless but it still doesn't hold an ounce of weight compared to the playoffs. I'm not lying to you, bro, the Cavs went through a ton of obstacles during the regular season while not giving all their effort and using all their sets.

With full health, continuity/chemistry, and full effort, they're easily a 60-win team and I think you're being naive suggesting otherwise.

NEVER. SUGGESTED. OTHERWISE. they might well have been able to hit 60 if they went all out. san antonio didn't have to go all out to hit 60. the warriors could have half-assed their way to 60. that's the difference between great and not great

but hey, if the cavs can make it exciting against the warriors i'll consider myself proven wrong

[kyrv]

The Celtics and the Spurs should just throw in the white flag so the finals can get started.

These next few conference finals games are essentially as relevant as preseason games at this point. Especially now that Kawhi very likely won't play game 4.

I think the finals are a set date so doesn't matter if they stopped now, just more off days. I think if both teams sweep the scheduling silliness will be on display.

[BigUps]

The three point line, thats all that matters anymore. Athleticism on defense and the ability to shoot the 3. Get a bunch of those guys and a PG to distribute and you can play in today's NBA.

[Repeat 3-peat]

Kevin Love has hit 7 shots, all 7 were threes