Blaze4G wrote:Stillwater wrote:Blaze4G wrote:The thing is, Celtics has improved at sg, sf, arguably PG and center. The cavs have downgraded at PG, JR seems more inconsistent and love seems to have regressed. So the argument can easily be made the cavs are not as good as last year and the Celtics are better. We just have to wait and see how that translates on the court.
Hill is an upgrade defensively and a better floor general than the closer the Cavs gave up, not much of a downgrade overall.
Love has been injured and playing through injury so if he seems to have regressed it's the wrong assumption. He is getting better by the day. Smith was terribly unreliable during the regular season and literally flipped the proverbial switch and has been damn good the entire playoffs. I think the assumptions the Cavs are not as good as last year are incorrect overall.
Yeah

are we talking about the same JR Smith averaging 8 points on 40% shooting? Wow so he was that bad during the regular season that this is now his "switch"?
Raptors didn't really have anyone good defending Love so let's see how he does against horford.
Really? Hill is not much of a downgrade compared to Kyrie...oh wait it's Stillwater replying.
Nevermind, hill is top 5 PG.
JR's defense has been pretty good after being completely awful in the RS. His offense wasn't there against the Pacers but he found his stroke against Toronto so we'll see if that's sustainable.
Also Siakam guarded Love for stretches and he's better than anyone Boston can put on him, aside from maybe Horford which would result in Horford being taken out of the lane.
Hill is clearly better than Kyrie when it comes to defense and playmaking, but yeah saying he's not much of a downgrade overall is inaccurate. Kyrie's isolation ability is really valuable and gives him the edge. I'm definitely not as high on his sheer impact as most, but still we'd be a better team with him replacing Hill.