Board 8 > NBA Discussion Topic 3 - Will Boston ever lose? Also James Harden is MVP

(+) Yeah! (+)

amir's been balling, man
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SeabassDebeste posted...

amir's been falling, man

Fixed.

I'm pretty sure he wasn't even fouled there, just didn't know how fast his legs were moving.

Seriously though, he's done about as well as I could have expected taking on those Embiid minutes.
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transience posted...

yep, kings lose by 30 at home to a middle-of-the-pack team after beating the warriors on the road

sad thing is how predictable it is

How sad will it be when Ainge is using their lottery pick next year, and SD and I are crowing about our new Lebron killer
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whoever gets Bagley will be getting a beast

that dude is already NBA ready
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I don't know if I like the idea of Duke being a Boston feeder team.
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you've been trying to kill Lebron for like 17 years
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don't worry he's almost out of his 4th prime, so only like 3 more to go the end is near
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When they get swept in the finals by LeBron and Kawhi next year their final hope for a LeBron killer will be retirement.
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LeBron is going to be like Brady and playing at an MVP level into his 40s still.
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the spurs took themselves out of the lebron race by re-upping LMAo.

transience posted...

you've been trying to kill Lebron for like 17 years

i'd still take that 2008 team over any team since! other than the 2017 warriors who are just stupid

my current concern is that horford is at his absolute peak this year and that he'll be past his prime by the time the jays come into their own.

also that jayson tatum seems to have the poise and caginess of a fifteen-year-veteran... and the athleticism of one, too. love his drives, HATE his finishes. seems scared of contact sometimes, like bad jeff green. hopefully i'm just impatient and when he puts on 20lb of muscle he'll be bulldozing people. don't think he's got hops to dunk on mofos like durant.
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that 2008 team was good but not great! it took them 7 games to beat the hawks and even the cavs!

those Miami teams were much better - and that 2014 Spurs team was good too.
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the 2014 spurs was the team James Naismith dreamt of when he created this sport
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miami never had all their best pieces at the right time, together. they hadn't figured it out in 2011 (and didn't win the title); bosh was hurt in 2012 (and they nearly got beaten by the vastly inferior 2012 celtics, who were short their best guard defender in bradley); and wade/battier were old by 2013. would been awesome series to watch, though.

the 2014 spurs were really good for sure, but i think we overrate them a bit because they went nuclear in the finals and shredded miami's trapping D. in some ways i'm not sure they're better than the 2013 team. kawhi was better in 2014 for sure, but parker, duncan, ginobli, green, and diaw all seemed better in 2013.
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SeabassDebeste posted...

i'd still take that 2008 team over any team since!

I'm stunned to hear this

SeabassDebeste posted...

kawhi was better in 2014 for sure, but parker, duncan, ginobli, green, and diaw all seemed better in 2013.

Ginobili was so bad in 2013 that many fans thought he was about to retire. It's kind of amazing that he's still playing four years later when I think about how terrible he was in the playoffs. The others, I don't think there's a real noticeable difference between 2013 and 2014. Heck, looking at the numbers, Danny Green was pretty much the same guy both years. Diaw was a decent bit better in 2014.

I don't think there's much difference between the 2013 Spurs and the 2014 Spurs overall. The big difference was that the 2014 Heat were noticeably worse than the 2013 Heat, and that's why they got bodied so hard.
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I guess I'm going just based off the playoffs. Danny Green was on some fever dream stuff early in the 2013 Finals. He seemed ridiculously hot. Ginobli had a few bad games and a few good games. (It is insane he's still this good, though.)

Tony Parker was an MVP candidate in 2013 and like a league-average point guard in 2014, I thought. Also hard to erase the memory of Duncan going for 25 in the first half of that Game 6 that we don't talk about. Granted he did close out OKC in 2014.

I thought Diaw was really effective defending LeBron in 2013, so that's mostly where I'm judging him. He did look more comfortable on offense in '14 though.
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Ginobili was awful in the 2013 Finals. He had one good game, and I remember that specifically because I kept saying, "If we can get ONE good game out of Ginobili, we can win this."

and then we didn't but still we should have

Parker was an All-Star in 2013 and 2014. He might have been better in 2013, but Kawhi coming on strong in 2014 probably makes Parker and Duncan look worse by comparison.

Diaw might have been a better defender in 2013, but he was definitely a much better fit in the offense in 2014.
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20.6 points, 7.0 assists in 2013 playoffs. 17.4 points, 4.8 assists in 2014 playoffs (with more turnovers). I don't think I'm entirely off base on Tony Parker here. But looking at it, you're definitely right about Ginobli.

Looks like across the whole playoffs, the biggest difference for Danny Green was that he played more minutes in 2013. His efficiency actually improved slightly overall, but the minutes make a big difference. Can probably chock that up in part to the entire team going nuts. Same deal with Duncan - his points and rebounds go down from '13 to '14... alongside his minutes. His efficiency is slightly higher in '14.

This was a fun dive!
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Yeah, Parker's 2013 numbers are definitely better, but he was still pretty good in 2014.

Like I said, I think both teams are probably close to the same level of quality. The big difference is that the 2014 Heat were worse than the 2013 Heat team that shouldn't have won to begin with.
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the Heat were in their fourth finals. that's tough for any team. I think the 2004 Lakers had a lot of that too - they were in their fourth final in five years and then they lost Malone. that was the end of that.

you can see the effect on the Cavs and Warriors this year. they're both going for their fourth finals appearance and neither one seems to care all that much in the regular season.
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transience posted...

I think the 2004 Lakers had a lot of that too - they were in their fourth final in five years and then they lost Malone. that was the end of that.

You're underestimating how ridiculously good that Pistons defense had become post-Rasheed Wallace trade.

They literally held 5 teams in a row under 70 points. The sixth team scored 70.

Their defensive rating for the final 20 some games would rank as the lowest in NBA history for a full season.
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yeah, I think that team was really good defensively during a bad offensive era. I think history thinks back to the 2004 Pistons and remembers the Lakers collapse more than the Pistons success. you will feel differently, of course, but that's how I remember it.
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I think you can acknowledge that your opposition has a disadvantage without taking away from your own team!

The Cavs actually seem really good right now. Losing D-Rose was definitely a blessing in disguise.

But yeah, aside from being year 4 of going to the finals straight, Battier and Wade were done as elite players at that point. Hard to overcome that.
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transience posted...

yeah, I think that team was really good defensively during a bad offensive era. I think history thinks back to the 2004 Pistons and remembers the Lakers collapse more than the Pistons success. you will feel differently, of course, but that's how I remember it.

Yeah but if you see how good the Pistons were after the Rasheed Wallace trade (20-6, including a stretch where they won 20 of 23), there shouldn't have been any shock after the fact that they became NBA champs. Maybe in the moment, sure. But not after the series was done.

Btw, I could be wrong but I thin Ben Wallace's defensive rating that season is either the lowest or one of the lowest in NBA history. He did not win DPotY that year.
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It's because it's the Lakers and the Pistons that people will remember the '04 Finals for that. People will always remember LeBron shitting the bed in 2011 instead of the Dirk's insane redemption season, too.

I'm all in on the 04 Pistons being ridiiiiculous.
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If anyone ever doubts the Pistons for any reason, Rock will be there to remind them that IF YOU KNEW ANYTHING ABOUT DEEETROIT BASKETBAWWWLLL you wouldn't have been surprised about this thing the Pistons did
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Yes Rock we all know you are the only one that watches the Pistons, you and SHINE. The only ones in the history of Board 8.
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ExThaNemesis posted...

Yes Rock we all know you are the only one that watches the Pistons, you and SHINE. The only ones in the history of Board 8.

Pretty sure there's a bunch of other Michigan board 8ers who watch the Pistons but ok.

Of course I literally said "it would be understandable in the moment" but point out that observing what the Pistons did leading up to the Finals would explain their dominance of the Lakers.
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I am referencing what I now see as a pattern of you senselessly acting like that. The other time with the Thunder was way worse.
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What's senseless about pointing out that most people here watch less Pistons basketball the past 20+ years than I do?

I mean, when I pointed out Detroit was a really good fourth quarter team and you would know that if you watched any Pistons game, there's absolutely nothing false about that. And we literally have the stats to prove it:

https://www.detroitbadboys.com/2017/11/28/16710306/the-detroit-pistons-are-the-best-fourth-quarter-team-in-the-league
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The discussion was not about that at all though. It was just me getting salty at SHINE. I hadn't even said something like "GAWSH, it's so surprising to me that the Thunder blew this lead!"

Because if you knew anything at all about the Thunder this year you'd know that they blow leads all the time.
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the celtics are also a great 4th quarter team this year! but we've lost to the other two kings of the 4th quarter this season, the cavs and the pistons :(
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ExThaNemesis posted...

Because if you knew anything at all about the Thunder this year you'd know that they blow leads all the time.

And unlike you I wouldn't throw a fit about it.
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Hay guyz what's happening

Sure hope we can beat those Wizards tonight
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78 first half points for GSW lmao
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Letting the wizards start the 3rd with a 17-0 run was probably not the way to go
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Well that sucked. Probably their easiest game, a Wall-less Wizards, for a while.
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someone's gonna blast the 3p record and it's gonna look like Stockton's assist record or something
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the top ten list for most 3s in a season is going to be all Steph Curry by the time he's done
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whew. must win and we did. Fuck the Wolves.
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TheRock1525 posted...

Well that sucked. Probably their easiest game, a Wall-less Wizards, for a while.

If you knew anything at all about the Wizards it's that they play much better against defensive minded teams without Wall in the lineup.
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Is Joe Johnson still playing?
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Yeah, hes with the Jazz

Hes hurt though and probably more a bench/role player in favor of Donovan Mitchell when he comes back
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Kangzzzz
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https://streamable.com/exgpn

damn!

where's ExTha
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celtics finally get it together end of 3/start of 4 against phoenix

heinsohn compares booker to jerry west
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https://twitter.com/World_Wide_Wob/status/937041194248474629

wow
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transience posted...

https://streamable.com/exgpn

damn!

where's ExTha

I make my friends call me Swaggy J, nice try
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transience posted...

https://twitter.com/World_Wide_Wob/status/937041194248474629

wow

he also had a possession where he hit 6 straight ORBs and scored

devin booker just went offff today though
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Went down 16 in the first half, but Pistons came back in the 4th to take the lead

Couldn't overcome Drummond fouling out though. Embiid was on a mission to make it happen after he got burned on the twitter war between the two.
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i was rooting for the pistons and almost tuned in but then i saw the sixers were up

sorry kidz
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