Arena The NBA Thread

Stern would never allow two such small markets in the Finals, lol...

 

so, does anyone else expect the heat to make the conference finals tonight?

 

yeah, i would be shocked if it's even a close game. grizzlies/thunder should be more interesting.

 

wow. the first half of this first quarter has been just terrible.

 

Bulls had to win game 3. Series was over when they lost that.

 

possibly, but they're certainly fighting a lot in this second quarter.

 

They're teasing me.

 

happy to be wrong about it being close.

 

i was gonna say that if the gris/thunder game was even close to being that exciting it's been a good night basketball wise.

 

well at least i won't have to watch kendrick perkins anymore.

 

That Gay trade is going to kill the Grizzlies.

 

As long as team relocation is in the news, I just realized that it could have been the Vancouver Grizzlies beating the Seattle Supersonics tonight.

 

just read that perkins finished the playoffs with a negative per, and that he is the only player with over 200 minutes to ever do so.

 

well, it does kinda confirm what you see on the court. i don't think they really need a dwight stopper anymore (which was why they got him wasn't it? that and defensive intensity. not sure he provides either anymore at all.)

 

they picked him up when they were most concerned with matching up with the lakers, which at that time meant gasol and bynum. he's owed 9 mil. next season and i wouldn't be surprised to see them amnesty him, depending on if they resign martin and what other moves they make this offseason.

 

the knicks have been hard to watch in this series, but i was glad to see them show a little fight. this game was kind of a reversal of roles. maybe the knicks can get hot in game 6, they're long overdue.

 

spurs made the shots down the stretch, warriors didn't. they went down fighting though. gonna go walk my dog.

 

Looks like the Spurs are heading to the Western Finals. Didn't the Grizzlies knock them out a couple of years ago? In the first or second round?

 

Yep, they eliminated the Spurs in the first round back in 2011. Note that they also did this without Rudy Gay in the lineup. It's precisely this fact that I suspect the Grizzlies can pull off another upset. That, and Mike Conley has clearly improved his game by leaps and bounds offensively by assuming more of an offensive role following the Gay trade. Marc Gasol has also been able to get the ball in his hands more as both a scorer and facilitator.

On the contrary, I thought the team actually improved after the trade, if only slightly. Namely because Gay was a low-efficiency chucker, who while good at manufacturing his own shot and playing solid defense, was simply a bad shooter who took too many jump shots as opposed to slashing to the basket. According to Basketball-Reference's Shot Finder, for the second straight season he's shooting less than 37% on jump shots (35.5%, 40% eFG%), which comprise nearly 3/4 of his field goal attempts! Oh, he also shoots below 50% from layups and just 82% from dunks!

Sure, Tayshaun Prince is hardly a reliable offensive option, but he knows his limitations and generally takes shots within the flow of the offense. He also plays solid man-to-man defense and fits the Grizzlies' schemes to a tee. Also, FWIW, 82games.com suggests that Prince was better than Gay for the team's bottom line, i.e. net production.

 

You need to turn your sarcasm detector on... then re-read my post.

 

Liking that because it's hilarious, even though I like Durant.

 

i still find it amusing that so many people in the media thought that trading gay was going to hurt them. except bill simmons (that i read about anyway).

 

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9286584/mayor-says-deal-sell-sacramento-kings-signed


It's now 100% official. Now, hopefully, within a few years, the team is actually competitive/worth watching.