Arena The NBA Thread

Now the playoffs can start for the Bucks

 

live look at Detroit right after CT told us to tune in




also doubles as just about any time the Cavs played anyone

 

Blocking foul on the little girl sitting on the cooler. Two free throws.

Meh, I've been calling this all year, and told everyone I knew we'd lose the first game by forty (lost by 35, down by 40+ with less than a minute remaining), and every game by at least twenty points. I was right. We lost Game 3 by 16 because of garbage time scoring for Detroit, we were down by 30 late in the fourth.

I knew what was coming because I watched the games during the season. None of them were competitive. This basically would have happened even with a healthy Blake.

Blake played great on one leg, and Reggie played his heart out. Kennard showed his potential this series, hope its a sign of things to come. Fans turned out, taunted the refs, gave Blake a standing ovation and MVP chant. All good. Looking forward to the draft and more good playoff games.

 

Donovan Mitchell is a real - life Superhero.

 

Damian Lillard just scored 34 points in the first half.

 

DAMIAN FREAKING LILLARD. He did it again!

 

From space, with the DPoY in his face. Legend.

 

This photo is a great one:



.

 

One hell of a punctuation mark on the series. Everyone, including PG, knew it was coming. What a crazy shot to lose on.

OKC had it, they just gave it up. Couldn't score. PG missed two free throws late IIRC.

I thought the charging call on Russ late in the game was the wrong call. Lillard came in too late. That should have been an and-one.

The Thunder better figure it out over the summer, because this is what they have. Their payroll is through the roof, they can't really add any help. The team already picked up Donovan's option, so they're not thinking of firing him. Maybe PG and Russ need to work on structure and execution and be more dedicated to running Donovan's plays, at least when they can't get in transition. All that iso too often results in crappy possessions. PG has said he doesn't like running plays, he prefers to freestyle, but Donovan got him a lot of wide open threes in the corner and on the elbow this year with his play calls, so PG needs to run them more often. PG also needs to get Adams involved more, he doesn't look for him. Russ gets Adams a ton of lobs and easy baskets, but I don't think PG does. In the past Russ was horrible off the ball, doing nothing, but he was better this year, sneaking around, and doing a better job setting his feet and preparing for threes. I think he needs to be more earnest about running Donovan's offense because it's clear his one-on-one can only take them so far.

 

Westbrook missed more shots (20) than the rest of the team (19).

lol

 

i think westbrook's shooting is really the elephant in the room with the thunder right now. he shot 36% in the series with the blazers, while attempting more than 22 shots per game. it was the difference. his splits during the regular season were .43/.29/.66. the good news is it's something he can improve, and something he's been better at in the past. but it's rough to be dependent on something that has proven so erratic.

i don't think i've ever seen anything quite like lillard's shot to end a series. that's one for the ages.

 

yeah that was a heck of a shot by Lillard.

 

And he's literally done it before lol

 

i know, i was watching that game live too. but it wasn't a step-back 37 footer while being guarded by one of the best defenders in the game. there have been other buzzer beaters to end a series too, this one's just in a different class to me.

 

There have been a total of five series-winning buzzer beaters. Lillard has two of them.

This one was a bit different, because all of the others were last second scramble shots. This time, Dame took his sweet time to line it up and let everyone watching know what was about to happen. That’s about as close to Babe Ruth pointing to the fence as you can get in basketball.

 

especially when you consider that PG was the leading scorer for the Thunder shooting 70%. just nonsensical for Russ to be taking so many shots.

 

Maybe it's the scar it put on me, but I happen to think that the situation with Jordan's shot in 1989 is even more impressive than Lillard's last night.

Lillard's team is up 3-1 in the series, and the game is tied. If he misses, the game goes to overtime, and even if his team loses in overtime, they have two more games where they have a chance to win the series.

Jordan's team is losing in an elimination game. If he misses, his team is out of the playoffs. He's on the road.

Literally, the only thing that you could possibly say is in Lillard's favor is that Paul George is a slightly better defender than Craig Ehlo.

 

and he was 25 feet further from the basket? but i don't necessarily have a problem with your points. i don't know if i'd say lillard's shot was "better" than jordan's, the situation definitely has to be taken into consideration in that discussion. it still just stands out to me as something different.

 

I'm just glad you agree that the difference between George and Ehlo is marginal, at best.

 

The only thing not mentioned yet, Thunder wise. They didn't think Andre Roberson would be out all season.

Good luck to the Blazers going forward.

I'm looking forward to the Battle between the green teams (Bucks/Celtics). Because the games will be on at a reasonable hour on the East Coast and I hope Milwaukee wins, but I think it will be a Battle.

 

Milwaukee and Boston should be good. Milwaukee has been great and really fun to watch all season, I expect them to win. With Boston you just never know who is going to have a good game or not, but maybe they can get a couple games, maybe even stretch it to game seven. I lean more towards Milwaukee in six games though.

 

Can he improve? To any significant extent? Or is this just who he is? He did make his free throws this series (88.5%) after struggling all year with it. IDK. Some guys (J-Kidd) become much better shooters after 30. Some just stay bad shooters. I do remember him saying he worked really hard over the summer on his threes (and I think he looks better when he sets himself), but then he had that knee surgery and that might have thrown his shot out of whack. We'll see. I don't think it looks good, he's trending in the wrong direction. He's getting worse, not better.

This is a bit misleading, because everyone was so inconsistent from game to game, but check out these TS percentages for OKC for the series overall.

PG - 58%
Russ - 46%
Schroder - 55%
Adams - 65%
Grant - 63%
Ferguson - 50%

Those are the guys who played most of the minutes. Who let them down?


I'm still a big fan of Russ, but I might have to put Lillard over him now.

Or not. Lillard got swept by a six seed in the first round last year and Rondo and Holiday shut him the **** down. He had a horrible series. Worse than Russ just had.

But if we're playing what have you done for me lately, we can put Lillard over Russ.

Horrible, horrible defense. Everyone knew it was coming and they just let it happen. Beverley or Harden needed to come out on that. Houston made it so easy for them. Even the guy covering the inbound pass made it easy.

 

i'm a russ fan too. i hope he figures it out. maybe the solution is to surround him with more shooting. he has pg, but pg commands a lot of attention too. grant is developing into a shooter he can trust, ferguson as well to some extent. have russ crash into the lane, like only he can, looking for layups or dunks, but kicking it to shooters when it's not there. maybe he can fix his mid-range game and three point shot, but right now they just look broken, and there's really not a need for him to take those shots. he could average 15 or 16 assists a game and be helping his team more.

the inside the nba crew were saying after the game last night that russ's problem is that he's always going 100 miles per hour when he should be going 55 and occasionally speeding up to 70. that just sounded so wrong to me (not that i was surprised that those guys would have a bad take). that he is always going 100 miles an hour is his unreplicable skill, it's his star attribute. if he slows down he's not that player anymore. he doesn't need to slow down, he just needs to make better decisions, and right now i think that means shooting less.