They are only going to get massively better with those Brooklyn picks coming up. Best record in the East and gets draft picks as if they were the worst team in the league.
Fuck you, Blazers, just fuck you. You play like a team possessed in the first game and then don’t even show up in the second? Fucking Harkless is your top scorer, and only with 15 points, then you drag your ass to a 29 point walloping? Yeah, they’re a formidable team on both ends, but you really deserve to be swept at home after that piss-poor performance. Fucking hell.
I don’t see GS losing a home game until late May or June
People say that the playoffs are a different game than the regular season, but the Bulls are perhaps the most extreme example of this in recent years.
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Depth is less important in playoff games, since teams tighten their rotations and play their stars more minutes. The Bulls basically played a 7 man rotation in game 2; their starting lineup, not their depth, is their strength. OTOH, the Celtics are a deep team with more of a balanced roster.
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Rest is built-in to the playoffs. With at least one day off between games, older teams (such as the Bulls, with a 35-year-old Wade, 31-year-old Rondo and 29-year-old Lopez) are advantaged.
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Defensive intensity increases in the playoffs, making shot creators more valuable. You can’t just expect to get open shots by running your offense. The Celtics really only have one guy (Isiah Thomas) who can do this, but the Bulls have two or three (Butler, Wade, and Rondo).
But perhaps most importantly, and mostly unrelated to playoff dynamics, the Celtics are undersized inside and the Bulls’ strength is rebounding, so Chicago is killing them on the boards.
I don’t even want to see the warriors play anymore until the western conference finals
nb the young Isaiah spells his name right.
I cannot believe the pacers blew a 26 pt lead at home in the second half when they were so close to being down 2-1. The pacers coach should be fired on live tv
At one point last night the score was Milwaukee 48, Toronto 17.
I’ve been watching the NBA a long time and I don’t ever remember seeing a score like that before.
The time has come to ask some questions as to why the Raptors always play badly in the playoffs. Yeah, they won two playoff series last year, but in both cases went to 7 games with a team they finished way, way ahead of in the regular season and they looked lucky to have won. Their dropoff from regular season to playoff is consistently huge. Once or twice, meh, shit happens, but four years in a row you really should wonder.
Celtics avoid going down 0-3 and steals game 3 in chicago. Now the Bulls have to go back to Boston and going to have to try and win again without Rondo.
I’m going to go out on a very short limb here and say the Blazers are toast. They blew a 17 point lead at home, went into a fourth quarter slump (per usual) and lost game three by six points. A very disappointing season over all.
And my personal nightmare continues… 
Blazers lost because of poor coaching.
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Blazers coach never called timeout to slow down the momentum
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Blazers coach never told his team to settle down which was obvious the way they kept shooting 3’s once GS tied the game
No.
The Blazers lost because they’re playing a historically great basketball team that’s running out (conservatively) three of the best four players on the floor. I get that it’s disappointing for their fans to watch them go four and out, but the idea that it represents a failure of coaching for a .500 team to lose in the playoffs to a 67-win juggernaut is just crazy. No amount of telling the team to settle down is going to make them equal to this Warriors team. You could hand the team over to the mutant offspring of Greg Popovich and Dwight Eisenhower and they’re still getting swept.
I just feel when a lead is getting smaller, as a coach you don’t wait until it’s down to 3pts. Instead you call a time out when the lead goes from 17 to 11
Sure, but calling a time out isn’t some magical solution that is going to change the fact that the Blazers were completely outmatched.
But it does slow down the momentum of the other team which is key when the better team is making a run.
I almost feel bad for OKC. Westbrook is obviously a legit MVP caliber player, but everyone else is either serviceable (Oladipo, Adams) or just awful. The Rockets’ bench was literally ROTFL as Andre Roberson missed free throw after free throw in an embarrassing performance.
Regarding Tortonto’s playoff woes, I put it most of it on Kyle Lowry. For whatever reason, the dude shrinks in the postseason. Even in their game 4 victory, Lowry’s numbers weren’t anything great.
This is exactly what Stotts did!
The Blazers took their 1st timeout after the McGee alley-oop, which cut the lead to 12 (it was at 17 earlier).
Their 2nd timeout was taken after a Klay three, which cut the lead to 4.
Their 3rd timeout was taken trailing 100-96 in the 4th quarter.
Their 4th timeout was taken trailing 108-100 in the 4th.
Their 5th timeout was taken after Curry’s 2 point jumper to put the Warriors ahead 115-109.
Basically, he took a couple “stem the bleeding” timeouts in the 3rd/4th, but also conserved a couple timeouts for end-of-game in order to advance the ball if necessary. If your team is getting massacred, I don’t think blowing all 6 timeouts is the right move.
GSW’s ‘helter skelter’ offense and ferocious defense in any challenging 4th quarter is something to behold, and I give it grudging respect. But I also have to berate the Blazers’ coaching staff for not preparing them for what they know is coming. I’m pretty sure they’re goners after tonight’s game.
I’m sympathetic… but how the hell do you prepare for that? I mean, you tell your guys, “yeah, so in the fourth quarter, they’re going to basically activate a video game cheat code and crush us. They will make every shot. They will be everywhere. So… uh… be prepared, I guess?” But I don’t think it’s going to help. I can’t fault the Blazers coaching staff for failing to come up with a game plan that can fight off the Warriors, because no coaching staff has done that in about 700 days (the Cavaliers strategy, best defined as “have the best basketball player in the universe and duck,” notwithstanding).