Of course they could. But I can’t see it. And I haven’t yet seen impressive recent play from these teams. But the Celtics will be difficult to beat. I’m calling Toronto in 7. Optimistic? Absolutely.
At the very least, the Clippers will beat the Mavs but haven’t looked dominant losing at least two. The Lakers are great but the Raptors have won their last 12 or 13 consecutive games against them. The odds of this happening by chance with even teams is less than 1 in 4000.
But the Raptors often lose to Boston including 3 out of 4 this season. We can beat the Bucks despite the genius of Giannis. The Celtics could be a problem.
The vast majority of those games were before the Lakers were, well, the team they are now. They’re meaningless.
Perhaps. You could say the same thing about Toronto. It includes a complete sweep this season.
Heh - not sure whether to post this in Elections, but way to go, NBA!
Worth some cross-posting.
Ah - spotting only just now - some teams were offering that two months ago.
Today we get back to the business at hand. I think it is okay for athletes to use their influence to call attention to personal concerns. But having done that, I would enjoy seeing some good basketball.
(link deleted) has the Celtics -0.5 point favourites all games. I call Toronto in 7 and am looking forward to this series.
Dr_Paprika, your link was incorrect and I deleted it. Please note “538” isn’t the URL you were looking for.
You also are looking specifically at their RAPTOR rating system. Their ELO rating system favors Toronto by two points in each game. (Of course, as the series progresses, they’ll keep updating it.)
Cheers,
RickJay
Moderator
Apologies. I wanted to acknowledge the site but was not really looking to link to it, and did so in error.
Boston is dominating in perimeter play and is just crushing the Raptors, so they will soon be taking a pretty significant 1-0 advantage.
They were outplayed and outshot, especially Boston’s 17 threes (as of now). The two good things are (1) Lowry back and doing okay and (2) given the teams depth and pluckiness, I’m glad they were creamed first game, rather than losing by a few points. Il devrait encourager les autres. They’ve got work to do, but some of it is just getting back to average.
There was never any doubt as to who would win the Lakers/Blazers series, but other than game two, Portland gave LA a good fight. Even in the last game, with Lillard on the bench, the rest of them stepped up and played a tough game. Portland needs to shed some dead weight like Anferny Simons, Zach Collins (who seems to be too fragile for the NBA), and Hezonia, who, while quick and agile, can’t seem to make good decisions on the court and can’t finish a layup to save his life. Portland is so close to having a team that can go deep in the playoffs, but they need better talent on the bench.
There are 3 players in NBA history who have scored 142 points in 3 consecutive playoff games. The first player to do it was the NBA logo, the 2nd player was the Jumpman logo, and the 3rd was Jamal Murray. His “battle” w Donovan Mitchell is epic.
Damn, this is a good series.
I wouldn’t have expected such tension from Denver and Utah, but they are both playing really well.
That was a good game. Last shot in and out, it was a great ending anyways.
Who would have thought Game 7 would have been such a low-scoring affair?
Nevertheless, it was a hell of a game and series. I only hope the Clippers don’t demolish a worn-out Nuggets team.
Toronto showed up against Boston and played a brilliant three quarters, shutting down Smart and Kenya Walker. But they couldn’t stop Tatum and let a fiery Smart off the leash in the fourth. And they didn’t get many quick points - most of them were tough.
They need to get back to their A game with far fewer fouls to beat a team which has similar depth and defence. They can do it.
Miami wins over Milwaukee on a silly foul with a second left. Whodathunkit ?
[quote=“Dr_Paprika, post:58, topic:916635, full:true”]
Miami wins over Milwaukee on a silly foul with a second left. Whodathunkit ?
[/quote] To be fair to Milwaukee, that was not really a foul; certainly not one that usually gets called on a last-second shot.
To be fair to Miami, the game was only tied because of a foul called on Miami that was not really a foul; certainly not one that usually gets called on a last-second shot.
(In other words, don’t blame Milwaukee’s loss on silly fouls in the last second; blame it on poor offense throughout the game. and Miami making ten more 3’s than Milwaukee)
I am cheering for Miami and they deserved the win. But sometimes fouls should be fairly flagrant if going to be used to decide games.