Boston went from being The Dominator to being The Denominator in pretty short order. Game four was a cockup from the get-go.
Houston was up 2-4 points with 3 minutes left and went for like 5 3s in a row and missed them all. Is that a defensible strategy? Especially the last one with like 10 seconds left. Just try to get a few more points on the board to maintain your lead.
yusssssssssssssssss…
ECF and WCF both knotted at 2-2 now!
Hopes for Rockets-Cavs still alive.
How the hell do the Rockets win that when Harden goes 5-21?! (0-11 from 3!!!) I mean, I thought they’d win the game (with a healthy dose of 8-5), but wow, what a finish.
21-19 Fouls in favor of the Rockets, only 27-32 vs 20-23 for FT. Much less one sided than I was expecting.
I’m already giving Game 6 to the Dubs; let’s see Game 7 already.
Love is out for game 7. That’s actually going to be pretty rough - they did fine without him last night, but Boston will have time to gameplan it and none of the other Cavs ever show up on road games.
What’s with home teams wearing dark jerseys at home these days? Thought it was always traditionally light for the home team and dark for the road visitors.
Lebron James played some pretty great ball the last two games, and basically saw off a good Celtics team without Love or much help.
I think the Raptors overreacted by firing the league’s best coach. I hope they can find someone almost as good.
I am only a casual fan of the NBA, but I find what LeBron has been able to accomplish to be simply amazing. He’s, once again, put a sub average team on his back and dragged them to the championship round. It’s fricking awesome to see how great a player he is. Him. Jordan. Bests ever.
The post game interviewer’s first question to LeBron was “some have said that if you take this group to the finals, it’s the biggest accomplishment of your career, would you agree with that?”
What’s he supposed to say? “Oh yeah, this team I’m currently playing with is definitely the biggest group of scrubs I’ve had to carry”
It isn’t, anyway, the 2007 squad was worse.
I suspect the Cavs will probably lose to the Warriors in the finals, so then we can again hear this gem of an argument:
Jordan was 6-0 in Championship games. LeBron is 3-6. Jordan is clearly better!
But it’s not like Jordan went to the championship in every year he was in the league. No, in lots of years where he didn’t have a great team, he got bounced in the first round. So what this logic says, is:
- Before his championship runs, Jordan had some bad teams and got bounced in the first round of the playoffs.
- LeBron carried bad teams on his back and won the first, second, and conference championship rounds of the playoffs with them.
- Therefore Jordan is better, because losing in the first round doesn’t count, but losing in the championship round does. Somehow losing with scrubs early is better than losing with scrubs after winning a few rounds and making it to the championship. Therefore losing your first playoff series makes you more qualified for GOAT than winning a conference championship.
Exciting game tomorrow. I want to see the Rockets win, of course, because fuck KD/GS, but it’d be tough without Paul.
As much as I admire Lebron, I’m not sure I’m feeling the Cavs in the Finals for a fourth year in a row. And the post-season injuries with Houston (CP3) and Boston (Irving) are not good for basketball.
That aside, I agree that Lebron is amazing.
Does the NBA really want another GSW/Cavs final? I know a lot of people are pretty bored of it and would rather have Rockets/Cavs. But the officiating seems like they want to make sure GSW gets there.
Tweet from clutchfans, pretty much the de facto official Rockets fan message board, at 6 AM:
It’s shit. I expect the Association to pull this crap to force a Game 7—which is why I thought upthread that LeBron wasn’t out of it down 2-0, or why I thought, pre-CP3 hammy pull, that Game 6 in Oracle was a lost cause.
I didn’t expect them though, to actually sway the Game 7 one way or another. The Rockets need to not let that take them out of their game though, and just try to keep it close.
Still not as bad as Game 3 in Miami vs the Mavs, where one wag commented, “I farted on the couch and the ref whistled to give DWade an And 1.”
Mean Warriors won’t let anyone else win the Western Conference. Big bullies! SAD!
Blame the refs all you want, the Rockets missed 27 straight three pointers.
Well…okay. So much for non-inevitability.
Cavs - Warriors for the 4th year in a row. Must be a record, I don’t think any pair of teams ever met 3x in a row. There have been a few teams that met in back-to-back championship series.
QFT
However, there were at least 3 plays that really stood out for me as being terrible calls - a goaltending call against Capella in the first half, a drive by Eric Gordon on the left side in the 3rd quarter where he got fouled by both Looney and Green that resulted in a non call, and a 3rd quarter foul by Durant on Harden where Harden banked in a 3 pointer, and the shot was waved off. That is at least 5, and as many as 7 points right there.
For F’s sake, NBA…
I think I’m puzzled by how powerful the negative reactions to this Finals matchup have been. I mean, I love basketball, and I am jealous that my grandfather got to watch the 60s Celtics live and in person. I’m jealous that my dad got to watch the Lakers and Celtics trade titles in the 80s. This finals is going to feature the second-best player of all time* on one side and the single best collection of talent that’s ever been assembled on the other. This is the thing we get to watch live in person that will make the basketball fans in 2035 jealous. Twenty years from now, no one is going to be like, “Wow, you actually sat in your living room and watched James Harden run forty six isolations in a row!” But they will wish they had gotten to see the Durant-era Warriors play, and if LeBron James manages to beat those Warriors, they’ll be talking about this series for fifty years. The best part of this era’s basketball history is happening right now on stupid TNT, and people are mad about it!
- He’s probably the first best. But once again, I’m not interested in having that debate right now.
Maybe because:
- People like variety
- There are 28 other teams
- The Warriors have jerks on their team?
It’s because many if us are just burned out on the same result, year after year, regardless of the talent involved. And because it doesn’t seem like many of us here have much of a rooting interest for either team.
I don’t know. To me, the way the NBA is structured to allow a team like GS to even exist as it does seems almost like cheating.