It is the 2018-19 NBA Playoffs discussion thread for hoops friends ONLY

yea kinda hard to call a sweep at the hands of a megateam heartbreaking but this sorta was

by the way what the fuck was that on the broadcast about how the Warriors don't want players with "talent", they want players with "heart" like uhh Golden State is the last team you can say that about

Empty platitudes. But for real they got contributions from some deep bench players.

very few cliches jvg & mjax won't embrace in the big moment u know xp

telling yall, espn2 was where it was at tonight

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D7ECE-tV4AAAQU2.jpg

hm did not know he was such a deeply rude man

oh yeah rj bigtime rude

haha

Shaun Livingston looks like a jazzman

what is the bucks' (presumably) game plan?? i mean you don't show up to lose!

Tell Bledsoe the game was moved to Ontario

Steph Curry is indefatigable. This is just nuts pic.twitter.com/bTBDKE2MwG

— Drew Shiller (@DrewShiller) May 21, 2019

he's the most entertaining hooper ive ever seen, and may ever see.

id put him up there w jordan

yup. obv homerism gonna put him over the top for me tho.

iverson was more emotionally resonant and likewise more frustrating

stephs gotta be the most skilled person to ever touch a basketball

pretty crazy that dray/steph are the first teammates to have triple doubles in the same playoff game

I keep telling my wife steph's the most magical player in the game today

he is unfathomable to me in a way where I respect the deep mysteries of the world

some of his best ever games have been in portland

yeah hes 10-0 vs pdx in the playoffs

brutal lol

last night it felt like every time the blazers had a run or a great play to get the crowd into it steph would hit a 3, one that prob wasn't even open in the traditional sense. and it reminded me that he might have the greatest "checkmate" shot of all time... like MJ was unstoppable obviously but i feel like nothing is quite as demoralizing as when steph is feeling it and just routinely hitting long and/or extremely difficult three pointers. it gets the most points and there's literally nothing you can do. lol.

before he was a champ he and yung dame had some truly brilliant battles, I got to go to one here in like 2013 or so v blessed

Tbh it's been kinda nice having KD out and seeing the Warriors play

they're def more fun to watch w/o KD. I wonder if the players have more fun w/o him.

draymond definitely plays better when kd doesn't play.

Losing twenty pounds also didn't hurt.

draymond definitely plays better when kd doesn't play.

― i think ur a controp (voodoo chili), Tuesday, May 21, 2019 4:32 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah there's a fundamental thing where with no KD draymond gets/has to have the ball in his hands a ton. it certainly seems to elevate his play & yeah also just makes them more fun.

yah dray's been beastin all playoffs, even when KD was healthy.

KD has game and all but his style of play has never been particularly exhilarating to watch, to me anyway. theyve had stretches during this run where the dubs play their preferred style and KD is playing more within the flow and passing and cutting and moving but that hasnt happened as consistently since the first title run, especially the cutting part. when he does it they blow everyone out of the water... he may say he was happy after that first year but clearly it wasnt his preferred style so theyve done everything they can to appease him over the last couple of seasons to get him to re-sign. the organization-wide narrative/push for the last couple of months is for everyone to say the words "he is the best player in the nba" to make sure he feels loved. he's been finally getting mvp chants at oracle too. might be too little too late.

i feel like they didn't need to do this in the series to win but the pace the warriors were playing with was pretty fun to watch. dray was getting the ball up the floor in 2 seconds flat like every possession it felt like regardless of make or miss

he was relentless. beautiful to watch

If anything it seems like it was just a tactic to wear the Blazers down since they've been playing every other day since game 7 of that grueling series against the Nuggets. It's part of how the warriors were able to dominate the second half of every game.

dray starting doing it in the rockets series when they got bogged down. opened everything up

yea I can't really hate on the Warriors with Durant out, they're a really fun team. Durant suffocates them a bit...they average .5 fewer passes per possession with him on the floor

yeah there's a fundamental thing where with no KD draymond gets/has to have the ball in his hands a ton. it certainly seems to elevate his play & yeah also just makes them more fun.

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, May 21, 2019 4:48 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah otm w kd yr using drays ballhandling/playmaking less which is one of his best skills

it's funny--in an ideal warriors offense, you have steph/dray pnr's with kd and klay surrounding as shooting threats, which is fine, but that means you aren't using the unique and ridiculous scoring abilities of kevin f'n durant.

feel like getting him the ball w the defense scrambling wldnt be the end of the world

like u cld even design some of those steph-dray pnrs to go to him

but its all academic since kerr hates the best basketball play

like dray isnt a very good finisher but he is a very good passer so if u get to to him on the roll and he has a dunk thats cool otherwise keep it moving

It's going to be weird as hell next year when they're playing in SF, that's all I know.

I think the full roster does play a really cool brand of hoops quite often tbf. just seems like less and less lately (harder to do against disciplined playoff teams). when they started this season out they were playing pretty much perfect basketball kd and curry had never looked better together then curry got hurt and dray said some stuff...

and then there was also that weird low usage kd month before the playoffs where he was just passing all the time and it was kinda weird.

yeah the move to sf is bad. oracle hasn't been what it was since the first title run really tho if we're being honest.

u cant fight silicon valley

forget it jake its silicon valleytown

and so forth

oracle hasn't been what it was

Maybe inside the arena. Outside, it's not too different than it was. I doubt that vibe will carry over to Mission Bay.