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2017-18 NBA (Playoffs): A gasping, wheezing thread begs message board poster arguing how Jordan never lost a Finals to just let it die in peace (4 Viewers)

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You know what this thread would be like if Lebron wasn’t in the finals?

no, nobody does since he’s made it every year since the internet was invented. 

 
bananafish said:
I know my opinion is skewed because my team is still in it but I think this has been one of the better playoffs in a while  :shrug:
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The series have been much more competitive, which certainly beats playoffs like last year's when GS/CLE just steamrolled their ways to the finals. That being said, the actual games  have been kinda disappointing to me. We got 14 conference finals games, but how many were really close? Two? Maybe that's normal and my memory is just ####ty.

 
Wait, the mighty Warriors got taken to the brink and looked like they might lose if not for the Paul injury, and LeBron got taken to the brink by a bunch of kids missing Kyrie and Hayward, and people are still complaining?

Personally, I'm sort of sick of CLE's "supporting" cast altogether, but this era we're currently in is a fun experiment to see how great LeBron truly is. Maybe next year we get a different episode of the LeBron story to see what he can do with real teammates again, but for now, it's fun like this too. 

 
tjnc09 said:
Why the hell would you hedge that?
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Guarantee a nice profit buying insurance at a low price??

Say you bet 100 bucks on the Warriors at that +120.  Well, if you simply want to make sure you don't lose any money at all, bet 15-20 bucks on the Cavs.  Seems like a no brainer hedge.  I mean, it is POSSIBLE the Cavs win.  Maybe Durant and Curry collide and they both get hurt or something.

 
Juxtatarot said:
Anyone want to do a mock NBA draft?  I started a thread in the basketball forum here. (Yes, a basketball forum exists.)  We did this before a handful of years ago with various posters being different teams and I thought it was fun.  I thought we'd start after the Finals are over.  We'd have plenty of time so nothing too fast or too demanding of your time.  

Please feel free to bump this post so we can drum up interest.  Nobody checks the basketball forum.
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Bump for the weekday morning crowd. Some early drafting teams still available like Memphis and Dallas!

 
100% here for all the "NBA is too predictable!" takes from drive-by fans who were nowhere to be found when the Celts and Rockets were leading the conference finals 3-2.

Lay it on us, fellas :popcorn:

 
pollardsvision said:
Wait, the mighty Warriors got taken to the brink and looked like they might lose if not for the Paul injury, and LeBron got taken to the brink by a bunch of kids missing Kyrie and Hayward, and people are still complaining?

Personally, I'm sort of sick of CLE's "supporting" cast altogether, but this era we're currently in is a fun experiment to see how great LeBron truly is. Maybe next year we get a different episode of the LeBron story to see what he can do with real teammates again, but for now, it's fun like this too. 
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Cavs also got taken to the brink by the Pacers.

 
Super teams blah blah blah :rolleyes:  curry, klay and Draymond (2nd round) all drafted by the warriors. Harrison Barnes was the other key player before Durant and where did they get Barnes from? Oh yeah, the draft. Man did they get lucky in 2011 when they signed some guy named Jerry West second best GM ever. @General Malaise you’re still the best GM gb.

 
pollardsvision said:
Wait, the mighty Warriors got taken to the brink and looked like they might lose if not for the Paul injury, and LeBron got taken to the brink by a bunch of kids missing Kyrie and Hayward, and people are still complaining?

Personally, I'm sort of sick of CLE's "supporting" cast altogether, but this era we're currently in is a fun experiment to see how great LeBron truly is. Maybe next year we get a different episode of the LeBron story to see what he can do with real teammates again, but for now, it's fun like this too. 
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Also if people are still talking about Heyward's absence it's worth noting that the Cavs were missing two of the three best players on their opening day roster by the end of the series, just like the Celtics. Love was concussed and IT was injured and ultimately traded for spare parts. They also "traded" Wade, who if nothing else could have helped buy LeBron a couple minutes rest here and there and taken the minutes Rodney Hood abandoned, for a protected second round pick.

 
bananafish said:
The Warriors tried for 15 minutes and beat the Rockets lol
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This has always been the biggest issue with the NBA.  A 15 point 2Q lead is meaningless.  Game doesn't really start till 7 minutes into the 3Q.  In some ways this is a strength.  You can start watching 90 minutes into the game and miss nothing.

 
TobiasFunke said:
Also if people are still talking about Heyward's absence it's worth noting that the Cavs were missing two of the three best players on their opening day roster by the end of the series, just like the Celtics. Love was concussed and IT was injured and ultimately traded for spare parts. They also "traded" Wade, who if nothing else could have helped buy LeBron a couple minutes rest here and there and taken the minutes Rodney Hood abandoned, for a protected second round pick.
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Love did play 5 out of 7 games and I don't think it counts as missing your 2nd or 3rd best player when you trade him. 

 
Jeff (BPredict)

@BPredict

My binomial calculator is getting a workout, but I'm seeing a ton of numbers flying around. Here are the real numbers, since the Rockets attempted 44 threes: The odds of missing 27 straight were approximately 10,300-to-1 The odds of missing 37+ total were 372-to-1

That’s amazing 

 
culdeus said:
This has always been the biggest issue with the NBA.  A 15 point 2Q lead is meaningless.  Game doesn't really start till 7 minutes into the 3Q.  In some ways this is a strength.  You can start watching 90 minutes into the game and miss nothing.
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For the casual fan, I think you are correct.  For a more hard core fan, I don't think this is the case though.  If the only reason you watch a game is to see the outcome, there is never a reason to watch.  The same can be said for football, just turn it on in the 4th quarter and see if it is still in contention, right?  But, if you want to see adjustments made from the last game, who has a hot hand, have they decided to defend particular plays differently etc etc, you watch the whole game.  Basketball is a game of runs.  Watching those runs is amazing, and seeing how teams react to the runs often decides the games.

 
Capella said:
Jeff (BPredict)

@BPredict

My binomial calculator is getting a workout, but I'm seeing a ton of numbers flying around. Here are the real numbers, since the Rockets attempted 44 threes: The odds of missing 27 straight were approximately 10,300-to-1 The odds of missing 37+ total were 372-to-1

That’s amazing 
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But the refs screwed them. 

 
culdeus said:
This has always been the biggest issue with the NBA.  A 15 point 2Q lead is meaningless.  Game doesn't really start till 7 minutes into the 3Q.  In some ways this is a strength.  You can start watching 90 minutes into the game and miss nothing.
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Home teams with 10 point leads at halftime win somewhere around 85% of the time, road teams win about 75% of the time (link). And obviously those number goes much higher when the lead is 15, not 10. IMO the effect you're referring to is a product of the fact that everything NBA teams do shows up on the scoreboard, so when losing teams do something to increase their win probability everyone sees it.

For example, in baseball if a team facing a 3 run deficit gets a rally going late and puts a bunch of men on base but doesn't put up a crooked number, everyone forgets about those few moments of uncertainty. In the NBA if the trailing team turns a 15 point deficit into a 3 point deficit late, it's seen as a near-comeback that somehow supersedes the earlier effort that created the cushion.  But the win probability graphs for each game would probably look pretty similar

 
Bull Dozier said:
For the casual fan, I think you are correct.  For a more hard core fan, I don't think this is the case though.  If the only reason you watch a game is to see the outcome, there is never a reason to watch.  The same can be said for football, just turn it on in the 4th quarter and see if it is still in contention, right?  But, if you want to see adjustments made from the last game, who has a hot hand, have they decided to defend particular plays differently etc etc, you watch the whole game.  Basketball is a game of runs.  Watching those runs is amazing, and seeing how teams react to the runs often decides the games.
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Football and soccer have an element of clock armor though that Basketball simply doesn't have.  A 20-4 point run in basketball in 4 minutes is big, but not overwhelming.  A 21 point run in football in the same timeframe is remembered for years.  The main reason to pay attention to early game hoops is to get a sense as to who is tired, who has fouls, and how the refs are calling the game.  For something you are only casually invested in that's a big ask.

 
msudaisy26 said:
Love did play 5 out of 7 games and I don't think it counts as missing your 2nd or 3rd best player when you trade him. 
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I'd say what happened to IT with the injury, and the bupkis return they got for him as a result, is fairly similar to what happened to Heyward. If anything it was more damaging, because Thomas was a better player than Heyward the previous season and wasn't ruled out for the season until much later, giving them less time to adjust.  And obviously Boston is a lot deeper at wing than the Cavs are in the backcourt too, but that's to Boston's credit/the Cavs' fault.

 
culdeus said:
Football and soccer have an element of clock armor though that Basketball simply doesn't have.  A 20-4 point run in basketball in 4 minutes is big, but not overwhelming.  A 21 point run in football in the same timeframe is remembered for years.  The main reason to pay attention to early game hoops is to get a sense as to who is tired, who has fouls, and how the refs are calling the game.  For something you are only casually invested in that's a big ask.
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Yeah, but you are comparing points in 2 different sports. The best teams score 30 to 35 a game in the NFL . So a run of 21 is 60 percent of their average. 20 points in the NBA is less than 20 percent of a good teams total in basketball. 

 
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msudaisy26 said:
Yeah, but you are comparing points in 2 different sports. The best teams score 30 to 35 a game in the NFL . So a run of 21 is 60 percent of their average. 20 points in the NBA is less than 20 percent of a good teams total in basketball. 
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I gest that.  I watch at most a half dozen NBA games a year.  From a casual fan perspective it's fairly easy to get into considering that you can to an extent trust that a blowout game probably CAN come back, where this is not the case with NFL (generally speaking).

 
TobiasFunke said:
I'd say what happened to IT with the injury, and the bupkis return they got for him as a result, is fairly similar to what happened to Heyward. If anything it was more damaging, because Thomas was a better player than Heyward the previous season and wasn't ruled out for the season until much later, giving them less time to adjust.  And obviously Boston is a lot deeper at wing than the Cavs are in the backcourt too, but that's to Boston's credit/the Cavs' fault.
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IT wasn't CLE's 2nd or 3rd or even 5th best player. He was terrible on that team.

 
the moops said:
IT wasn't CLE's 2nd or 3rd or even 5th best player. He was terrible on that team.
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Gordon Heyward didn't exactly give the Celtics monster production before he got hurt.  Either you evaluate injury losses based on what they player produced elsewhere prior to the injury, or you don't.

 
ghostguy123 said:
Cavs +650

Warriors -1100

Anyone know when the last time a team was favored this much in the finals?
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Never...I do wonder if that's much too high.  I know people are looking to the '15 Finals, but that Cavs team started Shumpert and Mozgov before both died.  If Love gets out of the concussion protocol, this team has more talent that that one.  Granted they need Iggy not to play, but I don't think it's inconceivable they slow the game down and hit some shots.   

#### that's a lot of ifs

 
msudaisy26 said:
But the refs screwed them. 
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Seriously--you need to drop that. You've made your position clear.  I picked Golden State to the win the series and being a Pacers fan--I had no rooting interest in the series.  GS certainly played better in the second half than Houston did last night--but watching that game--it was pretty clear that the game was called very one sided. Houston was up 11pts and was looking to push it to 20 towards the end of the first half.  Harden on two consectutive isolation plays at the 3pt line where the refs had crystal clear views of what was going on--and CLEARLY gets fouled on both of them.  Not a call on either--and the result is a GS 3.  A few plays later--Gordon goes for a layup and gets absolutely clobbered by 2 Golden State defenders--and another no call.   You were looking at a team that was looking to be up 20 at half versus a team that was up around 10 at half with every drop of their momentum taken away.

 If you have ever played competitive basketball--you will know that momentum is everything.  Last night wasn't about one missed call where you can just the refs costed "x" number of points.  When officials are calling a game in a manner that seems clearly one sided--it effects everything--including your mentality. You rush your shots as you know that most contact will not get called. You start thinking about everything instead of playing naturally.   The entire nature and dynamic of the game changes.   I still think GS played well enough in the second half to win in it--but as a neutral basketball fan I an absolutely see how fans rooting for Houston feel like they were screwed .  You obviously don't believe that--which is fine--but there is no reason to continuously make snarky comments about a position that you already made crystal clear. Either contribute to a discussion in an inviting manner or let it go.  

 
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Capella said:
Jeff (BPredict)

@BPredict

My binomial calculator is getting a workout, but I'm seeing a ton of numbers flying around. Here are the real numbers, since the Rockets attempted 44 threes: The odds of missing 27 straight were approximately 10,300-to-1 The odds of missing 37+ total were 372-to-1

That’s amazing 
Click to expand...
Who says you can't quantify choking.

 
saying that you only need to watch the end of a game (any sport) is missing out on the ups, the downs, the ins, outs and what have you's.

you've taken the world's greatest roller coaster ride and reduced it to the last 10 seconds where you coast to a stop then get off to tell everyone in earshot that the ride sucked.

 
jvdesigns2002 said:
Seriously--you need to drop that. You've made your position clear.  I picked Golden State to the win the series and being a Pacers fan--I had no rooting interest in the series.  GS certainly played better in the second half than Houston did last night--but watching that game--it was pretty clear that the game was called very one sided. Houston was up 11pts and was looking to push it to 20 towards the end of the first half.  Harden on two consectutiveisolation plays at the 3pt line where the refs had crystal clear views of what was going on--and CLEARLY gets fouled on both of them.  Not a call on either--and the result is a GS 3.  A few plays later--Gordon goes for a layup and gets absolutely clobbered by 2 Golden State defenders--and another no call.   You were looking at a team that was looking to be up 20 at half versus a team that was up around 10 at half with every drop of their momentum taken away.

 If you have ever played competitive basketball--you will know that momentum is everything.  Last night wasn't about one missed call where you can just the refs costed "x" number of points.  When officials are calling a game in a manner that seems clearly one sided--it effects everything--including your mentality. You rush your shots as you know that most contact will not get called. You start thinking about everything instead of playing naturally.   The entire nature and dynamic of the game changes.   I still think GS played well enough in the second half to win in it--but as a neutral basketball fan I an absolutely see how fans rooting for Houston feel like they were screwed .  You obviously don't believe that--which is fine--but there is no reason to continuously make snarky comments about a position that you alread made crystal clear. Either contribute to a discussion in an inviting manner or let it go.  
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Watchng the replay right now finally.  Still looking for a definitive image of the first one.  Looks to get him pretty clean up high.  The second one was an obvious foul from the camera angle but far from crystal clear to the official as you seem to believe.  The trail is on Hardens right and the contact is on the left upper arm.

Still amazing that Harden is allowed to wrap up every screener, every post up, every cutter.  The league got rid of this as a POE in the 90's for a reason.

 
Short Corner said:
Watchng the replay right now finally.  Still looking for a definitive image of the first one.  Looks to get him pretty clean up high.  The second one was an obvious foul from the camera angle but far from crystal clear to the official as you seem to believe.  The trail is on Hardens right and the contact is on the left upper arm.

Still amazing that Harden is allowed to wrap up every screener, every post up, every cutter.  The league got rid of this as a POE in the 90's for a reason.
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The first one was clearly a foul because in the current NBA you cannot get in the landing zone of a jump shooter.  Don't watch that play looking at the top of their bodies--look at Hardens landing zone. It's crystal clear.  In the current NBA--that's basically an automatic whistle.  It's certainly an almost automatic whistle for a superstar player on his home court.  Don't get me wrong--I picked Golden State to win--and I agree that Harden gets away with a lot--he is a superstar that was playing on his home court.  Pretty much every questionable call went in the favor of GS last night. 

This video shows a bunch of the "said" calls.  I want to make CLEAR that I am not saying nor am I sponsoring the claim that the game was rigged.  It's basically the first video that I could find that shows a lot of the calls that we are talking about.  That is the ONLY reason I'm using it.    I think GS played well enough to win that game--but I also think that Houston did get shafted a bit.  Those two things don't necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7kQbw0LkGw

 
mr. furley said:
saying that you only need to watch the end of a game (any sport) is missing out on the ups, the downs, the ins, outs and what have you's.

you've taken the world's greatest roller coaster ride and reduced it to the last 10 seconds where you coast to a stop then get off to tell everyone in earshot that the ride sucked.
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I watch sports for the drama and for the amazing display of athletic ability, and "highlight plays."  Seeing a highlight play in the flow of the game is so much more enjoyable to me than watching Sportscenters top ten.

 
culdeus said:
Football and soccer have an element of clock armor though that Basketball simply doesn't have.  A 20-4 point run in basketball in 4 minutes is big, but not overwhelming.  A 21 point run in football in the same timeframe is remembered for years.  The main reason to pay attention to early game hoops is to get a sense as to who is tired, who has fouls, and how the refs are calling the game.  For something you are only casually invested in that's a big ask.
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Hard to compare football and basketball though. 

The scoring distribution through a bball game is pretty consistent. 20-30 points a quarter a team. Some dry spells some hot spells. For a total of 100-120 points basically. In increments of 1, 2 and 3 a pop.

A 31-28 point NFL barn burner is 4 TDs a piece and a field goal - that's less than 10 total scores in a high scoring game. A 14-10 game is three total tds and a FG - so if you are down 15 in the NFL, it can be at the same time seemingly insurmountable and at the same time only a two score game whereby with timeouts, the game isn't over until you are within a minute of it's end.

 
Bull Dozier said:
I watch sports for the drama and for the amazing display of athletic ability, and "highlight plays."  Seeing a highlight play in the flow of the game is so much more enjoyable to me than watching Sportscenters top ten.
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we used to watch sports to see human beings perform athletic feats that were unimaginable. or execute finely tuned skills at a superhuman level.

now it feels like because we see these insane feats on repeat 24/7 people have grown immune to how amazing something like taking off from the free throw line to dunk a ball actually is.

still lots of dads out there who think they could have done better back in their day... but it feels like more younger people think they, too, can touch the top of the backboard, pluck an alley-oop from half court and reverse slam it like Lebron... because of course they could.. they just put up 16 at the Y over lunch over some guys who got D3 bench run in the 80s.

 
jvdesigns2002 said:
Seriously--you need to drop that. You've made your position clear.  I picked Golden State to the win the series and being a Pacers fan--I had no rooting interest in the series.  GS certainly played better in the second half than Houston did last night--but watching that game--it was pretty clear that the game was called very one sided. Houston was up 11pts and was looking to push it to 20 towards the end of the first half.  Harden on two consectutiveisolation plays at the 3pt line where the refs had crystal clear views of what was going on--and CLEARLY gets fouled on both of them.  Not a call on either--and the result is a GS 3.  A few plays later--Gordon goes for a layup and gets absolutely clobbered by 2 Golden State defenders--and another no call.   You were looking at a team that was looking to be up 20 at half versus a team that was up around 10 at half with every drop of their momentum taken away.

 If you have ever played competitive basketball--you will know that momentum is everything.  Last night wasn't about one missed call where you can just the refs costed "x" number of points.  When officials are calling a game in a manner that seems clearly one sided--it effects everything--including your mentality. You rush your shots as you know that most contact will not get called. You start thinking about everything instead of playing naturally.   The entire nature and dynamic of the game changes.   I still think GS played well enough in the second half to win in it--but as a neutral basketball fan I an absolutely see how fans rooting for Houston feel like they were screwed .  You obviously don't believe that--which is fine--but there is no reason to continuously make snarky comments about a position that you alread made crystal clear. Either contribute to a discussion in an inviting manner or let it go.  
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Wow, this is a really good point. Thanks

 
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