2021 NBA playoffs thread

It was
Webber is from Detroit but people weren’t rooting for him
They were rooting for LA to lose

 

Davis should have never been out there last night.

I don't know if his new Delta Tau Chi name of "Street Clothes" and the subsequent laughs the TNT crew got from it hit too close to home and he went out there to save face, but him playing is a collective failure by all stakeholders - coaches, teammates (OK, one teammate), training, medical, and ownership.

He should be livid that he gave it a go with that injury when his team leader mailed in Game 5 and shut down the console in Game 6 once it was clear things weren't going well.

 

Yet.

 

Of course it is! That's the whole point of a hot take, no?

A championship's a championship. That said, as shown this year, there's reason to believe a full-season schedule would have resulted in one of both Lakers superstars being too injured to be effective in the playoffs.

And you can't argue that outside of the bubble-shortened season, LeBron has led the Lakers to as many playoff victories as Pujols has for the Halos.

The Suns were always going to win this series before it started; they were thisclose to being the best team in the West all season and the Lakers were a clutch 3 from not even playing in the series. LeBron, AD or both were all but guaranteed to miss playing time and my original point was I don't understand why NBA pundits weren't pounding that before the playoffs started.

 

That’s a really tiny round hole that you’re trying to force that giant square peg into.

 

Or, the 71 days off that both of last year's Finals teams had this offseason were too hard to overcome, compared to the rest that a lot of other teams had.

 

Fealty to the throne.

 

He was out there for 5 minutes, he didn’t make any injury worse. It’s really like he wasn’t there. He did nothing. Everyone thinks they’re Willis Reed until it’s time to be Willis Reed. And AD is not Willis Reed. Unless they planned that “Street Clothes”(SC) would put up 30 and 10, and that’s a shit coaching job if so, no one on that team had a right to expect him to be a decent contributor.

 

I’m in the bag for LeBron but he looked two steps slow this series. His supporting cast was utter crap and more importantly the Suns are just really good.

 

This really isn't very complex. The Lakers are built around two of the best players in the world. If they're healthy, those two are good enough to carry the rest of the team to the title.

The Lakers were up 2-1 and looking solid when AD pulled his groin. LeBron with a nagging ankle injury is not enough to beat a good team alone.

It's not a morality play. You don't have to start reaching for bullshit like "If you eliminate the times they won playoff series, they've never won a playoff series!"

If they are healthy the Lakers probably win the series. They weren't, so they didn't.

Great series for the Suns. I didn't know if Booker had it in him but he looked tremendous. The West should be fun from here on out.

 

As I said earlier in this thread, LeBron is still an excellent, world-class player. But he cannot drag a bag of corpses through a playoff series like he used to. Those miles have added up. He cannot sustain that sort of excellence over 40-plus minutes. He needs to pick his spots, and with that roster and with AD out, it wasn't good enough.

 

Adam Silver looking at a Hawks/Jazz Finals