2021 NBA playoffs thread

I thought for sure the Bucks coach wouldn't suck again.

 

I mean, Durant is Durant. He's a god damn monster. But the corpse of Blake Griffin has been carving them up tonight, and Harden is playing on one leg. Coach Bud teams just seem to disappoint in the playoffs.

 

I mean that in bounds with 1 second was a catastrophe. Almost as bad as the Bucks’ offense in this OT

 

Oh shit he air balled it!!!!!

 

I hope its Bucks/Hawks so we can get that ECF we should have gotten at least once in the mid to late '80s.

Then Simmons can wax nostalgic about Spud and Dominique and Paul Mokesi and Jack Sikma's perma-fro and how sweet the floor of the Mecca was.

 

All the crap the refs didn’t call and then they call that

 

Just unbelievable. The Nets were crowned when Harden came over and now they’re gone in the second round. Yeah, yeah injuries but still it’s crazy.

But I can’t lie, there is more than a small part of me that gets some glue that Harden once again will have to wait another year for a ring.

 

“You put the team on your back and really gave everything you had. Does that temper the hurt you’re feeling?”

The fuck kind of question is that? What is Durant going to say? “well I’m not getting a ring after losing an entire season but I got mine so I’m all good.” Honestly good lord.

 

I said at the time of the Harden trade that it was an awful move for the Nets... which was an overreaction, but the reasoning played out.

I thought that (a) KD would be odd man out as Harden and Irving dominated the ball, (b) the trade left them with no bench, and (c) the defense would be terrible.

OK, I was wildly wrong on (a). Harden completely changed the way he played when he came to the Nets and it absolutely would have worked, if healthy. And the defense would have been exploited badly if the Bucks had an even moderately competent coach.

But the bench thing really killed them. They just played an OT game where Harden played 53 minutes on a Grade 2 hamstring injury... and the Nets got zero points from the bench. Check out the box score -- the starting five did all the scoring. Durant looked beyond exhausted by the 4th quarter.

Also, the Nets had an exhausted star, needed a shot in the last seconds of overtime to stay alive... and Nash had a timeout he never used. I mean, Nash looked like a genius next to Budenholzer... but I'm not sure Nash is ready for Prime Time as a coach. Maybe if Durant can sit and breathe for a minute or two he doesn't airball the last shot.

 

You can hate Harden for a variety of reasons but at least he was out there. I don't know how much Kyrie could have done but man, at least try in a Game 7.

You got hurt six days ago. Maybe you last one possession but shit, if he gives them six or seven minutes it would probably been worth it.