NBA '08 Playoff Thread

hahahahahaaha. Touche, I suppose.

It's funny, right after he posted that, I thought, "He's giving Gasol way too much credit."

So there ya go.

Angola: I wouldn't say "pissy." How about "less patient"?

On another note: look at this photo on this Hollinger story. Maybe it's the angle, the lighting, whatever. But it looks like Farmar and his defender are superimposed into a spot they shouldn't be. Maybe it's just my tired eyes.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2008/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=Farmar-080615

 

Says 'gola, the obnoxious whiny ass Yankees fan!

 

I'm not whiny, just generally an angry person.

 

Just now having gone back and read more of this thread, some of the revisionist history many people have constructed about Jordan's career is entertaining, to say the least. Jordan is the absolute best basektball player I've seen in my lifetime, and probably the fiercest compeitior as well. But to say that he always hit the big shot, that he always seized every big moment, that he never failed in the clutch, is your mind playing tricks on you. It's like saying, "Tiger always, always comes up with the big putt when he has to!" It's a nice story, but it's not true.

 

DD, I saw every single game MJ played from about 1988 on. All of them. There's no revisionist history on my part. In fact, no one was claiming he hit every big shot. All I was saying is that he wouldn't let his team lose in a must-win game. And he (almost) never did.

Once he won that first title, he never lost it again in a Bulls uniform. ('95 doesn't count; he had just come back.)

 

Seems like no better time than now to post a link to ESPN's best NBA finals performances, ranked 1-50 ...

http://proxy.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2008/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=FinalsPerformances-1&univLogin02=stateChanged

... They got D-Wade at the top. Jordan has four of the top-10 performances, though I don't remember Jordan averaging 11.4 assists against the Lakers to win his first championship. If nothing else, I liked scrolling through the list simply to remember some finals that I had shoved to the back of my mind and had forgotten about.

 

So everything that happened prior to him winning his first title doesn't count? All those series against the Pistons when he hogged the ball, mutherfucked his teammates, got Doug Collins fired, said hell with it, I'll score 50 and we'll lose, never, ever seems to get brought up when ever the Jordaires are using his career like a billy club to hit Kobe over the head with when he doesn't play well in a playoff game. I think it's funny how you can say, oh, well, um, 95 doesn't count. And that other stuff, pre-first title, doesn't count. But then use all Jordan's great moments to mock the sum of Kobe's career.

Michael Jordan was, once again, the best there ever was. And if those Bulls teams had played the four-title Spurs teams or the 3-title Lakers teams in their prime, Jordan wouldn't have six championships. So let's celebrate him for what he was, but not sit here and say "Hay, you suck Kobe!" in part because Pau Gasol can't guard Kevin Garnett. Bill fucking Cartwright couldn't have guarded Tim Duncan or Kevin Garnett either. It's a different game in a different time, and as absolutely brilliant as Jordan was, some things also happened to fall his way in terms of timing too. That was a great team for that era. People seem to forget that Scottie Pippen and Toni Kukoc won 50 games the year he was off playing baseball, and if Hugh Hollins hadn't called a phantom foul and awarded Hubert Davis those free throws, they might have made it all the way to the finals. How many games does this Laker team win if Kobe decides he's going to play wideout for the Oakland Raiders next year?

Piotr keeps making a pretty good point that people keep ignoring about this whole Kobe/Jodran thing. Everyone sort of shuts up when Kobe is playing pretty damn well, and then the second he fails, it's "Ha! He's no fucking Jordan!"

And then Laker fans say, "It's true. We never really said he was. I think any reasonable Laker fan understands that. He's just a fun basketball player to watch."

And then those Kobe haters scream, "But Marc Jackson said he's the new Jordan! And you have own those comments!"

Um, not really. Just because idiots say things doesn't make it so. Van Gundy kept pissing and moaning tonight about how the Lakers should be ashamed of their performance tonight and how this was really more like a defeat than a victory because they can't guard the pick and roll. That's why Jeff Van Gundy is fucking acting as a color guy and not coaching in the NBA Finals right now. Who gives a damn how you win an elimination game? You just win the fucker and find a way to win the next one.

 

Lastly, let me say how much I enjoy it that two people waited until the Cetlics were up 3-1 to vote in the poll that starts out this thread, which I find hilarious no matter who you are rooting for. When the C's close things out in Game 6, I expect them to suddenly get six more votes in the SportsJournalists.com poll.

 

Take it up with ESPN, I'm haven't debated about Jordan on this thread, nor will I debate about Jordan on this thread. Leave me out of it. I simply posted that link for anyone else who -- like me earlier today -- didn't mind a casual walk down memory lane.

Sheesh.

 

I think he was responding to Good Doc.

 

Looking back, that does make more sense. Just saw his post below and mine and there you go.

 

That was for my good pal, Doc, Oz.