NBA Playoffs Thread

Correct, ucacm. The .6 play was irrelevant and dead on arrival. But to let a guy just waltz into the backcourt and catch a long bomb? Melo acted like he wanted to chase, then hesitated, then went after him, sort of. Way, way too late. I'm not sure that was necessarily Melo's fault. Didn't matter. That defense on the inbounds was doomed from the start.

But they were doomed before that. No Stoudemire killed the Knicks. It changed everything they could do, and changed everything the Celtics could do. And still the Knicks were RIGHT THERE. Excruciating loss for the Knicks, and a tricky curveball for arguments about the Melo trade.

I'm not going to argue the merits/detriment of the trade. Instead, I still think a team with Melo -- any team -- ain't a championship team, just because his personality is too me-centric. He was fucking great tonight, and the Knicks would've never even had a whiff of being in that game without him. But that's one game. And he's just one guy, by himself.

 

Dallas was solid but good observations after by Barkley. Why did Portland keep leaving Kidd and Peja open? They did set some screens for Peja when he got started, but he also got a lot of open shots because they were collapsing on Dirk.

 

I was in a bar, so no sound. But it seemed like Stojakovic hit at least a few big shots when Dirk was on the bench, too.

I'm pissed, because this had the makings of an amazing game right down to the wire, and it really wasn't. For that, I have newfound respect for the Mavericks. They really muzzled a good pain-in-the-ass team when it counted, and I give Tyson Chandler, a guy who truly lives up to the oath to play defense and not give a shit about anything else, a lot of the credit.

 

Anthony, surrounded by lesser teammates, was fantastic. He needs that space to prosper. But it's the same old Knicks, or Suns, for that matter. When the play has to be made on defense, they can't make it. So in any close game, they're at an enormous disadvantage. They might win one game in this series. Might.

 

Ahem.

 

Ooooops.

Point taken.

 

When the game was on the line, he made the passes to wide open teammates who couldn't execute. Heck, even on the play where Jeffries scored a key basket, Jeffries didn't roll to the hoop when he was wide open and instead tried to set a pick. On the final play, I can't figure out what the idea was -- to have Jeffries try a tough bounce pass to a covered cutter?

 

I was wondering about that, too. It's like Jeffries was so committed to how the play was drawn up that he forgot that the ultimate objective was to, you know, SCORE.

 

I'm headed to AT&T Center for tonight's potential Spurs' round one rebirth game.
But only after the 5-year-old's first baseball practice.

 

Roy is not the same defensively and his offense is so inconsistent. He's turned into that player where if he's not scoring, he's not helping. That's sad, but I can't blame the Blazers. Roy is a shell of his former self. I certainly don't think they would have won with him playing more minutes.

 

Roy can barely get up and down the floor anymore....He'll never be the same, and while he still probably thinks of himself as a superstar, he's really nothing more than a 15 minute per game role player with a max contract...sad

 

Weird, and ugly, game in LA. Lakers up 13, despite Kobe and Gasol having a combined 11 points. Gasol especially looks terrible. Kobe has played pretty good D on Paul, who has 17 but six of them are end of the quarter buzzer-beaters.