3rd Quarter Collapse

Good AG showing up this half

Considering the circumstances, you take a 4 point deficit. Continue the defense from the last 5 minutes, limit the turnovers, get better ball movement out of the 2nd unit and we’ll be in good shape.

You do know playoff odds are a result of a mathematical formula and not some guy in a room coming up with arbitrary figures, right?

Thon missed three wide open threes. Could’ve gave Detroit the lead if he could shoot.

Getting interesting down in Detroit... 3 point game

Pistons won the 3rd quarter by 10 points. If they can replicate that in the 4th, they win. Just gotta hope Ish can continue to carry them.

To be fair, they’ve clawed back from 23 down. If they can get this below 7 before the 4th, they’ll give themselves a chance

Toronto shouldn’t have took out Ibaka. Offense started stalling out and Miami took advantage of Gasol on defense. Didn’t like the decision to just iso Kawhi, but whatever.

Wow. Heat play 76ers and Raptors before the season finale versus Nets— more than possible we have our spot secure before Charlotte.

Huge loss for the Heat. They’re going to have to pull off some upsets to give themselves a chance for the playoffs. Gives us more breathing room as well, of course.

go timberwolves

Vuc/DJ defending DSJ and Robinson on the PnR also worries me a lot versus New York. Still, these are must wins.

They’re obviously must-wins, but I’m not sure Atlanta is a team that is going to let themselves be a statement game. In their past 5, they’ve beat Utah, Philly and Milwaukee so it’s not like they’re rolling over. No excuses, but Atlanta’s a dangerous team we can’t take lightly.

Eh, we came out with a bunch of energy in the 1st quarter, Toronto just made adjustments defensively and we couldn’t deal with that and they’re shooting. We’re also going to struggle offensively when Vuc and Ross put up relative duds, so that didn’t help either. I think Toronto just made adjustments and kicked our butts with ball movement as opposed to us having a bad mentality.

He wanted size on Lowry, so he put Augustin on Green and Fournier on Lowry. He could’ve been more aggressive with subbing MCW, but then you lose some spacing and offense when you put MCW in. You could’ve tried putting Augustin on Lowry, but that’s just shifting the mismatch from one player to another. I probably would’ve tried Augustin on Lowry more often than Cliff did, but it really was a “pick your poison” scenario.

Tough end to the half. Still hopeful we can pull this out, though— most of Toronto’s success has come through jump shooting at an efficiency well above their average. Keep playing our game and bank on Toronto regressing back to their averages, and we can get ourselves back into the game. We can’t turn the ball over like we did in the 2nd half, though.

Great energy to start. Isaac is really locked in right now. I thought Vuc had a chance at rebounding the Gordon block on Kawhi, but let it go. Inbound right after led to a 3 by Green. I might be wrong, but wish Vuc went for that one.

For what it’s worth, I live in Oviedo and the past three games have been bumped for baseball. I use Sling if that makes a difference, but their market restrictions must be pretty stringent if I’m not in market.

Might not be the most popular opinion on here since I think most want to get away from the WeltHam archetype, but I think Matisse Thybulle is the superior prospect to NAW. 6’5 with a 7’0 wingspan, averages 5 stocks a game (though some of that is due to playing in a zone defense), 36% from 3 over his career with some good athletic traits that make me think there’s room to grow on offense. I feel confident with Thybulle that he’ll be a 3 and D pretty early on in his career, with potential for more. Like you said, I think NAW will be a 3 without the D— which does have value, but not as much as Thybulle.

If you said that, then sure, maybe we could find a common ground, but saying “Isaiah Thomas pick 60” as evidence for keeping your 2nd round picks is the equivalent of me saying you should trade the #1 overall pick because Michael Olowokandi was picked #1 overall. You have a point that I don’t totally disagree with, but using isolated examples to support that isn’t very good argumentation.

We’d still need to tie their record to get in the playoffs. I’m not confident that we’ll be able to do that if we lose to the Heat. Lakers finding a way to beat the Nets would be big for us as well.

2 minute reaction, but MCW isn’t doing too bad. Just run the offense, get into the paint, drive and kick. Nice start for him.

At least Grant has been shooting it well recently, though. Ignoring MCW’s rookie season, his 3 point percentage has been under 30% his whole career. I’m no fan of Grant, but I feel like this could hurt the offense more than help it.

For what it’s worth, Clifford said that this was one of the better games post ASB. I do wonder if our players finally got the message in terms of limiting drives to the basket and protecting the paint, or if Cleveland just phoned it in— the Cavs are 5-5 in their past 10, and they play a drive-and-kick style of offense so I’m not sure.

Miami plays the Bucks two times, Spurs, Thunder and Hornets in their next five so we can make up lost ground if we can get a streak going here.