2018 Watch the Playoffs thread

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

Just now, jec said:

You're wasting your time. Us simpletons couldn't possibly understand.

There is no basketball. There is only entropy. 

 

[Optimist Prime 197]

44 minutes ago, Mike1989 said:

In the past decade the east have won four titles to the wests six titles. The East have won 26 games in those finals to the West's 30 wins. That's hardly domination in the finals. Sure there have probably been more stronger teams out west than east, but in a sense that doesn't matter because what ultimately matters is who wins the NBA title.

If you take it back to the new millennium, then that does show that the West have won twelve titles to the east's six titles, but these sorts of runs happen in most decades. The 1990s saw seven titles go east compared to three titles going West. The 1980s saw five titles go both ways. The 1970s was six to the east, four to the west. 

So since 1970 that's 24 eastern champions to 24 western champions. This year will see one side go ahead, it wouldn't surprise me if it's a team from the West, but we've seen the power swap conferences before and there's no reason why it can't or won't happen again.

Isn’t this just an argument that Lebron is good? Using the finals to compare conferences isn’t really fair. Need to look at overall win percentage, at the very least, for both conferences’ playoff teams. Can go deeper with advanced stats to gauge which conference was better after factoring strength of schedule and +/-, etc. I’m not really good with all of that, but I’d be very surprised if the East anywhere close to as strong as the West. Especially in the few years before KD went to GSW.

[~O~ 565]

57 minutes ago, Mike1989 said:

In the past decade the east have won four titles to the wests six titles. The East have won 26 games in those finals to the West's 30 wins. That's hardly domination in the finals. Sure there have probably been more stronger teams out west than east, but in a sense that doesn't matter because what ultimately matters is who wins the NBA title.

If you take it back to the new millennium, then that does show that the West have won twelve titles to the east's six titles, but these sorts of runs happen in most decades. The 1990s saw seven titles go east compared to three titles going West. The 1980s saw five titles go both ways. The 1970s was six to the east, four to the west. 

So since 1970 that's 24 eastern champions to 24 western champions. This year will see one side go ahead, it wouldn't surprise me if it's a team from the West, but we've seen the power swap conferences before and there's no reason why it can't or won't happen again.

Dude.  Im not talking about the east completely.  Im talking about state of the east in relation to lebron james in the past decade.  Im speaking from the 2010s and now.  The east has been pathetic in that frame.  And there hasnt been a breakout team tp change the trend.  

 

And yes you two are simpletons.  

[All Eyes On Me 1,196]

13 minutes ago, ~O~ said:

Dude.  Im not talking about the east completely.  Im talking about state of the east in relation to lebron james in the past decade.  Im speaking from the 2010s and now.  The east has been pathetic in that frame.  And there hasnt been a breakout team tp change the trend.  

 

And yes you two are simpletons.  

Curious if you felt the same way about Jordan compared to the East in the 90s.

[jec 427]

10 minutes ago, ~O~ said:

Dude.  Im not talking about the east completely.  Im talking about state of the east in relation to lebron james in the past decade.  Im speaking from the 2010s and now.  The east has been pathetic in that frame.  And there hasnt been a breakout team tp change the trend.  

 

And yes you two are simpletons.  

You sound like you just finished a community college philosophy class and fancy yourself "woke af", all while spamming your inane, incoherent rants all over these  message boards. I hope one day you realize you're not actually saying anything interesting or thought provoking at best, and coming off as the raving lunatic on the street corner at worst. Cheers.

[Mike1989 68]

43 minutes ago, Optimist Prime said:

Isn’t this just an argument that Lebron is good? Using the finals to compare conferences isn’t really fair. Need to look at overall win percentage, at the very least, for both conferences’ playoff teams. Can go deeper with advanced stats to gauge which conference was better after factoring strength of schedule and +/-, etc. I’m not really good with all of that, but I’d be very surprised if the East anywhere close to as strong as the West. Especially in the few years before KD went to GSW.

I'm not motivated enough to go through win-loss records with a fine toothcomb, but during Miami's run if memory serves the West had a strong OKC and Spurs teams, then the likes of the Clippers, Grizzlies, Rockets, Mavericks and Trail Blazers that were play off teams, and the Warriors were starting to put it together. Win loss wise I'd venture a guess that last title for Miami would likely have seen more wins west than east, but does that matter if the team that wins is in the east?

Not really. Most would seem to suggest that the Rockets and Warriors is the true final if it happens, but what if the 76ers win the finals against a so-called stronger opponent from a stronger conference? At the end of the day it doesn't matter that the West had ten winning records to the east's eight if the team that wins comes from the east. This isn't the English Premier League or Spanish La Liga where champions are crowned on total points gained from wins and draws. It's a league that has two conferences, which run separate play off tournaments, resulting in a winner takes all best of seven series.

Sure we can sit here and analyse how many wins the West has compared to the east, but what really matters is which team wins the final. If the champ is from east, all those extra regular season wins for the West are irrelevant. 

41 minutes ago, ~O~ said:

Dude.  Im not talking about the east completely.  Im talking about state of the east in relation to lebron james in the past decade.  Im speaking from the 2010s and now.  The east has been pathetic in that frame.  And there hasnt been a breakout team tp change the trend.  

 

And yes you two are simpletons.  

The 76ers have started to put it together and if Simmons, Embiid and co stay healthy and develop they'll be a force for many years.

The Celtics are competing without their best two players (Irving and Hayward). They've seen substantial growth from Jaylen Brown this season and Jayson Tatum has been impressive. There two new kids on the block with three all stars. 

One of them could represent the east. Both of these teams are future title contenders when fully healthy. That's discarding a talented underachieving Wizards team, an improving Bucks team, and two hard working culture driven teams in Miami and Indiana.

Maybe we'll see at least one of the rebuilding teams make it. By no means is the east perfect, and frankly the all star snubs out west would likely be all stars in the east, but teams are improving and developing in the east so closing the gap in the future is possible.

[The Boss 129]

So if all the teams in the East end with around 20-62 records and the West end with around 62-20 records but the team that gets through to the finals in the East beats the West team, that means the East is a stronger conference?

[Optimist Prime 197]

Playing multiple 50-55 win teams is much more difficult than playing multiple 40-45 win teams. The team that comes out of the better conference (when there is a great enough margin) will be a little more worn down. In regular season terms, it’s like playing a fourth game in five or six nights against a team that’s played three games in the seven nights. The second team will have fresher legs and an advantage in that department. GSW lost to the Cavs for a few reasons, one of those being that they just came off a seven game series against a stingy OKC team that had two uber-athletic superstar players. Curry plays hurt, Bogut (read: only true rotation big) gets injured out of the series. Cavs had essentially swept a weak eastern conference and could have Kyrie and Lebron go all out for seven straight because of no fatigue.

Whether or or not that’s the case, having a single team be better than another single team (throwing out the factor of how teams match up with one another) doesn’t mean anything for the strength of a conference as a whole. Using Springsteen’s example above, if one conference fielded seven sub-500 teams with one 50-win team, and the other had eight fifty win teams, the finals matchup doesn’t decide which conference is better. That’s an individual team achievement, and has nothing to do with the rest of the conference.

[Tank Vogel 191]

Idkwtf happened in here, but Donovan Mitchell is amazing

[~O~ 565]

8 hours ago, Mike1989 said:

I'm not motivated enough to go through win-loss records with a fine toothcomb, but during Miami's run if memory serves the West had a strong OKC and Spurs teams, then the likes of the Clippers, Grizzlies, Rockets, Mavericks and Trail Blazers that were play off teams, and the Warriors were starting to put it together. Win loss wise I'd venture a guess that last title for Miami would likely have seen more wins west than east, but does that matter if the team that wins is in the east?

Not really. Most would seem to suggest that the Rockets and Warriors is the true final if it happens, but what if the 76ers win the finals against a so-called stronger opponent from a stronger conference? At the end of the day it doesn't matter that the West had ten winning records to the east's eight if the team that wins comes from the east. This isn't the English Premier League or Spanish La Liga where champions are crowned on total points gained from wins and draws. It's a league that has two conferences, which run separate play off tournaments, resulting in a winner takes all best of seven series.

Sure we can sit here and analyse how many wins the West has compared to the east, but what really matters is which team wins the final. If the champ is from east, all those extra regular season wins for the West are irrelevant. 

The 76ers have started to put it together and if Simmons, Embiid and co stay healthy and develop they'll be a force for many years.

The Celtics are competing without their best two players (Irving and Hayward). They've seen substantial growth from Jaylen Brown this season and Jayson Tatum has been impressive. There two new kids on the block with three all stars. 

One of them could represent the east. Both of these teams are future title contenders when fully healthy. That's discarding a talented underachieving Wizards team, an improving Bucks team, and two hard working culture driven teams in Miami and Indiana.

Maybe we'll see at least one of the rebuilding teams make it. By no means is the east perfect, and frankly the all star snubs out west would likely be all stars in the east, but teams are improving and developing in the east so closing the gap in the future is possible.

The recent east has been a disappointment.  At least the Boston Celtics of old took Miami to 7 in 2011.  If San Antonio had won that 2012 series against the Thunder to make it to the finals, the league would have been an entirely different landscape but they lost so its not. No doubt, SAS would have won that series with a Ray Allen-less Heat.  The Thunder were not finals ready. 

The next season,2013, they overcame OKC and lost to the Heat in a close 7 game series thanks to that historic Ray Allen three.  

2014,  SAS redeemed it the next year by embarrassing the Heat in the five games having figured out that you have to blow them out all game so to prevent bailouts or miracle plays.  The Spurs let out an onslaught of  LeBron, Wade, and Bosh for three straight games literally destroying  their confidence going forward.  LeBron leaves.  Its important to know the Pacers failed to beat the Heat in the conference semi's first.  The ECF twice after that.  Three years of facing the heat and failing miserably in 7 games.  I felt they greatly underachieved.  They wanted to beat LeBron......and wasn't focused on competing to win a championship.

2015, Golden State beating the "injured"...Cavaliers.   

2016, Golden State comes out firing this season having been disrespected all off season. The Cavaliers receive a complete bailout for two games by getting Dray suspended for game 5 orchestrated/instigated by yours truly and game 5 resulting in Boguts injury, and Curry in  foul trouble fouling out in game 6.  I did not watch game 7 but an extended series with injured warrior players like Iggy and Bogut led to  that final loss in a series that should have not been extended like it was.

2017, the Warriors get suspension proof and choke proof with the Acquisition of Durant and loss of Harrison Barnes.  They dominated throughout the playoffs obliterating records on their way.  Indiana was a joke of a team that year with an incompetent Stephenson and a trapped Paul George.  They were swept.  The Toronto Raptors, another incompetent team with no mental fortitude.....swept.  Boston Celtics, undersized at the point were given the gentlemen's sweep.

Now...the NBA is sort of ruined because of that one suspension Draymond.  The Warriors are on their way to being a dynasty while the Cavs fate lie with LeBron Jame's departure.  Lebron, yet again, dominated by his opponent in the Finals and redeemed upon.  

2018, currently, I do not see a reason to be impressed with the East.  Indiana's failure to win is one of the reasons why I don't believe in teams in the east.  Indiana should have won in 6 or better yet, swept by being overwhelmingly more talented.  Yet the series goes to 7 and they lose.  

The 76er's have impressed me however they still have a major handicap in Ben Simmon's shooting.  I can't even tell if they've overachieved or under achieved.  They're having an anomaly of a season for me.  Boston is the only team i see with the competence to finally change the narrative but the Kyrie injury pissed me off.  Once again, a key injury can make a series easy for the Cavs.  Kyrie playing would assure us that the East would change.  

The East is either injured or full of teams with inconsistent players just do not show up to win.  The only team that's even going to change the landscape of the East is the team that defeats LeBron. 

I've already given up on Toronto before the series even began.  I will not watch this series because of how predictable Toronto's will to play down to their opponent and Lebron's forearm, wing post ups, crappy offense.  Its not great basketball......at all.  I do not see how you all can bare watching it.  I didn't watch the game so how can I know the refs had influence. I have no say on this series at all so you can't blame officiating on something I didn't see, can I?  I do infer from the context of the box score sometimes.  

You can deduce that the East is progressing but it doesn't compare to the Elite ceiling of the East.  Even the best of the east is at a mediocre level compared to the west.  Rookies have uncanny resemblance of perennial all-stars of the west.  The spectrum is wide for the West and anorexic for the east.  Teams are more system oriented in the West and competent in their system play.  Systems in the east of isolation are doomed to fail in the east.  Especially one dimensional system's like the Bucks and Wizards.  The Portland Trailblazers looked like an Eastern Conference team this year.  Pretty dispiriting that they haven't made progress.  

 

 

[Ibn Battuta 127]

lol @ James Harden smacking that fan's phone. He's going to hear it in game 3 that's for sure. 

[Fultz4thewin 2,464]

11 hours ago, ~O~ said:

The recent east has been a disappointment.  At least the Boston Celtics of old took Miami to 7 in 2011.  If San Antonio had won that 2012 series against the Thunder to make it to the finals, the league would have been an entirely different landscape but they lost so its not. No doubt, SAS would have won that series with a Ray Allen-less Heat.  The Thunder were not finals ready. 

The next season,2013, they overcame OKC and lost to the Heat in a close 7 game series thanks to that historic Ray Allen three.  

2014,  SAS redeemed it the next year by embarrassing the Heat in the five games having figured out that you have to blow them out all game so to prevent bailouts or miracle plays.  The Spurs let out an onslaught of  LeBron, Wade, and Bosh for three straight games literally destroying  their confidence going forward.  LeBron leaves.  Its important to know the Pacers failed to beat the Heat in the conference semi's first.  The ECF twice after that.  Three years of facing the heat and failing miserably in 7 games.  I felt they greatly underachieved.  They wanted to beat LeBron......and wasn't focused on competing to win a championship.

2015, Golden State beating the "injured"...Cavaliers.   

2016, Golden State comes out firing this season having been disrespected all off season. The Cavaliers receive a complete bailout for two games by getting Dray suspended for game 5 orchestrated/instigated by yours truly and game 5 resulting in Boguts injury, and Curry in  foul trouble fouling out in game 6.  I did not watch game 7 but an extended series with injured warrior players like Iggy and Bogut led to  that final loss in a series that should have not been extended like it was.

2017, the Warriors get suspension proof and choke proof with the Acquisition of Durant and loss of Harrison Barnes.  They dominated throughout the playoffs obliterating records on their way.  Indiana was a joke of a team that year with an incompetent Stephenson and a trapped Paul George.  They were swept.  The Toronto Raptors, another incompetent team with no mental fortitude.....swept.  Boston Celtics, undersized at the point were given the gentlemen's sweep.

Now...the NBA is sort of ruined because of that one suspension Draymond.  The Warriors are on their way to being a dynasty while the Cavs fate lie with LeBron Jame's departure.  Lebron, yet again, dominated by his opponent in the Finals and redeemed upon.  

2018, currently, I do not see a reason to be impressed with the East.  Indiana's failure to win is one of the reasons why I don't believe in teams in the east.  Indiana should have won in 6 or better yet, swept by being overwhelmingly more talented.  Yet the series goes to 7 and they lose.  

The 76er's have impressed me however they still have a major handicap in Ben Simmon's shooting.  I can't even tell if they've overachieved or under achieved.  They're having an anomaly of a season for me.  Boston is the only team i see with the competence to finally change the narrative but the Kyrie injury pissed me off.  Once again, a key injury can make a series easy for the Cavs.  Kyrie playing would assure us that the East would change.  

The East is either injured or full of teams with inconsistent players just do not show up to win.  The only team that's even going to change the landscape of the East is the team that defeats LeBron. 

I've already given up on Toronto before the series even began.  I will not watch this series because of how predictable Toronto's will to play down to their opponent and Lebron's forearm, wing post ups, crappy offense.  Its not great basketball......at all.  I do not see how you all can bare watching it.  I didn't watch the game so how can I know the refs had influence. I have no say on this series at all so you can't blame officiating on something I didn't see, can I?  I do infer from the context of the box score sometimes.  

You can deduce that the East is progressing but it doesn't compare to the Elite ceiling of the East.  Even the best of the east is at a mediocre level compared to the west.  Rookies have uncanny resemblance of perennial all-stars of the west.  The spectrum is wide for the West and anorexic for the east.  Teams are more system oriented in the West and competent in their system play.  Systems in the east of isolation are doomed to fail in the east.  Especially one dimensional system's like the Bucks and Wizards.  The Portland Trailblazers looked like an Eastern Conference team this year.  Pretty dispiriting that they haven't made progress.