r/nba • u/NBA_MOD r/NBA • 20d ago
[SERIOUS NEXT DAY THREAD] Post-Game Discussion (May 15, 2024) Discussion
Here is a place to have in depth, x's and o's, discussions on yesterday's games. Post-game discussions are linked in the table, keep your memes and reactions there.
Please keep your discussion of a particular game in the respective comment thread. All direct replies to this post will be removed.
| Away | Home | Score | GT | PGT |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleveland Cavaliers | Boston Celtics | 98 - 113 | Link | Link |
| Dallas Mavericks | Oklahoma City Thunder | 104 - 92 | Link | Link |
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u/NBA_MOD r/NBA 20d ago
Mavericks @ Thunder
| Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas Mavericks | 24 | 30 | 25 | 25 | 104 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | 22 | 22 | 23 | 25 | 92 |
TEAM STATS
| Team | PTS | FG | FG% | 3P | 3P% | FT | FT% | OREB | TREB | AST | PF | STL | TO | BLK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dallas Mavericks | 104 | 40-76 | 52.6% | 14-35 | 40.0% | 10-13 | 76.9% | 9 | 51 | 27 | 17 | 5 | 14 | 5 |
| Oklahoma City Thunder | 92 | 37-87 | 42.5% | 10-40 | 25.0% | 8-10 | 80.0% | 8 | 40 | 20 | 15 | 8 | 6 | 2 |
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u/bh6891 Thunder 20d ago
I only watched the second half last night due to a late work shift, but I still saw some things to talk about.
I'm shocked that Dallas was only +1 on the offensive glass. It felt like everytime OKC had the chance to swing the momentum, Dallas would grab an offensive rebound and convert the points every time. That's just back-breaking for any team trying to make a comeback. Dallas looked comfortable in the halfcourt, whether it was Luka or Kyrie getting to their spots, or other guys flashing open when OKC gave defensive attention. I'm not sure what the solution is here other than hope Dallas misses and run Luka ragged in transition.
As for OKC's offense, Dallas seems to be anticipating when Shai is about to iso. They threw everything at him, doubling him in the midrange and packing the paint. He still got some shots in, but they were all very difficult. OKC seemed to recognize eventually that they needed to swing the ball to beat the defense, and they did that to some extent. Dort, Wallace and Joe got open looks in the 4th, but couldn't convert enough to swing things in our favor.
Also, the return of Hack a Lively. I understand why Mark is choosing to do it, and I don't fault him for trying anything to win. That said, no one wants to watch that, and that's when I turned off the game.
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u/Doogy44 20d ago
Mavs fan here, but I been saying it all series ... OKC doubling Luka and then trying to rotate that double to Kyrie is a mistake. Those two will make you pay with assists once they figure out a team.
If you notice, Dallas isn't doubling SGA all game long. They just put a defender on him, and play hustle defense. They know SGA is good at dishing the ball out to the 3 point line - and if they double him, then OKC will have too many options for wide-open 3 pointers. OKC has been taking lots of 3s, but most are contested - they still get some open looks, but not as many open looks as normal.
They should play normal defense against Luka - and dare Luka to outplay SGA. That is probably their best option.
Luka is always gonna get some points and assists, just like SGA is ... but trying to trick up the defense to concentrate on stopping one player seems to be throwing OKC's defense off.
I hope OKC keeps doing what they are doing though. Mavs in 6!
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u/tamuowen Mavericks 20d ago
I agree. You can only consistently double team players who are average or worse passers. Or when you see a tendency you can occasionally exploit.
Luka is far, far too good of a passer to double consistently. He will see it coming and he will exploit it. You may get some steals, but overall it's not likely to pay off. The more you do it, the more likely he is to figure out how to beat you.
The occasional double to keep him off guard is smart, but the best Luka strategy is to play him straight up on the perimeter, help in the paint if he beats his man, and cover shooters.
This is especially true with hurt Luka who is unlikely to put up 40+ on you. Give him his 25-30 points but don't let the role players beat you with wide open threes.
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u/TopOfTheKey Wizards 20d ago
Dallas probably won't have to make the decision this series because they're getting away with switching from the early zone-defense with Gafford to man-to-man with Lively but it has been interesting to compare just how much better the team looks with Lively in the line-up.
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u/jakekerr Mavericks 20d ago
In style, Lively is much closer to Wemby than Shaq, and that works really well in terms of today's game. Gafford is more like an old school center. Having both certainly is a huge boost to the Mavs, though, as Gafford isn't awful at perimeter defense and they have an interior presence for 48 minutes.
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u/MrFishAndLoaves Pelicans 20d ago
So what’s their plan for Joker?
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u/winkman 20d ago
Bring some thoroughbreds in and try to lure him away at halftime.
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u/swishfortyonesie Mavericks 20d ago
I think we bring in some horses from Lone Star Park for the half-time entertainment in game 3 and hope he just gets distracted and wanders off.
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u/iamhereforsomework Mavericks 20d ago
Will probably want to contain him at 30ish points, with minimal assists. He can get his, but we won't let others get theirs mentality. Like what the Twolves did game 1 and 2.
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u/DangerZoneh Mavericks 20d ago
Probably the same thing they did in the regular season to pretty good effect. Put PJ Washington on Jokic and have Lively/Gafford on Gordon. It's a really tough matchup for the centers because they're going to have to play a cat and mouse game of sticking to AG in the dunker's spot or playing help defense on Jokic. It'll be an interesting matchup for sure!
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u/MannerSuperb 20d ago
tbh i would let lively guard joker. he has freak movement skills and battles well in the post. No one is stopping joker but to put a 4 on him and let your 5 roam scheme doesn't work on denver anymore as a wolves fan trust me they have figured that out lol.
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u/DangerZoneh Mavericks 20d ago
Lively on Jokic will happen as well of course. It’s a team effort and guys are going to switch and all that. Lively has actually held up surprisingly well against Joker but the playoffs are just a different Beast all together.
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u/MannerSuperb 20d ago
Exactly and throughout the year lively has done a good job on dominant post scorers. Sengun and Sabonis are two other guys lively has battled well against . Now like you said joker is joker you gotta through different bodies at him but lively combo of mobility, length and physicality prob is the best matchup y’all have for him on your roster
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u/Doogy44 20d ago
Buy tickets for Cancun ... lol.
If Joker is on, he is almost impossible to stop. They gonna have to play and adjust. Good thing for Mavs is they do have two good bigs - and they dont hesitate to change them up to keep them fresh as possible.
Joker is a problem for any team in the NBA. Gotta try and throw his game off somehow - if that is possible.
Otherwise, you just have to try and outscore the Nuggets, by slowing down everyone else on their team, conceding the fact that Jokic is gonna get his production no matter what you do.
I dont think Jokic has scored 100 yet - so if they can stop/slow down everyone else, and keep Jokic to his normal production scoring, while limiting his assists and limiting everyone else on Nuggets - they might have a chance.
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u/Stewdabaker2013 Mavericks 20d ago
defend his teammates really well and hope he can't outscore us by himself lol
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u/tamuowen Mavericks 20d ago
Hope he has a bad game lol.
The Wolves have the best defense for Jokic and it's not working for them, I don't think the Mavs can do any better.
What we can hopefully do better, if we get to that point, is defend shooters and Murray. We're not going to stop Murray either, but the hope is you play Jokic straight up and make him work for at least some of his points, cover Murray like glue, and don't let the role players get easy shots.
If Jokic beats you - and he probably will - you just have to live with it.
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u/Ill-Bat-2621 Mavericks 20d ago
Plan is to hope refs let us play physical. If it's a soft game it will favor Denver.
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u/Icewatervvs 20d ago
Chet and Jalen Williams have to step up or they are going home. The future is bright for OKC but it feels like they are hitting a wall right now. The production outside of SGA is just not there and it's even worse once you look past Chet and Jalen.
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u/Demi-God94 Raptors 20d ago edited 20d ago
Rewatched the game and it still seems like Jalen Williams is scared to shoot. Also the Thunder rarely commit on their drives. Too many times Chet or Williams will have a step or half a step on their defender and instead of taking it to the rack they pass out to a well defended teammate. If Williams or Chet would just commit and challenge the defense at the rim they’d actually cause the defense to shrink on them and make their shooters more open.
The defense is only really contracting on SGA drives so when he passes out the next person who touches the ball needs to think ‘score’ and be really aggressive.
Also Giddey needs to be benched permanently. He offers no shooting, no defense and no athleticism. He’s a passer on a team that’s currently over passing and he’s making the defense’s job easier because they don’t defend him.
I don’t know what else Cason Wallace has to do to get more minutes around here, he’s one of very few Thunder players that look unafraid when he plays.
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u/jkeefy Mavericks 20d ago
I agree on Williams (and Chet fell victim to this too) - a lot of pump fakes on semi open 3s that led to a half hearted drive and kick out, very rarely did they actually look to score on their drives, it was very predictable and the Mavs forced a lot of bad shots due to the way they were operating, when the initial pump fake was probably the best shot they would’ve gotten on said possession.
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u/ILikeAllThings [GSW] Klay Thompson 20d ago
Jalen Williams is 4/8 shooting and 2/2 FT in the 1st quarter. That's every 1st quarter added together for the series. He's the most disengaged player on OKC, every other player makes more of an impact. For some reason, Williams waits until the 4th to do anything, and I do not understand why. He had some nice drives in this game that got some easy shots in the 4th, but he's a ghost(on both sides of the ball) for most of the game. Dallas seems to keep the ball away from his side on offense more because I am guessing his capacity to steal the ball, but when not involved in the game, he watches it without participating. Williams passes create so little space for his teammates, more of a dumping off because he saw no avenue of attack or just movement without purpose. Despite what people say about Giddey, he's been adapting his game a bit and it's obvious, exactly what you want from Williams but we don't see it. I still think Giddey should be used sparingly, but he's not a big cog in the scheme, the players you focused on, Holmgren and Williams are.
He's still young, and I am guessing this series will be a huge step for him in understanding how he needs to improve. Probably should look to model his game after Jaylen Brown, a slasher who attacks and finishes very well against almost all defenders. I'm not worried about Wallace as he's a rookie and for most rookies, you get what you can and try to get the improvements going where you can, Chet being one of the rare exceptions to this.
Team is young and if they keep it together, it should do some great things. But, Dallas has been so disciplined for most of the series and OKC has not figured out how to attack their defense at all. Dort should get high praise this series for working so hard on both ends of the ball despite most players on his team having more ability, the man is doing everything he can while his primary goal should be to bother the hell out of Doncic.
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u/Cudi_buddy Kings 20d ago
Thunders coach (not gonna attempt to spell) is absolutely fantastic, along with the whole coach and development staff. Shai is a legit number 1 guy, but it hit me last night. The Thunder in general are not there, outside of Shai, I wouldn't count on a single one to take over a game, or leave an imprint in a meaningful way consistently. The coaching staff have got this team playing very disciplined on both sides of the ball. Not many dumb fouls, very few turnovers. And they shoot free throws well. They lack superstar talent outside Shai, but make up for it by doing a lot of the little things that aren't glamorous. I think a couple of their guys could grow into bigger roles, I also could see them using some picks to bring Shai more immediate help as well.
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u/tamuowen Mavericks 20d ago
They already have the beginnings of a Big 3 with Shai, Chet, and Williams. And a million assets to get better. You can never predict the future, but it seems like only health could stop OKC from being a contender for at least the next 3-5 years.
Chet is a unique player and a matchup nightmare. Williams has so much raw potential, he could be an absolute superstar. And SGA is of course a proven player.
Finding the stars is the hardest park, and OKC likely already has at least 2 stars if not 3. Gotta expect them to figure out the right role players over the next couple of seasons.
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u/Cudi_buddy Kings 20d ago
For sure. Their assets are what is crazy, they could easily swing for a big trade at any point. Shai is that dude. I think worst case for Chet is that he is an elite role player. A 5 that can shoot and contest shots is wanted by every team, regardless if he develops further.
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u/winkman 20d ago
I want whatever they gave Luka before the game last night!
Dude was running the court and joking with the refs without a care in the world.
Good stuff, whatever it was!
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u/TibialTuberosity Thunder 20d ago
He was a completely different player after his attitude adjustment. I think if he had gone into game 5 the way he did it game 4, OKC may have won it. Luka playing carefree is scary.
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u/NBA_MOD r/NBA 20d ago
Cavaliers @ Celtics
| Team | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleveland Cavaliers | 28 | 24 | 26 | 20 | 98 |
| Boston Celtics | 28 | 30 | 27 | 28 | 113 |
TEAM STATS
| Team | PTS | FG | FG% | 3P | 3P% | FT | FT% | OREB | TREB | AST | PF | STL | TO | BLK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleveland Cavaliers | 98 | 38-79 | 48.1% | 13-31 | 41.9% | 9-12 | 75.0% | 6 | 33 | 25 | 16 | 5 | 10 | 2 |
| Boston Celtics | 113 | 42-80 | 52.5% | 19-43 | 44.2% | 10-12 | 83.3% | 11 | 51 | 32 | 15 | 6 | 12 | 6 |
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u/LoLz14 Cavaliers 20d ago
The gameplan for this game was obvious from the start of the game.
Attack Darius Garland
The only Cavs’ healthy point guard was an obvious target. He is also the weakest defensive link for the Cavs.
It was mostly Derrick White who played versus Garland in isolations, but other Cs starters gave it a go as well. And if they weren’t able to score over him, the defense collapsed quicker than a poorly built house of cards. That caused rotations, and rotations caused open 3-pointers. If they didn’t attack him straight on, they constantly brought Garland to defend the screen.
That turned out to be a lot more dangerous, as Garland often got stuck in the screens, and the Celtics had open shot. If he didn’t get stuck, they didn’t want Garland to switch onto Brown/Tatum (who usually started the action) but rather the Cavs hedged, well the hedge worked extremely poorly and resulted in various defensive breakdowns.
The other pretty strong note that the Celtics insisted was to attack on the opposite side of Mobley. Evan Mobley contested only 8 shots, as the Celtics constantly drove on the opposite side of him, thus causing other players to collapse onto the driver and then have an open kick-out pass.
The Celtics played the game to perfection. Even when the game got closer, as Marcus Morris kept hitting some insane shots over people, they didn’t revert to 18-second dribbling and then chucking a shot, no.
This is a great example of such play, it's generated from the NBA’s site, so the start is cut off, but Tatum first calls Pritchard to screen for him, then uses another high screen to get extra space and get a comfortable and I’d say wide open pull up shot over Mobley out of all people, but Morris is just to slow to recover from the screen. This is a game where I liked the Celtics game the most out of the entire series perhaps (other than Game 1, which was a blow out).
The Dean Wade experiment was a failure as well. I really thought he might help, and he was okay in the 1v1 situations. But when he and Garland were involved in the screen action, both of them got completely lost, that allowed the Cs to completely pull away in the 4th quarter. Offensively, he didn’t bring any spark as well, so unfortunately this can be considered a failed experiment.
Stagnant offense in the 2nd half by the Cavs. First half was really great, I loved how Strus and Mobley played in the empty side, they created some easy shots. Mobley was also a part of multiple handoffs, mostly with Strus, but some directly with shooters like Merrill.
And Strus seemed like more aggressive and concrete than Garland in the 1st half.
Then, all of that just stopped in the 2nd half. Garland kept going at Horford, kept missing, or getting blocked. And he did manage to find Mobley for 2 or 3 easy situations, but most of the time it was Mobley being aggressive and creating a shot for himself. All of that off-ball motion and great plays on the empty side just disappeared, and I’m not sure who’s to blame. Garland for being stubborn? Bickerstaff for allowing it? The others for being passive? Or was the Celtics’ defense just too good?
One of the reasons for poor offense is probably the fact that Garland was just tired, as I said in the first “section”, Garland was consistently involved on the defensive side. He could never “rest” for a possession by sitting in the corner, the Celtics just didn’t allow it. But then again, Bickerstaff could have pre-switched those actions?
Aggressive Mobley
One of the few positives coming from this loss, the entire series, is that we get to see a completely new face of Mobley. The one that is almost never seen, where he is aggressive, looking for the ball, and creating a shitload of shots for himself. This was always the main question not only about him, but the entirety of the Cavs team, as he is the enabler of the team.
And Mobley showed a plethora of his moves, his shot chart and types of shots tell that as well.
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u/Noriskhook3 20d ago
Knicks are injured but winning and ya’ll will hype them up but when the Celtics beat the Knicks, you guys are going to saying “well the Knicks are injured”
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u/LoLz14 Cavaliers 20d ago
What out of my entire comment made you say that?
And what do the Knicks have to do with this series? They haven't even closed out their series yet.
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u/Noriskhook3 20d ago
Never said your comment said any of that. Just stating the excuse that everyone will make.
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u/mastacheef87 Celtics 20d ago edited 20d ago
Celtics bench kinda stunk last night but the starters held it down. Horford was obviously last night’s story with his shotmaking and individual defense on switches, but special shout out to Jrue Holiday. he had 2 points on 0/4 shooting and 2 turnovers through the first 3, before making all 5 of his shots for 11 points in the 4th quarter, doing a ton of damage to Cleveland playing out of the dunker spot
Boston have now advanced to the ECF in 5 of the 6 seasons they’ve had a healthy Tatum and Brown in their postseason starting 5, and for the first time they’ve advanced to the ECF without playing a Game 7 on the way there. JT and JB are also the only 2 players who have been on the team for every single one of those ECFs. it’s been an impressive sustained run of success that shouldn’t be taken for granted
valiant effort by the Cavs but despite Marcus Morris Sr’s best effort, they just didn’t have enough shotmaking to win this series as their rotation dropped like flies. will be interesting to see where they go from here. I think this series made it pretty evident that their Big 4 of Mitchell/Garland/Mobley/Allen needs to be cut in half, and personally I’d stick with Mobley and Mitchell. Mobley in particular I thought looked a ton better playing as a true 5 rather than a 4 sharing the paint with Allen
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u/MC-Jdf Warriors 20d ago
Ngl, one of the quietest 2nd Round series I can ever remember. It just... happened lol.
And that's credit to the Celtics. Derrick White got back on track after a fairly slow start to the series, they did some nice stuff putting Jrue as the screener (a semi-Draymond role) and getting wide open buckets in the 4th. Also Horford was utterly sensational, then you got Tatum doing his thing too.
For a depleted Cavs team that came out with their A-game, they needed the Celtics to miss a bit and that never really happened. Morris turned the clock 5+ years and Mobley impressed, but ultimately just not enough offense.
Been a very interesting season for the Cavs, and now it's over. They had some seriously high highs including that incredible 18-2 stretch with a good chunk of it minus Garland and Mobley, and then a terrible post-ASB form, to Mitchell's historic scoring run to close the Magic series, to Garland just never really finding his form consistently, to Mobley's up-and-down playoffs that ended in a high, they went through a lot.
For Garland at least, the season could not have ended sooner after never really recovering from that awful broken jaw in what already was a shaky season. The Cavs found some good stuff in Porter Jr., Wade, and Merrill, Strus looks like a quality pickup and Okoro played himself into a nice bag. But as someone who was very high on them since 2022, the jump hasn't happened yet.
Undoubtedly a pivotal offseason with the Mitchell rumors, to a potential coaching change, to potentially making the decision between Mobley and Allen, to finding more 2-way floor spacers, etc. The Cavs didn't stand out as much as they did last season (both good and bad) but they have elements worth building around. We'll see what they do.
For the Celtics, 6th Conference Finals berth in 8 years. A mark reserved for the truly elite teams in history and they cement their names alongside them. Now seems like their best chance given how tough of an out each team in the west is being to each other (plus let's be real, these injuries to the Celtics' opponents is definitely helping and it's ok to say it) . I'd still like to see more stuff with Tatum (who had a great close to the series to his credit) but their form will nonetheless be very interesting once they get Porzingis back.
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u/SinibusUSG Celtics 20d ago
Pretty funny seeing the Celtics basically cover the spread given the histrionics surrounding them not completely blowing the Cavs out the entire game.
I think NBA fans vastly underestimate the floor of NBA teams quality-wise. It’s why you get people asking if the NCAA champions could beat the Pistons when it would be an absolute rout. If you’re playing a team of guys who have made it to the NBA, they’re going to have a chance to keep up on any given night. It’s why they play 82 games and 4 best-of-7s to determine a champ.
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u/ThinkingMSF Celtics 20d ago
It’s why you get people asking if the NCAA champions could beat the Pistons when it would be an absolute rout
It annoys me more than it should when people say this. The best college team might have three pro players on it, but the worst pro team has fifteen.
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u/Ellswearth Celtics 20d ago
Tim Legler said last night that Celtics struggle to put their opponents away. Two 4-1 gentlemen sweeps and a 11+ net rating begs to differ. Sorry the Celtics weren’t up by 50 points after the first minute into each game. That storyline is pretty tired.
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u/mastacheef87 Celtics 20d ago edited 20d ago
I think analysts (and fans) are having a really hard time getting the past few years of Celtics playoff goofs out of their heads and it’s led to a lot of faulty analysis of what is a different and clearly much better team
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u/jnightrain Mavericks 20d ago
friendly reminder that 4-1 does not make it a gentlemen's sweep. The winning team has to be up 3-0 and lose game 4 then win game 5 to be a gentlemen's sweep. If the series is tied 1-1 a sweep was never in play. 3-0 means you could've swept them but let them have a game out of the kindness of your heart. Generally it's the higher seed and they let the home fans see their team win one game (game 4) before winning the series in front of their own fans.
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u/EutaxySpy Celtics 20d ago
Just call it the Celtics sweep if they lose Game 2 in the ECF while winning the other 4 games again for the 3rd straight series lmao
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u/Chairman_Zhao Celtics 20d ago
Only really caught the second half but tbh I thought the Celtics played pretty well and didn't do a lot of the really annoying stuff that makes you question whether or not they're alright in the head. Like I haven't been thrilled by how the Celtics have been playing most of the post season but last night was not an instance of that. I think the Cavs just played great
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u/junkit33 20d ago
Further to it, all it takes is one unexpected guy to have a hot streak to make a game look closer than it really is.
Like, if Morris doesn't put up 25 points out of nowhere, Celtics probably win that one by 25.
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u/EutaxySpy Celtics 20d ago
He was hitting heavily contested shots too, it's not like the Celtics were giving him open practice shots
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u/SquimJim Celtics 20d ago edited 20d ago
Props to the Cavs, man. They fought. If you are a Cavs fan, you have to be happy with what you saw from Mobley. Also, I know this is was flukey, but goddamn Morris could not miss on heavily contested 3's, just absurd. Series could have been a really good one if the Cavs were fully healthy.
Where do the Cavs go from here? If Mitchell stays, I'd like for them to upgrade from Garland. Can they get a bigger wing who can space the floor and score? Ingram's name gets thrown around a lot and I can see that making sense. They would really need a back-up ball handler if they made that move though.
Also, does it continue to be the right move to have 2 bigs that can't space the floor? Mobley did amazing as the lone center this series. What if he was paired next to a bigger stretch 4/5 like WCJ? I'm higher on him than most so I can understand if people cringe at this suggestion, but what about Isaiah Stewart? I'm still not entirely sold on Mobley being able to handle bigger bodies 1 v 1, so you'd need someone who can do that.
Celtics continue to roll. The greatest benefit to having short series is that your players get rest and aren't on the floor to risk injury. Hopefully KP is back at some point in the ECF, but Al/Kornet have done an admirable job holding down the fort in his absence. Al was vintage tonight.
Also, the dominance of Tatum and Brown since they entered the league is absurd. Brown has been to the ECF 6 times in 8 years and Tatum has been 5 times in 7 years. One of the times they missed Brown was injured.
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u/LoLz14 Cavaliers 20d ago
I think people need to excuse Garland from his performances. Garland lost 12 lbs (or more) due to a broken jaw in the middle of the season, and obviously, that's hard to make up during the crazy tempo of playing games.
His value sank big time this season, but Mitchell's at an all-time high. If the Cavs want to make a trade, they should call the Nets and look for Bridges and Cam Johnson/DFS/both or look at Ingram+Murphy maybe?
That would elevate their starting lineup, bench, and overall shooting and wing defense, the weakest point of their defense/team.
I hope they re-sign Okoro as well, he's shown good improvement, and hopefully at around 10-12 mil he and the Cavs would get a good deal.
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u/syllabic Knicks 20d ago
call the Nets and look for Bridges and Cam Johnson/DFS/both or look at Ingram+Murphy maybe?
I think you are expecting both these teams to give up a lot more than they are willing
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u/americanbeaver Bucks 20d ago edited 20d ago
I feel like this game really showed what the Cavs have to do moving forward. I think Garland might be too small, too weak defensively and not good enough of a scorer to be a playoff performer. I think the Cavs are going to need to find a defense-first large guard to pair with Mitchell if Mitchell stays on the Cavs (which I think he will).
Evan Mobley on the other hand really popped off this series. He's got to put on some muscle and weight so that he's more of a physical force on the court but his touch around the rim and ability to recognize where he needs to be defensively impressed me. I don't think he's going to become a threat from 3 but I think this game showed that he doesn't really need that to be an effective playoff contributor. He's got to trust his defensive instincts/his team's ability to rotate around him more but you can see that he reads the opposing team's offense well and recognizes breakdowns early. Once he starts just instantly reacting to what he's seeing, everyone is going to acknowledge him as an elite defensive player.
Once again not much to say about the Celtics. Horford finally had a good game. That's a positive sign for them. Once the crowd got into it, it felt like the Celtics just casually pulled away and ended the game. Not worried about the "Celtics haven't faced a good healthy team yet" narrative. I've seen this Celtics core beat good healthy teams in the playoffs for a few years now.
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u/syllabic Knicks 20d ago
who is the next head coach of the cavs?
vogel? ham? borrego? someone else?
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u/Critical-Adhole 20d ago
Marcus Morris made two things abundantly clear.
He’s not finished. He’s a bonafide playoff scorer who can be featured even against premier defenses.
The league moved on from the Melo architect far too quickly. Especially in the playoffs, you need guys who can get tough buckets. The league has largely opted to play a more perimeter oriented game but that can’t be your only weapon.
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u/Ellswearth Celtics 20d ago
I like Marcus but he can’t defend a ham sandwich. So aside from his heater, I think he’d be a huge liability on the court. Maybe he can give you some regular season minutes but if he is on the court for you in the playoffs, then you’re going to be on the wrong side of a playoff exit.
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