The NBA

[skyvolt2000]

Nuggets are for real this time, and have stepped up and so far have solved the AD problem that neither the Grizzlies or Golden State could work out. If Laketown can't pull out the next game, its time for the brooms.

Don't think the NBA will be happy about the finals ratings this year.

And WHO is to blame for that????

Who let certain players run the league?

The Heat chose NOT to pander to Lebron and get rid of the coach and move on from him. 6 playoffs, 3 conference finals and 1 finals.
Lakers 3 playoffs, 1 bogus title and 4 coaches and tons of promising players ran out to pander to Lebron.
Nets and Clippers PANDERING and have done nothing.
We won't talk about Hardin.
Nor Ja and Grizzlies.
Nor Hawks.
Player empowerment has not benefit a lot of teams.

Meanwhile Denver has sat there and waited.


So it the league hates the ratings-who cares???

If folks stop trying to bully folks off certain teams (Lillard in Portland) and under estimate other players like Jalen Brunson and to lesser point Elfrid Payton and others as trash. You wouldn't have all this.

I am sure the NHL is way more upset with the finals as every team is in the SOUTH and worst one of them is in Florida.

How you like to have you NBA and NHL champs from Florida where the governor is at war with Disney.

[babyblob]

Boston has really let me down. I didnt think the Heat would handle them like they have. I am about to lose 20 bucks!

They lost two at home. No way they bounce back on the road. This series is over.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Thanks to Jamal Murray who poured in 37 points last night, the Nuggets are one win away from their first ever appearance in the Finals after a 119-108 win over the reeling Lakers who are now down 3-0 to Denver and are officially on life support.

[Kirby101]

People are talking about the Lakers losing. They are playing the best team in the west with one of the top 5 players. They are getting beat in the 4th quarter. The Nuggets coach said it, this is about how good the Nuggets are, it's not a Lakers collapse.
But what is happening in the East, that is some serious whoop ass on a team that should be better.

[Hiromi]

The Celtics are being out coached like crazy, now to be fair to Mazzulla he was not supposed to be HC this year, Celtics lost their HC to scandal and also lost their chief assistant coach to Georgia Tech if I remember correctly and he’s up against easily the best coach in the East Conf if not the whole league

[WestPhillyPunisher]

The Celtics are being out coached like crazy, now to be fair to Mazzulla he was not supposed to be HC this year, Celtics lost their HC to scandal and also lost their chief assistant coach to Georgia Tech if I remember correctly and he’s up against easily the best coach in the East Conf if not the whole league

Perhaps Mazzulla was placed in an unenviable position after Ime Udoka was shown the door, but the Celtics didn't miss a beat and looked dominant during the regular season. But, yeah, he's definitely being schooled by Erik Spoelstra, and last night was an utter disaster for Boston. If Miami completes the sweep tomorrow, and are embarrassed again, look for Mazzulla to be sent packing.

[Kirby101]

Right now, Knicks fans can hold their heads higher for their loss than 76er fans.
You have one team still in search of that Max player to get them to the top, and the other team with the reigning MVP.

[babyblob]

In breaking news. After 19 season Carmelo Anthony has announced his retirement from the NBA.

[Surf]

I've been watching the NBA and the NFL since I was little, I'll be 47 this year. NBA's different as early on, it's the easier game to digest. I remember Pat O'Brien on CBS, James Worthy was my first favorite player and I remember when network TV had NBA Playoff games routinely during the week. The NBA Playoffs have always been a great show but until this season, the past 2 weeks, I have never seen 2 teams freakin' QUITTING this deep in a run- Easter Semi's with the 6'ers and now Boston in Conference Finals. They ought to be embarrassed, as men. As professionals they should be ashamed for their lack of fight.

Mazzulla- is in over his head, he showed it on the court and in the presser after the game with his goofy attitue. I hope that married trim was worth it on Udoka's behalf cause this was a hat on a pig even in the Finals last year. The wreckage is a dumpster fire.

Jaylen Brown, who I like the best, was pretty contrite in the post game, he needs to be a pro though in game 4, just to save face. He's looking to get paid next year.

That asshole Jayson Tatum- I don't like pretty boys and I don't like front runners and he's 4/5's of both. Al freakin Horford shouldn't have to bust his ass as player/coach through any of this cause honestly he's heading the other direction. These studs quit and Mazzulla should NOT have sat them in the end, even if he wanted to, he clearly doesn't have the pull to do such. I have zero love for the Celtics, hell I've got a raggedy hold over from the 80's, as coach of the Pacers that I wish was GONE. But damn, have some pride for your franchise at the very least. When you feel GOOD that you didn't get swept in Boston, yikes.

Shoutout to Pat Riley however, who has been apart of this NBA product since I was a kid. I've been looking at that slicked back hair for damn near 40 years. My man is about to be in the Finals with role players and a single superstar. Shoutout to Spolestraw, who is know Greg Popovich. There is a definete dearth in coaching over the last 15 years. Used to be half the league had serviceable coaches up and down the bench, none of that anymore.

Right now, Knicks fans can hold their heads higher for their loss than 76er fans.

I mean, burn, but the Knicks really didn't pop enough for even that. Sure I hate the Knicks- but save for a 3-4 season bump where they mixed it up with my Pacers, they've been dreck my whole life. Sometimes in sports there are these sayings that, when 'X' is good the league is better for it... HUH?! GTFO with that, bad ownership cuts the legs out of that frame of reference every time. They've been little more than an irritant since they won it all, back before I was born. Lol. Fk the Knicks!

Damn shame. While I'm smoking a pack, GLENN Rivers. This joker deserved, at bare minimum get canned. Rivers guys DO NOT play hard for him. His list of errs outweigh his accomplishments. He made inexcuseable excuses for Ben Simmons which was. He is not a leader, he takes teams with talent and rides the holly hell out of what they give. X's and O's, adjustments, he's near the bottom of the league. High pressure situations are not not something he works well in. He depends WAY too much on this guys pushing themselves and each other instead of maximizing their strenths. There's a trend of cats quitting on him, bailing on him. He might could get you a win in Cleveland more often than not on most Tuesday's in the season but once the heat gets on, he's not the man for it. That damn team of Clippers, with Blake Griffin was a notice to the league, he won't take a job that doesn't have a collection of talent and he'll jack that up. As stubborn as Tibedeax is, he did more with LESS than Rivers did this season. Forget even about that bad shit as far as blown leads, which only stick to him btw, he's in the record books for that. That Boston ring, KG was the engine behind that and Rivers did just enough to keep them ahead of a Laker team. Also he got to be put in situations with historically starving franchises- Clippers and 76'ers, both had enough talent in both cases to get further than they did in both instances for insult to injury, shit.


Anyway, I'll take Miami vs. Denver, the best two are FAR and AWAY the best two teams in the league. Looking forward to it, these other humps will burn toast.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Right now, Knicks fans can hold their heads higher for their loss than 76er fans.
You have one team still in search of that Max player to get them to the top, and the other team with the reigning MVP.

After watching Boston thoroughly shit the bed last night, down 30 in the second half while Jayson Tatum was about as effective as a garden hose on a forest fire, I couldn’t help but wonder how my Sixers lost to them last week after being up 3-2. That frustrates the hell out of me!

[Scott Taylor]

Boston did quit yesterday, pure and simple. Do they have any fire left at all? Seems like the team and coach decided that making it to the conference championship was the end goal for the season.

[MRP]

Rookie coach who has to step in after something happens to established coach and leads team to the finals but loses is the plot of a Hollywood feel good sports movie, but in real life it is resulting in calls for the coach's head (I mean if you change it form basketball to boxing, it's essentially the plot of the first Rocky movie).

If you looked at the Celtics all season long, they ran hot and cold. On nights where Tatum and Brown had good shooting nights they could beat anybody. On nights where they had bad shooting nights they could get beat by anybody. Neither has had a particularly good shooting night yet in the ECF, thus they've lost all 3. They only win on bad shooting nights for Tatum/Brown when someone like Brogdon steps up and has a good night He went 0-6 shooting last night. What's happening shouldn't surprise anyone who paid any attention to the Celtics beyond headlines this season. This is who they are, a team that lives and dies on the shooting percentage of its two stars who can occasionally pull one out when thy have a bad night via defense of bench production. None of those things have happened yet in this series, and at this point, even if they do happen, it's too little too late.

-M

[Surf]

This is who they are, a team that lives and dies on the shooting percentage of its two stars

-M

Pacers beat the Boston twice I think this season.

That too, another blow to the Celtics, this team is heavy analytics baby. Now Big Brain on Brad is my mans, 'Butler way' and all that. I grew up half a mile from the Butler campus BUT he's PRO-DORK, the analytic guys who have had WAY too much to say in this league. I mean James Harden became a rich man off it so... Numbers and differentials will take you only so far in explaining the game but the other part is when inevitably, the crunch comes, the dorks have no answer. I guess they figure the natural athletic instinct kicks in and it's Jordan game 6. Building a team solely on these ideas are folly. So much so Williams who was out there in Game 2, could barley see the floor and he was the biggest heart of this whole thing, that and what's left of Horford. Playing percentages got you pretty far in the end I guess but they was missing something...

[Deathstroke]

Rookie coach who has to step in after something happens to established coach and leads team to the finals but loses is the plot of a Hollywood feel good sports movie, but in real life it is resulting in calls for the coach's head (I mean if you change it form basketball to boxing, it's essentially the plot of the first Rocky movie).

If you looked at the Celtics all season long, they ran hot and cold. On nights where Tatum and Brown had good shooting nights they could beat anybody. On nights where they had bad shooting nights they could get beat by anybody. Neither has had a particularly good shooting night yet in the ECF, thus they've lost all 3. They only win on bad shooting nights for Tatum/Brown when someone like Brogdon steps up and has a good night He went 0-6 shooting last night. What's happening shouldn't surprise anyone who paid any attention to the Celtics beyond headlines this season. This is who they are, a team that lives and dies on the shooting percentage of its two stars who can occasionally pull one out when thy have a bad night via defense of bench production. None of those things have happened yet in this series, and at this point, even if they do happen, it's too little too late.

-M

Point of clarification...something didn't "happen" to Udoka...that was self-inflicted.

[MRP]

Point of clarification...something didn't "happen" to Udoka...that was self-inflicted.

I fully understand that, and am fully aware of what happened I was being intentionally vague because the details weren't particularly relevant to how Mazzulla's story has played out except for the fact Udoka was removed from the coaching position creating the vacancy.

-M