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On May 25 2012 05:22 XaI)CyRiC wrote:Show nested quote +On May 25 2012 04:02 Cloud9157 wrote:
I love how arrogant Artest was.
Lakers lost the series, and they were the best team... Yeah right. They were so outclassed and would have been outclassed by the hottest team in the NBA if they had somehow beaten OKC. It's a good mentality to have as a player confidence-wise and PR-wise, but it's definitely far-fetched. I would argue though that they weren't "outclassed" by OKC in the series as the games were pretty close for the most part and the Lakers could easily have been up 3-2 if they hadn't blown two late-game leads. The Thunder were very beatable in that series. If you want to talk about outclassed, that was the Clippers and the Spurs. Agreed that the Lakers would likely have been creamed by the Spurs. That team might outclass the rest of the league right now.
OKC is the only team that can take them down imo. Should be a hell of a series.
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United States3423 Posts
On May 24 2012 19:34 Ace wrote:Show nested quote +On May 24 2012 15:00 slyboogie wrote:On May 24 2012 13:29 Chunhyang wrote:
Point differential, the most accurate indicator of playoff success, has Philly pretty high up. 4th iirc. They're better than their record dictates. Is that true? Do you have an article or something on that? That would be very interesting to read because I, initially, don't believe it. But I haven't done any research. He's somewhat right. Point Differential for the regular season says how strong your team is overall in relation to the league. Super teams usually have a monster PD + a decent record. Philly had a massive PD going into the middle of the season, lost Hawes, then started losing a lot of games. But once you hit the playoffs your PD (vs the entire league) can be a "false" indicator: what matters is how you matched up vs the team you are playing. You can go 0-4 vs a team, but have a PD of -1.2 vs them and the PD tells you the matchup is very close. So you wouldn't do something like say Team X has Team Y's # - look at the record! You need to see how close the games were. This is the only thing that anyone rooting for San Antonio needs to be wary of vs OKC. They've beaten them without Manu and won 2 out of 3 but we have no idea how the matchups will go in this series. Duncan being way better than his RS self is a mega plus for SA but Durant and Westbrook being better is also a game changer.
That's exactly what I thought when I read that sentence. There's no way PD is strictly "the best indicator of playoff success." I have not doubt it tells you a team over/under-performed it's true talent or some team is due for regression. But that statement just struck me wrong.
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Going to have to agree with Cyric with regards to Kobe vs Wade. I view Kobe as the more skilled scorer in terms of range and versatility. His jump shooting skills allow him to mesh more with post players like Shaq and Gasol. I'd argue that he can mesh better with slashers such as James and Wade as well. He's had to play with post players most of his career and is often asked to shoot shots at the end of the shot clock when they are unable to get a post-up.
Decision making, on the other hand, greatly favors Wade. Kobe is known to take a lot of shots that are harder than what they could've easily gotten, especially at the end of games.
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
Come on Indiana! Let's take this to game 7.
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On May 25 2012 07:16 andrewlt wrote:
Going to have to agree with Cyric with regards to Kobe vs Wade. I view Kobe as the more skilled scorer in terms of range and versatility. His jump shooting skills allow him to mesh more with post players like Shaq and Gasol. I'd argue that he can mesh better with slashers such as James and Wade as well. He's had to play with post players most of his career and is often asked to shoot shots at the end of the shot clock when they are unable to get a post-up.
Decision making, on the other hand, greatly favors Wade. Kobe is known to take a lot of shots that are harder than what they could've easily gotten, especially at the end of games.
Ya, read the article earlier, like it, agree with the conclusion and also Cyric's post. I did want to add though that from 2001-2010( the years used for the stats), you could almost unarguably say that Kobe was in a stronger conference for a majority of those years.
The East didn't really start shifting the power back over until the last half of the decade. The West on the other hand was stacked for a large part of it. The Blazers, the Spurs, lakers, and the Kings had stacked teams in the early years, while the T-Wolves had KG at the time, Ray Allen in Seattle, Gasol was in Memphis and Houston was in the decline but did get yao ming along with Mcgrady at one point. Then came Nowitzki, Carmelo, and Paul and Nash blossomed with the Suns, but now we are getting into more recent days.
Point being, the Western conference teams had tougher competition for a lot of the years used for Kobe's stats (from '01-'05 specially) and it isn't something that shown in the article. Of course, Wade's stats are taken from 05-10 so they aren't really compared during the first half of the decade but starting until '05, where it starts trending to more balanced conferences, but I still think it is something that deserved some discussion/pointing out.
I also think the playoff picture given is a little obscured. Kobe played a lot of more playoff games during that span, while going deeper in the rounds, thus playing tougher defenses for more games. Even so, I don't disagree with anything said or numbers given about that.
Good article, just some thoughts that popped up in my head but didn't really matter enough to make me disagree with the writer's conclusion.
edit:clarity
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Kobe actually didn't play against tougher defenses - Wade did. But that's in another article somewhere about his historic runs against 3 of the top defenses in NBA History: The 2004 Pacers, the 2005 Pistons, and the 2010 Celtics.
Wade's a better playoff performer than Kobe because his numbers don't have sharp decreases vs top tier defenses.
I'll respond to everyone's posts in depth later though, need to get ready to watch this game!
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On May 25 2012 08:28 Ace wrote:
Kobe actually didn't play against tougher defenses - Wade did. But that's in another article somewhere about his historic runs against 3 of the top defenses in NBA History: The 2004 Pacers, the 2005 Pistons, and the 2010 Celtics.
Wade's a better playoff performer than Kobe because his numbers don't have sharp decreases vs top tier defenses.
I'll respond to everyone's posts in depth later though, need to get ready to watch this game!
You better get ready Ace couse this one is going to be SICK! Missing Haslem will hurt, but i think it can be done.
I am still a bit mad they didn't suspend Hansbrough for 1 game, but i guess it's fiiiiiiine.
I just hope we don't see somekind of a brawl and game 7!
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Awww yeah, we're like the Big 3 Heat fans on TL...Big 3 unite! XD
Gogogo, I have a lot of Celtics-fan friends and felt sort of sorry for their going into a game 7, but I definitely hope the Heat can seal the deal in 6 >:D Whoop whoop here we go!
Finally espn3 streams a Miami v Indiana playoff game, I don't really like the TNT Overtime stream style, doesn't feel as comfortable to watch as the traditional version, even if it does have all the angles/zooms.
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Jeff Van Gundy>Steve Kerr. One battle down!
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Hmm, West needs to dominate this game. Battier only dreams of guarding him.
Edit: Jesus, Pacers have a quarterback.
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United Kingdom16710 Posts
God I miss the days when trash talking was no big deal.
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If they don't call 12 technicals some idiot from the Heat will elbow someone in the neck.
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On May 25 2012 09:21 Telcontar wrote:
God I miss the days when trash talking was no big deal.
I dunno, back then a lot of people trash-talked in a way that everyone understood as trash-talking (i.e. hyperbole or what have you), nowadays a lot of people seriously seem like they have a very major, personal issue with whatever is being trash-talked; feels like trash-talking not out of friendly competition/fun but more out of true vitriolic hate almost x__x
Might just be me though. For the record I miss those days too :c
dang the Heat apparently sucking so far?
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It's ok. Let the Heat try to get into a groove. Indy is pounding the ball inside. Going to be a long night!
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Wade for the win! Time to carry !
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Definitely would be cool to see Wade carry >:D
So weird though, James attempts a ton of 3s and misses a very large percentage, then he goes to a 2pt FG game and does very well by refraining from shooting so many 3s, but then he randomly goes back to shooting 3s and does well, but then he sucks at it again. Whatever. Gogogogo, lead down to 6. Did miller really foul? My espn3 stream always craps out whenever I switch from the window, can't really see anything but that seemed questionable...grr annoying lead up to 9 >:[
Sweet, Heat picking it up a bit :D
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It's like the Pacers understand that David West and Hibbert are unguardable by the Heat and they come into the game thinking okay let's just get inside and work inside out. Then, Collison gets the ball dribbles around and forgets everything. Throws up a jumper with .2 seconds left on the shot clock, Heat get a long rebound and get a dunk.
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Holy crap, Wade is seriously on fire at the moment O_O
SWEETNESS, HEAT >:D
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Hibbert gets smashed on the back of the head, but stays in the play and sets up that three. Indiana needs to fall down on every play like Wade, Chalmers, and Battier.
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On May 25 2012 08:28 Ace wrote:
Kobe actually didn't play against tougher defenses - Wade did. But that's in another article somewhere about his historic runs against 3 of the top defenses in NBA History: The 2004 Pacers, the 2005 Pistons, and the 2010 Celtics.
Wade's a better playoff performer than Kobe because his numbers don't have sharp decreases vs top tier defenses.
I'll respond to everyone's posts in depth later though, need to get ready to watch this game!
I don't think its fair to compare there playoff careers, since miami won the title in 06 they failed to get out of the first until they put the big three together.
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EPT
