On May 20 2009 10:24 Ace wrote:
Thats nice. Really.

Good thing they have to play 3.5 more quarters or else they could just shut the game down 18-10 right now.

LOL

smurfingchobo

833 Posts

May 20 2009 05:37 GMT

#1866

What happened to the Carmelo that got shutdown by Luke and Radman? His play has improved drastically when comparing this Game 1 to any of last year's sweep. He played phenomenally, both offensively and defensively.

I'm so glad the Lakers won

Ariza with the steal, and Kobe keeping his cool and nailing some clutch free throws.

Xeris

Iran17695 Posts

May 20 2009 07:28 GMT

#1867

Carmelo's good O_O! always has been... he's just never played with enough heart but seems like he's finally "figured it out".

Jibba

United States22883 Posts

May 20 2009 09:43 GMT

#1868

On May 20 2009 13:30 tonight wrote:
Billups didn't really play that bad it's just hard when you have Kobe on you.

He definitely shot poorly last night even when Kobe wasn't on him and I don't think he was aggressive enough in the 3rd or 4th. When he misses 3 FTs in a row, you know it's not going to be a great night.

Jibba

United States22883 Posts

May 20 2009 09:45 GMT

#1869

On May 20 2009 12:57 Roffles wrote:

Show nested quote +

Not even close. Easily there are better scorers in the league, Dirk being one of them. The guy's fadeaway shot is literally untouchable. Not to mention others like Kobe, Lebron, Wade, etc. Melo's a good scorer, but he has so many issues in his game (lackadaisical defense).

Have you watched Melo this post-season? Since the G1 jitters, he has been a complete player, and his shot is money. In fact, his shot has always been pretty damn good. I've been as critical of him as anyone on these boards, but I just don't see how you can say he's not an elite scorer when you look at his offensive ability (tall, strong, quick SF with a fantastic shot and can finish) and what he's done over his career. The seasons when he averaged 27ppg/29ppg, the Nuggets were only scoring 100/105 per game; they weren't at the 110+ mark yet.

Stats certainly don't tell the whole story, but it's pretty clear he's been the second best offensive player in these playoffs (50%, 49%, 83%) and one of the best defenders.

Right now, the biggest deficiency in Carmelo's game is that he plays in Denver, so he suffers from not-on-national-TV syndrome during the regular season.

oneofthem

Cayman Islands24199 Posts

May 20 2009 11:59 GMT

#1870

On May 20 2009 16:28 Xeris wrote:
Carmelo's good O_O! always has been... he's just never played with enough heart but seems like he's finally "figured it out".

this talk about heart seems to place an obligation on players to value certain things. they are required to have winning and being the best player they can be as their life goal, and they must buy into the competitive narrative through which fans tend to view the game. this is simply not a fair way of judging a person, and that people do judge pro athletes this way just speaks to the fact that fans do not really care about the athletes, merely the competitive narrative that they are supposed to fulfill. fans consume athletes like fastfood. this situation is a minor annoyance to me. fans do not view their own lives through a robotic standard of competitive dedication, so why the outrage when players turn out to be something else than superheroes with complete dedication to their fantastic games.

but anyway, melo falls into that group of players that are not entirely motivating against their environment, but also capable of responding to a winning environment. he is not lebron who is so confident in his ability that he molds rather than settles for the situation around him, nor is he a freak like kg that entirely lives in the game. seems like an ok guy to me, all things considered.

no_comprender

Australia91 Posts

May 20 2009 13:56 GMT

#1871

i feel like orlando match up pretty well with cleveland, cavs can't really cover both turkoglu and lewis simultaneously and i think dwight might have an easier time vs Z than perkins since ilgauskas is the kind of slow and not overly physical center that howard might just be able to power through/over even though he's got the height advantage. i also think having howard at the rim will probably limit lebrons finishing inside, and turkoglu is one of the few wing guys with a height advantage over lebron too so he will hang off and make him shoot the j. they have the tools to limit him, i'm really curious to see how he performs this series. this could be really close

Sanity.

United States704 Posts

May 20 2009 18:13 GMT

#1872

game last night was really good. but my team lost. /wrist

Xeris

Iran17695 Posts

May 20 2009 20:47 GMT

#1873

KOFgokuon

United States14911 Posts

May 20 2009 21:05 GMT

#1874

ughhhhh dunno who to root for in this series

Xeris

Iran17695 Posts

May 20 2009 21:23 GMT

#1875

which series? there's two of them`

Xeris

Iran17695 Posts

May 20 2009 21:29 GMT

#1876

jeez I was looking at the Lakers FT shooting compared with the regular season, everyone's really disappointing:

Ariza: 71% (53% in playoffs)
Gasol: 78% (67% in playoffs)
Odom: 63% (52% in playoffs)

Fisher, Farmar, Brown, and Walton are shooting pretty decently but they haven't taken enough FT's for it to really matter ... but the above 3 players are really hurting.

That's probably ~30 points the Lakers have lost just because of a dip in FT shooting. Of the Laker players who shoot a lot of FT's, only Kobe's percentage is where it was during the season.

Also the SHOOTING has sucked (although this is pretty well documented)

Fisher: shooting <30% from 3, <40% from 2... during the season he was ~40% from both.
Vujacic: <30% shooting (WHAT THE FUCK?????? 27.5% are you kidding), 30% from 3... compared to ~37% from 3 during the season (which is a lot lower even than last season).

These two guys were a big reason the Lakers offense was so potent, because you just could NOT leave Fisher or Vujacic open... but they're big liabilities right now.

Will the Lakers get out of their shooting slump during these playoffs? Stay tuned~