I'm rooting for the Heat here, but I absolutely agree. I think the personal fouls were mostly ok, but those techs were ludicrous. I'm glad Van Gundy called the refs out, and I don't think they entirely turned the game, but still: the best reffing is the kind you don't notice at all, and the officials tonight utterly failed that.
I dont see how the Celts can win a game. Question is, how soon can you bring Bosh back? Do you bring him back to get him into shape? Lets hope the Heat sweep and the Western Finals goes 7.
The spurs look really good, as expected when a team wins 18 in a row. Its exactly what Reggie Miller was talking abou during the previous series, OKC is a jump shooting team and in the fourth quarter they don't look nearly as good offensively as SAS. When they needed to score San Antonio was able to move the ball and get easy layups, when OKC needed to score either Durant chucked up a contested shot or Westbrook tried to beat people off the dribble and was not shooting well. OkC will win two games I think because Westbrook was shooting Kobe numbers in game 1 and he won't do that every night and I think Durant will go off one game but its looking like San Antonio in 6.
I don't see why not. They were in the game on the road after three quarters; in fact, the Celtics were destroying them in the second quarter. It's also reasonable to imagine that Pierce/Allen will be better and stronger towards the end of the series. I don't expect them to win more than one, but predicting a sweep is almost always a bad bet. Sure, they happen, but predicting WHICH series will be sweeps is always very difficult. Hollinger threw out some interesting stats today. You may have noticed that OKC played a lot of small lineups, presumably to maximize offense (Collison and Ibaka had limited minutes, while Aldrich and Mohammed didn't get off the bench). Apparently the Spurs scored twice as many points per possession against these smaller lineups than they did against larger ones. Perhaps given the ease that Ginobli got the hoop, Brooks would be wise to reconsider these substitution patterns. It'll be interesting to see how Stern et al handle the officiating. Five technicals for minimal cause (KG literally didn't say a word, Doc Rivers got a technical for the words "Come on, Ed!", Allen got one for practically nothing...) and a media that is clearly against the referees on the issue. It seems unwise to penalize Doc, given the media's reaction, but to not do so would be inconsistent. Likely response is a fine and no acknowledgement of wankery. I really hate how standards have evolved in the NBA on this in the past couple years: it's gotten to the point where having almost any verbal/physical reaction to a call is considered tech-worthy. Players like Kendrick Perkins seem to get technicals merely for existing.
Well, to be fair, KG didn't get a personal tech, he just got a delay of game tech. Which was still a little iffy, but maybe they kept telling him to leave the ball alone.
Right, and that is a "correct" call, albeit one that really didn't need to be made. What advantage did the Celtics gain on that play? It's not like he batted the ball into the stands or away from the Heat players. If it had been the older one that was called, I'd shrug it off. It just seems excessive in the context of a game where Doc gets a T for "Come on Ed" and Ray Allen gets one for "Noooo." I'm not alleging any sort of conspiracy or bias (although the NBA is probably wary of any such accusations with regard to the Heat). I'm just saying it's become absurd the degree of docility that is being required of today's players.
Yeah, I'm with you on that. Those would have been iffy calls in a high school game, especially the one on Doc. Hell, part of coaching is working the refs a little bit and letting them know they might have missed one, and Rivers seemed downright respectful.
Watch the replay again. He didnt hit the ball out of the net, he hit the ball right out of Wade's hands into the photographers. Seemed ticky tacky, but they were warned.
Hopefully game three will be interesting. Brooks made some major defensive changes in the third (more switching on picks, bodying up cutters, daring the Spurs to beat them w/ a post up game) and from that point on, OKC actually was +7 (you can start counting from either before or after the Splitter fouls, that stretch were point-neutral). It's certainly not the way the Spurs want to play, and it made them uncomfortable. Whether that extrapolates to a whole game, I don't know. But up until that point, it was as much Brooks getting outcoached as it was anything to do with the players.
Just about anybody in the NBA is going to get out coached by Pops. They way he molds the gameplan and the way he trusts his veterans and younger players is amazing. Brooks' problem is that his team is not disciplined enough to stick with a gameplan. They turn the ball over too much and when things break down, it turns into Westbrook & Durant trying to go 1 on 1. After watching these first 2 games, I'd like to change my previous statement and would prefer to play OKC. With Bosh. They can be exploited in a series, especially by a team that can convert turnovers into FB points as well as the Heat do.
I mean that in Game 1 and the first 2.5 quarters of Game 2, Brooks look completely overmatched. Which, as Gator noted, tends to happen against the man that I think might be the NBA's greatest coach ever.
I was just getting clarification because yes, Pop outcoached the fuck out of that game. Like Bill Belichick with the ideal players. I stopped watching because Gator nailed it, whatever plan Scotty put in, which could have been a killer plan, his players weren't executing it. It was great basketball to watch, but man that pick and roll shit gets boring to watch. Can a brotha get an alley-oop in this bitch? That's all I'm asking.
I cant watch Ginobli & Parker drive the lane, throw up ridiculous shit and watch it go in time after time. I love Duncan though. They asked Perkins the difference between Duncan and Bynum and he gave a great answer: "Duncan is smart." Bout sums it up.
This is looking like a sweep. Boston gave absolutely everything they had in game 2 and it still wasn't enough. On a related note, I think Rajon Rondo has become my favorite NBA player. I can't believe there were trade rumors involving him earlier this year.
Rondo went fucking nuts tonight. If Pierce didn't get fouled out, that OT would have been a little more interesting. Rondo played the entire game. Fucking insane. Wonder if people are going to play 15 feet off him now.
Oooph. Right in the feels. If you can't win on a night when 1) LBJ shoots 7/20, 2) the opposition goes 31/47 on FTAs, and 3) Rajon Rondo goes HAM and almost eclipses LBJ for the best game of the post-season (44 points, 10 assists, 8 rebounds on 67% shooting. 10/12 from FT and 2/2 from 3! I repeat, RAJON RONDO made 83% of his free throws and multiple threes! He played the whole game!)........when can you win? I'm still a little salty about that blatant OT missed call for Rondo that led to a transition dunk, but mostly I'm just dispirited right now.
The Heat stuck with their plan of backing off Rondo for 4+ quarters. Rondo cannot shoot any better than that, so unless Pierce does something to help them out, they are done. Rondo didn't almost cost the Heat that game, the free throw shooting did. When it was 85-81 and they called the Clear Path foul, the Heat had a chance to go up 8 and they came away with nothing. That was a huge point in the game. And it's hard for me to be objective about the foul calls, but it just looked like the Heat were going to the basket more than the Celtics. Usually, that results in more fouls on the team driving to the basket. The refs were definitely not as bad as they were in Game 1. (I don't mean biased bad, I mean bad bad.)