hello friends it's the 2018 NBA Playoffs, a place where dreams GO 2 DIE

naw they wld be srs championship contenders with those two, at the very least just imagine larkin/smart/morris minutes going to all stars instead, losing kyrie does make them better defensively as most of the pg minutes are getting sucked up by rozier/smart but lol kyrie is still better overall, i mean they averaged like 92pts a game on the road in the first round and almost lost to a not very good bucks team, thats likely a sweep with full health

they cld easily still lose this series via going cold at the offensive end, just look at the first 15mins of last nights game they cld barely get a shot off, but on the other hand they cld also make the finals, lol east

Yeah I would not be genuinely surprised by any outcome of this series ranging from a c’s sweep to the sixers winning the next four straight and embiid putting up like 45 and 15, who knows

i wonder if part of it is that none of these celts have any pressure at all on them? They all know they're playing with house money so they can play free and loose. 76ers started looking ahead to east finals and finals it seems like, felt like they had climbed the mountain already, without knowing what's really the real deal with the playoffs. i think they will win big in game 3 but game 4 will be their first real test. Brown has to find some counter moves. Still think this will be a long series.

be interesting to see if the celtics can figure out how to score on the road for even one game, cld def see philly just lose confidence and bow out ungracefully, theyve got to be a lil shook at this point, brown was blustering in his post game presser and what he was saying didnt really makes sense, and neither did his timeout calling or substitution patterns

heres simmons v the celtics this year http://bkref.com/tiny/qL5SU

https://i.imgur.com/WlLmMut.png

embiid http://bkref.com/tiny/xD5lZ

https://i.imgur.com/KSrf6IG.png

celtics up 5-1 for the season, the one game philly won the final score was 89-80, the celtics were sans kyrie

favorite lebron vs raptors moments:

2016: “i’ve been in a lot of stressful situations this isn’t one of them,” after raptors won two at home

2017: alley-oop off the backboard 3 mins into G1 effectively ending the series

2018: spent an entire quarter practicing fadeaways

— alex (@steven_lebron) May 4, 2018

also:

2017: shouted "margaritas on me" at drake in the tunnel after going up 3-0 in toronto

— alex (@steven_lebron) May 4, 2018

Gotta be in there somewhere pic.twitter.com/8rfTWCefmo

— David Baker (@djbaker021) May 4, 2018

lmao margaritas on me

"TOO LITTLE!"
—@KingJames pic.twitter.com/9UEw7tZBdJ

— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) May 3, 2018

this was so good. "get that little ass n*gga off of me"

a thing horford is really good at it seems like is not biting on joel pump fakes when he gets the ball behind the 3 pt line. the heat & whiteside (who is dumb) in particular really failed at this. if joel is gonna handle the ball outside the 3 pt line i think you really just wanna stay in front of him. if you let him pump and get by you it's basically over.

i love lebron so much

lebron james

i still think it's gonna go back to boston 2-2 unless simmons is just broken. as goon says it's hard to envision the celtics scoring enough but maybe the sixers will cough a game up.

a thing horford is really good at it seems like is not biting on joel pump fakes when he gets the ball behind the 3 pt line. the heat & whiteside (who is dumb) in particular really failed at this. if joel is gonna handle the ball outside the 3 pt line i think you really just wanna stay in front of him. if you let him pump and get by you it's basically over.

― J0rdan S., Friday, May 4, 2018 2:08 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you want joel to shoot threes! hes bad at it! if you get a little late contest in hes prob only hitting 25%

simmons for sure gonna come with the energy in game 3, well see if it makes any difference tho his game just might not be up to the task, id def def def try to post him a bunch if i were brown

tho not playing that way all season it may be difficult to integrate at this point

i need to see marcus smart attempt to defend simmons in the post

theres a good chance something crazy will happen!

embiid really needs to work on his mobility though i guess never being able to do conditioning work will preclude that

also i don't feel like anyone has pointed out that we have no idea if brett brown can coach in a competitive playoff series

its browns first playoffs, its almost every sixers first playoffs, good conditions for learning prob not as much for winning

it's a bummer bc they seemed to have it figured it out during the last series but anything at this pt really is gravy esp since sixers were never going to win the finals (and before the season started weren't going to win 50 games or go to the playoffs either) so philly fans bellyaching (which they are like crazy today) are kinda insane nb that is why i love philly sports but still some perspective wouldn't be the worst thing in the world

young teams have to take their lumps it's just the way it is.

yup as long as they don't get swept it's a good result for the season

I think the Philly fans just need the summer to process what's going on with the sixers.

Like if you're talking about young dudes taking their lumps, shouldn't that apply to Rozier and Brown and Tatum? Sixers are losing to Boston's bench depth. Next year when Irving and Hayward are back it's not going to get easier.

also sixers front office is garbage. it's kinda illuminating first comparing sixers front office to eagles front office. the fultz draft was such a disaster. it's not just that they picked a [i hope not but is looking more like a] bust but they traded up to do it. celtics were obv going to take tatum - sixers could've stayed pat and gotten the bust they wanted without spending more assets. just based on moves like that they don't really deserve to have as promising a future as they hopefully should. they've kinda succeeded in spite of themselves.

no one knew celtics were locked in on Tatum until after they gave it away by doing the trade

At this point would you take Fultz over Rozier? I'm not sure I would.

i think ppl need to chill on fultz, it's a truly bizarre story but he still has a chance at being a good to great pro and it's going to take at least another season to find out.

it just seems to me like even putting fultz aside the number of hits the sixers have had vs. misses requires no special talent at scouting or roster building. and if not for embiid getting injured the year of that draft they wouldn't even have him. i like the team bc i like embiid (a lot) and simmons but i can't give a ton of credit to the org.

At this point would you take Fultz over Rozier?

At this point who even knows who Fultz is as an NBA player, let alone what he might be?

You could say that about literally any rookie. Speculating is fun.

Like in two years when Fultz is good and Rozier isn't won't it be fun to be able to point to my post and make fun of me? But instead you're like "I can't predict the future". Yawn.

As of today, I would take Rozier over Fultz. Demonstrated ability is a powerful argument.

it just seems to me like even putting fultz aside the number of hits the sixers have had vs. misses requires no special talent at scouting or roster building. and if not for embiid getting injured the year of that draft they wouldn't even have him. i like the team bc i like embiid (a lot) and simmons but i can't give a ton of credit to the org.

― Mordy, Friday, May 4, 2018 3:39 PM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

a month ago everyone was tripping over themselves to talk about how well the starting 5 fit and how great getting reddick on a 1-year was and how they found and developed RoCo and how nice it was to get belinelli and ilyasova on buyouts

sixers fans all having meltdowns over 2 games

RoCo, Embiid, and Simmons are all Hinkie guys, aren't they? Colangelo has done a good job with the short-term patches. RoCo was basically their only 3pt shooter until they filled the gaps, but it's kind of a mirage.

it just seems to me like even putting fultz aside the number of hits the sixers have had vs. misses requires no special talent at scouting or roster building. and if not for embiid getting injured the year of that draft they wouldn't even have him. i like the team bc i like embiid (a lot) and simmons but i can't give a ton of credit to the org.

― Mordy, Friday, May 4, 2018 3:39 PM (fifty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

bill simmons and russillo had a really good recent pod where they were talking about the crapshoot nature of the draft and why it rarely makes sense to trade up: you really just want as many pulls on that slot machine as possible, it’s so hard to project 19 year olds

I think the sixers are set up absurdly well for the future tho, no need to handwring over this. they’re going up against a solid team and probably the best in-game coach in the league, maybe the best in a long time

i don't think hinkie would've traded up for fultz, i'm not handwringing fwiw tho i was disappointed about ben last night. i do feel like this whole post season is gravy and it's not really the team's fault if ppl's expectations were a little overambitious and/or early.

imo the sixers have two good players who shd prob be playing the same position, theyve relied a ton on players like reddick and belineli that arent in their long term plans, if fultz pans out theyre in a pretty good spot but if he doesnt theres a lot of work to do and the draft picks are all gone

that deal with boston is looking real bad, celtics get sactos pick next year and got the better player in the draft too lol!

boston a good lesson is what can be accomplished if u find teams willing to make bad deals with you

one thing that danny really understands is the opportunity cost of paying retail, cause if u do some sort of reasonable deal then you wont have assets when someone is ready to be fleeced

simmons shd really just go ahead and switch hands on his jumper, theres no risk since he never takes jumpshots anyway

it's true he could do it and not even tell anyone and people would never know if it worked

*didn't work