nba playoffs aka the 'offs (which includes the 'ins) 2021

bucks amped up

Trade Giannis

Ladies and gentlemen Brook Lopez

Because I'm a ninny I'm afraid that was the turning point, Lopez goes up for his third or fourth easy dunk and gets stripped, suddenly the Hawks are executing again

And suddenly Bucks can't shoot and the Hawks are beating them for rebounds

not sure i can watch this, it's two teams whose entire thing is having one guy and both of those guys are out

milwaukee has more than one guy cmon

feels like this could just go 7 based on homecourt advantage--big factor when the talent is pretty flat.

put some respkht on khris middleton's name

they mostly have one guy xp

I mean one way to look at it is Milwaukee’s worst shooter is off the court and they score 36 in a quarter

they have 3 other guys who have been all-stars! two guys on the all-defense teams of the last two years!

xp

That said I still anticipate this game being incredibly stressful, outside of like 5 quarters it feels like the Hawks have been in control

not saying giannis being out makes them better, but they play 5 out with that starting lineup having portis in there. i mean they COULD play better offense as a team if giannis wasnt the lead ballhandler, but they HAVE to play this way now.

this is somehow the exact game bobby portis is meant to play in

I wanna believe this is the night Brook Lopez has the game of his life

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, July 1, 2021 7:31 PM (fifty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

so far so good

Jfc Milwaukee gotta stop making dumb mistakes like that

Look I refuse to believe they could blow a 20 point lead at home but they’re still doing all the shit that allows that to happen

unnerved when you get confident tbh

Yeah watching these games in a state of constant panic has worked well so far

Btw they’ve shot under 25% from 3 in the first half yet again

They’re finally getting a game where Jrue and Khris are playing well at the same time

the stars have finally aligned my friend

I know it’s one home game vs. a Hawks team without Trae but it really feels like this team + an MVP should never have a first half like they did in Game 4

Ok is it just me or are the Hawks like 5 of the same player right now

nah that's ilx

it really feels like this team + an MVP should never have a first half like they did in Game 4

I mean tbf I cannot remember seeing them play a half that bad

I wanna believe this is the night Brook Lopez has the game of his life

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Thursday, July 1, 2021 7:31 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

just wanna remind everybody I made this happen

106 of the bucks 123 points were scored by 4 guys

Brook has a 0.1% chance of making the HOF according to BB Ref, feel like his chances doubled tonight

lol

goddamn these playoffs have been a rollercoaster

I mean two days ago it looked like it was all over and not only did we get a Bucks win but also a new episode of The Cube

lmao SKIP

Is it possible the Milwaukee Bucks are a little better without Giannis? Now on @undisputed

— Skip Bayless (@RealSkipBayless) July 2, 2021

good work if you can get it i guess

Step one: Assume a black swan pandemic event https://t.co/qD54irEpDD

— joemo (@joetothemo) July 1, 2021

i love how bitter laker fans are about this

it's the best

the NBA is more fun when the Suns are good full stop, Lakers bitterness is just the icing on the cake

to me the breakdown is this: you get two superstars to pair up (or if you're the nets) you are betting on their health, full stop. obv injuries can affect any team as we're seeing now , but chris paul was out for a bit and it didnt murder the suns because they constructed a more balanced team with a backup with stepped up and provided great production.

dubs tried to toy with fate with 4 all-stars, and hoops god was like "sry but you're due, cant win a threepeat by doing the magical move of adding KD to a 73 win team", thats just some icarus shit, so now we have the 2019 nba champion toronto raptors who bet on kawhi leonard being healthy for one season and won

(or 3 if you're the nets)*

but chris paul was out for a bit and it didnt murder the suns

― class project pat (m bison), Friday, July 2, 2021 11:15 AM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

paul has been mostly injured/bad this run, kind of interesting...

old players tend to be injured/bad

yeah just as far as analyzing team make up and whatnot basically the suns had two superstars in the denver series but not two superstars in the other two series

luckily for the them the other teams also had injuries

CP3 also had two incredible closeout games & seems to save his strength for the 4th when everyone else is tired. idk how well the "add an aging superstar to an already good team" thing has worked in the past but he's showing how it could be done, basically this Suns team works b/c CP doesn't have to do everything

cp3 is gonna get all the credit if they win but really the whole team has just been playing great, which is an ironic inversion of cp3s playoff career up til now

if the suns win they'll go down as the worst title winner in like 30 years but their fans shouldn't care about that

this was already clear during the regular season imo, but for all the talk of the bubble being some sort of unreliable indicator of success, this playoffs ended up being flukier than last year

yeah the injuries this year obvs are just out of control

the suns model is draft an all star, blow your next three top 10 picks (bender, chriss, josh jackson), be so bad that you get 3 more top 10 picks including the number 1 overall pick, hit on those pick, make a trade for an all star PG from a small market team holding a fire sale, and have the best or second best player on each of your playoff opponents be injured