The 2022 National Basketball Association (NBA) Playoffs Thread

you can tell the way theyre defending him theyre not that worried about him getting to the rim theyre getting up on him with a kind quasi double team with guy in his driving lanes waiting to make the late contest but not really any rim protection so if he had the ability to beat that admittedly tough set up open layups would be there for him but he has just not done that at all

also been showing what an imperfect fit kd and kyrie are theyre so similar besides kds height they dont have any have plus physical attributes theyre both weak and skinny with average motors

i do think with simmons and some moves the nets could still have something next year, tho counting on kyrie simmons and kd to be present healthy and engaged has got to be a way under 50% proposition

I’d be interested to see the data on Kd drives per game over the years cos to my eye this is just who he’s always been. His preference has always been to pull up at his spots.

i mean yeah but not like this think he has one dunk in two games

He seems a little off physically

he is old and tired, lotta miles on those legs

i think on zach lowe’s podcast from yesterday he said KD had 6 drives in game 2 which was one of his lowest numbers of the season & i’d bet if you looked at the other games it would be almost all games vs bad teams where he generally wasn’t trying

Kevin Pelton has an article about this very thing today, though it doesn’t address the proposition that it is Durant‘s own passivity/limitation/decision-making that are keeping him out of the paint, rather than Celtics D

According to Second Spectrum tracking analysis, an average shooter would be expected to post a 36.5% effective field-goal percentage (eFG%) on Durant's attempts through the first two games, based on the location and type of shots and the distance of nearby defenders. That's the lowest quantified shot quality (qSQ) for any player in the postseason.

In part, Boston has done this by keeping Durant away from the basket. During the regular season, 36.5% of his shot attempts were scored as coming within the paint according to NBA Advanced Stats. Just five of his 41 attempts in the first two games (12%) have come from the paint as the Celtics have done a terrific job of showing help on Durant during the rare occasions where he has gotten an edge on his defensive matchup.

Of course, Durant has been known to feast on difficult shots. His qSQ was second-lowest in last year's playoffs, ahead of only Julius Randle, which didn't stop Durant from posting a 57% eFG when factoring 3s as 1.5 field goals to account for their added value. Durant isn't an average shooter, after all.

Second Spectrum's quantified shooter impact (qSI) metric measures how a player performs relative to the difficulty of their shots for an average player. Among everyone with at least 100 shot attempts in the 2021 playoffs, Durant's 14.8 qSI ranked second behind Seth Curry. They flip-flopped places during the 2021-22 regular season, with Durant (13.7) edging out his new teammate Curry. That's dropped to a -2.3 qSI in the first two games of the series, which ranks 37th of 55 players who have taken at least 25 shots.

To some extent, that's an indication that Durant will shoot better going forward. However, it's likely also a testament to Boston making those shots even more difficult than they look in the tracking data

yeah its a combo of the two imo saw a clip where the celtics chipped him three time on a play where he was just trying to set a pick

rip utah jazz

There’s increasing optimism Dallas Mavericks star Luka Doncic will play vs. Utah in Game 4 today, sources tell ESPN. The plan is that his minutes will be limited in his first game back since suffering a calf strain on April 10.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) April 23, 2022

will be interesting to see it KD forces the issue tonight, i feel like sometimes guys can lose themselves in the flow of the game. but you’d have to imagine the nets are aware of this if everyone else is. but like i posted a few days ago there’s just no real match up hunting for him to do in this series. i think it would be good if the nets ran some plays for him like getting him some sideline post touches or running some short curl actions inside the arc to get him moving with the ball towards the basket. if their plan is to have him isoing on tatum and brown 24 ft from the basket trying to break them down off the dribble idk if that’s going to be very successful

Rivers, when asked directly if Embiid has a ligament tear: “It’s not a good injury. I’ll leave it at that.” https://t.co/VUuvDSyh3K

— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) April 23, 2022

fuck

The mismatch between Embiid's size and his style of play has always made injuries a high risk. This one came at a very bad time. Um, I guess Harden will have to carry the team on his broad shoulders now.

i’m just seeing that bobby portis, who punched nikola mirotic off the bulls, put up 18-16 last night & grayson allen, who basically threw alex caruso off a building, scored 22 and hit 5 threes in the first playoff game in chicago since 2016. rough one for bulls fans

Allen is a solid backup, sorry you missed the game

**grayson_liker69 has logged on**

i think it would be good if the nets ran some plays

lol

it def would be but hard to imagine theyre going to start now

Well there was an attempted murder on Bobby Portis in Game 2

you know what they say: good players run plays, great players are the plays

and good players who think they're great players just fuck up the plays a lot

reasonable, mobleys only other guy who had a case imo

Nothing like finding you're the best rookie in your class 🌟

Congratulations, Scottie Barnes, the 2021-2022 Kia Rookie of the Year 🙌pic.twitter.com/zD0AXqz2Il

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) April 23, 2022

very cute video too guess vince is let back in the raptors family canadians are so nice

wow i thought mobley had kinda run away w it

Allen is a solid backup, sorry you missed the game

Yeah you have to look at the complete body of work over the past two seasons, where he has been a rock solid backup and decent starter.

embiid 0-5 so far

not great injuries are bad

praising an nba player for being a "solid backup" is like praising your lover for being a "good conversationalist".

Thad Young out there

I feel like that was a pretty good half given Embiid's play and the Raptors played pretty well.

Cool how in every nba playoff game a significant player gets injured

Embiid trying to do too much out there with these passes to make up for the fact that he can't put the ball on the floor.

More injuries!

wow i thought mobley had kinda run away w it

close vote!

PLAYER, TEAM 1ST 2ND 3RD TOT
Scottie Barnes, TOR 48 43 9 378
Evan Mobley, CLE 43 46 10 363
C. Cunningham, DET 9 10 78 153

Crazy

mobley got banged up in the second half and the cavs sank in the standings, meanwhile the raptors went in the other direction. there wasn’t really a wrong pick

spero dedes & grant hill is one of my fav crews

theyre both Cool Calm Collected

rudy all over the offensive glass here

(lebron james kid voice) luka doncic

luka doncic

woww

really weird the mavs didn’t advance the ball

I think they didn’t have a TO? Not sure why the clock stopped, that was confusing

nah they called one

that was basically the exact shot dinwiddie made to beat the nets in brooklyn a few weeks ago. teams are gonna have to start preparing for the late double team in those situations, seems like the go to defensive strategy now

xp If that’s right then yeah, that’s inexplicable

either way, feels like the Jazz dodged a bullet there, between that and Powell missing those FTs