The 2022 National Basketball Association (NBA) Playoffs Thread

yeah getting his 3pt shot to click was the final piece

and hes a scrapper on defense too, salute to book

the post game quotes from doc are interesting he’s basically doing everything short of hanging a banner behind him that says “i need a better roster.” the “him” in the first sentence here refers to harden:

"They're throwing double teams at him really quickly. They know what we have on the floor at times," Doc Rivers said. "We needed Matisse (Thybulle) on the floor, I thought he did an excellent job overall on Tyler Herro, but now you got Matisse and (DeAndre Jordan), or Matisse and Paul (Reed) on the floor, and they're really just playing a two-man zone off of those two guys. It's damned if you do, damned if you don't."

couper moorhead the heat writer pointed out that when the sixers have gone small with niang or harris at center the offense gets juiced but the defense doesn’t look overmatched so much as like they have no idea what they’re doing bcuz they’ve never played together — missing rotations, repeatedly leaving herro wide open for threes etc. which falls on doc for being so rigid about his rotations in the regular season and not preparing the team to play without a center in the playoff which almost feels like a prerequisite nowadays.

i continue to think the doc/morey marriage is in its last days regardless of how this series plays out. but embiid being out makes it clear that the entire back half of the sixers roster needs to be overhauled. like 5 or 6 new players, more shooting, more ball handling, guys you can trust in the playoffs esp if you assume at this point embiid is gonna miss some games in every playoff run. harris, maxey, harden had 75 points last night, nobody else on the team had more than 8 (korkmaz). the shooting will turn when they get back home i’m sure but it’s feeling like a house of cards roster that is propped up by one amazing but frequently injured center.

what if and hear me out instead of filling out their roster they traded for another guy

watch da red sox hawhaw

― lag∞n, Thursday, May 5, 2022 7:34 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

fp

*yelling as im being taken away in handcuffs* GO SAAAWX

lol

The Heat have a 149.2 (!!) ORtg when DeAndre Jordan is on the court this series.

32-58 FG (55.2%)
9-22 3PT (40.9%)
62.9 eFG%

Next worst Sixers player (Korkmaz) has a 119.8 DRtg.

— Justin Phan (@jphanned) May 5, 2022

def keep playing him tho doc good thinking

granted i think theyd be down 0-2 right now no matter who they woulda played in the game but at least with hoisting you give yourself a shot.

bam is just completely destroying him, deandre looks like a player who came out of retirement in an emergency

it makes no sense that hes seen any meaningful playing time in the last 4-5 years

The NBA is suspending Memphis’ Dillon Brooks for Game 3 vs. Golden State on Saturday, sources tell ESPN.

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 5, 2022

it was weird that this was even a question

rip sixers rough break

76ers are listing All-Star Joel Embiid as out for Game 3 vs. Heat on Friday.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 5, 2022

Looks like Miami’s gonna get an easy road to the ecf. Usually a good sign for making it to the finals

apparently they're still leaving the door open for embiid to play tomorrow. i think he's gonna play bcuz the series is prob over if he doesn't

apparently he wasn’t even able to look at his phone until yesterday? seems like a lot to do to clear the protocol in time.

That’s horrible

But he's annoying so it's cool.

They can’t list him as anything other than out until he clears the concussion protocol. I can’t tell you whether he will or won’t with certainty, but listing him “out” right now does not necessarily mean he doesn’t play, it means he hasn’t cleared it *yet* https://t.co/f9J5uxA7SC

— Kyle Neubeck (@KyleNeubeck) May 5, 2022

feel like they should have somehow scheduled a lakers game tonight — i miss watching them lose

some no games night content...

just for fun i've been keeping a (subjective) tally of the best player in every game in the playoffs. i haven't seen every game so some of these are based off tweets/box scores, but i've seen some of most of them. in some cases (one major case) i made a judgement call or there really wasn't a great choice, it's also prob weighted a bit towards offensive and box score contributions. but i feel like this more or less maps across how the playoffs have felt. this is what i have so far

5

Giannis Antetokounmpo (r1 g1, r1 g3, r1 g4, r1 g5, r2 g1)
Chris Paul (r1 g1, r1 g3, r1 g5, r1 g6, r2 g2)

4

Ja Morant (r1 g2, r1 g3, r1 g6, r2 g2)

3

Jimmy Butler (r1 g1, r1 g2, r1 g4)
Luka Doncic (r1 g4, r1 g5, r1 g6)
Joel Embiid (r1 g2, r1 g3, r1 g6)
Jordan Poole (r1 g1, r1 g2, r2 g1)
Jayson Tatum (r1 g2, r1 g3, r1 g4)

2

Bam Adebayo (r2 g1, r2 g2)
Jalen Brunson (r1 g2, r1 g3)
Brandon Ingram (r1 g2, r1 g4)
Nikola Jokic (r1 g3, r1 g4)
Pascal Siakam (r1 g4, r1 g5)

1

Bojan Bogdanovic (r1 g1)
Devin Booker (r2 g1)
Jaylen Brown (r2 g2)
Steph Curry (r1 g5)
DeMar DeRozan (r1 g2)
Anthony Edwards (r1 g1)
De'Andre Hunter (r1 g5)
Kyrie Irving (r1 g1)
Jarren Jackson Jr. (r1 g6)
Tyrese Maxey (r1 g1)
Karl-Anthony Towns (r1 g4)
Trae Young (r1 g3)

no games tonight? what the fuck

salute to jordan for that research. you could probably do something similar with game scores or something

was kyrie the only one to win best player in a losing game?

jokic game 3 too

luka shd prob get the nod for the last two games tbf

can you imagine if he and cp3 switched places haha

if jordan poole had to play without steph

Luka has the highest playoff average of all time (until he scores less than 33.5). He was better than Book G1 of this series I'd think, Book's shot wasn't really falling

luka obvs just generally the best player in the series, he is trying to do too much but also his team isnt that good

cp3 on the other hand can rest up for the 4th and bust tired guys asses, its a good system

reflecting upon its actually a great system that gives the suns a pretty big advantage towards winning the chip

Lukas stats are better but he’s not better than Booker imo. He’s got the harden problem where he’s not willing to do anything off ball and then sucks at defense.

cmon be serious luka is much better than book its not close

he has some bad habits for sure, which i suspect could be reduced by having better teammates, but regardless hes still one of the absolutely best players in the world

So is book. I’d probably have them on a similar tier atm. Can luka play a winning style (deep into the playoffs)? Yet to be seen.

i think if you put luka in books place on the suns theyd sweep the playoffs

book is very good but hes not an mvp level guy

i think if you put luka in books place on the suns theyd sweep the playoffs

book is very good but hes not an mvp level guy

he might get a few votes cause the suns are so good

Being the best player on the best team means something

Hardens gonna make $47.3 million next year lmao

You could argue book would be putting up similar numbers to luka if you put the ball in his hands for 80% of the game.
― he was eating Vaseline like it was bunch of cheeseburgers (Spottie), Thursday, May 5, 2022 11:14 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

naw he doesnt have the playmaking chops or physicality to do what luka does, luka is basically unstoppable

Being the best player on the best team means something

― he was eating Vaseline like it was bunch of cheeseburgers (Spottie), Thursday, May 5, 2022 11:18 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

i dont think so

was kyrie the only one to win best player in a losing game?

Suns were repeatedly hunting Luka on D last game

yes, because he has a uniquely high offensive load and it benefits the suns to wear him down. it doesnt really say much about how he compares to booker.

It’s unclear to me that Booker is more valuable to the Suns than Ayton