The 2022 National Basketball Association (NBA) Playoffs Thread

luka, dinwiddie and brunson had 89 of the mavs 123 points. next leading scorer was dwight powell with 6

Crazy

probably not something that bodes well for their chances against the warriors

Lol, CP wasn't limping when he was statpadding with some signature smooth buckets in the 4th in garbage time.

Underrated storyline: The Phoenix Suns hired Luka Doncic’s Slovenian national team head coach, Igor Kokoskov, to be their head coach in 2018, and then a month later passed on Doncic in the draft. Kokoskov is now on the Mavs coaching staff watching this inferno.

— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) May 16, 2022

unreal

So like…. Is porzingis the worst high-ish usage player in the league or what

Lol, CP wasn't limping when he was statpadding with some signature smooth buckets in the 4th in garbage time.

So like…. Is porzingis the worst high-ish usage player in the league or what

yah and unlike zinger, if maxi isnt getting it done on any given night you can sit him cos he isnt a high profile player

Luka Doncic in elimination games:

39-9-9
46-7-14
33-11-8
35-10-4

His 38.3 PPG is the highest in NBA history. pic.twitter.com/FkO3dsDX7T

— StatMuse (@statmuse) May 16, 2022

a talking point that turned out to not be overrated is that luka played and played at a very high level in so many big games before coming into the NBA that the playoffs just don’t phase him

his defense seemed to improve as this series went on... and bookers got worse.

interested to see how the dubs play him. not too much to learn from the reg season matchups cos guys were in and out of the lineups for all the games. will they let him cook and try to shut off the rest of the guys like they tried with ja or will they trap and make the other guys beat em? prob a mix of both. the warriors players 2-5 are better than the mavs 2-5 tho but as we just saw you only need a couple dudes to step up.

pretty wild that the dubs have homecourt the rest of the way.

bucks might have to rethink their defensive scheme

The Bucks were outscored by 19.2 points per 100 possessions with Brook Lopez on the court in the Boston series, surrendering a jaw-dropping 47.1 3-point attempts per 100 possessions in his minutes.

celtics started off taking the mediocre quasi contested 3s the bucks wanted them to but as the series went on they learned to pass those early shots up to drive and kick for quality looks ultimately culminating in the bucks baffling decision to just not guard grant williams in game seven, bucks came out in the second half looking like they knew they couldnt win even tho it was only a five point game, wonder if they lost faith in the scheme

is mike budenholzer bad actually

I've been saying that for a while

same

Ime is going to have to scheme better against Bud.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Sunday, May 1, 2022

I guess he did.

hollinger today introducing a new small ball concept "space ball" thats maybe just the same thing as five out, anyway good piece regardless, i guess its five out specifically with all guys who can guard the perimeter, so a five out lineup with a big shooting center like brook lopez wouldnt qualify, its small ball five out idk

Boston, meanwhile, ruthlessly exposed the Bucks’ limitations against space ball, starting with Al Horford’s 30-point outburst in Game 4. Horford was so effective standing on the perimeter and waiting for Lopez to wander off that the Bucks instead went to having Lopez guard Grant Williams for Game 7. He and Derrick White were granted as many open 3s as they could handle, the Celtics took an absurd 55 and the Bucks were toast.

Contrast this with a year ago: Without the go-to space-ball forward of their own in P.J. Tucker, especially, Milwaukee didn’t have the right perimeter talent. Tucker will now be taking part in the conference finals against Boston as part of a more space-ball-friendly roster in Miami, one that may feature him in stints at center when Bam Adebayo is off the floor.

The other problem with space ball is that it forces you to have five good perimeter players, not just two or three, and thus it pushes your depth to its limit — a thing that normally doesn’t happen much in the playoffs. The Bucks ended up counting on George Hill and Grayson Allen and paying for it. Phoenix tried dusting off Torrey Craig in Game 7 to disastrous effect.

space ball is a movie

ball wars

Pat Bev being such a troll today on First Take.

“Ain’t nobody afraid of anybody over there in Phoenix, man. Everybody in the league knows that.”

.@patbev21, tell us how you really feel about the Suns 👀 pic.twitter.com/GlxSAXUrq5

— First Take (@FirstTake) May 16, 2022

he hates cp3 so much

"Do guys in the NBA go to sleep early the night before playing the Phoenix Suns? Hell no. I'm going to Steak 44, have me a nice little wine."

Patrick Beverley is not worried when playing the Suns 👀pic.twitter.com/Qxi5eW0dFB

— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) May 16, 2022

Lmaoooo

lol

Report: Lakers asking coaching candidates how they’d use Russell Westbrook https://t.co/zy33KSK2tK

— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) May 16, 2022

Lol I might have to watch this whole segment

“CP can’t guard nobody man. Everybody in the NBA know that. ... He’s a cone. ... Give him the Ben Simmons slander.”

👀 @patbev21

(via @GetUpESPN) pic.twitter.com/9bh8HOdJ0J

— ESPN (@espn) May 16, 2022

lmao he got up early to do this

i think if the bucks have a problem (and i’m not sure they do) it’s that their roster is built to play one style. i don’t think it’s inflexibility on bud’s part as much as it is something that is built into the organization from the front office on down to the coaching. they can’t play small bcuz their best players outside of jrue are all big, their small role players are all scrap heap guys and you could include grayson in that who they acquired for nothing even tho he was supposed to be an “asset” piece for them.

i do think that if they had middleton healthy they would prob be in the ECF right now looking at 3 other teams left who would have issues playing against their size & would be overwhelming favorites to repeat. but if you look at the heat and celtics in particular those teams can play all sorts of small combinations whether it’s with mobile centers like bam, horford and rob will or with no centers in tucker, grant williams… the heat even play super small guard and wing only line ups with caleb martin playing “center.” the bucks need to find a way to maintain their counter strength to those line ups (playing huge with brook giannis and middleton on the floor) while also having better perimeter players and an athletic big man who can move his feet so that they’re able to shift styles in the playoffs if need be.

and also that means bud needs to be adaptable scheme wise, i think in this boston-miami series you’re gonna see two coaches who can make tons of adjustments on the fly and two teams who can implement those adjustments. the heat essentially played 3 diff overarching defensive schemes in 6 games vs the sixers and w/in each game is shifting its defense often possession to possession. the celtics obv have prob the most line up flexible team in the NBA right now and never have a line up out there that just doesn’t understand what its supposed to be doing. with the bucks it was a huge deal in this series just for them to even implement the wild concept of switching. the sixers lost embiid and couldn’t play small to save their lives in large part bcuz on defense their guys had no idea what they were doing without a real center on the floor bcuz they never even tried playing that way in the regular season.

so it’s a roster and coaching thing, the whole organization has to be built to move like that. you have to have adaptable guys and you have to have an adaptable coach and it all has to be executed. even in the west, the mavs basically changed their team midway thru the season & were able to operate tactically on the fly vs the suns, the warriors (when healthy) can scale up or down with guys like otto porter, iggy, kuminga.

something else the bucks don’t have that i’d be looking to find if i was any NBA GM are point guards who can score one on one. these playoffs have just felt like a race to who can be the smallest & if you can find a brunson, a maxey, a kyrie (when trying) who can break down bigger wing players, that’s a nice piece to have. i thought kyrie being able to blow by tatum in that game 1 whereas KD could barely even dribble the ball 3 times on him was pretty instructive as to where things have been headed. maxey is so much scarier than harden for various reasons but primarily bcuz there is no wing player who can stay in front of him. you can prob throw jordan poole in this mix even tho he is bigger. the good version of chris paul we saw in the playoffs was unguardable one on one etc. small, quick, skilled it’s just being accelerated

Harden and CP gonna be taking shots all summer

Jason Kidd told me before Game 6 that I called..that Luka has to evolve..to defend.
He said the model for Luka is Lebron who controls the game at both ends..right now Kidd said Luka is trying to trend away from “Harden” and the goal is Lebron.
Luka ain’t Bird.He’s more Lebron https://t.co/VFBHwER2YP

— MarkJonesESPN (@MarkJonesESPN) May 16, 2022

lol @ “lebron minus the athleticism” … that’s like saying “planet earth minus the water”

I’m sorry but this interview keeps delivering

😭😭😭😭 PatBev had Windy under pressure pic.twitter.com/xQVrHwWhIP

— warriorsworld (@warriorsworld) May 16, 2022

pat bev having a total inability to get over chris paul’s foul baiting… i’ve never felt more aligned with him

If Suns would have beaten Mavericks, then the NBA's top 4 regular season defenses would have been in conference finals.

But instead of 3rd-ranked Suns, it's still 7th-ranked Mavericks. Along with #1 Celtics, #2 Warriors, #4 Heat.

— Law Murray 🧾 (@LawMurrayTheNU) May 16, 2022

On the flip side, Celtics are the only regular season top-10 offense still in the field. They finished 9th in regular season offensive efficiency.

Heat were 12th, Mavericks 14th, Warriors 16th.

— Law Murray 🧾 (@LawMurrayTheNU) May 16, 2022

Kidd obv knows how to flatter Luka into working on his game.

pat bev having a total inability to get over chris paul’s foul baiting… i’ve never felt more aligned with him

― J0rdan S., Monday, May 16, 2022 1:43 PM (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

kills me to acknowledge him but pat bev is doing great work today

he went on two different espn morning shows just to kick chris paul when hes down lmao true barbarism

he couldve zoomed in but no he put on a brand new polo and showed up in person

legendary work

Dame weighing in Twitter is a blessing

Bra on TV acting like his word law. Speaking on private convos and praying on mfs downfall. This weird behavior smh 🤷🏽‍♂️ … I ain’t got a horse in the race https://t.co/F6Cln8BBst

— Damian Lillard (@Dame_Lillard) May 16, 2022

stars hang together. they don't like to be brought down by role players

PatBev has always been an incendiary kind of character. He just woke up and felt like burning CP3 to the ground.

i support pat bev going off on tv because it's funny, not because i take him seriously

is there something i've missed? they got traded for each other (not straight-up lol) a while back, but why is patbev so insistent on this truth-telling?

because he's patbev and he has strong feelings about stuff and not much in the way of filters on them

didn't CP3 bait Pat Bev into a dumb, essentially series-clinching technical foul last year? idk maybe he's still bitter about that

but I also think he wants to be the next Stephen A. once he retires from being the greatest NBA defender ever