The 2022 National Basketball Association (NBA) Playoffs Thread

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

i feel like if you've watched chris paul play you could understand why an opponent might want to go on national TV and slander him mercilessly...

dame otm

nba needs to take note of the ratings the celtics are delivering to them and respond in kind with favorable calls

Celtics-Bucks Game 7 was the most watched Eastern Conference Semifinals game since 2012, averaging 7.5 million viewers per ESPN.

— Brian Robb (@BrianTRobb) May 17, 2022

They haven't already? ;)

outrageously, no

Celtics‘ Al Horford and Marcus Smart are out for Game 1 vs. Miami tonight. Horford is in health and safety protocols.

— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) May 17, 2022

eesh

wtffff

boo

hiss

wait this is horfords 3rd time this season??

yeah guess so hes said that hes vaxxed fwiw, idk what he up to in his spare time tho

hopefully they can get a couple good games out of rob here uhhh

Boston is prepared for the likely scenario of Al Horford remaining in the league’s Health and Safety Protocols through Game 2 on Thursday, sources said. https://t.co/QsWWjKDRcq

— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) May 17, 2022

thies vs bam is def the sequel nobody wanted to see

postpone it imo

brutal

oh ffs

random thought but does jimmy dog it from 3 all reg season so teams leave him open in the playoffs to shoot?

he is crazy enough to do that

celtics came to play baby

was wondering which celtic who hasnt played in months was gonna get minutes tonight, its nesmith

i do not think jimmy is secretly a sharpshooter he's just a 33% guy. no clue why his % has been so low with miami

man pritchard is a pretty good rebounding guard

yeah good nose for the ball

celtics are so happy to not be seeing giannis and lopez in the lane lol

yes, this feels very very different so far

yeah its so different. one of the things i love about bball tons of matchup variety on the team level

excellent first half from the cs but i am very unsure about their decision to play drop with butler/herro coming off picks, im sure theyd be switching if marcus and horf were playing but still