#focus#mustwin#playoffs#drama? : 2013 NBA playoffs

tbh I'm surprised the whole "passing to the bench when your teammates are standing and wearing bright jerseys" doesn't happen more often

ive def seen it before but yes

it's a classic shook thing to do tbh

glad he redeemed himself after that

Vogel probably has one year left just because firing him right away for this one mistake is so brutal, but the players have to have no confidence in him now right?

it depends is he the guy who coaches the defense or not

he seems like a good coach i think it would be foolish to fire him

Vogel probably has one year left just because firing him right away for this one mistake is so brutal, but the players have to have no confidence in him now right?

― Matt Armstrong, Thursday, May 23, 2013 5:33 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

it seems like the sorta thing you can mitigate after the fact to an extent. like if he stood in front of them in the locker room and took responsibility for screwing up the personnel decisions than it would probably blow over.

also it depends on how much they trusted him previously. it was interesting to me that so many players openly usurped him to the press immediately after the game. i don't think anyone on the heat or bulls or spurs or celtics (etc) would do that

yeah agree on both points

we see such a small % of what a head coach does and how he interacts w/his players etc, seems a bit of a reach to make the "he's lost the team" call at this point.

the things george and hibbert are saying are pretty ominous

yeah it's definitely weird

all nba teams out today:

First team:
F: Lebron James
F: Kevin Durant
C: Tim Duncan
G: Kobe Bryant
G: Chris Paul

Second team:
F: Carmelo Anthony
F: Blake Griffin
C: Marc Gasol
G: Tony Parker
G: Russell Westbrook

Third team:
F: David Lee
F: Paul George
C: Dwight Howard
G: Dwyane Wade
G: James Harden

sure

http://a.espncdn.com/photo/2013/0523/nba_a_battier_hibbert_b1_200.jpg

wonder if LBJ thinks that's a "basketball play"

Birdman is averaging 20-10-1-1-3.5 per 36 on 83 percent shooting in the playoffs

damn

yeah it's interesting to me that there's been no talk about what's gonna happen to him next year

i have no idea if the heat can afford to keep him. maybe the fit is so good for him that he'd take less money on an exception or something.

I still wouldnt sign that guy for more than a year

at least we've moved beyond the bizarre period when people pretended that he couldn't play anymore for some unknown reason

Vogel probably has one year left just because firing him right away for this one mistake is so brutal, but the players have to have no confidence in him now right?

― Matt Armstrong, Thursday, May 23, 2013 5:33 PM (2 hours ago)

vogel's a genius imo and judging by the great team defense the pacers play, all the players have to have bought in to a degree that makes me think they'd all have his back. indy is just a shooter/ballhandler away from being an elite team i think, especially with PG and hibbert continuing to improve

Xp He's comfortable with the bizarre period called "game time," during which an arena-sized group of people pretends to not notice "free bird" tattooed on his neck

but yeah otoh PG saying what he did is weird. maybe it's just youth

at least we've moved beyond the bizarre period when people pretended that he couldn't play anymore for some unknown reason

― Matt Armstrong, Thursday, May 23, 2013 7:32 PM (43 minutes ago)

by people we mean karl

Are we sure that PG didn't mean he needs to be more aware on the court?

PG's words don't necessarily blame Vogel, but perhaps the video says more

by people we mean karl

― you are not a better writer than f. scott fitzgerald. you are not a b (k3vin k.), Friday, May 24, 2013 12:15 AM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, when Denver got rid of him a ton of writers said that he couldn't play anymore/didn't have the hops etc.

ha i was just referring to that last year he was there and couldn't find the court

Denver is one of the few teams that actually has a glut of centers, they probably didn't think he was that washed up

i distinctly remembered us wondering why he never played!

me too, i always liked bird, huge pickup for the heat

there have been so many different kinds of birdman, remember this birdman?

http://elitedaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/0510-chris-andersen-birdman-2.jpg

ha not really

http://www.emptythebench.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/birdman1.jpg

young bird, so beautiful, so pure

i desperately want robert swift to be signed and for him to play against birdman

i distinctly remembered us wondering why he never played!

― you are not a better writer than f. scott fitzgerald. you are not a b (k3vin k.), Thursday, May 23, 2013 5:43 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

me too, i always liked bird, huge pickup for the heat

― lag∞n, Thursday, May 23, 2013 5:54 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah I remember asking about this. I've kinda always had a soft spot for him.

Vogel probably has one year left just because firing him right away for this one mistake is so brutal, but the players have to have no confidence in him now right?
― Matt Armstrong, Thursday, May 23, 2013 5:33 PM (2 hours ago)

vogel's a genius imo and judging by the great team defense the pacers play, all the players have to have bought in to a degree that makes me think they'd all have his back. indy is just a shooter/ballhandler away from being an elite team i think, especially with PG and hibbert continuing to improve
― you are not a better writer than f. scott fitzgerald. you are not a b (k3vin k.), Thursday, May 23, 2013 8:13 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

k3vin OTM. There's absolutely no way they're getting rid of Vogel any time soon, incredibly bad overtime decision-making notwithstanding. PG/Hibbert's post-game comments should be read with that in mind-- less pissed off and more just kinda wistful / good-natured / wish-we-coulda-had-Roy-in-there.

sa and memphis really get three straight days off, huh?

olds

The NBA wishes to avoid at all costs the catastrophe of finishing the Finals any time before June 15.

man if the nuggest even let masai leave for toronto

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--nuggets-gm-masai-ujiri-to-meet-with-raptors-about-taking-over-toronto-s-front-office-160104856.html

ugh

"We worked on some things," Hibbert said. "We’re trying to stop it at the point of the ball screen so I don’t have to be tested at the rim like four or five times in a row. We’re working on ball screen defense and the guard-guard pick-and-roll.

Timmy D and his wife are apparently going through a divorce atm :(

"We worked on some things," Hibbert said. "We’re trying to stop it at the point of the ball screen so I don’t have to be tested at the rim like four or five times in a row. We’re working on ball screen defense and the guard-guard pick-and-roll.
― moullet, Friday, May 24, 2013 3:09 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's what I was talking about w/ that screen-handoff stuff they do on the side. What's weird is that most teams make that attack from the middle, where you hypothetically have more even spacing. But, when you have Wade or LeBron getting to the outside (rather than Game 1 when the Pacers' defenders were giving them that outside lane next to the out-of-bounds line) with even a tiny bit of space, they just start barreling in. At that point Hibbert comes to help and the rest of the Pacers run around trying to guess passing lanes. Bron/Wade are such good at-the-rim passers that they can commit to the jump and still wait that extra second for Battier/Birdman/whoever to slide toward the rim for the dumpoff->dunk.

xp Ms. Duncan only person alive not impressed by Timmy's PER :/

BTW

everyone should go download/stream the simmons podcast with windhorst from yesterday

i think windhorst is the most plugged in dude in the league after woj... really fascinating stuff throughout

they were talking about the harden trade and windhorst said two interesting things

- every league exec he talked to in the days after the trade thought the thunder were completely insane

- after the first few practices with jeremy lamb, everyone in OKC was panicking because it was clear that he "couldn't compete"

dang