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

the officiating ruined that game from the jump

Watching that replay Lebron steps on Stephenson's foot for that sixth foul. I missed that and thought they were calling a weakass "extended leg" trip.

Lol Indy crowd booing lebron's press conference for half a second before sound guy switches them out

Ethan J. Skolnick ‏@EthanJSkolnick 26s
LeBron on Stephenson: "He played really well. But if you sit here and talk about an individual 1-on-1 matchup b/w me & Lance Stephenson..."

just realized tracy mcgrady is going to be in the finals.

Just finished this and came to smash the refs but see that you guys already put in some good work. Sad to see the Pacers have to stoop to flopping just to match the Heat. With the new revelation that if there was no flopping there would be no NBA, Indy saw the writing on the wall. Flopping = effort now apparently. It's sad and disheartening that refereeing is such a major part of the game.

btw was that Lebruh's first foul out of all time?

/but i also don't think pound-it-inside teams will beat the heat in 7/

lol srs this series is tied two two and the pacers arent even that good of a team, you are watching proof of the effectiveness if this approach, in realtime bro

this series is p good and v interesting to me now

i dont think the flopping is affecting it all that much aside from gif lols, there were a bunch of legit fouls called in the first quarter and then the flopping was p balanced, bron/west mutual flop is all-time though

lance was awesome and im kind of amazed that this is now a best-of-three despite fairly cruddy offensive performances by paul george

I'm having a hard time figuring out if the Pacers are just having things fall their way or if they've really exposed some kind of weakness in Miami's system (same way the Mavs did two years ago)

but really this game was basically joey crawford until late in the third joey crawford when joey crawford had to go to the bench with his fifth joey crawford, you could really feel the joey crawford shift in favor of joey crawford, joey crawford hit that three to bring it back within joey crawford but a couple of questionable joey crawfords later and it was wrapped up, so now it's all even joey crawford-joey crawford going back to joey crawford for joey crawford 5

btw was that Lebruh's first foul out of all time?

― Spottie_Ottie_Dope, Wednesday, May 29, 2013 12:43 AM (10 hours ago)

naw he's fouled out a handful of times, only his second foulout in the playoffs tho, did it last year in the ECF too vs the celtics

Gonna spend the rest of the day wondering if an All LeBron team could beat an All Jordan team, All Magic team, All Bird team etc.

http://sinbapointforward.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/lebron-james-sports-illustrated-cover-miami-heat-nba-playoffs-2013-june-3-20131.jpg?w=454&h=600

Lance looking uncomfortably zen after that 3pt buzzer beater. Namaste.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/952500d22d66df33d2cb26d54c3f2878/tumblr_mnk3k160rZ1r3k8ffo1_1280.jpg

Also was impressed to see Lance guarding LeBron a few times during the game-- he's got the bulk+speed combo necessary to guard LeBron's airspace before the dribble. Seems like a small thing, but that's where PG has sometimes floundered-- Bron has enough space to go from 0->60, which is impossible for anyone to stop, or Bron kinda lulls PG to sleep and has enough space to take a quick jumper/3pt. Lance has the physical makeup to match up directly in front of Bron, one hand defending lateral, the other vertical, and not biting on a ball fake.

Lance just thinkin bout things

oh my god, that photo

Journey inside Lance's head

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp7k3tknof1qb1246o1_400.gif

http://24.media.tumblr.com/32d2b38e55e2d78f3f6b2a18e7d75cab/tumblr_mhs2lxMebw1ris28no1_250.gif

ya surprised lance hasnt gotten more time on bron to give pg a break and switch things up, hes got size strength and quickness, btw great pic, si cover too

Blond lady otm

http://i.minus.com/iT19DVpaAr3eH.gif

hahahaha

That play was so great.

hot tag!

Larry King ‏@kingsthings 1h

This kid @StephensonLance on the @Pacers is making #Brooklyn proud - he's quite a player!

haha

Hahaha just realized that I went to grade school w/ the fainting blond girl (owner's daughter, Sarah). Love the usher's smh response:

Royce Young ‏ 20h
I asked the usher what happened. "That's just Sarah," she said.

More Lance being Lance last night:

http://thenewsportsguru.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/LanceLeBron_original.gif

He's must watch tv at the moment. Him and Hansbrough on the court at the same time is a dream come true.

Congrats to Quincy Pondexter

http://tracking.si.com/2013/05/29/grizzlies-quincy-pondexter-asks-miss-tennessee-on-date/

at the risk of posting every zach lowe piece this one is good too http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/63575/we-went-there-not-even-the-joey-crawford-revue-can-steal-the-pacers-shine

haberstroh pointed out that lebron has scored over hibbert only once this series

wow

if miami advances, what does that suggest for spurs defense against them? does duncan (or splitter for that matter) pose a similar threat?

be v curious to see what duncan can do on the offensive end

bank shots
18-foot jumpers
back-to-the-basket backdowns folowed by lil j's
transition dunks from parker feeds
pass the ball to tiago bc hey someone forgot to guard 7 foot edward cullen

who can guard him? birdman? bosh?

spurs move the ball and hit their 3s - that's their biggest asset vs miami

if miami advances, what does that suggest for spurs defense against them? does duncan (or splitter for that matter) pose a similar threat?

― one if by lamp, two if by deeznuts (m bison), Thursday, May 30, 2013 2:34 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no one outside of Larry Sanders poses the rim protecting threat Hibbert does

ya I don't think the spurs can defend the heat as well as indy but they should be able to score on them better except... indy has been m/l on fire so far

bron, west, and lance all fined 5k for flopping

Spurs can pass, dribble & shoot much better than the Pacers, so I'd expect that they'd be much better at breaking down Heat's D. Spurs on D different story since they don't have anyone down low to dissuade LeBron from driving inside, which is the big key. Miami's best offensive sets against the Pacers have been LeBron driving -> dumping off to a 97%fg dunkers Birdman and Haslem. Against Spurs, I'd imagine it'd just be 99%fg LeBron at the rim getting fouled by Duncan/Splitter.

But I like Spurs on offense-- been a while since the Heat had to play a team w/ a pg like Parker; can see Spurs doing a good job penetrating -> kick out -> extra pass that fucks up Miami's help D -> open 3s for M4tt and Leonard.

xp lol, did they get Bron/West on that double-flop play I'm guessing? And did Lance draw a T on LeBron when he overreacted? If so, then yeah, rescind all my Lance defense, that's a flop.

spurs were a top 5 defense this year and timmy/splitter are great interior defenders. danny green and kawhi can match up with wade and bron as well as any wing combo in the laegue can probably

Don't know if the playoff flop rules are anything like tech rules, but I'd love if they did a climbing $5k -> $10k -> $10k + 1 game suspension -> 10K + in-game shame-cone. Just kinda funny that the only people on earth who would be against it would be the players.

Right, but a D's game plan for LeBron has to be so specialized. The only thing keeping Indy's D afloat is Hibbert's ability to protect rim against a driving Bron w/o fouling, and aside from healthy Chandler and Howard, not sure there are many other players in the league who can do that.

That said, I'll never be surprised by a healthy Spurs team able to adjust/gameplan. Manu/Parker/Duncan have seen everything, so it's more a question if their bodies continue to hold up. One underreported storyline for Heat/Pacers is the amount of minutes Hibbert has had to play (and somehow not crapping out in the 4th Q)-- he's always had trouble playing more than 30min/game, and he's been logging a very stressful 40min/game during the close games this series.

good news for the Spurs is they have a pretty insane amount of time off

i think that's the bad news, actually

yeah that's always the question, whether a team will get cold. i don't think anybody really knows whether it's a positive or a negative. maybe for the spurs it'll be good to rest their old dudes

the Spurs are A) old and B) really well-coached, I think it'll probably be a plus for them

I always felt like "this team was cold" was kind of a lazy excuse. Because the "cold" team is always the one that had to sit because they got a bye (in the NFL) or swept a series and thus is usually the favorite. And of course favorites lose for a variety of reasons.

i don't think 12 days off is good for any team

the heat were totally out of sync in their first game vs the bulls after having a week off