hello friends it's the 2018 NBA Playoffs, a place where dreams GO 2 DIE

replacing the wizards with the nuggs is an improvement

rappers in 5
celtics vs bucks idk
sixers in 4
cavs in 6

rockets in 4
warriors in 6
blazers vs pelicans idk
thunder vs jazz idk

not sure where else to post this but Javale Mcgee released an album (under the name Pierre) and it's... kinda alright?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csSS1Yaar9M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJK43gaQDtY

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/715wNLf1CSL._SL1056_.jpg

no

east:
raptors in 5 - they'll lose game 1 but rally back. lowry will still be not good.
celtics in 6 - celts will sell out to shut down transition, bucks will struggle to score in halfcourt
76ers in 7 - like everyone's said, depends on the health of embiid. heat are deep and well coached, but the sixers are so much more talented. if embiid misses the whole series, switch to heat in 7
Cavs in 5 - Cavs own the Pacers, Lebron didn't suffer through this season just to lose in the first round.

west:
rockets in 5 - rox are too good, butler will help the wolves grind one out at home.
warriors in 5 - spurs sans kahwi are no match and the warriors bench spent the whole season getting reps
pelicans in 7 - this is a total toss-up and i know that the pelicans don't have much behind their top two, but holiday can lock up whichever of dame and cj is hot at the moment and im hoping for a monster perf by AD, the best player in the series
jazz in 7 - reminds me a bit of the jazz/clippers series from last year, major coaching advantage to the jazz and idk if the thunder supporting cast will be able to match their intensity

anyway, looking forward to seeing how wrong i am

also lol at the pacers still drawing the cavs even in the hypothetical conferenceless playoffs

The Portland Trail Blazers lost the fewest number of games to injury during the regular season with the Pelicans surrending the most.

— Jeff Stotts (@InStreetClothes) April 13, 2018

toronto in 5
boston in 6
philly in 6
cleveland in 5

rockets in 4
golden state in 7
portland in 6
oklahoma city in 6

east:
1 raptors vs 8 wizards -- really want to make this pick after seeing game 1, given the raps choking history, but raptors in 5 seems right
2 celtics vs 7 bucks -- one of these teams has giannis, the other team has coach brad. neither team is very good. celtics in 7
3 76ers vs 6 heat -- kind of unfortunate draw for the philly, but sixers in 5
4 cavs vs 5 pacers -- honestly have watched zero pacers games this year, but lebron has won like his last 17 round one games so cavs in 4 or 5 seems like the smart pick

west:
1 rockets vs 8 twolves -- should be a fun series, rockets in 5
2 warriors vs 7 spurs -- this should probably be the NBATV series.........warriors in 5
3 blazers vs 6 pelicans -- gotta go with an upset pick, so pellies in 7
4 thunder vs 5 jazz -- jazz in 6

Not sure the Warriors would've scripted a better path entering the night: Spurs in Round 1, winner of Blazers-Pelicans in Round 2. Jazz-Thunder on Rockets' side of the bracket. They can only face 1 of Utah, OKC, Houston and won't do it until after Curry should be healed.
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) April 12, 2018
― they call me melo gelo (Spottie), Thursday, April 12, 2018 1:08 AM (yesterday)

well, by losing their last game on purpose they did kind of script it...

I won't predict how many games each series will last. I know I'm not smart enough for that.

Toronto
Boston
Philly
Cleveland

Houston
Golden State
Portland
OKC

I have no idea but I’m going Indy over Cavs. Upset special.

wld be a great outcome

yah rooting for drama for sure

oh yeah i'm deeply rooting for the pacers in that one, let's go crazy

salute to lagoon who sticks to his guns and picks against the team with a 16 game winning streak and their best player coming back because he said they weren't that good a couple of months ago

youre gonna be so sorry kevin, incredibly sorry

I respect your unwavering confidence in your initial assessment even in the face of emerging contradictory evidence

matt armstrong never posts anymore I feel like I need to start some beefs, just doing my part

Miss Matt Armstrong. Glad we picked up m@tt and mordy tho.

Pumped to watch 20 hours of basketball this weekend.

maybe i should dm matt to come back for the playoffs

Could easily see the 76ers crashing and burning here. They’ve been running hot but history says the young guys won’t perform at that level in the playoffs. They do have some solid vets but their main dogs are all first time ‘offers. And the heat are just solid and will keep games close. Heat have the worst offense in the league and the 76ers a top 2 defense so .... idk.

Embiid vs Whiteside for a series is bound to get hairy. And I’m calling at least a few dragon vs b Simmons scuffles. Wonder if they’ll put j rich on Ben Simmons and try to cut off the head of the snake.

Am I going to be furtively watching the Dubs/Spurs on my phone during my kid's AAU tournament tomorrow? Probably.

putting a smaller guy on simmons who can get under him and bother him fullcourt cld work, its def a scenario that a lot of young players struggle with

toronto drakes 5
boston celtix 6
sixers 5
cavs 6

rox 4
spurs 3 (gsw forfeits game 4)
portland 7
youtah 7

then
cavs 7
sixers 6

rockets 6
spurs 0 (everyone in potland gets food poisoning)

then
cavs 6
spurs -4 (harden is already writing surrender tweets)

then
spurs win the national basketball association world championship for the 2018 basketball season

everyone in potland gets food poisoning)

wow reported to the secret service

um maybe if u culeros would stop being high all the time and eating weed

hm seems like the fascist government of “Texas” hasn’t let you folks enjoy the wonder and merriment legalized ganja yet tsk tsk

my thoughts on the east...

1. raptors vs 8. wizards

don’t think this is a great match up for the raptors exactly... two guards who could be better than theirs & two wing players who could be also. ultimately i’ll side with the raptors, their season long cohesion will win out. but i think it will be in 6 or 7 and an upset would not stun me.

2. celtics vs 7. bucks

the bucks are the more talented team at this point but i think the gap between brad stevens and the bucks coaching staff is much larger than that talent gap. i do think the bucks got good experience last year vs toronto & an upset seems possible but i just think the celtics will be too well coached for this bucks team. in 6 or 7.

3. sixers vs 6. heat

i like this match up for the heat. they’ll actually get some use out of whiteside when embiid plays and they have a few guys who can do credible jobs on simmons. the heat also played the sixers well in the regular season. this will be an great coaching match up... i think there will be a lot of close games and it will come down to which team can really score in the half court at the ends of games. i think the heat really could win but i’ll bet on philly’s talent and home court, in 7.

4. cavs vs 5. pacers

can the pacers even win one?

west...

1. rockets vs. 8 wolves

thibs teams seem to have a way of stealing one, and i actually could see them winning two. but probably not.

2. warriors vs. 7. spurs

im worried this is gonna be a pretty depressing end to the season for the spurs. i think they get one but any more than that would surprise me unless the warriors just aren’t trying.

3. blazers vs. 7. pelicans

the blazers were bound to come down to earth... brow could win this series on his own. but i’ll bet on their home court, and i’m still not a huge fan of that pelicans roster even in its current state.

4. okc vs 5. jazz

another one where the home court really matters for me... and i’ll just bet on the talent and experience of russ & PG over a defense first team led offensively by a rookie.

hm seems like the fascist government of “Texas” hasn’t let you folks enjoy the wonder and merriment legalized ganja yet tsk tsk

― Clay, Saturday, April 14, 2018 1:28 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

who needs ganja when you have GOD, ja?

tfw your failure season is 47-35

j0’s breakdowns seem fair. I’m actually pretty interested in every series. Even the pacers Cavs is gonna have lance vs Lebron plus we’ll find out if the Cavs have another two gears they can jump to.

Not surprisingly, GSW starting lineup for today does not appear to have played together this season, per https://t.co/FEdwClQq9Z lineup data.

— Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) April 14, 2018

https://i.imgur.com/MWHZKUc.png

bigball lineup

the playoffs is where non shooters go to die

Rudy Gay out here to start the second half in place of Kyle Anderson for the Spurs.

— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) April 14, 2018

spurs outside shooting has been RUFFFFF this year.

I’m almost too late but

east:
1 raptors vs 8 wizards.
WIZ IN 7 (ok raps in 7 but I believe they can blow this)
2 celtics vs 7 bucks.
Cs in 6
3 76ers vs 6 heat
Sixers in six
4 cavs vs 5 pacers
Cavs in 5

west:
1 rockets vs 8 twolves
Oh no
2 warriors vs 7 spurs
Warriors 5
3 blazers vs 6 pelicans
Blazers in 6
4 thunder vs 5 jazz
Jazz in 7

This kawhi situation is sad

i just wanna know wtf is going on there

my theory is he has hella anxiety and doesnt want to sit there all day getting eyes on him after being criticized for months

my theory is he never existed and they're trying to cover it up

im so mad ppl are being mean to kawhi now even tho i said i would listen to trade offers, but thts only bc i have committed myself to be a better listener

Valančiūnas has very nice eyes
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/553217692597907457/51EokBwz.jpeg

This kawhi situation is sad

― they call me melo gelo (Spottie), Saturday, April 14, 2018 6:32 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he gon get traded

could be both sides agreed to stay quiet on specifics to keep his trade value up.

this wiz raps game is good

i thought the series was over as soon as he got that 3rd foul.

def made it interesting, ultimately the rockets just cldnt play the style of defense they needed to with that few dudes without getting really tired

reffing is an art not a science

to be clear reffing has to be extremely hard, it's so easy for us to say with the benefit of camera angles and slo mo and things of that nature that the calls are bad

reffing is probably like twice as hard now as it was in the 90s

not that thats any excuse to have shitty refs

yeah it's too bad they suck but you have to figure these dudes are at the top of their profession and they are so bad it must just be really hard :(

point is some of these guys cant keep up anymore but because of the union they're here to stay regardless

theres still potential to improve calls without slowing the games down with reviews, like an extra ref either on the court or behind the timers table, tracking technology for out of bounds and shot clock and back court violations

the tech ref needs to be a millennial who consults Twitter for controversial calls.

probably within the next 2-5 years you can train neural networks to figure it all out but what's the fun in that

anyway the reffing was bad but we all lived through the donaghy era and the heat/mavs finals where the refs gave d-wade a chip. i'm okay with the reffing as long as it leans more towards non-calls more than BS calls. it's fine, houston shouldn't have missed 27 3's in a row!

they should have extra refs in the offs like they do in baseball

One ref per player, and they sub in and out when the player does

still cant belive it wasnt called but it looked like the refs were fed up with harden's theatrics by that point in the game/series anyway.

yea I wonder how this wears on refs over the course of a series. they're only human

I’m kind of into cavs dubs round 4 honestly, I really did not want to watch hardens blank faced phony shots and a billion free throws in the finals

Given how close both were to elimination this is almost certainly the last round

i just plugged a usb cord into my basketball and it gave me the data

― ciderpress, Saturday, May 26, 2018 2:06 PM (three days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

new board description pls

after this wc finals round I think it's safe to say that marv albert needs to retire.

― they call me melo gelo (Spottie), Tuesday, May 29, 2018 5:18 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Sad but probably true. Also have a theory that he can’t see certain angles that well and it is harder when they shove three guys in the booth with him so obv boot Reggie first

Harlan’s around, they just always go with Marv when it’s down to one series.

I am giddy with anticipation for the 2019 Celtics btw bc at numerous points they just needed one more dude who can score and they have two currently being reassembled

i too am totally stoked for that team

celtics are gonna be legit scary next year

(((( Warriors vs. Cavaliers |||| 2018 NBA Finals |||| Round 4 ))))