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

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DeXd996V0AAE8XU.jpg

wonder if this was when durant was making crybaby face at someone?

curry attacking the basket this series was very beautiful to watch.

This is interesting. Per @nbastats ...

Curry's 81 drives was 3rd among all players in Conference Finals, behind Harden (144), LeBron (108). Despite getting just 2 FTAs off those drives, he scored the 3rd-most points off drives because he shot 61.7 percent on them.

— Marcus Thompson (@ThompsonScribe) May 29, 2018

The Houston Rockets have died. pic.twitter.com/5k7IzeXoYL

— perfect angel dan (@dannyteardrop) May 29, 2018

some of steph’s finishes at the rim in that series were nearly impossible

he has to be second behind kyrie among small guys who consistently use the rim as a shield and spin the ball off glass in crazy ways

ya his drives are rad

interesting how he toned down his crazy off the dribble 3pt game after losing to bron in the finals re our convo on harden taking all those stepbacks

some of steph’s finishes at the rim in that series were nearly impossible

― J0rdan S., Tuesday, May 29, 2018 3:17 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he reminds me a little of MJ actually

jordan did so many reverses feel like this is a forgotten aspect of his game

kinda cant wait for the 10 hour jordan doc. hope it reminds people of his all around game and not just the shrug game, the flu game, the b russell push off and the pass to kerr.

re curry better shot selection: tis nice being able to defer to durant on the 3-4 of those he would've had to hoist up every game. might take a hit on his highlight reel but it's a more sound level of basketball. his all around game is so rounded at this point. an all time great at the peak of his powers. his rebounding in the playoffs has gone relatively unnoticed.

yeah he took that one stepback 3 with Ryan Anderson on him in 3rd qtr and I was like whoa he's really feeling it, whereas couple years ago he was doing that on the reg

some good stuff in the athletic about curry's 3rd quarters:

Without Chris Paul — maybe even with him, as his strained hamstring was a sign of his shortcomings in the endurance category — the Rockets’ decline was just a matter of time.

After running around in the first half, off screens, through the clutches and grabs, he knows eventually the defense will get tired. He knows the rotations will be later, the contests on his shot not as strong. That’s what he trains for.

“Performance capacity,” said Payne, owner of Accelerate Basketball. “It’s a playoff work capacity. It is the amount of time you can play at full speed without losing mechanical discipline or losing any speed or accuracy when making on-court decisions. It’s the next level of conditioning, which is what we work on all the time. I don’t care who can simply work fast for a long time. I want players that can perform and win with perfect mechanics with fast and accurate decisions in the late stages of games.”

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

he can't even identify the star players correctly anymore

was pretty sad hearing him try to explain hardens dumbass nosebleed celebration

cp3 thought his nose was really bleeding lol

what happened to kevin harlan?

i fucking love twitter man. people are saying it wasn't a foul on bell because harden grabbed his arm

― k3vin k., Monday, May 28, 2018 7:39 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It's the correct call. The offensive player is rotated when the defensive player comes over the top and pulls him. The defensive player has the opportunity to stop or change direction but declined, and instead grabbed and pulled him in an attempt to draw an offensive foul: https://t.co/S1135VD5BV

— NBA Referees (@OfficialNBARefs) May 29, 2018

huh, bell is clearly moving before harden grabs him but ok

looked like a helluva moving screen when i saw it live and even the slow mo replay was suspect even with the arm pull. 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.

the really crazy one was where harden got absolutely sandwiched between dray and someone else when he was going up for a layup

the officiating in the second half was an utter disgrace

Scott Foster seems like the most hated ref of all time, how does a guy like that end up reffing huge games in the offs?

just read that steph had zero free throw attempts in games 6 and 7 btw.

funny all this handwringing is happening over the rockets roster or style or whatever, but DESPITE paul being out and harden sucking in the second half again, if it weren't some rigged officiating and a 1/72000 cold streak from 3 they'd probably be in the finals

obv all of life is probability and klay picking up 3 fouls in the first 2 mins of the game and the warriors in the 1H generally looking like they had never played together before are not necessarily things to count on either

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 ))))