‹‹‹‹ 2022 NBA Finals ›‹ Celtics vs Warriors ›‹ The ILH Bowl ››››

I think the reason why most ILHers have picked the Celtics is that in a seven game series the best team, or at least the best team in aggregate after injuries are taken into account, will win about 80% of the time. The need to win four reduces variance quite a bit. The margin between teams needs to be extremely thin to make a seven game series a total toss up. Going in, the C's look a bit stronger in their match-ups, but it should be a closely contested series, either 6 or 7 games. And hella fun!

well in general if you like the road team you should pick them in 6 but this particular celtics team seems to operate differently

celtics have tried more threes in the 2022 playoffs than GS have :o

a lot of that probably has to do with playing the bucks but still

538 likes the celtics prob cause they were by the numbers pretty clearly the best team for the second half of the regular season, the regular season can be deceiving in basketball tho, most close nba watchers had them as a contender in a crowded field of contenders which turned out to be more accurate than 538 seeing them as dominant, likewise 538 has them as big faves to win this series where its prob pretty much a toss up, tho i guess you do have to give 538 credit despite being a bizarre site by and for deranged weirdos for liking the celtics more than the average casual fan who didnt really see them as contenders at all

I would also say, Clemenza, relative to a sport like baseball, how teams match up against each other is a much, much bigger factor in basketball. Ergo much harder to use the data of previous performance against other teams to make those kinds of predictions. That said, the Celtics have famously played the Warriors well for the past several years. I believe I saw a tweet that they are the only team in the NBA with a winning record against them over the past 8 years or something(?!). On the other hand, they have of course never met in the playoffs and - again, different from other sports - the playoffs really are a whole different game. In a regular season matchup the Warriors aren't going to switch up their whole style of play from game to game, but in the playoffs you can (try to) mold your whole thing to take advantage of your opponent, as they do the same to you. That's why hoops are the best baby

yeah in the warriors famous 73-9 season the celtics had a win and an overtime loss vs them (with a different (much worse) team than the current one mind you)

their prioritization of perimeter defense has kept it a good matchup through roster turnover i guess

it kind of a classic matchup in the san francisco is the boston of the west coast

are you sure it isnt seattle

seattle is just idk what you even do with seattle

give them a basketball team back, for starters

they need to take it lets see something from the city of seattle

how much cooler would the durant-westbrook-harden thunder have been if they had been the seattle supersonics and not the oklahoma city thunder. would presti have gone into the tax to keep harden? would durant have stayed? we can only assume yes to both questions

oh yeah and also they wouldve learned to share the ball and keep harden happy as well, because of seattle chill vibes, another yes.

yeah i think ultimately that trio was just never going to work not enough basketballs

im sure ive posted about it on here before but i was actually a sonics fan as a kid and only switched back to the celtics in 08 when they were finally good at the same time as the sonics died. i am not a pure celtics fan despite living in MA my whole life

the initial celtics pitch when i was first old enough to watch & enjoy basketball was "their star player has died and they are going to be bad for a while" which was not compelling to child me

lmao yeah that was a rough time

awful

fact fans in this thread may want to note that the len bias pick belonged to.... the seattle supersonics before they traded it for gerald henderson and cash

well add to all that the mid90s Sonics were fun as hell, I definitely rocked a Kemp jersey even in a Celtics fan house

kemp was a phenomenon, he transcended team loyalties

oh yeah and also they wouldve learned to share the ball and keep harden happy as well, because of seattle chill vibes, another yes.

Got golden state in 6!

— Jayson Tatum (@jaytatum0) May 28, 2015

At least for the conference finals, 538 had the Mavs as the favorites (maybe even overwhelmingly so) to reach and even win the finals.

that vaguely makes sense to me that hthe same model would like the celtics and mavs

“Analytics darlings”

I'm rooting for the Warriors for an odd reason: when the Raptors won, I really admired that I never heard Curry or any of the Warriors blame or even mention losing Durant and Thompson for the series. Maybe the Raptors would have won anyway, but realistically, probably not. But no one on the Warriors tried to put any kind of a damper on that at all--they let us enjoy that moment 100%.

they are true mensches

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

the people have spoken. the series will be won on the road

15-11 is a pretty tight split!

Smh at all these GSW homers

heard that most of the warriors voters are casuals

15-11 seems about right.

Casual homer here for sure

same

smh you guys need to study up

🚨NEW WORDS ALERT🚨

Folks, the NBA Finals are (nearly) here! I did my best to get you prepared for the series.

-matchups you’ll see

-potential matchup counters

-plays to watch out for

-how Steph/Tatum will be defended

Aaaaand more. Enjoy my labor!https://t.co/Wx9S8cTKHE

— Nekias (Nuh-KY-us) Duncan (@NekiasNBA) May 31, 2022

im rooting for all the players to have a fun time and the boston celtics to win

agreed

is it just because i started getting into basketball again over the last couple of years, or is it objectively true that ancillary NBA-related content on youtube, podcasts, twitter etc has absolutely gone supernova

not just NBA, basically any type of content that can be made at home went supernova due to pandemic

yeah makes sense

I’ve been told on good authority that it’s not yet Thursday. The waiting is the hardest part…

is it just because i started getting into basketball again over the last couple of years, or is it objectively true that ancillary NBA-related content on youtube, podcasts, twitter etc has absolutely gone supernova

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, June 1, 2022 11:35 AM (thirty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

few year ago basically only zach lowe and coach nick were doing Xs and Os type breakdowns and now theres tons of it, golden age of people explaining basketball to you

i love to have basketball explained to me

it is nice

the various youtubers i could really live without, stuff like this is very fun to me though

would enjoy a youtuber if they did this stuff

https://medium.com/the-basketball-dictionary/ice-f9ea7d7d7d51

thinking basketball has good youtubes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN6ylx2b0bs

https://medium.com/the-basketball-dictionary/ice-f9ea7d7d7d51

kinda a disturbing read, basketball is just supposed to be hoisting and then running back (picked W's in 7)

thank you for the link lagoon i am going to just gorilla my way through the guy's explainer voice because i am thirsty for the content

lol his voice is so normal compared to most youtubers

maybe because hes more of a podcaster, obvs podcaster voice is very annoying but its nothing compared to youtubers most of whom sound like a 11 year old reading a book report and/or like theyve never spoken before