SparkleMotion
Member
I would take that Toronto team over Portland in a series with great confidence.
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NBA Finals 2016 |OT| - The King demands seconds. The Chef delivers.
- Thread starter Gully State
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What team exactly? Terry Stotts is one of the best coaches in the league while Dwayne Casey is awful. Most Raptors fans even hate his guts. Their offense is all isolation while the Blazers have a thing call "ball movement".
You wouldn't say that if you watched the Raptors this year. Their offense would make Byron Scott proud.
Have you watched the fact that Blazers went 15-15 against the east and basically beat up on the west this year.
Like, these aren't evidence, these are literally just hot takes
ryutaro's mama
Member
Naw. In the West, they have GSW in its current form for 3-4 more years, Thunder (if everyone stays) and the 5pur5. After that, you have the Clippies and Portland in the next tier.
In the East you have, whatever team LeBron is on, Miami, Baaaaw-ston and that's it. Raptors, Hawks and other assorted trash in rungs 4-8. A well tested Wolves team with a core of Townes and Wiggins could compete there in the East.
Why did the Blazers go 15-15 against such a horrid conference, and in comparison go 29-23 against a far superior conference
And if the Blazers are so fucking amazing, why would they be the tied for the 8th seed in the east?
Like you guys aren't bringing any type of statistics to this. If we're gonna be arguing hypotheticals, the least you could do is bring a single piece of statistic, or maybe some type of evidence
Diprosalic
Banned
so the fact that Toronto literally struggled their way through the east playing absolutely terrible every series means nothing? I mean even respectable journalists called them one of, if not the worst ECF opponent LeBron ever had. Portland played GS damn well and came incredibly close to go 2-2, took a Curry godmode 17pt overtime to stop them.
SlackAdjuster
Member
All in 2 16 (to 16 wins)
Plus 216 is Cleveland's main/original area code.
Seems like we're stuck at 12....
The Blazers won a series against the Clippers purely because the Clippers 2 best players were hurt. They then lost in 5 to a Warriors team that was missing the best player in the world right now for the majority of the series. There is no indication from their playoff performance that they would necessarily beat Toronto.
Jmanunknown
Member
I agree with that I also think the East's top team's were not bad they just had bad luck with injuries and health. Toronto would have put up a better fight vs Cleveland if they were healthy. Miami for sure would have been better with Bosh and Whiteside healthy. Boston had a lot of injuries as well in the first round. The East was not as bad perception would make everyone think injuries do play a role in how the playoffs shake out sometimes.
Diprosalic
Banned
GS just styled on the Cavs twice basically without Curry doing Curry things.
I see. I thought someone screwed up 2016, lol
They're were a +.500 team. There is nothing surprising about them making the playoffs. Warriors, Spurs, Thunder, Clippers. That's half of the playoff teams in the West. What exactly is the "top"?
so the fact that the Blazers, the greatest 44-38 team to ever exist, went 15-15 against the worst conference to ever exist doesn't worry you in the least. Can you explain this at all. Why were they so bad against such a worthless conference
SlackAdjuster
Member
beat
Member
Curry is a pretty tremendous scorer in isolation plays, no?
LyleLanley
Banned
The fact that the Mavericks were a +.500 team says it all.
the 6th seed mavericks who had such a resounding record of 42-40
ProvenDeadly
Member
Didn't that Grizzlies team with like 28 different players play .500 ball with a starting lineup as Matt Barnes as the best player?
Diprosalic
Banned
they just lost 2 big stars and took em a while to adjust, they were much better than the record shows. i mean they got articles like this once they settled in.
http://www.csnnw.com/portland-trail...ame-hottest-team-nba-love-learning-and-losses
That has nothing to do with a hypothetical Raptors/Blazers series. The Warriors beating the Cavs has no predictive power for the Blazers beating the Raptors. It tells us that (a) the Warriors are a nightmare matchup for the Cavs and that (b) the top tier of the West is more competitive than the top tier of the East. It says nothing about the mid-to-bottom tiers of either conference.
I don't like LeBron.....but why choose 4 lol. I mean the dude has been to what..7 finals straight, of course if they lossed by 20+ in any of the game those series he would be the one that it comes at the expense of. Kind of a stupid picture tbh lol
Just literally the perfect 44-38 team ever made by man. Just by far the greatest team ive ever seen win 44 games in a regular season. That 15-15 record against the east, well, the warriors actually pretended to be an eastern conference team for those 15 games just to spite them
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
I urge you all to rewatch the game and look how many times Cavs players are looking at each other confused about who was supposed to do what after a layup or dunk. Don't see how you fix such fundamental issues at this point in the season.
Boombloxer
Member
This is exactly what it was like, only 2x unfair.
No one wanted to see Kobe and Shaq.
Ah, the good old days.
Also, Ingram pls.
I turned off this game because it turned into a snuff film.
panthapanda
Member
Same thing I was thinking. Obviously it would be at LeBrons expense, he's the only consistent factor that's been there. Dumb picture trying to make something out of what really isn't anything.
That's silly. So basically, you've determined they were a bad team because why exactly? I think you might be drinking those pre-season predictions kook-aid too much.
they went 42-40 where their best player was an ancient dirk
this was good enough to give them the 6th seed
They had a lot more depth than people were willing to give them credit and have a quality coaching staff.
im sure that's true, but they still went 42-40. Like, if they were a better team they would've won more game. No one is going to be impressed by that record unless you have massive injury problems since like a fifth of the league is activey trying to lose on purpose
I never said they were a stunning team. Lyle is trying to discredit the strength of the Western Conference by pointing out that they made the playoffs.
rokkerkory
Member
Did Curry rested the 4th??
I mean, they did have a worse record then the 8th seed in the east... The team kind of blows. They can be as deep as they want, but if you only go 42-40 when literally 1/5 of the league is actively losing on purpose, then im not going to be impressed
yup
It's not rocket science. Take a moment and actually think about why that may be. The team was in a 'rebuild' year with 4/5 starters new and a fully revamped bench unit. It takes time for things to click with a new squad. Blazers played fantastic, especially after the All Star game. Raptors and their unit and coach does not have such an excuse for playing like hot garbage in the post season either. And Portland was a much better team than Raptors in the post season, don't kid yourself into thinking otherwise.
And I think I saw a comment about the whole injured clippers team nonsense again. Portland was leading in game 4 when CP got injured! ppl seem to conveniently forget this. It was a highly competitive series at the time.
The mental gymnastics some of you east coast fans are doing is hilarious really. Difference between Cavs and GSW is simple, one of them went through a much tougher conference all regular season and post season while Lebron and the cavs and a cake walk to the finals. Now GSW are kicking the Eastern Conference champs asses even without curry going god mode lol
The legend continues
Or maybe the Warriors are literally the best team objectively to ever play and the Cavs are a terrible matchup for them? No it could never be that, the entire conference is just horrible because of hot take reasons, and the Blazers are the best 44-38 team to ever play
I say this again, 1/5 of the league is actively trying to lose, probably more like 1/4. You go 44-38 against that competition.
Ezeli watches One Piece.
That's a Cleveland line if ive ever seen one tbh
LyleLanley
Banned
My point was the West isn't nearly as good as people are making it out to be outside of the top 3 teams.
Like, part of the reason the West dropped off after the top 4 teams this year is probably anomalous (Memphis/New Orleans's injury problems, the Rockets imploding) and might be different next year. But in 2016, there really isn't a strong empirical argument that the West outside its elite teams is stronger than the East outside of the Cavs. The West is still a much better conference, it's just not obviously stronger top-to-bottom.
The One and Done
Member
Congratulations to the Golden State Warriors on winning back to back Championships and becoming the greatest team in the history of the NBA. It's sad that Lebron will be blamed and mocked for this when GS is way deeper with more quality players by far than Cleveland. And in addition it appears that the would be stars on the Cavs seem to shrink in the spotlight rather than rise to the occasion. I haven't seen a team this outmatched I'm the Finals in a very long time. Lebron might as well try to score as many points as he can.
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