NBA Playoffs Thread

[Assani Fisher]

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Also: lolz spurs are such pussies

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Love the Spurs hate. It says more about 2+2 than it does about the Spurs.

[/ QUOTE ]pretty sure people hate the Spurs on any non-Spurs message board

[DMBFan23]

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sweet, not only did PHX lose but Nash got his [censored] ruined.

good day for basketball.

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why all the hate man?

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blame 2p2ers who cant stop fellating nash

[ThaSaltCracka]

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sweet, not only did PHX lose but Nash got his [censored] ruined.

good day for basketball.

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why all the hate man?

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blame 2p2ers who cant stop fellating nash

[/ QUOTE ]uhhhh....were you posting HERE 7 months ago?

[FlyWf]

tuq- You don't play regular defense, you play trap and gamble defense to try to force a turnover and/or foul if a bad FT shooter has the ball.

[Ralph Wiggum]

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Also: lolz spurs are such pussies

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Love the Spurs hate. It says more about 2+2 than it does about the Spurs.

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You're right, what does it say about us, as a forum, when we say such things? I think we need to realize that when we say we hate the Spurs, what we really hate is the shortcomings our own teams. Since we invest so much emotion into our own teams, and the Spurs embody a level of play of basketball that, if we truly look deep within us, would realize that we in fact want our hometeams to be like the Spurs. We should realize that the Spurs are actually human beings, and not just characters on the screen. They laugh, cry, and dream. If you prick a Spur, does he not bleed?

If we step away from our delicate emotional state, we would realize that we have a choice. Sure, we can choose not to envy the Spurs or hate the Spurs, but rather to applaud them and find joy in their basketball greatness. So make your choice in this state of mind. I have, and I [censored] hate the Spurs. [censored] floppers, I hope Amare breaks them in half.

[tuq]

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tuq- You don't play regular defense, you play trap and gamble defense to try to force a turnover and/or foul if a bad FT shooter has the ball.

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OK fine, but even if this fails - which it will 80+% of the time - you're still left with an easy dunk by the other team or free throws after a LOT MORE time has run off the clock. Nobody seems to focus on the fact that the Spurs player (Ginobili? Can't remember) did actually only make one of two at the line, meaning the Suns were down three with ~32 seconds remaining. IMO that is a tremendously favorable result for the Suns.

I can't help but think that the Nash bleed-a-thon may have cost them the game, and possibly the series as a result, which makes me a little bit queasy. No blame on the Spurs for this, it was just one of those things. I've been sent to the ER multiple times when the offensive player and I shared the same space.

[doubLe a tom]

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tuq- You don't play regular defense, you play trap and gamble defense to try to force a turnover and/or foul if a bad FT shooter has the ball.

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OK fine, but even if this fails - which it will 80+% of the time - you're still left with an easy dunk by the other team or free throws after a LOT MORE time has run off the clock. Nobody seems to focus on the fact that the Spurs player (Ginobili? Can't remember) did actually only make one of two at the line, meaning the Suns were down three with ~32 seconds remaining. IMO that is a tremendously favorable result for the Suns.

I can't help but think that the Nash bleed-a-thon may have cost them the game, and possibly the series as a result, which makes me a little bit queasy. No blame on the Spurs for this, it was just one of those things. I've been sent to the ER multiple times when the offensive player and I shared the same space.

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The foul is bad if they foul anybody that shoots over 70% from the line, in my opinion.

[teamdonkey]

I'm a Spurs hater to, but i don't think the WHOLE team is unlikeable, mainly just Duncan and Flopobli. Parker Finley and big shot Rob are tough not to like.

Agree with whoever said stop doubling Duncan. I thought Diaw did the best job defending him, stick him on him and let the guy get his 35 or whatever. The big problem was obviously Parker getting off. Marion was decent on him and will at some point figure out he shouldn't be 3 steps back, that'll help manage the damage there.

Spurs controlled the pace and stopped the 3ball, but somehow the game still got into the 100's. I think long term that benefits the Suns, but the Spurs taking home court back was huge. Gonna be one hell of a series.

[kbfc]

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Spurs controlled the pace and stopped the 3ball, but somehow the game still got into the 100's. I think long term that benefits the Suns, but the Spurs taking home court back was huge. Gonna be one hell of a series.

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This was a very misleading 100pt game. The Spurs dictated the pace the whole way, and yet....

How did this happen?
- The Spurs generally didn't run the clock as much on their offensive possessions as they usually do. This is mostly because Tony Parker was given wide open jumpers that would be foolish to pass up at any time.

- Spurs turned the ball over a bunch in the first half, leading to quick extra possessions for PHX.

- PHX shot pretty well from behind the arc (6/14), especially considering they only really had maybe 2 good looks all game.

This all said, compare the box scores to the last regular season matchup, where PHX only scored 85. They only took 1 more shot, and had the same number of FT attempts. SA played effectively the same game as before. The difference is that PHX shot better in this game. Some of this was in Nash's insane scoring performance (PHX still hasn't solved the Tony Parker matchup problem, but clearly taking Nash off him allowed Nash to be much more effective on the offensive end). Some of it was PHX hitting a lot of jumpshots of questionable selection quality (Amare may have sucked inside, but I don't believe he missed an elbow jumper all game, and I remember Bell draining at least 1 3-ball out of nowhere with a man in his face).

I wouldn't be surprised if PHX fans don't agree on this point, but IMO this was actually a positive-side-of-variance performance for the Suns. Outside of Barbosa's little driving flurry and a few pick'n'rolls for easy finishes in the 4th quarter, the non-Nash Suns didn't have any high % chances all game. I'm still looking for a fastbreak points stat for the game. Looking over the PBP, it appears as if they got 2 baskets off of Spurs turnovers that were breaks, but I don't remember them specifically.

[Artdogg]

meh, we probably could go back and forth on this. I don't think Parker will get 30 points again off of just jumpshots, but Manu probably will play better as well. Maybe the Suns did slightly better than they should have from 3, but I don't expect Amare to go 6-19 again either. Either way though fast-break points are a little overrated when discussing the Suns, they get a lot of transition points that don't get added to the fast-break stat. I'm pretty sure they didn't even lead the league in fast-break points this year.

Anyway, I was correct in my prediction on the matchups, but the Suns aren't going to win if the Spurs keep shooting 50%. I expect a mild shakeup for game 2, Bell may start on Parker with Marion on Finley...or Marion might even be on Elson some of the time. I just expect a lot of mixups especially when Ginobili comes into the game.