NBA Playoffs Thread

[teamdonkey]

Mike Brown - i think he's a lot better than this thread gives him credit for. The Cavs roster is horrible... just horrible. On paper they're worse than the Nets and WAY worse than the Pistons. Yet they beat the Nets in 6 and have arguably been the better team so far against Detroit. When your team plays better than your players, the coaching staff deserves a lot of credit. As has been pointed out he's not the best in-game, but overall I'm impressed.

[FlyWf]

teamdonkey- There is no way the Cavs roster on paper is worse than the Nets. Being famous does not win basketball games. Mike Brown is a grotesquely bad head coach, among the worst in the league.

[ThaSaltCracka]

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That would have been a horrible call.

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which? the hack on the arm before he spun or the hack on the arm as he was shooting?

[/ QUOTE ]I don't think the contact was enough to warrant a foul call. Lebron needs to make that shot, no excuses, and Brown needs to learn how to coach.

[kidcolin]

eh.. it's close when Kristic is out of the lineup. Having a top 3-5 guy in Lebron makes up for a lot, though.

[teamdonkey]

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teamdonkey- There is no way the Cavs roster on paper is worse than the Nets. Being famous does not win basketball games. Mike Brown is a grotesquely bad head coach, among the worst in the league.

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you argue your points so well, how could anyone disagree?

[Vyse]

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"lbj cowered like a wuss and gave him an easy layup."

I know which play you are talking about, and no, he didn't. He made a real good shotblock attempt and forced Wallace to shoot a layup high off the glass rather than giving him an dunk.

Mike Brown deserves nearly all of the blame. His player usage patterns are absolutely batshit insane. If Damon Jones deserves to play now, why the [censored] did you not play him the entire season?

He randomly decides every now and then to not play one of his big guys for like a quarter at a time. Marshall played more minutes than Gooden last game, and it wasn't because he was playing real well or anything.

Hughes continues to get 40 minutes a game despite being clearly inferior to everyone on the roster of any organized basketball team. He needs to gracefully slide into the Eric Snow "defensive substitution" role. Why was he even on the court at the end of the game? The Cavs were coming out of a timeout and the called play was an isolation for James, shouldn't you have your offense in? Which reminds me, why was Varejao on the court at the end of the game?

There are a couple of reasonable "Down by one, iso for Lebron" end of game lineups, but none of them involve Hughes or Varejao. Illgauskas-Gooden/Marshall-James-Pavlovic/Gibson-Gibson/Jones

Shooters and rebounders, Mike.


Edit: kidcolin- that wasn't so bad. I'm pretty sure he only had those three guys out there when Hunter was in the game, once the Pistons went back to the Billups/Hamilton backcourt he went big again.

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Yeah, Varejao is one of the worst rebounders in the NBA.

[FlyWf]

teamdonkey- Your initial post being chock full of analysis? With Krstic it's closer, but starting Collins and Moore? I can't believe anyone sees that as close.

Kidd and Carter are overrated, Pavlovic and Gooden and Varejao are underrated. Having 3 decent big men is nothing to sneeze at, especially in the East.

[teamdonkey]

you're really wrong about nets v. cavs, but i'll make it easier: why have the Cavs played extremely well for 2 series against a MUCH better Detroit team? I'm saying the coach has a lot to do with it. His 115-73 record as a head coach also suggests he's not "grotesquely bad".

[Vyse]

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Kidd and Carter are overrated

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Quite the opposite.

[FlyWf]

Vyse- If Kidd and Carter are underrated, and they are both regarded as no-doubt All Stars/borderline superstars, why the [censored] did the Nets win 41 games this year?

"why have the Cavs played extremely well for 2 series against a MUCH better Detroit team?"

This series is two games long and the Pistons only won 3 more games than the Cavs this year.

So you're asking why the Cavs played the Pistons tough last year? Lebron was great all last postseason and the Pistons ran into some fatigue problems. They aren't a deep team and they ain't a young team, and last series was a lot like this one in terms of physical contact.

Seriously, how are the Nets better on paper than the Cavs? Could you try to explain that, if only so I can point and laugh?

When you guys think the Cavs are worse than they are and then they beat the clearly inferior Nets, that doesn't mean Mike Brown used his great coaching to outfox Goliath, it means you were wrong. Now you've decided that the 53 win Pistons are "MUCH" better than the 50 win Cavs, so when this series goes 6+ games you can add another glowing review to Mike Brown's coaching resume. But the problem is you've started from an incorrect evaluation. The Cavs have one of the 3 or so best players in the league and then 4 other decent players. They started the season around the second or third best team in the East and they lived up to expectations. For some reason the media collectively decided to ignore the Cavaliers towards the end of the season and that's bled into analysis of the postseason.