The Official NBA Season Thread: NBA Cup Night

East is buns. idk who would even be the 2nd best team in the conference tbh. New York? or a healthy Philly?
 
People actually think Tatum's playing well?
I think he's playing pretty well, yes. If you only associate quality of play with shooting %, I can see why you'd have a different opinion, but when he's playing lockdown defense on Kyrie 1-1, stripping Luka, getting 12 dimes... hard to say he's not playing well. He's slashing and driving into the lane with ease and if they'd hit 6-7 more 3's on those wide open looks last night Boston wins by 20+. The Mavs really have no answer to his drives.

Frankly I'm more impressed with him than I would be if he was shooting 50% from the field right now. To be shooting poorly and contributing at such a high level in rebounding, assisting and defense speaks to really strong mindset and commitment to their game plan. There's plenty of guys who wouldn't contribute like that if they were in an awful shooting slump.
 
Clippers without their best player, starting five with an average age of 23, & Rudy Gobert is the gauntlet now I guess
Clippers are always without their best player, the starting 5 with an average age of 23 was the 1 seed, and Gobert knocked off the defending champs and best player in the league. So yeah, the gauntlet
 
Game 1: 12 PTS | 6-19 FG | 0-5 3PT | 3 REB
Game 2: 16 PTS | 7-18 FG | 0-3 3PT | 2 REB

You don't pass, you don't rebound, you don't playmake, you don't defend. You do ONE thing and you're not even doing it. It's not good. Hope Kyrie turns it around in Dallas

Brunson would never. I’m starting to think Vincent Van Goat Vincent Van Goat was right when he said

THE MAVS GOOFED
THE MAVS GOOFED
THE MAVS GOOFED
THE MAVS GOOFED
THE MAVS GOOFED
 
Another thing that stood out last night:
Mavs - 16/24 FT
Celts - 19/20 FT

Even Luka looks less than focused at the line. C's shooting from the line like every one of them could decide whether they win a title or not.
 
The shot selection and shooting has been horrendous, but the defense, rebounding, passing has been high level.
Can we get some clips of the high level passing? I haven’t seen many high level reads by him in this series.



He’s also getting cooked by Luka.

He’s rebounding well though.
 
To be fair every opponent the Celtics played leading up to the Finals were missing their best player or their best player didn't finish the series. Dallas went through the gauntlet, a.k.a. the West
Absolutely and I think the Celtics played down to their competition on the East a bit. They had lapses in focus and defensive intensity that we haven’t seen yet in the Finals.

Yeah, you can say that a team who hasn’t won a title shouldn’t take any opponent lightly, but it’s just human nature to take your foot off the gas when up against an opponent you know you can beat without even playing your best.
 
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Can we get some clips of the high level passing? I haven’t seen many high level reads by him in this series.



He’s also getting cooked by Luka.

He’s rebounding well though.

The reads haven't been particularly complex, but he's making the right passes and leading to easy buckets.
 
Can we get some clips of the high level passing? I haven’t seen many high level reads by him in this series.



He’s also getting cooked by Luka.

He’s rebounding well though.


Luka getting locked down by Al Horford should be bigger news. Scoring champ can’t score on a 40 year old big? Not my scoring champ :{
 
this gonna be the new is the dress blue or green topic
I'm not gonna go back and forth with folks about it because they're winning and ultimately that's all that matters.

But he's been their fourth best player in this series and I'm not sure it's been particularly close. Body language is constantly bad. He looks indecisive. He's hunting Luka matchups and not really winning them. He's had some absolutely awful turnovers because he doesn't look like he knows what he wants to do when he puts the ball on the deck.

Sweet, he's rebounding and he's racking up assists on bare naked Jrue dives to the rim. Everyone else is playing at such a high level it's masking a ton of his nonsense. He's been awful.
 
Luka getting locked down by Al Horford should be bigger news.
Probably would be if he'd guarded him for more than 2 min in this series. The bigger news should be how little scoring Dallas bigs have done on him. Lively and Klieber had a combined ONE make against him. 15 pts from the bigs combined last night in a combined 58 min of PT. And that was an IMPROVEMENT over game 1 lol
 
Kyrie needs a to have stretches where he takes over. This will lessen the burden on Luka. Not only that, they just need his scoring. Margin for error is slim. They are not getting support from role guys the first two games.

Not saying he has to be great for seven games, just need two or three really spectacular ones.
 
The reads haven't been particularly complex, but he's making the right passes and leading to easy buckets.
He’s blowing by an overmatched DJJ or PJ on the perimeter and passing to wide open guys after the help collapses. His impact hasn’t been great. But that’s JMO.
 
To be fair every opponent the Celtics played leading up to the Finals were missing their best player or their best player didn't finish the series. Dallas went through the gauntlet, a.k.a. the West
The “gauntlet” for Dallas was deceiving..They got a washed/injured clippers squad and 2 up and coming teams that weren’t ready yet, caught OKC and Minny at the right time

Shout out to them for doing what they supposed to do and beating those squads tho
 
I'm not gonna go back and forth with folks about it because they're winning and ultimately that's all that matters.

But he's been their fourth best player in this series and I'm not sure it's been particularly close. Body language is constantly bad. He looks indecisive. He's hunting Luka matchups and not really winning them. He's had some absolutely awful turnovers because he doesn't look like he knows what he wants to do when he puts the ball on the deck.

Sweet, he's rebounding and he's racking up assists on bare naked Jrue dives to the rim. Everyone else is playing at such a high level it's masking a ton of his nonsense. He's been awful.
That's where I am with it. If Tatum is playing good, then the other guys got to be playing fantastic or something. Because the are all defending and rebounding and White and Holiday are the ones making the important defensive plays. Tatum was getting cooked at the high elbow by Luka as well. Celts are doing a good job of winning despite his poor play. I think you could replace him with Kelly Oubre this series and he would bring the same rebounding and defense. Its mainly his physical attributes that are keeping him a positive in the game.
 
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