[NBA] Comments that Don't Warrant Their Own Thread (Playoffs?)
- Thread starter Mr. S£im Citrus
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This is why your PG shouldn't be your primary scorer, and why Tyreke should be moved to SG full time and develop an off-the-ball game. A PG should create for the entire team. Having one guy bring the ball up the court and immediately look for his own shot while the four other guys just stand around and stare has never been and will never be a successful basketball strategy.
I'm not sure why you guys are getting all over the Lakers organisation/franchise and its entire history over two plays by Bynum and Odom. No scrap that, I know why you guys are doing it, I just think it's silly, but that's just me. I know that a large part of your hatred for the Lakers comes from their fans, whom I don't have interaction with.
And posting clips of the same guys taking cheap shots is also a little redundant if you ask me. Half the players in the NBA have had their share of dirty shots and fights. Ron Artest was a King, but somehow I don't think you guys were saying that the Kings were horrible scum blablabla when he did his share of stupid things.
Props to Dallas for playing really well. I can't stand JJ Barea because he just annoys me (when he plays the Kings especially), but man the Lakers had no answer for him. I do think that the Lakers frankly had a very underperforming bench. Going into this season, their bench looked spectacular on paper, and Shannon Brown was shooting the lights out to begin the season. But Matt Barnes and Steve Blake basically did nothing in the playoffs, and their bench was pretty much Odom + Brown. No clue what happened to Gasol either.
If there's one thing I think we should learn from this series, is that you need to have real designated 3 point shooters. The Lakers really don't have that 3 point specialist, and Fisher, Kobe, Blake and to a lesser extent Barnes are all guys that have decent %s for their career, but really aren't pure shooters like Korver or Peja. They used to have Vujacic and Radmanovic, who although weren't as good as say Korver and Peja were pretty reliable shooters. That's why when people say Omri is shooting 39% from 3 I'm still not sold, because he just isn't that spot up shooter we need. His mechanics aren't there.
Maybe I'm thinking into this too much, and when the ball goes in it's all fine and dandy. But this is my opinion.
Congrats Mavs!
And posting clips of the same guys taking cheap shots is also a little redundant if you ask me. Half the players in the NBA have had their share of dirty shots and fights. Ron Artest was a King, but somehow I don't think you guys were saying that the Kings were horrible scum blablabla when he did his share of stupid things.
Props to Dallas for playing really well. I can't stand JJ Barea because he just annoys me (when he plays the Kings especially), but man the Lakers had no answer for him. I do think that the Lakers frankly had a very underperforming bench. Going into this season, their bench looked spectacular on paper, and Shannon Brown was shooting the lights out to begin the season. But Matt Barnes and Steve Blake basically did nothing in the playoffs, and their bench was pretty much Odom + Brown. No clue what happened to Gasol either.
If there's one thing I think we should learn from this series, is that you need to have real designated 3 point shooters. The Lakers really don't have that 3 point specialist, and Fisher, Kobe, Blake and to a lesser extent Barnes are all guys that have decent %s for their career, but really aren't pure shooters like Korver or Peja. They used to have Vujacic and Radmanovic, who although weren't as good as say Korver and Peja were pretty reliable shooters. That's why when people say Omri is shooting 39% from 3 I'm still not sold, because he just isn't that spot up shooter we need. His mechanics aren't there.
Maybe I'm thinking into this too much, and when the ball goes in it's all fine and dandy. But this is my opinion.
Congrats Mavs!
People always overreact and pull very silly lessons from single series and events. Its probably responsible for 2/3 of the wrong headed thinking inthe NBA. Not just fans either. Always the dumb fads this way or that.
These are the two time defneding champions we are talking about. Three straight trips to the Finals. And with largely the same roster they trotted out this year -- in fact if anythind adding Blake and Barnes should have added even more shooting if they had not disappointed. When did this sudden need for pure designated 3pt shooters come about? Sometime during the offseason between last year and this year?
The Lakers got old, arrogant and lazy. Team chemistry fractured again, as it sporadically does down in that land of egos. Pulling some sort of meta lessons about how you just have to be built like Dallas (a team that had been eliminated in the first round 3 of the past 4 seasons) in order to win out of this series is just drawing the wrong lessons.
These are the two time defneding champions we are talking about. Three straight trips to the Finals. And with largely the same roster they trotted out this year -- in fact if anythind adding Blake and Barnes should have added even more shooting if they had not disappointed. When did this sudden need for pure designated 3pt shooters come about? Sometime during the offseason between last year and this year?
The Lakers got old, arrogant and lazy. Team chemistry fractured again, as it sporadically does down in that land of egos. Pulling some sort of meta lessons about how you just have to be built like Dallas (a team that had been eliminated in the first round 3 of the past 4 seasons) in order to win out of this series is just drawing the wrong lessons.
Valid points. This was foreshadowed with how they closed the regular season. They were supposed to run away with the West again yet almost fell to the 4th spot and then were pushed hard by NO which maybe didn't get the attention it should have because of the Spurs going down to an 8 seed. With Jackson's retirement looming and a bunch of uncertainty headed into next season its no wonder that whatever cohesion Jackson was able to get out of this collection of egos blew up in the end.
They've always been arrogant, and, to an extent, lazy. And the chemistry issues are kind of a red herring; they've always had chemistry issues. As long as Kobe is there, they always will, because of his personality (not unlike many of the other greats, but he lacks the charm and charisma that some of the guys before him have had).
What I think really hurt them is the fact that they have played 100+ games the past three seasons, not to mention the Olympics, the qualifiers, etc. You're calling it old; Kobe and Fisher have a lot of NBA miles, but Kobe's not really old. Pau is 30. Odom and Artest are 31. Bynum is 23.
I think, more than being old, they're flawed. They don't have any consistent three point shooting, which allowed Dallas to collapse on the paint, whether it was penetration or post ups. I don't think that's a fatal flaw; they've been to the Finals three years in a row. But it is a flaw. On top of that, they take games off, they play lacksadaisacal, they think all they gotta do is just show up, etc. The Mavs are also a rare team in that they have size at basically every position, so they can counter the Lakers "big" lineup in several different ways. The fact that all this culminated in a sweep, especially against a team that's been dogged by NBA elite over the years as being soft, is incredible to ponder. It's natural to highlight the difference between the three point shooting, but what I think it came down to is that the Mavs were hungry, and the Lakers got their lunch taken.
What I think really hurt them is the fact that they have played 100+ games the past three seasons, not to mention the Olympics, the qualifiers, etc. You're calling it old; Kobe and Fisher have a lot of NBA miles, but Kobe's not really old. Pau is 30. Odom and Artest are 31. Bynum is 23.
I think, more than being old, they're flawed. They don't have any consistent three point shooting, which allowed Dallas to collapse on the paint, whether it was penetration or post ups. I don't think that's a fatal flaw; they've been to the Finals three years in a row. But it is a flaw. On top of that, they take games off, they play lacksadaisacal, they think all they gotta do is just show up, etc. The Mavs are also a rare team in that they have size at basically every position, so they can counter the Lakers "big" lineup in several different ways. The fact that all this culminated in a sweep, especially against a team that's been dogged by NBA elite over the years as being soft, is incredible to ponder. It's natural to highlight the difference between the three point shooting, but what I think it came down to is that the Mavs were hungry, and the Lakers got their lunch taken.
Agreed Brick, Dallas has always had 3 pt. shooting. The major difference between the Dallas team of years past and this years Dallas team is Tyson Chandler. He is what put them over the top. Yeah people are going to see the hot 3 pt shooting during this series for the Mavs and react, but when it comes down to this Dallas team advancing and possibly winning the title, it will be the addition of Chandler. He has solidified the interior, sets solid screens, cleans up the garbage underneath, and protects the paint. Dallas has never had a guy like Chandler in the middle. They tried with Bradley, Fail. Then Lafrentz, double fail. Dampier, don't think so. Haywood, nope. (although his role off the bench is important.)
I know people want to talk about the Lakers imploding, Paus personal drama, etc. But, Dallas was the better team. They could play 10 more best of 7's, and I'd feel confident in Dallas winning all 10.
I know people want to talk about the Lakers imploding, Paus personal drama, etc. But, Dallas was the better team. They could play 10 more best of 7's, and I'd feel confident in Dallas winning all 10.
Well I don't disagree about Chandler at all, however:
1) Dampier was always very underrated. The last time the Mavs were relevant and made it to the Finals under Avery, it was Dampier and Diop who were doing these same things and making them into an elite defensive team. Just one of those things like our own 02-03 version where people had gotten so used to calling them soft that they refused to change that channel even with the Mavs being better on defense for a spell.
2) this Mavs team...maybe. But it really was the Lakers. There is nothgin terribly special about this Mavs group. Weren't special in the regular season. Weren't special in the first round, and in fact looked ready to choke that one at one point. But you run into a sloppy Lakers team ready to be knocked over, and boom, everybody thinks the Mavs are da ****. Not really. Just a good solid veteran team running through the remnants of the Lakers. You put the Lakers of 2 years ago out there against this Mavs team, and the series is probably 3-1 right now, with the Mavs record breaking 3pt barrage being them saving the sweep and extending the series to 5. Kind of reminds me of Detroit thumping the 4 HOF Lakers in the FInals, or the year before that the Spurs dispatching the 50 win Laker weaklings in between the 3pt and the 4 HOF year. Just weak Lakers entries, and ready to be knocked off by the first elite team that comes along. And not weak talentwise either. Weak in teamwork, dedication, cohesion, effort etc.
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Totally agree. He's a guy who looks like he'll never become unselfish. It was interesting to me that when Teague made several consecutive shots Johnson just couldn't handle it. He HAD to get the ball in his hands and do the dribble-dribble-dribble thing. And of course it didn't work. He lost the ball while he was dribbling and he took bad shots and the whole Atlanta offense came to a standstill. That was the end of that story. Atlanta showed they could actually be a team with great patience, passing and cutting in the the first half of the game, but then Johnson ended up destroying it.
