The NBA Thread.

I'm feeling good about this one for Milwaukee at the half.

 

I rolled into the bar after a flag football game, and they were up by like 40. I did a double take.

 

What a weird couple of days for the Warriors.

 

Wonder how many times lebron and mjs teams have been blown out

 

I don’t have any evidence to back it up, but it seems blowouts have become much more common in the modern game due to the higher volume of 3 point shots.

A good example can be seen just recently with the Bucks obliterating the Warriors (#2 in the West), and then the Warriors destroying the Bulls (#1 in the East) the very next night. And the Bulls had also been blown out by the Nets the game before as well.

 

There does seem to be more and those are likely reasons. Lack of pride is in there somewhere too. Seems more players don't give a shit. Honestly not sure how motivated I'd be either.

 

I don’t see it as a lack of pride. More as a “turning the page as soon as possible.” In the end, if the goal is winning the championship, the regular season doesn’t matter very much. Individual games matter even less. If a team is getting beat bad and sees their chances of winning are low, they feel it’s more beneficial to rest guys rather than exhaust them with a futile attempt to claw back into the game. Heck, you even see it in the playoffs sometimes. Teams take a 2-0 lead and then get blown out in game 3… but they rest players during that blowout, so they’re ready for game 4.

I guess the bottom line of my point is that I see it as less about pride and more about the science of rest and how it affects the team’s long term goals.

 

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/33079028/brooklyn-nets-say-kevin-durant-diagnosed-sprained-mcl

Durant out 4-6 weeks. Sucks.

 

Ah, yes, the 70s

 

Pippen guarded him

 

Every time I see the Bucks this year it's the same shit, they get up for the big teams and then can't be bothered with the shit teams until it's too late. They piss around for three quarters against the Hawks tonight, then the Hawks get hot while the refs do the NBA thing and call some terrible bullshit to get the game closer and boom, another loss to a garbage [uck fay]ing team in the league. Up by 10 with 7 minutes to go and lose by 7. What a joke.

I'm going to have to go to YouTube and watch Game 6 highlights after tonight.

 

Down 2, and Vogel puts a lineup out there of Johnson, THT, Monk, Reaves, and Ariza to finish the quarter.

To no one’s surprise, they go down by 10, meaning they have to cut LeBron’s break short and put him back in with a little under a minute to go. Luckily, he salvages it with a bucket and an assist to cut the lead back down to 6.

Just a [uck fay]ing nonsensical line up for that situation. If you need to rest Bron, at least leave Westbrook out there as a primary ballhandler to keep some flow in the offense.

 

That’s a solid, much needed win.

 

I get your frustration with their poor performances, but they seem to be sitting pretty in the East. Nobody is worried about Chicago as the 1 seed. The Bucks exorcised their Heat demons last season. The Nets just lost KD for 4-6 weeks, and Irving still isn't playing in any home games, which means they'll have no consistency going into the playoffs. No one is worried about the Cavs as the 4 seed. The 76ers ain't winning shit as presently constructed, and a trade for Simmons is looking less and less likely. Then you have Charlotte, Washington, Toronto, and the Celtics rounding out the top 10.

I'm not sure which of those, if any, will be a real challenge for the Bucks come playoff time.

 

News coming out about Frank Vogel's job being in serious jeopardy. I wonder why they waited to put that out until after the Utah win. Some reports are saying they nearly fired him after the Denver debacle.

Wonder if they expected him to lose to Utah and can him afterward.

 

A large part rests on the back of Brook Lopez. It's glaringly clear how critical he has been to the defense of the Bucks drop defense and how his absence has put an extraordinary amount of burden on Giannis to be the only real big man down low, especially when Jrue is out and Freak is running PG, too. If they can ever get everyone on the court together, they'll be solid.

 

Fair enough. I just don't see anybody in the East even challenging them in a 7 game series right now. Guess we will see.

 

Can we go back to the conversation about DPOY and advanced stats for defense? More and more people seem to be hopping on the "Rudy Gobert isn't that good" bandwagon as of late. Teams, including the Lakers last night, are noticing that they can go right at the guy, and it's actually a winning strategy.

Dude got straight up abused last night by a guy on a [uck fay]ing 10 day contract. I just don't understand how you can call a guy the best defender in basketball multiple years in a row when teams actively attack him to win games. Imagine asking a coach to give you his winning offensive strategy and him replying "We are going to find Ben Simmons/Kawhi Leonard/Other great wing defender and go right at him over and over and over." You'd think the dude was nuts.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/18/spor...en-state-warriors-uyghurs-spt-intl/index.html

What a [uck fay]ing idiot.