Originally Posted by RealSNR:
Also ****ing lol. A more interesting team? It's the bottom of the Western Conference. Who's more interesting in that bunch?
A team whose best player isn't Karl Anthony Towns. We all know all this ends for them and him and it won't be pretty. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
He's been pacing himself all season.
And he has about a zillion miles on the odometer so I'm not sure what choice he had.
So yeah, it's not that surprising that he was using this game to get his legs back a little. Unfortunately Davis was so off early (offensively) that it forced him to be more active in the offense than he probably wanted to be.
LBJ wanted this to be an 80% game but it went poorly enough early that he had to put more into it than he wanted to even keep it close. And in the end, it ended up being offensive execution and erratic defensive intensity that sunk them.
I just can't say enough bad things about the end game in the 3rd quarter. They were really playing well and had set themselves up to steal it in the 4th; they'd essentially wiped out the 1st quarter and in so doing needed to only play better in the 4th than Memphis did in the 2nd.
And in the span of 3 possessions they were suddenly down 12 again because they just lost focus. I just threw my hands up because you just saw the game slip away from them.
Early 3rd looked good and then they turned into a Cerner Corporate Challenge team who realized they overachieved to win a play in game, blew their load out of excitement in game 1, then remember who they are. [Reply]
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
A team whose best player isn't Karl Anthony Towns. We all know all this ends for them and him and it won't be pretty.
Have you heard of Anthony Edwards you fucking faggot? [Reply]
You'd like to think a team with a couple of leaders who have won a championship and who about fiddle ****ed their season into oblivion wouldn't do that sort of thing, but it just happens almost every time.
Especially when playing a team as proud as Memphis.
But now the Lakers have made game 3 damn near a must-win in its own right for them. They just don't have the kind of margin they acted like they have tonight. They can't afford to lose games because they didn't come out ready to play.
What are the odds of them getting through four 7 game series healthy? LBJ is not a young man and Davis is made of glass. The only shot they have to actually win this thing is to end a series or two in 5 and keep some miles off.
I'm honestly not sure how much energy LeBron can exert over a full series at this point in his career. He's visibly fatigued far more than I've ever seen him before and it's probably because he's being forced to play a two way game unlike what he does in the regular season.
I do think this series (and likely every series) for that team going to all come down to AD. He needs to be "on" and can't afford games like tonight too often. [Reply]
Originally Posted by KC_Connection:
I'm honestly not sure how much energy LeBron can exert over a full series at this point in his career. He's visibly fatigued far more than I've ever seen him before and it's probably because he's being forced to play a two way game unlike what he does in the regular season.
I do think this series (and likely every series) for that team going to all come down to AD. He needs to be "on" and can't afford games like tonight too often.
He can have a few games like this here and there offensively if he continues to play hard defensively.
But if he does that, James can't go 1-8 from deep. And Russell needs to be a supplemental scorer. We know D-Low can be a guy who puts up an efficient 20-24 pts.
The Lakers can win if Davis has games like this. But they can't win if he does that, James can't hit from outside and Russell can't find any sort of offensive punch at all. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
He can have a few games like this here and there offensively if he continues to play hard defensively.
But if he does that, James can't go 1-8 from deep. And Russell needs to be a supplemental scorer. We know D-Low can be a guy who puts up an efficient 20-24 pts.
The Lakers can win if Davis has games like this. But they can't win if he does that, James can't hit from outside and Russell can't find any sort of offensive punch at all.
LeBron is going to give his 25-30 a game every night, but I doubt you'll get one of his vintage games too often anymore. I'm also pretty worried about Russell given his awful track record in the playoffs (mainly last year for the Wolves but also early in his career with the Nets).
It's gotta be AD that becomes your clear #1. He's (theoretically) in his prime. He needs to get it done for them. It's been a while now since he carried a team in the playoffs though. [Reply]
Originally Posted by RealSNR:
Wiggins plays good defense for half a season of his NBA career.
KCConnection: "He's good at defense"
When you completely shut down a top 10 player in the NBA Finals (Tatum) you get to be labeled good at defense, yeah.
Now you can argue that Wiggins coasted for much of his career in this regard, but not the fact that he's always been good at defense when he actually tried. [Reply]