The Official NBA Thread 2011-12

[Kobe]

Ginobli on top form is super.

 

[S O F I]

lol @ amazing fake. that's the most basic fake. i pulled that shit daily back in my day. but yeah, ginobili killed them. people forget how good he is. the way it's looking now, i'm not sure if the heat can beat the spurs in the finals.

oh what, you think someone else is going to be in the finals? REALLY?

 

[ArtsyGirl]

Yeah seemed pretty standard. Well executed yeah, KD bought it.. But not amazing..

 

[Kobe]

i'm not sure if the heat can beat the spurs in the finals.

Series prediction for...

Heat/Celtics
Spurs/Thunder
ahem...Heat/Spurs

?

 

[S O F I]

I'm not sure what you're still doing here. The Lakers lost. Come back next year. Lol

 

[Kobe]

 

[ArtsyGirl]

If he wasn't here you'd be talking to yourself lol

 

[S O F I]

damn, boston deserved that win. gotta rebound though.

 

[Kobe]

^Celtics either win tonight or its over.

Phil Jackson making some moves. He should be back coaching an NBA team next season me thinks.

 

[ArtsyGirl]

Yay Celtics win and also very happy OKC got a W too..

What's Phil Jackson been doing?

 

[Kobe]

^Phil was interested in Orlando Magic front office, but he stepped out of talks in the last minute. They were hoping having him on the team would convince Dwight Howard to hang around. However, why exactly he decided not to take the front office job is unknown. These are just reports, not statements from Phil.

The Heat might need to foul KG harder

 

[ArtsyGirl]

All tied up! Now for the Celtics to do the same.. KG is such a douche but he's doing it against a douchey team so it evens out.

 

[Kobe]

I watched the first quarter of the Heat/Celtics game. The Celtics were ripping the Heat a new one, I'm surprised it turned out to be so close in the end.

 

[ArtsyGirl]

Bosh might be back next game so should be interesting what happens then..

 

[ArtsyGirl]

OKC ahead, it's a good sign that they are winning the close games too.. 1 win away from the Finals..

 

[Kobe]

It was all smooth sailing for the Spurs then something happened. Some say Tony Parker was figured out.

 

[Jokerman]

Miami lost tonite because of Spoelstra. Why the hell didn't he have Bosh playing in the 4th quarter, and even the 3rd? What are you saving him for if you lose it all now? No matter how good a night he has, James can't do it himself. The Celtics just have too many better shooters with no one blocking. Pierce and Allen are better three-point shooters then anyone on the Heat.

 

[Ristol]

Spoelstra is a good coach but he has no gravitas, no proven strategic vision, no mental leverage over his players. I guess that makes him a bad coach. The Heat aren't going to win the championship this year or any year with him at the helm. It's just a bad fit. They need a coach with rings. I'll give any one of you ten to one odds that either Riley or Jackson coaches this team next year if they Heat don't win it all (they won't).

Also, I heard a Heat beat writer say this today, regarding the end of game four: "LeBron's basketball IQ is too high. He always makes the right play. The pass to Haslem was the right basketball play." Wow. I guess that's a euphemism for "He lacks a killer instinct. He has no particular desire to win. Michael Jordan's left nut had more heart than LeBron's actual heart."

 

[S O F I]

Spoelstra's not a good coach. He defers to his star players without coaching them and giving them specific plays. He also sounds too confident in his team's ability to win. Every word out of his mouth seems to suggest "I have Wade and LeBron, I expect that we'll win because we should win."

Because of Spoelstra's lack of strategic vision and specific direction, you have instances where basically everything is up to Wade and LeBron to create for themselves which doesn't always lead to high-quality shots. The sucky thing regarding the perception of LeBron is that everyone has this idea that Jordan and Kobe would make shots no matter what, which might be true, but I'm OK with LeBron passing the ball to Haslem as long as it's the right play. I'll live with that. Miami is not down 3-2 because of LeBron's lack of killer instinct but because of a team dynamic that needlessly, solely depends on it.

 

[ARon]

The easiest answer for this is that the right basketball play is the winning play. Bron doesn't make them. A contested shot from LBJ has a better chance of going in that an open Haslem jumper. Open or not, he needs to take the shot. MJ got away with passing to Kerr and Paxson and it worked. Maybe Bron just has bad luck, who knows. But both Kobe and MJ have cemented their "clutchness" with great game winning shots, so a pass to an open man is ok in certain situations. I guess Bron needs to use his high b ball IQ and learn to read the game better.

I was arguing with a friend the other day that LeBron is an overrated defensive player. On the ball he is mediocre, off the ball he is much better. Pierce just gave me some good leverage with that 3 over him.