2020 End of Season / Playoffs

[LJ2]

People need to appreciate LeBron's greatness more. You'll never see another player like him. 38/16/10 last night? in year 17? 10th finals appearance in 17 years? this dude is crazy. He ALREADY is the second greatest player of all time - he'll never pass MJ though because of his Finals record - but this dude is what greatness is all about.

I actually want to see Heat vs Lakers because I want to see Heat culture vs the guy that built their culture.

Completely agree. It's crazy that a guy who had that much hype around him what 4 years before he even entered the league could not just deliver but exceed all expectations. He was probably a top 15 player his rookie year, top 5 his sophomore year and basically owned the league since. 17 years later and people are still debating if he or maybe one other guy is the best player. Ridiculous.

[G__Deane]

I don't know, I think the Lebron calls go both ways. There are runs like the last couple games where he's definitely getting a favorable whistle. Also on drives, he's so huge and fast they let him just body guys at times in a way most players never get away with.

At the same time, defenders can be really physical with guys as big as Lebron and a lot of it never gets called. I mean if Curry got hit + hacked on drives as hard as Lebron does, Curry would be on his back every drive then heading to the line. Lebron can power through it and a lot of it never gets called. Same contact thought.

I think it kind of shakes out.

Seriously. Not a flippin' chance.
Find me an unbiased NBA analyst who would say lebron gets jobbed out of as many calls as he gets. You'll be looking forever.

Google "Lebron phantom calls"
There are literally 54,000 results returned in .32 seconds lol

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...-from-referees

https://www.12up.com/posts/blazers-f...o-01dx7y7zhvrq

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTkMnBsrvyA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnc5MjYh1uo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMFXiuxiYl0

https://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/...lision-lebron/
1. Bismack Biyombo is all of our fathers.

2. He may or may not have fouled LeBron James in a collision at the rim, but probably didn’t, and was called for a foul anyways.

In the waning moments of the second quarter, James cut to the hoop for an alley-oop only to be met by the Raptors’ starting centre/spirit animal, who was called for his third foul of the game. Take a look below.
Given the Raptors attempted zero free throws in the first half and Biyombo had already been tagged with a questionable call earlier in the game, the foul call riled up what already might be the ACC’s loudest Raptors crowd yet.

lebron is a great player and a physical specimen. But he gets the most bullchit calls in NBA history and it alters games when the other teams best defenders get put into early foul trouble and has to sit. It's crap and the NBA endorses it for ratings.

[DanH]

Game 7

Gasol: -19 in 19 minutes. Holy hell.

Unlike Powell (+4) and Ibaka (+6), Gasol didn’t “win his minutes” when it mattered most.

Game 7 was a disaster for Gasol's lineups for sure.

But the team got absolutely demolished in Powell's minutes on the series (which is so sad seeing how miserable Boston's bench guys have looked against the Heat) and Ibaka posted an almost identical poor series plus minus to Gasol. The solutions to our problems did not lie in Serge getting minutes over Gasol or Powell getting more minutes. Heck, they tried that in the 2nd half (after Gasol actually won his early 3rd stint) and then the cold streak stints that killed Gasol's lineups in the 1st half killed Ibaka in the 2nd half instead. The hope was that Gasol would find a way to score a little bit, because we know that any scoring Ibaka provides won't solve the team's problems, and it didn't in the 2nd half of game 7 when they tried it.

Gasol was a -20 in the first half, his lineups were a complete disaster - but that disaster had little to do directly with Gasol. Which Nurse knew, thankfully, as him running Gasol back out to start the 2nd half (something even I am not sure I would have done) bought the Raptors 6 minutes of winning ball against Boston's best lineup while none of their garbage bench players were out there. And Ibaka and Powell had a good shift against Boston's bench (something that hadn't been guaranteed, but thankfully they managed in game 7) to end the 3rd. They had been absolute gangbusters in the 1st half, finally running roughshod over Boston's bad bench to keep G7 close after an up and down series (like everyone else, to be fair), so good to see that continue. 1 point game. Good for them, exactly what we need from our top bench players.

But then guess what? Stevens saw what was obvious - the Raptors would be relying on Serge and Powell to open the 4th, and they cannot hang with better players, not enough so to make up for any let down from the Raptors' creators (who were struggling like heck), so he trotted out his starters to start the 4th. And of course the Raptors instantly went from down 1 point to down 8 points, and then down 10 points around halfway through the quarter, too big a hole for their small look to dig out of, even with Stevens eventually putting Grant Williams back in the game and giving the Raptors a shot.

I don't blame Ibaka or Powell for that. There was little the complementary players could do about the ice cold stretches the Raptors' offence went through because Siakam was absent, Lowry was exhausted from taking on too much, and Fred was being bad because he was taking on too much. And against Boston's best lineups not ruined by their poor depth, those stretches were just going to be bad.

Honestly, I'd love to live in this little fantasy world where there was a quick fix to the Raptors' issues in that series. And I do think maybe they eke out the series if they play TD or Thomas more to buy a couple more bench runs throughout the series. But they are a team built on no margin for error with their lack of an established superstar, and Pascal's struggles, Gasol's offensive issues and Fred's cold shooting were just not going to be solved by replacing them with the known worse options behind them.

Look, I'm all for reaming out the coach when he makes the wrong choices. I just don't see that it is obvious that the alternative here would have made the slightest difference. I do think it says something that people were clamouring for Powell and Ibaka for all their scoring prowess, and yet for the series, Serge lost his minutes (mainly against Boston's crappy bench players) by the exact amount Gasol lost his minutes (almost exclusively against their starting lineup) in 10 more minutes played (158 v 148). And before we go all "oh, but he also didn't get to play with the Raptors' best players" - of course he did, heck you guys are clamouring for more Powell and Serge was tied at the hip to him, and the Raptors barely ever played an 8th man, and their 8th men were a combined +23 (Thomas, TD and Boucher). Same goes for Powell, who was an incredible -37 on the series (only behind FVV's -46) and did so in far fewer minutes than FVV, with a per 36 rate of -7.5 the worst on the team among regulars (Marc and Serge right behind him with -6.6 and -6.2).

The Raptors ran out of gas. They were short their main offensive horse for whatever reason, and the effects of that rippled through the team and cost them in a long, close 7 game series. Their lack of a real alternative for a clearly struggling Gasol was problematic - if Ibaka was half as useful as you would think from the talk around here, he would have dramatically helped the team when subbing in for Gasol who was completely useless offensively, and yet, nope. The fact that Powell was fairly useless for most of the series up until game 6 also hurt quite a bit. Like, game 2, we lost by three while Powell's lineups got caved in by 12 points (in 13 minutes!). Almost cost us game 3 as well, losing his minutes by 8, but OG and Lowry saved us at the end.

But AGAIN. The series loss is not on Ibaka or Powell (as disappointing as losing minutes against that Boston bench is, or as brutal as the end of game 7 was). The reality is, the team was built to live or die with Pascal, and he wasn't there. There was basically nothing they could do that would reliably solve that problem with the rest of the rotation. Maybe buying Lowry more rest with TD or Thomas throughout the series would have helped him have fresher legs for game 7, but it's no guarantee they don't just lose those minutes, small sample successes from the 8th man guys are hard to project. I wish I had a nice easy narrative beyond the Pascal stuff but it really did come down to that. Gasol struggling hurt them, but so did the rest of the roster struggling, and rotations were unlikely to fix that. The foundation is what crumbled in that series (and that's a bit dramatic, they almost stole the series anyway which says a lot about the fight in this team and how effective they can be defensively even when the offence is missing), moving patio furniture about wouldn't have saved it.

[NeedTristanThompson]

Seriously. Not a flippin' chance.
Find me an unbiased NBA analyst who would say lebron gets jobbed out of as many calls as he gets. You'll be looking forever.

Google "Lebron phantom calls"
There are literally 54,000 results returned in .32 seconds lol

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...-from-referees

https://www.12up.com/posts/blazers-f...o-01dx7y7zhvrq

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTkMnBsrvyA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xnc5MjYh1uo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMFXiuxiYl0

https://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/...lision-lebron/
1. Bismack Biyombo is all of our fathers.

2. He may or may not have fouled LeBron James in a collision at the rim, but probably didn’t, and was called for a foul anyways.

In the waning moments of the second quarter, James cut to the hoop for an alley-oop only to be met by the Raptors’ starting centre/spirit animal, who was called for his third foul of the game. Take a look below.
Given the Raptors attempted zero free throws in the first half and Biyombo had already been tagged with a questionable call earlier in the game, the foul call riled up what already might be the ACC’s loudest Raptors crowd yet.

lebron is a great player and a physical specimen. But he gets the most bullchit calls in NBA history and it alters games when the other teams best defenders get put into early foul trouble and has to sit. It's crap and the NBA endorses it for ratings.

MR DEANE I gotta say. I am with you here in full. Bismack is just the man, he was then and is. That playoff run was special, and could've been every specialer (finals appearance!) if the refs let Bismack play basketball defence according to the rules of the game instead of the Lebron rules.

Also btw. I'm pretty sure we beat the Celtics if Haywards plays. This man is their MG of this year's playoffs, but like, even worse. Because he was never as good as MG, ever. Terrible player.

And IGuodala is the Heat's Gasol man. Or their McCaw?? He's made the last 5 NBA finals, then switches teams aaaand those Heat boys looking kinda good?? (knock on wood they beating this B@#$$n fools tonite!!

#Kawhi2021
#BISMACK2020
#TT2020
#AD2020
#CANADIANKAWHI

[Beans]

Wow great 4th quarter by the Heat

[Beans]

Suck it Celtics.

[G__Deane]

YAHOO. Go Heat
F the tamperer lebron

[S.R.]

How is it possible I hate the Celtics even more now.

[Dr Hannibal Lecter]

Wow great 4th quarter by the Heat

I cannot believe raps lost 2 boston..
Congrats 2 Maimi..
Hey Philly how do u like Jimmy now..

[A.I]

Celtics shit the bed in the 4th quarter. If only they did that against us in Game 7

[The Great One]

I cannot believe raps lost 2 boston..
Congrats 2 Maimi..
Hey Philly how do u like Jimmy now..

Raps lost to Boston because:

1. Siakam did not show up.
2. Hayward did not play.

[S.R.]

Tatum/Brown are young but the C's have now lost 3 of the last 4 ECF's and something's just missing with that duo. Tatum's got the talent but I don't think he's a killer. Brown's got a bit more nasty in him but he doesn't bring 1A production night in and night out, seems comfortable in the Robin role.

[S.R.]

Raps lost to Boston because:

1. Siakam did not show up.
2. Hayward did not play.

30 minutes of Gordon Fucking Hayward would have swung a couple of those games for the Raptors.

[Dr Hannibal Lecter]

Raps lost to Boston because:

1. Siakam did not show up.
2. Hayward did not play.

Gasol was the main reason..he was in la la land..but yes u are right,if only Siakim played his normal, raps would of won easily,but this whole thing with bubble is so different..all these teams didn't play in front of there fans. U know if anyone plays in our building..it's a totally different story,especially game 7.
Hopefully next year there is no bubble and it's normal..actually I blame coronavirus for raps loosing..F#$%$ Corona.

[NeedTristanThompson]

Celtics shit the bed in the 4th quarter. If only they did that against us in Game 7

Ya. So close tho I mean one possession/Lowry foul out from tying or going thru... We would've given the Heat wayyy more trouble. I'm sure of it! We eliminated Jimmy once before you know!!

I cannot believe raps lost 2 boston..
Congrats 2 Maimi..
Hey Philly how do u like Jimmy now..

I just don't know how anyone in Philly couldn't see Jimmy was their team last year and Joel and Ben were the fools just being carried. Most expensive role players in the league!! Don't overpay your roleplayers, instead pay stars like Kawhi and TT!

#TT2020
#KAWHI2021
#MURRAY2024