Everything Playoffs 2022 (Non-Raptors Thread)

[Primer]

I'm really glad the Warriors bounced back and thumped the Celtics. Not the most exciting game but at least the Celtics aren't up 2-0.

[KeonClark]

I'm really glad the Warriors bounced back and thumped the Celtics. Not the most exciting game but at least the Celtics aren't up 2-0.

Warriors have had 27 straight playoff series with a road win....mind blowing stat....usually road teams are happy with a split but the pressure is on Boston here imo, they need to take game 3 and stay in the drivers seat

[The Great One]

Easier to say that about a guy who forced back to back trade the a guy coming off 2 major injuries. But yeah he has been back in the lineup for a bit now, he should have rhythm. May need to be a different type of player going forward more like a korver who only comes off down screen for 3s, look to get open in the corners for drive and kicks and just stop the cutting/driving.

Klay needs to reinvent himself. He's not Klay Thompson anymore that's why I have the Celtics winning this series in 6. Kyle Korver is actually a good player to emulate, just catch and shoot.

Anyway, Andrew Wiggins can't be the second best scorer on the Warriors. They have gotten away with it the last 3 rounds but Boston is a different animal. These guys are going to have so much trouble scoring the next 2 games in Boston.

[The Great One]

[Primer]

We had that issue with Kyle also. Didn't Masai have to give him a talking to?

[KeonClark]

Kyle was working really hard most off-season here, I remember he was big into yoga at one point.

He probably thought he was going to Miami to wind down "gangsters don't die they get chubby and they move to miami"...well looks like pat expects a better performance and a hard off-season for the 36 year old, considering they still owe him 57 million over 2 years

also where the fuck does time go i was gonna say Kyle is 34 but looked it up first

[bertarapsfan]

Kinda fucked up considering Kyle had to take a big chunk of the season off the deal with a personal issue. Which many think was his mom's health since she is usually really active on Twitter and wasn't posting anything for a long time.

[KeonClark]

Kinda fucked up considering Kyle had to take a big chunk of the season off the deal with a personal issue. Which many think was his mom's health since she is usually really active on Twitter and wasn't posting anything for a long time.

I dunno lowry looked pretty...bootylicious to start the season, and had a really poor start to the first 10 games or so he was averaging like 8 pts a game. He was finally rolling by December and the personal issues hit in january

I could picture Kyle being a little less committed this past off season, what with his family moving back to the states,emotional Toronto goodbye, championship hangover...

He usually responds when challenged by guys with clout. Look for him to have a big year at 36-37 this year. Won't be peak lowry but I think he's got a couple solid years left In him where he can still be a good top 5 player on a contender.

[golden]

Yeah, it's impressive from a GM standpoint as well, but far less impressive in my eyes since the team was already built, not like he did a teardown. Hiring Udoka was the big move and that paid off handsomely.

Turning Kemba into Al Horford was a stroke of genius. Solved 2 problems at once. Horford's been a huge difference maker... quite possibly the Celtics unsung DPOY.

Too bad that happened real early in the off-season, otherwise there might have been a lane for us to flip Dragic + pick to OKC for the same type of deal. I was lobbying on here for a way to bring in Horford to solve our C problem.

[LJ2]

Turning Kemba into Al Horford was a stroke of genius. Solved 2 problems at once. Horford's been a huge difference maker... quite possibly the Celtics unsung DPOY.

Too bad that happened real early in the off-season, otherwise there might have been a lane for us to flip Dragic + pick to OKC for the same type of deal. I was lobbying on here for a way to bring in Horford to solve our C problem.

Why make that type of move now though? Raps aren't looking for win now moves yet, they are trying to get their core up to speed. A core which includes Precious who needs minutes.

Adding Horford is like adding Gasol in 2019.

[golden]

Why make that type of move now though? Raps aren't looking for win now moves yet, they are trying to get their core up to speed. A core which includes Precious who needs minutes.

Adding Horford is like adding Gasol in 2019.

We ended up doing almost exactly that: Dragic + pick swap for a veteran big man (Thad). Why? Because we’re also developing the FVV/Siakam/OG core and we need to give them useful depth pieces & roster flexibility to evaluate whether or not they can be a winning core, without excuses.

[golden]

I'll give another example. I'm an Oilers fan. The greatest player of all time plays for my team(yes, McDavid is better than Gretzky and i'm not exaggerating).The Oilers have a shitty management, they have a shitty owner, they have a rookie coach, their roster have a lot of flaws. But guess fucking what!? we might win the whole thing this year. How? because we have Connor freakin McDavid that's how.

Now, replace McDavid with just another average player and replace the shitty management with elite, elite management. Do you think the Oilers would be where they are right now? the answer is no.

Lol. This hot take aged faster than expired milk on a hot summer day in Singapore. For now, McDavid is basically the Canadian Ovechkin until he gets over the hump. That’s the correct comp, ie, speed & skill. And Ovi is no slouch. McDavid can’t be mentioned in the same sentence as “The Great One” until further notice.

Oh, and you just emphatically proved that Jerry Krause was right.

[The Great One]

Lol. This hot take aged faster than expired milk on a hot summer day in Singapore. For now, McDavid is basically the Canadian Ovechkin until he gets over the hump. That’s the correct comp, ie, speed & skill. And Ovi is no slouch. McDavid can’t be mentioned in the same sentence as “The Great One” until further notice.

Oh, and you just emphatically proved that Jerry Krause was right.

It's hard to win when your goaltender is Mike Smith. You're probably a better goaltender than him. What McDavid and the Oilers accomplished this year should be commended. We're just getting started.

I can also easily tell that you don't watch Oilers games. Really? that's the comp? Ovechkin is nowhere near as good a skater as McDavid lol. No one is. No one in the history of the league has the mix of speed and skill of McDavid. If there's one then I want to know who that is.

[TheWaterboy]

It's hard to win when your goaltender is Mike Smith. You're probably a better goaltender than him. What McDavid and the Oilers accomplished this year should be commended. We're just getting started.

I can also easily tell that you don't watch Oilers games. Really? that's the comp? Ovechkin is nowhere near as good a skater as McDavid lol. No one is. No one in the history of the league has the mix of speed and skill of McDavid. If there's one then I want to know who that is.

Jets fan here.

I agree that age has not been kind to Mike Smith; that's particularly a problem against certain types of teams, but it's more broadly an issue in the playoffs, where you may need your goalie to steal a game or two for you.

I disagree that that's the Oilers' only problem.

The Jets have been thoroughly mediocre for the past couple years - witness their absence from the playoffs this year - but still swept the Oilers last year. That doesn't happen solely due to poor goaltending performance, and especially when both McDavid and Draisaitl are better than any pair of Winnipeg forwards you might select (though there's not really a huge edge if you pick, say, Schiefle and Connor).

The problem that the Oilers have - and while I have watched basically zero postseason hockey this year (it's a long story), I'd expect it to be true for the Avalanche series as well - is that their depth players are not talented enough to compete against teams with depth. The third and fourth line forwards in particular, and possibly their third defense pairing, can't compete with a team that has talent all the way down the line-up. (Who on the Oilers' third or fourth lines is as talented as Adam Lowry or pre-Kraken-pick Mason Appleton?) Evening the talent deficit by double-shifting McDavid/Draisaitl/Nurse causes other problems, potentially wearing them down during the course of the game, and doubly so because the team has historically has a philosophy of being built to outscore their opponent; when a team is able to shut down the Oilers offense, or keep pace with it (the Jets did both last year), the Oilers can't lean on their defense to bail them out. Both the Jets and the Avalanche are much more balanced than the Oilers in terms of both talent and coaching philosophy on both ends of the rink, and it shows.

All this to say: Mike Smith can no longer steal games for the Oilers, and based on the Oilers' roster construction, there are teams which they absolutely need him to steal games from in the playoffs. But the roster construction of the team is not Mike Smith's fault.

[Demographic Shift]

McDavid is a different player than Gretz... and he plays in a different era.
Its hard to compare players from different eras.
Lafleur used to smoke darts between periods in the halls outside the room. Can you fathom that today ?

Todays equipment is better.and its lighter.
The players are bigger and are in incredible physical condition all year long and everybody can skate. Like really skate..4th line guys can go just as fast as 1st line guys. Not that way in the 80's. More than a few Clydsdales on teams. Guys who were as big as a BC Redwood but with one more move.
Have a look at circa 1980s pics of NHL goaltenders. Its like they are wearing sweats compared to the gear todays guys have.
Gretz filled it up like no one before him and looks like the only guy with a chance to catch him for goals is Ovie.

McDavid is still arguably tbe best player in the game today... McKinnon is close but it still takes a whole bunch of guys to win the battan death march that is the NHL playoffs...Clorado just goes deeper than Edmonton.

The better team won. Don't hold that against McDavid.