NBA 2025-26 Season Thread: THE NY KNICKS ARE CHAMPIONS! BING BONG!
Lettuce NBA!
and lettuce lol @ James Harden
OG Q on friday, whatever that means
would assume he is out but maybe it isnt that bad of an injury
My guess is if he plays he’d be maximum 60% health.
Usually the playoff narrative for players is really just some players running hot or cold, but James Harden should be kept out of the HOF for how much he ****ing sucks in the playoffs. It's embarrassing.
Usually the playoff narrative for players is really just some players running hot or cold, but James Harden should be kept out of the HOF for how much he ****ing sucks in the playoffs. It's embarrassing.
all the TZ points
not only his beard ass ugly, his haircut looks like Chet's hair is running away from his face.
Usually the playoff narrative for players is really just some players running hot or cold, but James Harden should be kept out of the HOF for how much he ****ing sucks in the playoffs. It's embarrassing.
The most typical profile you see for great players is higher raw scoring (because of usage and minutes) and slightly lower efficiency in the playoffs than in the regular season. Curry, Lebron, Giannis, Jokic, Durant, Tatum, SGA. They all fit this pattern. Dame, Embiid, and Harden have the most notable drop in efficiency. Booker and Kawhi were the only great players I found who seemingly become more efficient in the playoffs. Harden is close to unique in that his raw scoring and efficiency go down in the playoffs, which isn't great. Most of his dropoff has been in the last several years as compared to earlier in his career.
cry more, lolkers. seriously
how embarrassing after an 18-point loss where sga only played 28 minutes bc of foul trouble. shameless bitches
OKC gets a rigged whistle. Refs practically ensured they’d cover the spread down the stretch.
Like why do we even watch them?
John Stockton might be the most underrated playoff decliner. Jordan of course got better atb in the playoffs.
cry more, lolkers. seriously
how embarrassing after an 18-point loss where sga only played 28 minutes bc of foul trouble. shameless bitches
Foul trouble is one of the dumbest things that I've never understood. SGA finished the game with 4 fouls. So teams just punish themselves by taking a player out, when the only penalty is that he might eventually be forced to come out. Makes no sense. This always happens, early "foul trouble" reduces a players minutes, and then they finish the game with only 3 or 4 fouls anyways. It blows my mind and has for 30 years.
It would be like a baseball batter changing his swing to protect the strike zone when there's 1 strike on him, instead of doing so when there's 2 strikes (if doing so at all). Or an NFL team punting on 3rd down because they're scared that they'll be forced to punt on the 4th down.
Well you can stay on the court and just get attacked relentlessly or you can take the pine and think about not fouling for a few minutes
I've yet to see anyone ever explain legitimately how anything is better than just playing your regular rotation and ignoring "foul trouble" until somebody actually fouls out.
Marcus Smart +2 in 34 minutes.
Laravia is absolutely unplayable right now. He looks completely lost out there.
Lakers can't get anything inside with Holmgren/Hartenstein in there. So why struggle with so many turnovers trying to get inside? They need to be shooting more 3's, running hot on 3s is basically their only chance. They were 11/29 on 3's this game, and yet they kept trying to drive or pass to the inside and it resulted in mostly turnovers and blocked shots.
Also, it feels like Hartenstein and Holmgren are basically 2 bigs. I guess because Holmgren can shoot 3's this can work? The Lakers have never, absolutely never, played Ayton and Hayes at the same time. I'd be curious to see what would happen if they ever tried this for a few minutes instead of playing Laravia who is utterly useless right now. I think because Laravia was so bad, Reddick tried playing Adou Thiero.
There once was a mod named McLovin
When he should have been folding he was shovin
Gaga went over his head
In his own frickin thread
And got him fired never to work on the internet again then he lost his mind everlovin!
That was Lebron's 300th play-off game.
If you don't already know who's 2nd on that list, it's a bit of a surprise.
I've yet to see anyone ever explain legitimately how anything is better than just playing your regular rotation and ignoring "foul trouble" until somebody actually fouls out.
As long as your players don't play "carefully" (i.e,, much less effectively on defense) because of their fouls, there is no no justification for taking the penalty of not playing your best players before the penalty is imposed upon you.
That was Lebron's 300th play-off game.
If you don't already know who's 2nd on that list, it's a bit of a surprise.
I think it’s my least favorite player of all time, Derek Fisher?
I've yet to see anyone ever explain legitimately how anything is better than just playing your regular rotation and ignoring "foul trouble" until somebody actually fouls out.
Ignoring foul trouble 100% isn’t optimal but it’s much closer to optimal than whatever the coaches do now, much less what they used to do 10-20 years ago. It’s sort of how always going for it on 4th and short isn’t optimal in football but it’s way better than whatever coaches used to do (I haven’t followed football in 10+ years but afaik coaches are a lot less terrible at this nowadays).
It’s crazy how much irrational, risk adverse behavior has always been baked into these hyper competitive, high performance leagues.
OKC gets a rigged whistle. Refs practically ensured they’d cover the spread down the stretch.
Like why do we even watch them?
The refs obviously aren't why the Lakers lost, but how OKC is officiated is a problem for the entire league. I've said it before... OKC is already good enough to not be coached to do this BS. But they are being coached to hold, push, grab, hack on every defensive possession. As JJ sarcastically said, they are the most disruptive team in the NBA that doesn't foul.
Then you combine that with the flops, the foul baiting, and all the touch fouls they get on the offensive end, and it's just impossible to compete. They are being coached not to complain to the refs, and just hold and be overly aggressive on the defensive end. They literally foul every defensive possession, knowing the refs won't call it every time.
It's smart... but it's not enjoyable to watch imho (I guess unless you're an OKC fan).
There once was a mod named McLovin
When he should have been folding he was shovin
Gaga went over his head
In his own frickin thread
And got him fired never to work on the internet again then he lost his mind everlovin!
Work???
I volunteer.
yes i never understood the "he's in foul trouble, we need to take him out" mindset
so... to avoid the punishment of not having that player on the court... you're going to... checks notes... take the player off the court voluntarily?
like i get it, they want to have him in crunch time
but wouldn't it be better to get 28 minutes with the guy fouling out early in the 4th quarter than to get 20 minutes out of him?
Foul trouble is one of the dumbest things that I've never understood. SGA finished the game with 4 fouls. So teams just punish themselves by taking a player out, when the only penalty is that he might eventually be forced to come out. Makes no sense. This always happens, early "foul trouble" reduces a players minutes, and then they finish the game with only 3 or 4 fouls any
in this case i wonder if the coach left it because the lineup was doing good without him. iirc the game was ~even when sga sat down in q3, and then they broke it open after that (yeah, looking at it now okc was +14 in that quarter). coaches tend to let it ride in situations like that. kind of a win-win to have that and save sga's fouls for q4 at the same time.
The refs obviously aren't why the Lakers lost, but how OKC is officiated is a problem for the entire league. I've said it before... OKC is already good enough to not be coached to do this BS. But they are being coached to hold, push, grab, hack on every defensive possession. As JJ sarcastically said, they are the most disruptive team in the NBA that doesn't foul.Then you combin
Its like Silver is doing his best to manufacture a dynasty…
Via the
Lie
Cheat
Steal
Method
