Bubble Talk

Yep, 3rd time will be the "charm" for Denver tonight. Time to pack it in and pack it up. Lakers in 5.

Although, I haven't heard anyone anywhere predicting a Celtics/Nuggets Final...

db

OK, so a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.  Lakers just too much.  Denver too tired and not enough fire power.  

Look for ESPN to turn up the heat on everything Lakers.  The coronation has finally begun.  Also, I don't know if you guys and gal have noticed but on the TNT promo for the Final 4, they have a picture of Jokic, Davis and Butler.  Had it for the last two weeks.  Pathetic.  If TNT has room to social distance their 4 analysts and get them all on one screen, they can sure as hell make a promo that includes JT with those other 3 buffoons. Everyone has written off the Celtics.  Where are those damn balloons?!!!

One of my favorite movies of all time is Rocky III.  Sylvester Stallone was a genius with this franchise.  As you recall in the movie that started it all, Rocky lost.  What the hell kind of movie would EVER make it and be successful with the protagonist LOSING?  Well, Rocky was lovable as well.  You have to be paying attention at the end but Rocky loses to Apollo Creed.  This brilliance with screenplay writing/story telling afforded him at least two more movies (if the first was a success) that showed a nail biter win by less than a second to the third movie where too much glitz took Rocky to fame and fortune and had to turned him back into a fighter against on of the greatest sports villains of all time, Clubber Lang.

Near the end of RIII, final fight scene, Apollo Creed is incredulous with Rocky's fighting because he is essentially dropping his gloves and begging Clubber to knock the absolute crap out him.  Apollo is literally ready to throw in the towel.  "He's losing the fight!!"  Paulie, in his infinite wisdom, just as incredulous in the other direction says, "NO HE'S NOT!!  He's winning.  He's wearing him out!!"  (Something to that effect)

The rest is movie history.  My wife's paycheck is up again on this one.  THAT is what we saw in G5 and that is what will set up what follows in G6 and G7.  That's all MIA has left in the tank folks.  Mark my words.  I have real good feeling about this.      

db

Yep just reviewing ESPN site now. Not any additional airspace in the tank for anything other than a Laker championship. MIA or BOS...no need to suit up.

I have no further questions, your Honor.

db

dbrown4 wrote:Yep just reviewing ESPN site now.  Not any additional airspace in the tank for anything other than a Laker championship.  MIA or BOS...no need to suit up.  

I have no further questions, your Honor.    

db

Nobody is assuming that the Lakers will win the championship, not even ESPN.
LA will be the favorite but the Lakers would have their hands full if they play Boston.
Miami is a nice story and plays well together as a team, but they don’t scare me that much.

Lakers are the best team left, no doubt. They probably were the best team going into the playoffs also.

you have to play the games, but make no mistake Miami or Boston will have a TALL order to somehow win over this Laker team.

Time will tell. One game at a time. First we have to play tonights game. If we play the way we are capable of, it will go another game. Lapses in judgement and foolish turnovers, and they will be on a plane tonight or tomorrow morning out of the bubble Fingers crossed

I will reserve comments on the Lakers until it matters

could our old friend Horford be sent to Sacramento in a Buddy Hield trade?

rumors are out and about.

kdp59 wrote:could our old friend Horford  be sent to Sacramento in a Buddy Hield trade?

rumors are out and about.

Kings would be complete fools to make that trade, what’s Al going to give anyone next year 8-5?

that trade has been out there since before the trade deadline in February. I have read recently that Hield is on the block, but why they would want Al and his bloated contract is beyond me.

Kudos to dbrown and Rosalis for their undying faith in the Celts. Sure hope they win tonight. God knows they are capable of doing so. Props to Brad whom I for one had thrown completely under the bus. He coached a good game, and the players responded.

The Lakers were built for a championship run this year. They possess a combination of elite talent, depth and vast experience that sets them apart from every other team.

They will have this edge against whomever they play in the finals.

The Nuggets will move on to play another season and from what I have seen they could be in contention well into the future.

Thank you worcester. I go back and forth like everyone else. I'm not a true, veteran Celtic fan like some here on the board who have seen far more than myself. I only go back to the 80's and late 70's.

The veterans on this site, and you know who you are, act like veterans. When something looks or smells bad, you tell us immediately, no holes barred. The rest of us have no question how you feel or where you stand about any situation regarding the Celtics. Just like a Marcus Smart would do. Not surprising, my wife acts the EXACT same way. I"m attracted to that attitude. It's a winning attitude.

But winning attracts many followers. That's one of the many things that attracted me to the Celtics in the first place. As most of you know by my age, I really didn't even comprehend the 60's Celtics until after Magic and Larry stormed the show. So learning of Boston's very rich championship heritage was a huge added bonus to me and made me appreciate them even more.

I hope I am right about tonight and Tuesday. I believe that I am. It's been rather spectacular with this series when you think about it. I know our guys are playing hard and playing smart most of the time. But MIA is about to become MIA. I've used to term half-assing it a couple of times to describe our effort. Yet we're not even getting blown out. Any other team would have swept us with this kind of behavior in the playoffs, especially in the conference finals. Half-assing definitely describes our G5 effort. Thank God the ass part was in the first half!

So if we finally come out and play a complete game with everybody showing up, we would win by 30-40 points. Again, we're not asking for a stretch here. Just show up and play your normal game. MIA is dog tired. We are not. Not even close.

db

Curious since we had to win a 7 game series against a full strength Toronto tea. To get here and Miami only had to play 5 games against The Bucks, and Giannis was only really there for three games.

Wasn't sure if we needed to start a separate Finals thread after G1 so I'll put this here since it deals with a fierce rival of ours.

Wow! What a start. MIA comes out gangbusters and builds a 13 point lead only to see it disappear almost as quickly as it was built. LAL had way too much firepower. How did it happen? One word we are all far too familiar with...injuries and/or lack thereof.

Every team has them. Some far more than others. Just the luck of the draw. And G1 could have gone just as easily to MIA in a route had 3/5 of LAL's starting lineup gotten unfortunately hit with injuries at the worst possible time all in one game. But winning is a game of inches. Of mental and physical toughness.

I'm going to guess even without looking that these two teams over this season had the least injuries to their starting 5.
Regardless, they play like it. Very cohesive. But every team has to answer to the Grim Reaper of Injuries and they do balance out. It is literally a race against time in the NBA season to see who can stay the least injured and have the least damage to their starting five and not having to do the line up shuffle all season long. Sound too familiar? It better.

Hats off to the Lakers. BOS and LAL will now have the same number of titles at 17. The two greatest, winning-est franchises of all time. As Paul Pierce said last night in the pregame..With great hesitation, Lakers in 4. Get your brooms out everyone. This one is a snoozer and over by Tuesday...sooner if possible. If last night is any indication, Reilly would be wise to just forfeit and save the humiliation of being railroaded and hog-tied. This series won't even be close. In the close ups of Spoelstra throughout the game, his whole demeanor changed for the previous rounds. He knows he's got nothing if injuries come into play even the slightest bit. Why couldn't this have happened to MIA last round?!!

It's unfortunate for MIA to have it all fall apart like a house of cards at the last, worst possible moment because this could have been a great series. But welcome to injuries. BOS had theirs early and often in the season and even in the post-season. And guess what? We're out. Its toll seriously effected our play the whole season. Back to our favorite word...inconsistency. The Grim Reaper catches every team and every organization.

Last but not least, you just aren't going to beat a team and organization waving the Kobe postmortem banner. How God awful would it be for LAL to lose this series under that mantra and battle cry? Even losing one game. Just forfeit MIA. Or just play the remainder of games like the air has been taken out of all 4 of your tires all at once.

But...that's the way the Heat like it. Clearly no one thinks they can do it the whole way through these playoffs. That's why they play the games out. On to G2.

db

Lakers first quarter run happened because they started playing team defense which they kept up at least through the first half, at which point I stopped watching. On offense, AD was huge but 5 players were in double figures and LA had a 9 player rotation with scoring distributed throughout. To relate this to the Celtics, by far the biggest off season priority is to sort out the locker room because they only played Celtic defense in the comeback win in game 5. Second, a veteran big who can give 20 minutes and work with Time Lord on his NBA game. Third, one more shooter off the bench.

dbrown4 wrote:Wasn't sure if we needed to start a separate Finals thread after G1 so I'll put this here since it deals with a fierce rival of ours.

Wow!  What a start.  MIA comes out gangbusters and builds a 13 point lead only to see it disappear almost as quickly as it was built.  LAL had way too much firepower.  How did it happen?  One word we are all far too familiar with...injuries and/or lack thereof.

Every team has them.  Some far more than others.  Just the luck of the draw.  And G1 could have gone just as easily to MIA in a route had 3/5 of LAL's starting lineup gotten unfortunately hit with injuries at the worst possible time all in one game.  But winning is a game of inches.  Of mental and physical toughness.    

I'm going to guess even without looking that these two teams over this season had the least injuries to their starting 5.
Regardless, they play like it.  Very cohesive.  But every team has to answer to the Grim Reaper of Injuries and they do balance out.  It is literally a race against time in the NBA season to see who can stay the least injured and have the least damage to their starting five and not having to do the line up shuffle all season long.  Sound too familiar?  It better.

Hats off to the Lakers.  BOS and LAL will now have the same number of titles at 17.  The two greatest, winning-est franchises of all time.  As Paul Pierce said last night in the pregame..With great hesitation, Lakers in 4.  Get your brooms out everyone.  This one is a snoozer and over by Tuesday...sooner if possible.  If last night is any indication, Reilly would be wise to just forfeit and save the humiliation of being railroaded and hog-tied.  This series won't even be close.  In the close ups of Spoelstra throughout the game, his whole demeanor changed for the previous rounds.  He knows he's got nothing if injuries come into play even the slightest bit.  Why couldn't this have happened to MIA last round?!!

It's unfortunate for MIA to have it all fall apart like a house of cards at the last, worst possible moment because this could have been a great series.  But welcome to injuries.  BOS had theirs early and often in the season and even in the post-season.  And guess what?  We're out.  Its toll seriously effected our play the whole season.  Back to our favorite word...inconsistency.  The Grim Reaper catches every team and every organization.  

Last but not least, you just aren't going to beat a team and organization waving the Kobe postmortem banner.  How God awful would it be for LAL to lose this series under that mantra and battle cry?  Even losing one game.  Just forfeit MIA.  Or just play the remainder of games like the air has been taken out of all 4 of your tires all at once.  

But...that's the way the Heat like it.  Clearly no one thinks they can do it the whole way through these playoffs.  That's why they play the games out.  On to G2.  

db      

DBrown,

I watched most of the game last night because my friends watched the Celtic series with/for me and they wanted to watch The Finals, so I got dragooned.

This is as good a place as any to carry on a conversation about this series.  I have an opinion about how it's going to play out (not just the final outcome, but why) and I intend to start a thread about it but I want to at least wait another few games before I do to make sure my first impressions are more than just confirmation bias of my pregame expectations.

Game-by-game thoughts are more than welcome here.


bob


.

Bob the series is over

My expectation going into the series was that the Lakers would win in 5 games.
Now, I am not sure Miami will win a game.
After their initial poor start, the Lakers completely dominated Miami on both sides of the court.
Lebron and AD can take over games and there's not much other teams can do about it.
The Lakers mostly coasted so far in the playoffs and have not had to put heavy minutes on Lebron or AD.
The Lakers role players also played great during the Lakers run which lead them to a 32 point lead.
Miami is now dealing with injuries which further sets back their chances to make this a competitive series.
I think the only question we will soon be talking about is, who will win the Finals MVP, Lebron or AD.

Don’t worry Heat are going to unveil a twin towers of Kelly O and Meyers Leonard that will dominate the rest of series....

tjmakz wrote:My expectation going into the series was that the Lakers would win in 5 games.
Now, I am not sure Miami will win a game.
After their initial poor start, the Lakers completely dominated Miami on both sides of the court.
Lebron and AD can take over games and there's not much other teams can do about it.
The Lakers mostly coasted so far in the playoffs and have not had to put heavy minutes on Lebron or AD.
The Lakers role players also played great during the Lakers run which lead them to a 32 point lead.
Miami is now dealing with injuries which further sets back their chances to make this a competitive series.
I think the only question we will soon be talking about is, who will win the Finals MVP, Lebron or AD.

The Lakers played Brad ball but with LeBron and AD as the star anchors. They came out flat but once the Lakers turned on the D the JV kids (Hero and Robinson) started missing since they were covered (and hence off rhythm) and the veterans had to work so hard to get a shot some got injured (Butler’s-turned ankle on a drive). Plus, AD checked Bam 1-1 on D which really left Miami with nothing to go to to score. I agree this looks like a sweep more than a one game blow out.

tj,

If G1 is any indication, this is what a championship team should look like. I don't even think BOS would have put a dent in them either. With all our problems exposed in the last series, we still have a long way to go before winning another championship. Getting to the finals is one thing. Winning it is a whole other ball of wax. Not sure now that we are the Official Bridesmaids, or in this case, Bradsmaids of the ECF, once we do get to the Finals is it going to take 4 or 5 times before finally hoisting the trophy.

Thanks, bobh! Sorry you got dragged into the finals. Can you feign sickness and get out of it?! Sam would probably kill us both for watching! haha

db

dbrown4 wrote:tj,

If G1 is any indication, this is what a championship team should look like.  I don't even think BOS would have put a dent in them either.  With all our problems exposed in the last series, we still have a long way to go before winning another championship.  Getting to the finals is one thing.  Winning it is a whole other ball of wax.  Not sure now that we are the Official Bridesmaids, or in this case, Bradsmaids of the ECF, once we do get to the Finals is it going to take 4 or 5 times before finally hoisting the trophy.

Thanks, bobh!  Sorry you got dragged into the finals.  Can you feign sickness and get out of it?!  Sam would probably kill us both for watching!  haha    

db

In our 2 match ups with them, we gave them big problems, first one AD wasn’t right, 2nd one Tatum went off for 41, we can match up with them better than Heat, have more elite players to attack Lebron. However playoff basketball is different that regular season and with Brads coaching...??? We need a few more pieces, they have tons of hungry veterans, Rondo has given them such a lift, Lebron can coast.

Ira Winderman @IraHeatBeat
10 mins ago
Per Heat:
Goran Dragic (left foot torn plantar fascia) is listed as doubtful to play in tomorrow's #NBAFinals Game 2 vs the Lakers.
Bam Adebayo is also listed as doubtful after a MRI revealed a neck strain (left side).
(Spoelstra says new injury for Adebayo.)

Hi,
I thought that LAL'd beat MIA but after loosing these players it becomes academic.

AK

Without Bam and Dragic the Heat have little chance of winning game 2 and once LA goes up 2-0 the runaway train cannot be stopped.

They mentioned some interesting stuff. If LA wins (bet on it) Rajon Rondo will be the second Celtics ever to win a championship with both Boston and LA.

Some of my own observations

Danny Green and Lebron James each have a chance to win a title while playing for 3 different teams. I do not know if that has ever happened before.

The Lakers have 4 players on the team that have won a championship with a different team. I cannot think of another team with a roster make up like that.