Re: 2015 Playoff Thread

[RosalieTCeltics]

Sam, Iggy played his butt off this series. It has to be rewarding for him after giving up a major role as as a superstar in Denver. I love to see players who give up so much be rewarded for their efforts.

Rosalie

[bobheckler]

Rosalie,

I root for all the local teams as long as they are not playing my team and his year the Warriors made it easier to do so, but make no mistake about it, my blood is green.


bob


.

[steve3344]

Hard to believe this writer lists stats that list the 1985-86 Celtics as only the tenth best NBA champion since 77-78:

http://www.nba.com/2015/news/features/john_schuhmann/06/17/golden-state-warriors-win-championship-deserve-to-be-among-all-time-nba-best-champions/index.html

I feel that Celtic team ranks among the top several teams of all time and might even be the best.

He lists this GS team as the third best since 77-78 but with that Celtic front line of Bird, Parish and McHale, plus DJ and Ainge and a bench with Walton, Scott Wedman, Sichting, etc., there's no way these GS midgets beat Boston in a seven game series. They might not even win a game.

[steve3344]

Igoudala called the "worst Finals MVP in the last 30 years":

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2015/06/17/andre-iguodala-is-worst-nba-finals-mvp-in-last-30-years/

And interestingly, Paul Pierce in '07-'08 is ranked second worst.

[Outside]

What a glorious victory for team basketball. I may be able to write something coherent eventually, but I'm basically a puddle of emotional goo at this point. Even though I'm happy, my stomach is still tied up in knots.

In the meantime, a few scattered comments.

---

I'm fine with Iguodala getting the MVP. His appearance in the starting lineup for game 4 sorta kinda coincided with the Warriors' taking over the series. That really occurred at the end of game 3 when Kerr went small-ball after trailing by 20, which was also around the time that the Warriors got comfortable with the finals' stage and upped their intensity to match the Cavs, but inserting Iguodala for Bogut in the starting lineup for game 4 was Kerr going all-in with small ball, and Iguodala's insertion in the starting lineup was the most visible "moment" representing the Warriors taking over the series. Iguodala also deserves tremendous credit for his defense on LeBron; LeBron's numbers were huge, but his effectiveness was reduced significantly when Iguodala was the primary defender.

For much of the series, I would've been fine with LeBron being MVP. He was clearly the most valuable player on the court, but I was swayed by arguments I heard from various athletes that a) the MVP should come from the winning team; and b) you can make an argument for a player on the losing team getting MVP if the series goes seven games, but no matter how well LeBron played, you can't give him the MVP if they lose three games in a row after going up 2-1. In the end, it comes down to your definition of what an MVP is -- is it the player who had the best series (LeBron), or is it the player who had the most significant impact in winning the series (Iguodala or Curry)?

By the end of the series, if forced to vote, my vote would go to Curry. Cleveland's primary defensive objective was to prevent Curry from beating them -- team-wide ball denial and physical defense to keep the ball out of his hands, double-teams and everyone ready to switch onto him when he did have the ball. Curry did the right thing and let his teammates take advantage of the openings that resulted from the defense concentrating on him so that teammates could score in the 4-on-3s and 3-on-2s that resulted from the Cavs concentrating on him (Iguodala was a huge beneficiary). Despite all that, Curry STILL averaged 26.0 points (plus 6.3 assists, 5.2 rebounds, and 1.8 steals), and he played very good defense (which I never heard anyone mention).

My real preference for MVP would be "team" because it was such a team win, through and through. The best reason to award the MVP to somebody is that it's the Bill Russell trophy, Bill Russell was there, and anything that recognizes Bill Russell in the finals is a good thing.

---

Thank you for the kind words in the wake of my favorite team winning the title. Rosalie, just so you know, I've purposely put my Warrior fan self to the side on many, many occasions when it comes to posting on this forum. For a painfully long time, that wasn't difficult to do because the Warriors haven't been a contender for literally decades. This season, that was a far more difficult balancing act. This is a Celtic forum first and foremost, and I am mindful of that. I've basically checked out from posting during this playoff run because, if I didn't, I'd be flooding the board with 5,000-word posts laced with rabid fan froth, and that would seem like hijacking the board. We're all better off letting BobH serve as the Warrior fandom spokesman during these playoffs.

...the guy he guarded, LeBron, set a new playoff record of 32ppg and averaged 36ppg, 13.3rpg and 8.8apg against Golden State...

[bold emphasis mine]

Bob, excellent post overall (as usual, of course), but one nit -- I'm curious where you got that part that I bolded. LeBron's average for the entire playoffs according to basketball-reference.com was 30.1 ppg, and in any event, numerous players have averaged more than 32 ppg. Doing a search, I found 23 instances of a player with 10 or more playoff games averaging more than 32.0 points. Jerry West tops the list with 40.6 in 1965.

Like I said, a minor point in an excellent post.

---

Well, I wrote more than I originally intended. Stuff just sorta starts flowing once I get going. The MVP discussion and who scored how many points per game are fairly safe topics. If it's okay, I'll go further into this Warriors championship at some point, once I can keep the fan froth to a minimum.

[gyso]

Outside,

Froth away, your team is on top of the heap. When the Celtics get back to the top, there will be plenty of green-tinged frothing on this board, I assure you.

gyso

[cowens/oldschool]

A few Final thoughts:

I think health was a bigger impact on how the series turned out than style of play. Look who GS could turn to off the bench, Iggy, Barbosa, Livingston, David Lee, Ezuli, now factor Cavs had no bench and how many minutes and production Cavs lost without Love and Irving. Lebron could handle the GS starters all by himself, but when you add in the opposing depth and the few minutes Lebron needed for a rest, its amazing how far he took the Cavs.

I don't necessarily think GS reinvented the game to any such degree, look how close most of the early games were, Cavs and Lebron just ran out of gas/energy and had no 3 point shooting the whole series and those injuries took out their 2 best 3 point shooters. Obviously its easy to see a few productive moments by Love or Irving could have gotten Cavs over the hump, Lebron played his heart out, he needed a few more made shots....injuries are a big part of the game. Walton in 78, Hondo in 73, Perk in 10.

As close as the series was with the depleted Cavs, gotta love the ebb and flow of a 7 game series, see how strategy, personnel and coaching can change a series. The biggest moment for GS was when Kerr inserted Igoudala, going full bore small ball and forcing Cavs bigs to play defense in space. Contrary to Sam who claims I never saw the 60's or enough of them, I was very very young, cannot remember those games to a T, this move reminded me when Russell decided to started Havlicek in a series and got great results. Maybe Sam could help us out, by what year that was?

And as I was watching all this small ball unfold, couldn't help but think how 74 Celtics and Dave Cowens could play with either of these teams, he would have been too quick and tenacious for Bogut or Mozgov, taking them outside and raining his jumper, he would have destroyed Draymond Green in the post with his hook shot and can't see anyone stopping him on the boards, he'd have a few epic 20 rebound games.

[Sam]

Maybe not.  I sometimes use two-syllable words.

Sam

[cowens/oldschool]

in what context?

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