Minnesota Sports Forum

Jimmy Butler doesn't have a brain.

Lillard. Wow,

Lillard is great. CJ is also terrific. A couple of really nice draft picks.

Billy Donovan will be the next NBA coach to get fired. I suspect he'll be terminated within the next 2 weeks.

lipoli390 wrote:Lillard is great. CJ is also terrific. A couple of really nice draft picks.

Billy Donovan will be the next NBA coach to get fired. I suspect he'll be terminated within the next 2 weeks.

If so I'll be interested to see what coach gets tasked with "fixing" the problems with that team.

I didn't watch the series but I'd guess that one thing to consider is Kanter playing against a team with Stephen Adams was a good matchup for Portland. Adams is a super good hustle big that's very good defensively as well. Kanter is a big strong guy that goes after rebounds and can get some buckets in the paint. Maybe OKC didn't expose him defensively enough or maybe Portland masks it well. It was a heck of a vet min signing. We will see how it plays out in the next series.

Also it seems like when Harkless and Aminu are healthy and playing reasonably well the. Lakers have been really good te last couple years. They are healthy and going back through the box scores from the series it looks like at least one of those guys contributed each game. It's not just about star players although you have to have them AND they have to play well. Dame played well in this series and from what I understand Westbrook and PG didn't.

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Lillard is great. CJ is also terrific. A couple of really nice draft picks.

Billy Donovan will be the next NBA coach to get fired. I suspect he'll be terminated within the next 2 weeks.

If so I'll be interested to see what coach gets tasked with "fixing" the problems with that team.

I didn't watch the series but I'd guess that one thing to consider is Kanter playing against a team with Stephen Adams was a good matchup for Portland. Adams is a super good hustle big that's very good defensively as well. Kanter is a big strong guy that goes after rebounds and can get some buckets in the paint. Maybe OKC didn't expose him defensively enough or maybe Portland masks it well. It was a heck of a vet min signing. We will see how it plays out in the next series.

Also it seems like when Harkless and Aminu are healthy and playing reasonably well the. Lakers have been really good te last couple years. They are healthy and going back through the box scores from the series it looks like at least one of those guys contributed each game. It's not just about star players although you have to have them AND they have to play well. Dame played well in this series and from what I understand Westbrook and PG didn't.

I watched every second of that game yesterday. Did not disappoint.

1. Remember that memorable playoff moment when Kanter was on the Thunder... and Donovan was caught on film saying "Can't play Kanter" because he was so bad defensively. Kanter got some payback. You're right... OKC didn't have the players/system to expose him defensively.

2. Not really sure if Donovan is the problem there though.

3. Westbrook chucked too much. He will be ripped A LOT for it. George continued his own playoff failures with 3 missed free throws and a TO in the final 2 minutes. Fortunately for him, everybody will be ripping Westbrook too much to notice.

4. Damian Lillard is having his moment. He's been a Steph Curry v2.0 already for years. He's exceptional. He was insanely good yesterday.

5. That final shot was a bad shot as Paul George said. It made the old Gilbert Arenas last-second heaves look tame. Everybody will say "who cares it went in" and they'll be right. But regardless... you give that shot to anybody every single time and you're happy about it. Incredibly low percentage heave.

6. Playoff basketball can be fun. Who knew!

Not a big Lillard fan but very happy he sent Russ on vacation. Westbrook's antics during the series were just ridiculous. He's a complete tool. And Dame is just a great player.

CoolBreeze44 wrote:Not a big Lillard fan but very happy he sent Russ on vacation. Westbrook's antics during the series were just ridiculous. He's a complete tool. And Dame is just a great player.

Westbrook is not an easy guy to cheer for... his non-stop surliness is part gimmick at this point, right? At the very least, it makes it hard to find any defenders for him at this point. He just makes himself pretty unlikable.

As for Lillard... I keep hearing/reading about how he's a great leader and is THE reason for the current culture in Portland right now. Good for him... and that franchise. Especially after what happened last year when he really struggled in that 1st round sweep. He showed his resiliency, talent and leadership this year.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Lillard is great. CJ is also terrific. A couple of really nice draft picks.

Billy Donovan will be the next NBA coach to get fired. I suspect he'll be terminated within the next 2 weeks.

If so I'll be interested to see what coach gets tasked with "fixing" the problems with that team.

I didn't watch the series but I'd guess that one thing to consider is Kanter playing against a team with Stephen Adams was a good matchup for Portland. Adams is a super good hustle big that's very good defensively as well. Kanter is a big strong guy that goes after rebounds and can get some buckets in the paint. Maybe OKC didn't expose him defensively enough or maybe Portland masks it well. It was a heck of a vet min signing. We will see how it plays out in the next series.

Also it seems like when Harkless and Aminu are healthy and playing reasonably well the. Lakers have been really good te last couple years. They are healthy and going back through the box scores from the series it looks like at least one of those guys contributed each game. It's not just about star players although you have to have them AND they have to play well. Dame played well in this series and from what I understand Westbrook and PG didn't.

I watched every second of that game yesterday. Did not disappoint.

1. Remember that memorable playoff moment when Kanter was on the Thunder... and Donovan was caught on film saying "Can't play Kanter" because he was so bad defensively. Kanter got some payback. You're right... OKC didn't have the players/system to expose him defensively.

2. Not really sure if Donovan is the problem there though.

3. Westbrook chucked too much. He will be ripped A LOT for it. George continued his own playoff failures with 3 missed free throws and a TO in the final 2 minutes. Fortunately for him, everybody will be ripping Westbrook too much to notice.

4. Damian Lillard is having his moment. He's been a Steph Curry v2.0 already for years. He's exceptional. He was insanely good yesterday.

5. That final shot was a bad shot as Paul George said. It made the old Gilbert Arenas last-second heaves look tame. Everybody will say "who cares it went in" and they'll be right. But regardless... you give that shot to anybody every single time and you're happy about it. Incredibly low percentage heave.

6. Playoff basketball can be fun. Who knew!

Good stuff Abe.

I bet Kanter is pretty happy he was able to move on from the Knicks who had both Kanter and Deandre Jordon average double doubles in well under 30mpg. I guess Whiteside doing that wasn't as special (relatively speaking) as as thought.

I wonder if some people forget that Andre Roberson played zero minutes for the Thunder this season. Even with him being limited offensively because he can't shoot that's a big deal. OKC has a bunch of younger wings that weren't up to the task this year even if they have promise. After the starters including Ferguson no wing played even 700 minutes for OKC. Ferguson is probably solid but still I doubt the plan was him being their 2nd most used and important wing this season. He turns 21 in May.

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Lillard is great. CJ is also terrific. A couple of really nice draft picks.

Billy Donovan will be the next NBA coach to get fired. I suspect he'll be terminated within the next 2 weeks.

If so I'll be interested to see what coach gets tasked with "fixing" the problems with that team.

I didn't watch the series but I'd guess that one thing to consider is Kanter playing against a team with Stephen Adams was a good matchup for Portland. Adams is a super good hustle big that's very good defensively as well. Kanter is a big strong guy that goes after rebounds and can get some buckets in the paint. Maybe OKC didn't expose him defensively enough or maybe Portland masks it well. It was a heck of a vet min signing. We will see how it plays out in the next series.

Also it seems like when Harkless and Aminu are healthy and playing reasonably well the. Lakers have been really good te last couple years. They are healthy and going back through the box scores from the series it looks like at least one of those guys contributed each game. It's not just about star players although you have to have them AND they have to play well. Dame played well in this series and from what I understand Westbrook and PG didn't.

I watched every second of that game yesterday. Did not disappoint.

1. Remember that memorable playoff moment when Kanter was on the Thunder... and Donovan was caught on film saying "Can't play Kanter" because he was so bad defensively. Kanter got some payback. You're right... OKC didn't have the players/system to expose him defensively.

2. Not really sure if Donovan is the problem there though.

3. Westbrook chucked too much. He will be ripped A LOT for it. George continued his own playoff failures with 3 missed free throws and a TO in the final 2 minutes. Fortunately for him, everybody will be ripping Westbrook too much to notice.

4. Damian Lillard is having his moment. He's been a Steph Curry v2.0 already for years. He's exceptional. He was insanely good yesterday.

5. That final shot was a bad shot as Paul George said. It made the old Gilbert Arenas last-second heaves look tame. Everybody will say "who cares it went in" and they'll be right. But regardless... you give that shot to anybody every single time and you're happy about it. Incredibly low percentage heave.

6. Playoff basketball can be fun. Who knew!

Good stuff Abe.

I bet Kanter is pretty happy he was able to move on from the Knicks who had both Kanter and Deandre Jordon average double doubles in well under 30mpg. I guess Whiteside doing that wasn't as special (relatively speaking) as as thought.

I wonder if some people forget that Andre Roberson played zero minutes for the Thunder this season. Even with him being limited offensively because he can't shoot that's a big deal. OKC has a bunch of younger wings that weren't up to the task this year even if they have promise. After the starters including Ferguson no wing played even 700 minutes for OKC. Ferguson is probably solid but still I doubt the plan was him being their 2nd most used and important wing this season. He turns 21 in May.

A lot of the "blow up the Thunder" rantings today seem a bit misguided.

The team's struggles clearly coincided with Paul George's shoulder injury. And yet, they still won 49 games. The Roberson injury also hurt. This is a team that was playing Raymond Felton in the playoffs for two years now.

The wing depth is bad. Patrick Patterson and Alex Abrines didn't even get on the court in the playoffs... Abrines left the team. Both were supposed to be key rotation guys. The core is there. And despite all his flaws... ALL of them... it's proven that star wing players can have career years next to Westbrook.

I wouldn't count out this team just yet. Ideally, Westbrook would adapt a bit and stop being the perpetual asshole on and off the court... but that's unlikely. It doesn't mean they still can't be a top 4 team in the west though.

monsterpile wrote:

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Lillard is great. CJ is also terrific. A couple of really nice draft picks.

Billy Donovan will be the next NBA coach to get fired. I suspect he'll be terminated within the next 2 weeks.

If so I'll be interested to see what coach gets tasked with "fixing" the problems with that team.

I didn't watch the series but I'd guess that one thing to consider is Kanter playing against a team with Stephen Adams was a good matchup for Portland. Adams is a super good hustle big that's very good defensively as well. Kanter is a big strong guy that goes after rebounds and can get some buckets in the paint. Maybe OKC didn't expose him defensively enough or maybe Portland masks it well. It was a heck of a vet min signing. We will see how it plays out in the next series.

Also it seems like when Harkless and Aminu are healthy and playing reasonably well the. Lakers have been really good te last couple years. They are healthy and going back through the box scores from the series it looks like at least one of those guys contributed each game. It's not just about star players although you have to have them AND they have to play well. Dame played well in this series and from what I understand Westbrook and PG didn't.

I watched every second of that game yesterday. Did not disappoint.

1. Remember that memorable playoff moment when Kanter was on the Thunder... and Donovan was caught on film saying "Can't play Kanter" because he was so bad defensively. Kanter got some payback. You're right... OKC didn't have the players/system to expose him defensively.

2. Not really sure if Donovan is the problem there though.

3. Westbrook chucked too much. He will be ripped A LOT for it. George continued his own playoff failures with 3 missed free throws and a TO in the final 2 minutes. Fortunately for him, everybody will be ripping Westbrook too much to notice.

4. Damian Lillard is having his moment. He's been a Steph Curry v2.0 already for years. He's exceptional. He was insanely good yesterday.

5. That final shot was a bad shot as Paul George said. It made the old Gilbert Arenas last-second heaves look tame. Everybody will say "who cares it went in" and they'll be right. But regardless... you give that shot to anybody every single time and you're happy about it. Incredibly low percentage heave.

6. Playoff basketball can be fun. Who knew!

Good stuff Abe.

I bet Kanter is pretty happy he was able to move on from the Knicks who had both Kanter and Deandre Jordon average double doubles in well under 30mpg. I guess Whiteside doing that wasn't as special (relatively speaking) as as thought.

I wonder if some people forget that Andre Roberson played zero minutes for the Thunder this season. Even with him being limited offensively because he can't shoot that's a big deal. OKC has a bunch of younger wings that weren't up to the task this year even if they have promise. After the starters including Ferguson no wing played even 700 minutes for OKC. Ferguson is probably solid but still I doubt the plan was him being their 2nd most used and important wing this season. He turns 21 in May.

Roberson doesn't fix the Westbrook problem which is he's not efficient enough to carry an offense with PG and the rest of the floor having non-shooting defenders like Roberson. Roberson isn't much use to them anymore because they got PG who's just better in every way. They need shooters desperately and even that probably isn't enough. Westbrook is just volume everything and when you frequently shoot around 30-sub 40% with very high volume there just isn't a path to success for you. Hindsight just bites them in the ass trading Harden over Russ. That likely keeps Durant around with Harden and they have 2 of the 5 best players in the league and now they are just left with Russ who's falling out of the top 15 at this point in this new NBA where your ball handlers need to be able to shoot.