Minnesota Sports Forum

Q12543 wrote:

BloopOracle wrote:

monsterpile wrote:What the Celtics are doing right now is pretty impressive. Clearly one of the differences between this team with him and without him is their ability to play defense. Various guys are stepping up Jerebko looks like a legit NBA player even with one air ball. Lebron has 4 fouls in the first half.

What if they really are better without him? This is crazy to watch

They are an extremely well coached team. Just super impressed.

You also got to remember that IT was dealing with a hip injury. (He has his flaws though)

kekgeek1 wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

BloopOracle wrote:

monsterpile wrote:What the Celtics are doing right now is pretty impressive. Clearly one of the differences between this team with him and without him is their ability to play defense. Various guys are stepping up Jerebko looks like a legit NBA player even with one air ball. Lebron has 4 fouls in the first half.

What if they really are better without him? This is crazy to watch

They are an extremely well coached team. Just super impressed.

You also got to remember that IT was dealing with a hip injury. (He has his flaws though)

Yes it sounds like it was an issue for a while.

Brad Stephens really is a terrific coach.

Sometimes, defense doesn't matter.

Boston had four plus defenders on the floor at the same time for most of the game tonight. Cleveland made 21 out of 24 shots at one point.

When I see that... kinda glad the Wolves have KAT and Wiggins.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:Sometimes, defense doesn't matter.

Boston had four plus defenders on the floor at the same time for most of the game tonight. Cleveland made 21 out of 24 shots at one point.

When I see that... kinda glad the Wolves have KAT and Wiggins.

Kyrie Irving put on a show in the 3rd quarter.

Isolation basketball isn't aesthetically pleasing, but when you have a guy on a roll like that, I get why teams just clear out and let him go to work.

Great scorers can't be stopped except for very short stretches of some games.

lipoli390 wrote:Great scorers can't be stopped except for very short stretches of some games.

On the Dunc'd On podcast they made the point they thought Stevens should have doubled Kyrie and made someone else beat them. It was an interesting thought. My guess is Stevens felt pretty goood about his bevy of defensive guards matching up with Kyrie and that makes sense. There was also some transition buckets that kyrie got that you can't stop. Back to Lip's point I think it was Hordord that defended him as well as you could and Kyrie nailed a deep 3 in his face. Nothing you can do. Failing to stop Kyrie wasn't as much of a problem as converting on the offensive end at times throughout the game.

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Great scorers can't be stopped except for very short stretches of some games.

On the Dunc'd On podcast they made the point they thought Stevens should have doubled Kyrie and made someone else beat them. It was an interesting thought. My guess is Stevens felt pretty goood about his bevy of defensive guards matching up with Kyrie and that makes sense. There was also some transition buckets that kyrie got that you can't stop. Back to Lip's point I think it was Hordord that defended him as well as you could and Kyrie nailed a deep 3 in his face. Nothing you can do. Failing to stop Kyrie wasn't as much of a problem as converting on the offensive end at times throughout the game.

To be fair... it's hard to keep pace offensively when a team makes 21 out of 24 shots.

Cleveland was blistering on offense and picked up the pace significantly on D too.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Great scorers can't be stopped except for very short stretches of some games.

On the Dunc'd On podcast they made the point they thought Stevens should have doubled Kyrie and made someone else beat them. It was an interesting thought. My guess is Stevens felt pretty goood about his bevy of defensive guards matching up with Kyrie and that makes sense. There was also some transition buckets that kyrie got that you can't stop. Back to Lip's point I think it was Hordord that defended him as well as you could and Kyrie nailed a deep 3 in his face. Nothing you can do. Failing to stop Kyrie wasn't as much of a problem as converting on the offensive end at times throughout the game.

To be fair... it's hard to keep pace offensively when a team makes 21 out of 24 shots.

Cleveland was blistering on offense and picked up the pace significantly on D too.

Sure its just some commentary of things people including myself observed. I doubt we disagree on anything about this game. I'll say 19 points in the 4th quarter for Boston wasn't enough. I'd say that Cleveland won the game (predictably) not Boston losing it especially when basically nobody gave them a chance to win either of the last 2 games and they won game 3 buy 3 points and lost game 4 by 3 points. Kinda crazy really.

AbeVigodaLive wrote:

monsterpile wrote:

lipoli390 wrote:Great scorers can't be stopped except for very short stretches of some games.

On the Dunc'd On podcast they made the point they thought Stevens should have doubled Kyrie and made someone else beat them. It was an interesting thought. My guess is Stevens felt pretty goood about his bevy of defensive guards matching up with Kyrie and that makes sense. There was also some transition buckets that kyrie got that you can't stop. Back to Lip's point I think it was Hordord that defended him as well as you could and Kyrie nailed a deep 3 in his face. Nothing you can do. Failing to stop Kyrie wasn't as much of a problem as converting on the offensive end at times throughout the game.

To be fair... it's hard to keep pace offensively when a team makes 21 out of 24 shots.

Cleveland was blistering on offense and picked up the pace significantly on D too.

....but going back to Monster's reference to the podcast. Should Boston have risked trapping/doubling Kyrie to get the ball out of his hands? They never once tried this and he just kept on rolling.

I get the fact that doubling a team like Cleveland is not the preferred strategy given their shooters, but sometimes you just need to get the ball out of a guy's hands.

Eh, it's all hindsight of course. Should be an interesting game tonight. Boston has had to double down on the ball/player movement offense to generate offense without IT. It's fun to watch.

Watching Derrick Williams and that dumb mop of a hair-do clowning on the sidelines without a prayer of ever getting into a game....smh.