Injury impact on playoffs

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Wolves' fans know more than anyone how injuries can torpedo a season. Even in our most successful season, Sam Cassell's silly injury during his celebration dance cost us any chance of beating the Lakers. Now, injuries are rearing their ugly head in the Eastern Conference finals, with Kevin Love out and Kyrie Irving limited for the Cavs, and Demarre Carroll limited for the Hawks. I'm a huge Carroll fan, although in all fariness Lipoli was the first to strongly suggest the Wolves take a run at him in free agency last year, and would argue that his injury has had the biggest negative impact. It was clear that he just wasn't close to being able to contain LeBron in Game 2. I'm wondering what others think. Which team's chances of winning the Eastern Conference championship have been more negatively impacted by injuries?

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

One team lost Kevin Love and has a banged up Kyrie Irving. This isn't even close. It's the Cavs.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

One team lost Kevin Love and has a banged up Kyrie Irving. This isn't even close. It's the Cavs.

And yet the Hawks handled the Cavs easily at home during the regular season with Love and Carroll both healthy, and got destroyed at home in the playoffs with Love out and Carroll ineffective due to injury. I would argue that the Cavs have replaced Love's rebounding and 3-point shooting with more minutes by TT and more shooting by Smith et al, but the Hawks have nobody that can replace Carroll's defense on James. I say it's the Cavs, and the results seem to back me up. The Cavs and Hawks split this year in Cleveland, but If Carroll is as limited as he was in Atlanta last game, I don't think it's going to be pretty in Cleveland.

[Carlos Danger]

Well, I think if two out of the "big three" for the Cavs are down, then the Cavs certainly got the worst end of the injury factor. If it was only Love, then I'm less concerned. I posted when Love went down that I thought King James and K. Irving would be just fine and so far they are 6-2 without Love. Thompson and others have stepped up recently. I don't know if they are good enough to keep doing that though - we'll see. But, I'd be far more confident that the Cavs are in the finals If Kyrie was healthy. It would certainly be easier to game plan against the "Big 1" vs. the "Big 2" or the "Big 3".

[A Friendly Flatulence [enjin:8907904]]

Don't forget the Hawks lost Thabo to the NYPD

[Coolbreeze44]

The Cavs

[Monster]

Keep in mind that both the Cavs and Hawks are missing unheralded players that were out before the playoff stated in AV and Sefalosha. Almost every team left in the playoffs except maybe GS? Is missing a legit contributor from their team.

[Camden [enjin:6601484]]

Kevin Love
Kyrie Irving
Anderson Varejao

That's a lot of production.

[longstrangetrip [enjin:6600564]]

Keep in mind that both the Cavs and Hawks are missing unheralded players that were out before the playoff stated in AV and Sefalosha. Almost every team left in the playoffs except maybe GS? Is missing a legit contributor from their team.

True, but I'm trying to isolate this to the impact of Love/Irving vs. Carroll. I'm watching the Cavs demolishing the Hawks without Love and Irving, and questioning whether losing them has had any negative impact at all. If not having them has been so dire, everyone must be concluding that the Cavs would have beaten the Hawks by 20 in Atlanta if they had Love and Irving. I don't think so. The Cavs are playing as well as they can play, while the Hawks look lost without Carroll.

[Monster]

Keep in mind that both the Cavs and Hawks are missing unheralded players that were out before the playoff stated in AV and Sefalosha. Almost every team left in the playoffs except maybe GS? Is missing a legit contributor from their team.

True, but I'm trying to isolate this to the impact of Love/Irving vs. Carroll. I'm watching the Cavs demolishing the Hawks without Love and Irving, and questioning whether losing them has had any negative impact at all. If not having them has been so dire, everyone must be concluding that the Cavs would have beaten the Hawks by 20 in Atlanta if they had Love and Irving. I don't think so. The Cavs are playing as well as they can play, while the Hawks look lost without Carroll.

I didn't mean to derail the thread or anything I just thought it was something worth adding to what your I think you point of the thread. I think the answer lies in which team has had players step up more and which team was able to continue to add talent over the year. In both cases it's been the Cavs. Guys like Dellenadova JR Smith and TT have stepped up their game to new levels especially Delly and TT. Who has stepped up their game for the Hawks? Maybe Brazemore?