They should be, because we can score with them.
But one thing I respect about GSW is that in crucial moments in games, they always seem to make that one good defensive play that turns the tide. I've yet to see that from this Rockets team.
Official NBA 2017-2018 Thread - Final day of the regular with playoff seating still unknown
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But one thing I respect about GSW is that in crucial moments in games, they always seem to make that one good defensive play that turns the tide. I've yet to see that from this Rockets team.
guess they need to play with the same energy they did that 1 time they played the warriors.
Yall niggas tried to play howard he's finally somewhere where the team will use him in the post
he took Jameer Nelson to the finals don't ever play Howard.
When are people going ti realize that at the end of the day Melo is a loser... A talented loser, but ultimately, hes a loser...
I'm tripping off the fact that cats are blaming Melo for this shit like he's the point guard and has the ball in his hands lol
It ain't always Melo's fault. there's 2 other cats on the team who are stars as well
Im not blaming him, dont really follow OKC like that. Im speaking in totality.... Dude is a loser...
Scoring aint' the issue. Defense is the key to warriors wins. It don't really matter how many points you can score cause if you want to make it uptempo then by all means PLEASE do it.
That's what I'm saying lol
Don't really follow them, but somehow in totality we can deduct that he's a loser because of what's going on in OKC?
Melo isn't a loser he's been on loser ass franchises for sure...
The nuggets last success and the farthest they've made it in the last 15 years was when melo took them to the wcf
The Knicks hadn't even won a playoff series since Ewing was there when Melo got them to the playoffs multiple times with old ass jason kidd and rasheed wallace and extinguisher punching amare
and even got them to the 2nd round.
Knicks are doing good now not because Melo ain't there but because Phil isn't there FORCING them to run that outdated ass triangle bullshit.
OKC would be fine if they had a coach worth a damn that's why I wasn't worried about them. Still not. Won't be as long as Donovan is their coach.
They run the same plays they did when Brooks was there.
Trust me we'd rather do up tempo vs a defensive game. And if our 3 ball is falling we're every bit as dangerous as GSW
We ain't scared no more, fam... We can put points on the board.
Don't mistake me saying that as to say you're not dangerous.
I respect the Rockets.
But, the difference is that Warriors can play that defense as you alluded to so if its uptempo and 140+ game warriors will take that every night cause when it comes down to it warriors will be dialed in on both sides eventually
The only thing I would say is, James Harden be smedium in the clutch in the playoffs at time so he has to get over that hump.
You guys will tear thru the regular season Warriors need to wake up and start actually playing.
They still got a hangover.
Bruh Im in the record calling Melo a loser long before he went to OKC bruh.... Just doubling down is all...
I know. I'm on the record saying he isn't a loser. He is to blame in some things but def not all things.
No doubt hes not to blame for all the ills his teams have had to deal with
Everybody was certain that Kyrie couldn't be the man on a team, and the team win games.
So far, he has proven everybody wrong. Sure, he has a damn good coach and supporting cast with a ton of heart, but they ain't a lock to win the East, so they ain't that damn great.
That being said, you put Kyrie in the right situation and get positive results, but the same couldn't be said for Melo?
Is Melo not AT LEAST as talented as Kyrie?
You put the right pieces around - at least in his prime - and he'd be winning too.
Remember, Lebron was falling short until he beefed up rosters with elite talent. Suddenly, he's going to the Finals every year.
So far, he has proven everybody wrong. Sure, he has a damn good coach and supporting cast with a ton of heart, but they ain't a lock to win the East, so they ain't that damn great.
That being said, you put Kyrie in the right situation and get positive results, but the same couldn't be said for Melo?
Is Melo not AT LEAST as talented as Kyrie?
You put the right pieces around - at least in his prime - and he'd be winning too.
Remember, Lebron was falling short until he beefed up rosters with elite talent. Suddenly, he's going to the Finals every year.
Melo came in as a rookie and led his team to the playoffs in the west..
that team did not miss the playoffs with him on the team as the man
when he had a smidget of help he led them to the western conference finals.
he went to the knicks
when the knicks had a halfway decent roster they went to the playoffs period.
he is the one who won their only playoff series since patrick ewing suited up for them.
let's not rewrite history this shit actually happened.
and then the roster went to shit
Dudes forget about that Denver team that was in the WCF that lost to the Lakers I believe... Melo was a problem... One of the most gifted offensive players... Could post you up, drive past you, it shoot from anywhere on the court...
Every year he's had some sort of help he's been money.
When the knicks got to the playoffs rasheed and them broke down annually amare too billups torn an acl and shit all that stuff going up against kg and them and then going up against lebron wade and bosh and them
Go East, Young Stars
The power may be in the West, but a wellspring of under-25 talent has given new life to the NBA’s other conference
BY JOHN GONZALEZ NOV 30, 2017, 11:15AM EST TWEET
Getty Images/Ringer illustration
It was hard to blame Danny Ainge for having a laugh. At the time, the Celtics were still on an incredible win streak that started in the third game of the season and lasted until the night before Thanksgiving. The Celtics probably should have lost a game before the Heat beat them last week—Boston trailed in the fourth quarter in eight of its 16 consecutive victories—but Kyrie Irving wouldn’t allow it.
The young point guard, now finally and fully in command of his own team at 25 years old, has been exceptional this season. Especially late in games. According to ESPN, Irving’s PER in crunch time was an unreal 73.6 coming out of the league’s Thanksgiving break. (The best PER in crunch time was set by LeBron James at 59.3, back in 2009-10.) The Celtics needed every bit of late-game Kyrie to push past the Mavericks more than a week ago. Irving had a season-high 47 points, 10 of which came in overtime. The Celtics were down 13 points in that game. It was their 16th win in a row. Given the unlikely set of circumstances that led them to that point, you could imagine the Celtics general manager winking at his phone as he tweeted.
That certainly did not amuse round-earth traditionalists, Celtics haters, or my editor (who wanted to throttle me with a middle-school science book for being so amused by Ainge), but at the least it was an unexpected and interesting moment in a season that’s been both so far for Boston. After losing Gordon Hayward in the opening minutes of the opening game, the Celtics have been powered not only by Irving, but by sophomore Jaylen Brown and rookie Jayson Tatum. If the Celtics’ young talent hasn’t made them the most interesting team in the league to date, they’re certainly among them—which is part of the reason their NBA TV tilt against the Sixers on Thursday night in Boston is so fascinating.
What Jayson Tatum’s Success Tells Us About the Future of NBA Drafting[/paste:font]
Like the Celtics, the Sixers’ youth movement has made them one of the most compelling teams in the NBA. Ben Simmons is the universal favorite for Rookie of the Year, and fourth-year redshirt sophomore Joel Embiid—who will sadly sit against the Celtics since it’s the second game of a back-to-back—is one of the most versatile players on the floor and one of the funniest off it. After Jalen Rose called Embiid “immature” for saying he was “69 percent healthy,” Embiid went on SportsCenter and said he was “81 percent healthy”—because Kobe once scored 81 points in a game against Rose. (That last part is probably why Sports Illustrated will honor Embiid as its “Rising Star” at next week’s Sportsperson of the Year Awards.)
Between their respective kid cores and the unending story lines, the Celtics and Sixers have become appointment League Pass viewing—which is remarkable considering it wasn’t that long ago when both franchises were so down that watching them felt like work. Even crazier: They aren’t alone. There’s a concentration of new talent that’s made the league intriguing and enjoyable, precisely because of where many of those young guys play. While we were distracted by the Warriors and the West the past few years, the other half of the NBA evolved. I can’t believe I’m writing this sentence, but, all of a sudden, the Eastern Conference is young and fun.
Six of the 10 youngest teams in the NBA play in the Eastern Conference (the Sixers, Bulls, Celtics, Raptors, Magic, and Hornets). If you expand that to the 15 youngest teams, you can add the Nets, Pistons, and Bucks to the mix. Stretch it to 20, and the Hawks, Pacers, Knicks, and Heat are included. Done in reverse, 10 of the 15 oldest teams in the league are in the Western Conference.
Considering all the high-quality veterans, it makes sense that the West has been the NBA’s better half over the past decade. But while one conference racked up wins, the other tanked its way into a steady stockpile of young talent. Among players who are 25 or younger and average 15 or more minutes per game, 14 of the top 20 in PER play in the Eastern Conference. Sorted by win shares, it’s 14 out of 20. By box plus-minus, it’s 13 out of 20. You get the idea. Change the metric to something different and you’re still likely to find a host of teens and 20-somethings from the East in the top tier.
It’s no surprise, then, that the most recent NBA.com rookie rankings were dominated by kids from the Eastern Conference: Simmons, Tatum, Lauri Markkanen, and John Collins. Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma was the only Western Conference representative to crack the top five. (Sad trombone sound for Lonzo Ball.) As one Western Conference executive told me, while “the West has the Warriors,” the East has “a bunch of young kids who are going to be very good.”
Chief among them, Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is already very good. While we wait for his contemporaries to become consistent, the soon-to-be 23-year-old has emerged as one of a handful of MVP favorites this season. That will likely be true next season and for lots of seasons thereafter. What Giannis lacks in the way of an outside shot he makes up for as an all-court terror.
It’s been fascinating to watch him—not simply because he’s a physical monster who fills out box scores, but also because of how he plays the game. He’s a massive man with point guard skills, and he’s not alone on that front. Giannis and Simmons are both young, and they have similar frames and approaches that are making us change the way we think about the game.
“They have a whole different vision line than most people,” Sixers coach Brett Brown said two weeks ago, while his team was on a West Coast road trip. “They’re 6-foot-10. When you’re seeing the world from that vision line, and you have the athleticism and the length to make plays, it’s not all contingent on knocking down 3s. Their breakaway speed, along with their physical gifts and their vision line, it lets them just see the world from a whole different perspective. And so they light up stat sheets. They really make statisticians work.”
Brown said there are times when he feel like Simmons has not “had that big of an impact” in a game—and then he’ll check the box score and find “triple-doubles that you weren’t even aware of.” Simmons isn’t the only Sixer putting up cartoonish numbers. Amid a recent two-game stay in Los Angeles, Embiid had 46 points, 15 rebounds, seven assists, and seven blocks in a win against the Lakers. It was the first time since the NBA started recording blocks that a player posted those lofty numbers. “We’re seeing their future in real time right now,” a longtime league exec told me about Philly.
Indeed. As Zach Lowe noted, the Sixers’ best lineup—Embiid, Simmons, Dario Saric, Robert Covington, and J.J. Redick—has outscored its opponents by a wider margin than any five-man group in the league that’s played 50 or more minutes together. Simmons is only 21. Embiid and Saric are 23. Covington is 26. (Redick, at 33, is comparatively old, but he has a new podcast, which gets him at least a few points on the millennial scorecard.)
While the Sixers were the second-youngest team to start the season, with an average age of 24.2, the Celtics weren’t far behind (25.0, which made them sixth-youngest). Their biggest contributors this season are also some of their youngest. Tatum is 19. Brown is 21. Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier are 23. Irving won’t turn 26 until late March.
Maybe some of the other young teams in the East haven’t been as successful as the Celtics—Boston topped the latest ESPN and NBA.com power rankings—but they sure have been entertaining to watch. Considering how awful the Eastern Conference has been over the past decade, that’s not nothing.
In Detroit, 24-year-old Andre Drummond leads the league in rebounds. He’s also finally making his free throws and is putting up some historic lines in the process. Meanwhile, 25-year-old Tobias Harris has become one of the most underappreciated players in the league. All of which has helped the Pistons to 14 wins. Only the Celtics have more in the East.
In Indiana, 25-year-old Victor Oladipo (who leads the Pacers in points per game and PER), looks like the player the Magic always hoped for and the Thunder never allowed him to be. He’s been a nice complement to 21-year-old Myles Turner, who’s shown flashes that make him one of the most promising young bigs in the NBA. Together, they’ve helped turn Indiana into an early-season surprise with unexpected playoff aspirations.
In Orlando … actually, things are pretty much the way they usually are in Orlando. The Magic just routed the Thunder, but are mostly bad again, having lost nine in a row heading into Wednesday’s matchup. Poor Kevin Clark. (At least Aaron Gordon is taking 3-pointers and leading the league in unrepentant young-guy-on-young-guy crime.)
In Brooklyn, 21-year-old D’Angelo Russell was finally finding his wayand led the team in points per game before getting hurt. And in Manhattan, 22-year-old Kristaps Porzingis has been excellent as the main guy (he is second in the league in blocks per game, fifth in points per game, and 12th in PER). The Knicks have regressed a little lately as a team, but Porzingis alone is reason enough for New York to be excited.
It’s been awhile since the Eastern Conference has been this fun—and that’s without going into Embiid’s vaudevillian social media routine or Hassan Whiteside’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Instagram. Between the overarching entertainment value and the potential to provide us with some really good basketball through the next decade, it feels like the Eastern Conference is becoming the new Western Conference. I don’t feel like I’m getting too carried away, either.
“You’re getting too carried away,” a longtime league executive told me.
Which … fine. Probably. But the Eastern Conference was buried for years, and now it’s at least up and breathing again. Just wait until the Warriors (average age of 28.3 on opening night; only the Spurs and Cavs are older) finally age themselves out. The 2024-25 season is gonna be fire.
The power may be in the West, but a wellspring of under-25 talent has given new life to the NBA’s other conference
BY JOHN GONZALEZ NOV 30, 2017, 11:15AM EST TWEET
It was hard to blame Danny Ainge for having a laugh. At the time, the Celtics were still on an incredible win streak that started in the third game of the season and lasted until the night before Thanksgiving. The Celtics probably should have lost a game before the Heat beat them last week—Boston trailed in the fourth quarter in eight of its 16 consecutive victories—but Kyrie Irving wouldn’t allow it.
The young point guard, now finally and fully in command of his own team at 25 years old, has been exceptional this season. Especially late in games. According to ESPN, Irving’s PER in crunch time was an unreal 73.6 coming out of the league’s Thanksgiving break. (The best PER in crunch time was set by LeBron James at 59.3, back in 2009-10.) The Celtics needed every bit of late-game Kyrie to push past the Mavericks more than a week ago. Irving had a season-high 47 points, 10 of which came in overtime. The Celtics were down 13 points in that game. It was their 16th win in a row. Given the unlikely set of circumstances that led them to that point, you could imagine the Celtics general manager winking at his phone as he tweeted.
That certainly did not amuse round-earth traditionalists, Celtics haters, or my editor (who wanted to throttle me with a middle-school science book for being so amused by Ainge), but at the least it was an unexpected and interesting moment in a season that’s been both so far for Boston. After losing Gordon Hayward in the opening minutes of the opening game, the Celtics have been powered not only by Irving, but by sophomore Jaylen Brown and rookie Jayson Tatum. If the Celtics’ young talent hasn’t made them the most interesting team in the league to date, they’re certainly among them—which is part of the reason their NBA TV tilt against the Sixers on Thursday night in Boston is so fascinating.
What Jayson Tatum’s Success Tells Us About the Future of NBA Drafting[/paste:font]
Like the Celtics, the Sixers’ youth movement has made them one of the most compelling teams in the NBA. Ben Simmons is the universal favorite for Rookie of the Year, and fourth-year redshirt sophomore Joel Embiid—who will sadly sit against the Celtics since it’s the second game of a back-to-back—is one of the most versatile players on the floor and one of the funniest off it. After Jalen Rose called Embiid “immature” for saying he was “69 percent healthy,” Embiid went on SportsCenter and said he was “81 percent healthy”—because Kobe once scored 81 points in a game against Rose. (That last part is probably why Sports Illustrated will honor Embiid as its “Rising Star” at next week’s Sportsperson of the Year Awards.)
Between their respective kid cores and the unending story lines, the Celtics and Sixers have become appointment League Pass viewing—which is remarkable considering it wasn’t that long ago when both franchises were so down that watching them felt like work. Even crazier: They aren’t alone. There’s a concentration of new talent that’s made the league intriguing and enjoyable, precisely because of where many of those young guys play. While we were distracted by the Warriors and the West the past few years, the other half of the NBA evolved. I can’t believe I’m writing this sentence, but, all of a sudden, the Eastern Conference is young and fun.
Six of the 10 youngest teams in the NBA play in the Eastern Conference (the Sixers, Bulls, Celtics, Raptors, Magic, and Hornets). If you expand that to the 15 youngest teams, you can add the Nets, Pistons, and Bucks to the mix. Stretch it to 20, and the Hawks, Pacers, Knicks, and Heat are included. Done in reverse, 10 of the 15 oldest teams in the league are in the Western Conference.
Considering all the high-quality veterans, it makes sense that the West has been the NBA’s better half over the past decade. But while one conference racked up wins, the other tanked its way into a steady stockpile of young talent. Among players who are 25 or younger and average 15 or more minutes per game, 14 of the top 20 in PER play in the Eastern Conference. Sorted by win shares, it’s 14 out of 20. By box plus-minus, it’s 13 out of 20. You get the idea. Change the metric to something different and you’re still likely to find a host of teens and 20-somethings from the East in the top tier.
It’s no surprise, then, that the most recent NBA.com rookie rankings were dominated by kids from the Eastern Conference: Simmons, Tatum, Lauri Markkanen, and John Collins. Lakers forward Kyle Kuzma was the only Western Conference representative to crack the top five. (Sad trombone sound for Lonzo Ball.) As one Western Conference executive told me, while “the West has the Warriors,” the East has “a bunch of young kids who are going to be very good.”
Chief among them, Giannis Antetokounmpo, who is already very good. While we wait for his contemporaries to become consistent, the soon-to-be 23-year-old has emerged as one of a handful of MVP favorites this season. That will likely be true next season and for lots of seasons thereafter. What Giannis lacks in the way of an outside shot he makes up for as an all-court terror.
It’s been fascinating to watch him—not simply because he’s a physical monster who fills out box scores, but also because of how he plays the game. He’s a massive man with point guard skills, and he’s not alone on that front. Giannis and Simmons are both young, and they have similar frames and approaches that are making us change the way we think about the game.
“They have a whole different vision line than most people,” Sixers coach Brett Brown said two weeks ago, while his team was on a West Coast road trip. “They’re 6-foot-10. When you’re seeing the world from that vision line, and you have the athleticism and the length to make plays, it’s not all contingent on knocking down 3s. Their breakaway speed, along with their physical gifts and their vision line, it lets them just see the world from a whole different perspective. And so they light up stat sheets. They really make statisticians work.”
Brown said there are times when he feel like Simmons has not “had that big of an impact” in a game—and then he’ll check the box score and find “triple-doubles that you weren’t even aware of.” Simmons isn’t the only Sixer putting up cartoonish numbers. Amid a recent two-game stay in Los Angeles, Embiid had 46 points, 15 rebounds, seven assists, and seven blocks in a win against the Lakers. It was the first time since the NBA started recording blocks that a player posted those lofty numbers. “We’re seeing their future in real time right now,” a longtime league exec told me about Philly.
Indeed. As Zach Lowe noted, the Sixers’ best lineup—Embiid, Simmons, Dario Saric, Robert Covington, and J.J. Redick—has outscored its opponents by a wider margin than any five-man group in the league that’s played 50 or more minutes together. Simmons is only 21. Embiid and Saric are 23. Covington is 26. (Redick, at 33, is comparatively old, but he has a new podcast, which gets him at least a few points on the millennial scorecard.)
While the Sixers were the second-youngest team to start the season, with an average age of 24.2, the Celtics weren’t far behind (25.0, which made them sixth-youngest). Their biggest contributors this season are also some of their youngest. Tatum is 19. Brown is 21. Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier are 23. Irving won’t turn 26 until late March.
Maybe some of the other young teams in the East haven’t been as successful as the Celtics—Boston topped the latest ESPN and NBA.com power rankings—but they sure have been entertaining to watch. Considering how awful the Eastern Conference has been over the past decade, that’s not nothing.
In Detroit, 24-year-old Andre Drummond leads the league in rebounds. He’s also finally making his free throws and is putting up some historic lines in the process. Meanwhile, 25-year-old Tobias Harris has become one of the most underappreciated players in the league. All of which has helped the Pistons to 14 wins. Only the Celtics have more in the East.
In Indiana, 25-year-old Victor Oladipo (who leads the Pacers in points per game and PER), looks like the player the Magic always hoped for and the Thunder never allowed him to be. He’s been a nice complement to 21-year-old Myles Turner, who’s shown flashes that make him one of the most promising young bigs in the NBA. Together, they’ve helped turn Indiana into an early-season surprise with unexpected playoff aspirations.
In Orlando … actually, things are pretty much the way they usually are in Orlando. The Magic just routed the Thunder, but are mostly bad again, having lost nine in a row heading into Wednesday’s matchup. Poor Kevin Clark. (At least Aaron Gordon is taking 3-pointers and leading the league in unrepentant young-guy-on-young-guy crime.)
In Brooklyn, 21-year-old D’Angelo Russell was finally finding his wayand led the team in points per game before getting hurt. And in Manhattan, 22-year-old Kristaps Porzingis has been excellent as the main guy (he is second in the league in blocks per game, fifth in points per game, and 12th in PER). The Knicks have regressed a little lately as a team, but Porzingis alone is reason enough for New York to be excited.
It’s been awhile since the Eastern Conference has been this fun—and that’s without going into Embiid’s vaudevillian social media routine or Hassan Whiteside’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea Instagram. Between the overarching entertainment value and the potential to provide us with some really good basketball through the next decade, it feels like the Eastern Conference is becoming the new Western Conference. I don’t feel like I’m getting too carried away, either.
“You’re getting too carried away,” a longtime league executive told me.
Which … fine. Probably. But the Eastern Conference was buried for years, and now it’s at least up and breathing again. Just wait until the Warriors (average age of 28.3 on opening night; only the Spurs and Cavs are older) finally age themselves out. The 2024-25 season is gonna be fire.
Believe what good brother?
Yep.... did my analysis though....
I'm all in!! Bring on Da Kang!!
LOL!
I meant folks light weight hated when I was saying it....now it's being embraced
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