NBA Chatter Thread

Good game between Pacers and Bulls.

Pacers played solid D in the 4th and really forced a number of Bulls turnovers. Pacers improve to 5-0 and get their first win against a quality opponent.

Mavs vs OKC wasn't so great. :sad
 
Russell Westbrook took down the Mavs with a dizzying array of dunks & layups.

Westbrook >>> Derrick Rose
 
Texas Ace said:
Good game between Pacers and Bulls.

Pacers played solid D in the 4th and really forced a number of Bulls turnovers. Pacers improve to 5-0 and get their first win against a quality opponent.

Mavs vs OKC wasn't so great. :sad
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The Pacers may be legitimately a better team than the Bulls even when Rose gets right. Their roster is deeper and their starting 5 is more complete. The Bulls are getting nothing on offense from Noah and Butler, Boozer is prone to his 4-point games like he had last night, and Deng isn't a go-to scorer, he only feeds off others.

Without Rose dropping 25 a night that is a pretty bad offense.

Then on their bench, their best scoring option might be Taj Gibson, as sad as that is. Hinrich is a scrappy role player who can't score anymore at this stage of his career, and Dunleavy hasn't been knocking much down.

I dunno. I might try to trade Deng midseason for a scoring 2 guard off the bench and a pick or something. Then you move Dunleavy into the starting lineup. Dunleavy is an effort player who can hit open threes, but he's not getting the looks with no other offensive threats in the bench group.

The Pacers were getting good production from their bench -- Scola killed us -- and a guy like Hibbert is good on offense AND defense (whereas Noah is mostly a defender) so they can put us in some bad spots.
 
I hated the Steven Adams pick when the Thunder made it but the kid is winning me over.

He's not putting up monster numbers but he's doing a lot of the little things well. Little things like actually catching passes and finishing at the rim and making moves in the post w/o traveling or losing his dribble.

That may sound like basic stuff that any High School Freshman should be able to do but for Thunder fans that's a sight for sore eyes since we've had to watch Kendrick Perkins butcher the game of basketball.

Adams played more minutes that Perkins last night. Hopefully that continues.

I don't see Scott Brooks outright benching Perkins because Brooks is a big believer in stroking egos. So Perkins will continue to be the token starting Center for the foreseeable future.
 
Rose and the Bulls in general are just playing like outright shit, this new motion offense doesn't look suited for these guys at all because nobody can really handle the ball aside from Rose and Hinrich. On the other hand the passing and movement off the ball looks crisper with Hinrich in the game so I know that will change over time once Rose gets back to normal.

The problem is nobody can shoot the ball and this motion offense is basically just clogging the lane, we'd be better off just camping Deng and Butler out by the 3 point line, spreading the floor and letting Rose attack and kick.

I'm still confident they'll get their shit together but it's looking more and more obvious that unless Deng drops his demands he won't be re-signed, and it's probably for the best.
 
mschmidt64 said:
The Pacers may be legitimately a better team than the Bulls even when Rose gets right. Their roster is deeper and their starting 5 is more complete. The Bulls are getting nothing on offense from Noah and Butler, Boozer is prone to his 4-point games like he had last night, and Deng isn't a go-to scorer, he only feeds off others.

Without Rose dropping 25 a night that is a pretty bad offense.

Then on their bench, their best scoring option might be Taj Gibson, as sad as that is. Hinrich is a scrappy role player who can't score anymore at this stage of his career, and Dunleavy hasn't been knocking much down.

I dunno. I might try to trade Deng midseason for a scoring 2 guard off the bench and a pick or something. Then you move Dunleavy into the starting lineup. Dunleavy is an effort player who can hit open threes, but he's not getting the looks with no other offensive threats in the bench group.

The Pacers were getting good production from their bench -- Scola killed us -- and a guy like Hibbert is good on offense AND defense (whereas Noah is mostly a defender) so they can put us in some bad spots.
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I like the Bulls, but the Pacers are definitely the better team, and there's no question they are the deeper team.

They are much better at creating their own shot and getting buckets than the Bulls and that's only going to improve when Granger gets back.

The only thing that stands in their way of beating the Heat this year, IMO, is whether Hibbert continues to evolve as an offensive threat or not. If he picks up where he left off in last year's playoffs, they'll go to the Finals. If that was just an anomaly and he averages somewhere between 8-10 points a game, then it's probably not going to be enough.
 
It's easy to say the Pacers are definitely the better team when the Bulls two best players are playing like absolute shit, and they are better right now, but we'll see where these teams are in 3 months.
 
Simpleton said:
It's easy to say the Pacers are definitely the better team when the Bulls two best players are playing like absolute shit, we'll see where these teams are in 3 months.
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Regardless, I think the Pacers are the better team.

There's definitely no argument on which team is deeper.
 
Why are we talking about the last place Bulls? We should be celebrating the first place Thunder.
 
I need your love, I need your time, when everything's wrong you make it right, I feel so high, I come alive, I need to be free with you tonight, I need your love.
 
After losing to the Heat, the Clippers fall to 3-3. Not the start they were looking for.

Also, the Rockets lost at home to the Lakers. They allowed that team to score 36 points in the first quarter after giving up 78 points in one half to the Clippers just a few days ago.

If they want to be an elite team, they cannot lose games at home to a crappy team like the Lakers, and they certainly need to get their defense figured out.
 
Texas Ace said:
Crazy, but that band of nobodies is producing right now.

No team in the league is getting more production from its bench than the Lakers right now.
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Blake is killin' it with the 3 pointers. It's about time the bench guys stepped it up.
 
Texas Ace said:
After losing to the Heat, the Clippers fall to 3-3. Not the start they were looking for.

Also, the Rockets lost at home to the Lakers. They allowed that team to score 36 points in the first quarter after giving up 78 points in one half to the Clippers just a few days ago.

If they want to be an elite team, they cannot lose games at home to a crappy team like the Lakers, and they certainly need to get their defense figured out.
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I didn't get a chance to watch the Rockets/Lakers game but I plan on watching the replay this morning.

I went through the box score and saw that Howard had an average game and Dan Patrick hit on something that I thought about as I read over the box score.

Dwight Howard should have went into that game with an F YOU attitude. Instead it appears as if he deferred to his teammates and choked at the line down the stretch.

The way the Lakers and their fans dissed him you'd think he'd come in determined to drop 40 and 20 on them.

That's why I've never viewed him as an elite player that you build a team around. He's a very good #2 option but he can't be the best player on your team if you want to win a title.
 
That's always been the knock on him - the lack of a killer instinct.

He definitely should have gone determined to kick their ass, but that was not the case.
 
Just to give you guys an idea of what I was talking about regarding Adams already being a better basketball player than Kendrick Perkins.

 
Thunder beat Detroit 119-110

Steven Adams: 17 pts (7-10 FG), 10 reb, 3 ast, 3 blk, 1 stl, 0 TO, +/- of +20 in 30 minutes

Kendrick Perkins: 0 pts (0-2 FG), 3 reb, 0 ast, 2 blk, 0 stl, 1 TO, +/- of -15 in 17 minutes

What makes Adams performance even more impressive is that Detroit has some quality big men.

Enjoy your last season in OKC Perkins. :towel
 
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