The 2010 NBA Playoffs - Page 4

What playoff game? Maybe his first few series but not once he became a 60 win team. The Bulls almost never went 7 whch means he considtantly won game 5 and 6. Losing by 32 is a joke. Come to Chicago LeBron.

Bosh and Rose will get you a title.

Yeah, but if he's actually doing that then is he ever going to want it that badly? He's talented enough to win a title on talent alone with the right supporting cast- but after he gets one, if he doesn't have that fire, he's never going to be on Michael, or even Kobe's level.

Also- I wonder why I am rooting against Cleveland. God knows they've suffered enough. Meanwhile I have no love lost for Boston sports.

Well a few 20 point beatdowns courtesy of Detroit quickly spring to mind, around 88, 89, 90, and yes in the playoffs. But it might not have been in his building and they might not have been "game 5s".

Whatever, it's pointless to compare across eras anyways.

I woke up this morning to find that the Celts are actually leading the Cavs... is this a NyQuil induced hallucination?

I didn't catch the Cavs/Celtics game but I saw the score. Holy crow. Did LeBron storm off court after they lost?

Even with all the sweeps, I have found these playoffs to be pretty exciting.

As a Magic fan, I'd much rather play the Cavs than the Celtics. First, the Cavs don't have the parade of big bodies to hammer Dwight Howard like the Celtics do. And second, if the Magic do go on and win the championship, a lot of people will say, "Well, they dodged Cleveland, they wouldn't have made it if they'd had to play the Cavs."

I don't know about that, Richard. The Magic beat Cleveland last year, and they are 8-0 and clearly the class of the East this year. If they go on to win a title, they'll have to beat the defending champion Lakers. I doubt anyone will care if they don't have to go through yet another underwhelming Cleveland team.

If the Cavs lose this series the dialogue is all going to be about how LeBron doesn't seem to have that other gear like Kobe, and how he doesn't have enough support and will likely bail on Cleveland. Hell it already started last night and they're still in the series. So I think very few people would say the Magic dodged Cleveland... and maybe Cavs fans least of all.

I don't think Lebron gives a shit. He's already been anointed without doing shit to earn it. This long but great Yahoo column pretty much sums it up to me.

It's been all over the place today. I hope that I can catch some of tomorrow's game, but NBA.com's audio page has been a bastard this spring.

As a Laker fan I would rather see them play either Cleveland or Boston over the MAgic. The Lakers don't match up very well with Orlando. They have no answer for Nelson, or their other quick guards. Plus the Magic have home-court. I'm hoping Boston comes out of the East, for both the home court advantage and the revenge factor for the Celtics embarrasing the Lakers a couple seasons back in the Finals.

Edit: Lebron is getting absolutely killed on Sports talk radio today. "Overated, fraud, quitter, shoulda gone to college, no heart, can't hold Jordan's jock, not as good as Kobe, pampered his whole life, doesn't make mediocre players better." The only thing people haven't done is blame him for the oil spill.

You know what's coming out of the play-offs looking the worst? It isn't the Mavericks. It isn't Lebron. It isn't Mike Brown.

It's the NBA regular season. Anyone who thought the NBA regular season had any hint of credibility, or featured players going 100% more than 25-50% of the time (at best), has to come out of these play-offs with the wool finally pulled free from their eyes.

I wasn't really being serious. I doubt he'd tank just to be able to leave; he can leave for any reason he wants.

Like his home crowd booing him when he played hurt.

LeBron won't ever be as big as he wants unless he's in NY, Chicago, or LA. And with the performances of his help he'll only stay if he wants to stay at home more than wanting to be a billionair superstar.

If he goes I put my money on Chicago. Young Superstar in Rose and they will be able to sign(or sign and trade) another. If he and Wade want to play together(doubtful) then NY.

Chicago really is one superstar away from seriously contending. Why go to New York when it'll be LeBron, another big name, and the finest minimum contract players the NBA has to offer?

I don't know if this is true if the Celts take Cleveland in 6. Everyone has to go through someone. I sure as hell wouldn't care if people said similar bullshit if the Lakers go on to win despite Denver and Dallas, the next two best teams in the west, falling apart early in the playoffs -- everyone has to go through somebody else. Cleveland doesn't deserve to get a shot at Orlando the way they are playing.

And rightly so, on all counts.

Because New York>Chicago in terms of everything else about life and being really rich.

But he still needs to win. Harder to do that in NY.

I'm not that worried about the perception thing. It's nowhere near the worry over the Celtics' big men.

I'm starting to wonder where winning championships ranks on his personal agenda.

TNT and ESPN have to be really pleased about all these sweeps. They've suddenly got huge gaps in their schedules.

More chances to show the Lord of the Rings.

I wish NBC would get the NBA playoffs back so they can start playing Tesh's themesong again.

Which would be odd since Kobe threw a game 7.

Not quite the same situation there, though. If it's the Suns series from a few years back, Kobe had already won 3 titles, shown a capacity to be the best finisher in the league, and the Lakers weren't the favorites to win the championship.

Not saying it's 100% warranted, though. For instance, looking at the playoffs right now, I don't think anybody could say why the Cavs were the favorites, other than having the best record. As has been rightly pointed out by the media since the game 5 loss, LeBron is the best player in the series, but the Celtics have the next four best players. The Lakers, Celtics, and Magic all look deeper than the Cavs.

LeBron was a pretty big reason the Cavs were considered the favorites.

Wasn't that part a given?

Kobe wasn't going to win that game 7 by scoring 40. He barely won a bunch of regular season games that same year scoring 40, against shitty teams. He was trying to set the table and he crossed his fingers his awful teammates could make some open shots. They didn't. Kobe shot 50% that game. The rest of the team shot like 30%. Phoenix shot 65% if I remember the numbers correctly. So the Lakers threw the game 7, Kobe did his job.

Don't compare LeBron's and Kobe's killer instinct at this point, or Kobe in 2006... it devalues the rest of what LeBron has to offer.

It makes more sense to me for LEbron to win a title in Cleveland rather than just tanking it as an excuse to leave. I mean if he wins a title he can basically say to Cleveland, "Look, I won you guys a title. What more is there for me to do here?"

Hoping for a good game tonight, but part of me hopes that Lebron phones it in again just so I can see Skip Bayless go off on 1st and 10 tomorrow. That guy's hatred of Prince James is downright comical.

Bayless is comical in general.

Bulldoze the city and rebuild it so it doesn't suck?

That said, Chuck Barkley tore him a new one the other night (thank you, NBA.com) and it was GLORIOUS.

Jesus. You do realize that the Suns were the 3 seed, right? And you do realize that with 2 games left in the regular season and playoff seeding on the line that the Suns utterly dismantled Denver in order to help secure their 3 seed (which they didn't even fully earn until the next game by beating Utah in Utah)? I get that the matchup for the Suns isn't a good one because of the Lakers size, but I'm dumbfounded by how everybody is completely looking over the Suns at this point.

If San Antonio had beat Phoenix in 7 games, people would be predicting a tough series for the Lakers that probably goes 7. Instead, Phoenix handed the Spurs their butts and people are looking at who the Lakers get in the Finals as if the Suns/Lakers series doesn't exist.

Link? I checked and didn't see.

What Lebron did to Detroit a few years ago should buy him a little slack. What was it, 29 of his team's last 30 to single-handedly beat the best defensive team in basketball? He's had a couple other big playoff games as I recall.

Kobe took 16 shots. Smush Parker, Kwame Brown, Luke Walton and Brian Cook took 47. Kobe shot more 3s (8) than FTs (5). That's not a gameplan, it's a white flag.

Someone else did it for me:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...2&sportCat=nba
(the article sidebar also links to stat lines for the games)

Games like Lebron's Game 5 happen to everyone.

Please find one where it happened to Wilt Chamberlain (not being snarky, I can't find one. The man was the beast of beasts).

He was even a good basketball player!

1968:

1969:

Throughout his career, despite numerous huge games, Wilt was commonly referred to as a "loser" due to his repeated playoff losses. The more things change...

For all the hell that LeBrick is getting (and somewhat deserved too), isn't it obvious that Cleveland just isn't that good of a team in comparison to the Celtics?

The Celtics really aren't that good. The Cavs making them look this good is the astounding part.

Oh god... lets please not play the disrespect card, it's one of the most overused aspects of debate amongst sports fans.

Denver fell apart without their coach and Dallas... well I don't know what the fuck happened there. But both of these teams have a favorable regular season record against the Lakers. Phoenix can not make such a claim. Denver and Dallas both match up much better with LA than the Suns do, and apart from the mental collapse of the Nuggets LA, Dallas and Denver would have finished 1-2-3 in the west.

Farsight Kobe was trying to get his teammates involved in that game 7. Claiming he threw the game, your words, is disingenuous at the very best -- he had quite a good game. If his teammates weren't bricking wide open shots it might have been a different situation. Not a win, but a respectable score. That LA team was crushed after they definitely should have won the series in 6, they weren't going to win game 7 in Phoenix... a long rebound with 15 seconds left in Staples largely won the game/series for Phoenix.

If the game was even close in the end, Kobe would have gone for the jugular. But it wasn't close. Because no one could hit a thing. It was over. Blame on Kobe is beyond ridiculous in this scenario, and another example of the unfortunate damned if you do damned if you don't situation that major athletes find themselves in. Kobe has earned a lot of the shit he's gotten over the years, but not this game 7. 50% to his team's 30%... and Phoenix couldn't miss. Pretty obvious outcome.

Sideshow Bob got raked.