Topic: American Sports

@Th3solution I was replying to this a few days ago, but then I just thought I don't really want to over analyse the games, just enjoy them.

But there is no way that is ever a foul 😅 I wasn't sure if you meant the hand to hand, which is legal as the hand is considered the ball when direct contact is made, or JB's hand to the jersey, which just isn't a shove, it's barely even a touch. If people do want confirmation though, if you look at the shooters face, he doesn't even grimace or move in any way that suggested he even registered a touch on his back. And this is a supremely neutral analysis of the moment. I feel it's just people trying to make something out of nothing grasping at straws though. It annoys me when JT goes into "contact moaning mode" too, I just don't have time for the ref whining. Sometimes they miss really blatant stuff or get the rules wrong at weird times, we had our fair share of final 2 minute report apologies this season, and it's just like people just have to move on and expect consistency at best, I suppose.

And I do still think Porzingis maybe cut in front of you, but maybe not in a car, maybe in a bar as you went to order maybe he nipped in and ever since you've had a sour feeling about him? 😁 he might not play tonight anyway, so you got your wish 🥲

@Ravix Just a correction: “…he might not play tonight anyway, so you got your wish”. Should be read: “…he might not play tonight, so you got your prediction correct” 😄
I think you’re projecting ill will onto me or something. 😜 As I said, he’s had unpredictable health his whole career. How does the saying go, “The most important ability is availability.”

Actually, I’m seeing conflicting reports though. He and Mazzulla say he’s going to play, last I read. But the description of his injury sounded concerning. “Dislocation of the posterior tibialis tendon” was what one report said. I suspect he’ll try to give it a go, but he’ll be relegated to the corner threes like the way he ended the last game because it sounds like something that might affect his jumping and takeoff.

As far as the foul, I was just repeating what the (presumably unbiased) ABC/ESPN announcers were saying about the hand in the back. The hand is part of the ball, as you say. But I did learn, as did one of the announcers, that there’s a contingency on whether the ball moves and when the contact with the hand is in relation to the ball moving. They explained it on the first replay challenge the Mavs did in the first quarter which was clearly only ball and hand and clean by all those criteria, but they didn’t overturn the call because… something about the ball moved and maybe then the defender got some hand contact afterward…? Or something like that. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me but there’s some specific part of the rule there. But yeah, typically as long as you hit ball first or simultaneously then the hand is “part of the ball”. A hand on the back is often called, but yeah, in the case of that play, it was tough to tell if there was force behind it. But like I say, I’m usually in favor of swallowing the whistle at the end of the game.

Oh, and apologies if it’s over analysis. I approach sports similar to my gaming. If you’ve read my reviews and impressions of my games it’s the same. 😅 It’s an obsessive-compulsive thing my brain does sometimes.

@Th3solution oh, you can analyse, I don't mind reading it, I just realised I can't be bothered going in to the details too much apart from the stuff I find interesting. I just want to chill and enjoy an entertaining game 😁

Oh I'm definitely projecting on purpose, tongue in cheek, of course. Like I said, a bit of rivalry makes it more interesting until Dallas show up 😛 I'm baiting the universe as much as possible to make it a tough series, living dangerously haha.

But it does sound like you are bitter when you talk about Porzingis 🥲 Boston is a team, and there is no being relegated. Plus he won't take corner threes (again don't tell the mavs so they close out and open up space) you should take some shots at Tatum, I say, as we've exhausted the KP talk

But Boston is probably one of the best teams in terms of spacing, and I think Kristaps (if he plays...) will lag behind the play to draw out the big men, and maybe head to the corner, but not for shots, I don't think, as that is Holiday country. And tbh, the corners are where the crashes come from, and he won't be crashing, so I doubt KP will be in the corner much at all, unless it is what the game needs in terms of spacing. All depends who is handling the ball and if there is set playes being called or ISO

I feel like an away game is time for Tatum to bring a bit more passion, get some shots going in too, rather than just being the distraction to draw double teams. I'd love a close game with a strong showing from Tatum and Kyrie early, and it to have to fall to someone like Pritchard to attack Kyrie to wear him down on defence so he isnt effective at the end. Hauser is way overdue a hot shooting night too. I don't know if you saw the 'Hauser game' this year, but he was well on for the all time threes record by the third quarter, but he trod on a fan or coaches foot and twisted something and couldn't stay in the game 😱 but it was a masterclass of shooting up until that point

@Ravix I didn’t see the Hauser game, but I saw the collection of White games where he just went completely off the charts and hit like a million 3’s over the course of 3 games or so.

Just to beat a dead horse, 😂 let me just ask you an opinion question. Rank the following three point shooting 7 footers, in terms of who you’d prefer to have on your team if you were building a franchise:
Kristaps Porzingis, Chet Holmgren, Victor Wembanyama, Kevin Durant (well 6’ 11” but close enough), Lauri Markkanen, Brook Lopez, Nikola Jokic.

And I guess for arguments sake, just take them for where they are in their careers right now with a ‘win now’ approach. And just assume the remaining players are not yet determined and you can build from here but you have to take your big man first.

😄

@Th3solution well, I'd take Porzingis, and supplement him with Tatum, Brown, White, Holiday, Horford, Hauser, Pritchard, Kornet and Brissett, but maybe swap out Tillman as our spacing goes to sh** when he is in (at the moment, anyway. Maybe he will learn) that seems to me like a team that could... "win now" 😁😁😁 seriously though, he is a great fit for this team, no matter what you may think of him haha.

I like Holmgren though from what I've seen of him. And obviously any team would improve with Wemby, that's just obvious. It is insane seeing the things he can do. Jokic bores me, but he's pretty unstoppable and efficient in the post and is incredibly smart, but meh, doesn't fit the type of teams or style of basketball I like really. Brook Lopes is a pain when we play him, and I respect the hell out of that, he's the type of player you'd rather have on the team than face.

If the game was pick some players in any position you'd add to the Celtics in future trades when they have to balance the books or whatever I'd maybe pick, Jaime Jaquez Jr (he has stood out a fiar bit this year, and then in the playoffs even more so, to me) Chet Holmgren as he is a bit Porzingis like and would therfore fit the team, and Jose Alvarado. Or a Marcus Smart return tour?? 😅

You can probably tell the type of players I like from that, and I throw Pritchard in the mix with that as well, and obviously you must have picked up that I love D. White, and Holiday has really helped ease the pain of losing Marcus Smart 🥲 along with Brown leading with his actions more this year.

@Ravix Lol 😂 ok, ok. Maybe I didn’t quite make my point clear. Or maybe I did and you are yanking my chain.
But if I looked at the list of 7 footers and I wanted a shooter to build my team around, I’d go with almost any of those others because, guess what — they are actually reliable and you can count on them to be able to play. KP is the highest paid Celtic (by 2024 salary). Makes more than all those other guys you listed. And I understand salary does not equate to talent or value, but he’s paid and touted as a franchise player… and he plays about 70% of the games if you’re lucky, and is giving his team a whopping 20 minutes a game in the most important series in the team’s modern history. So I’m not sure why it’s such a hot take for me to say that he’s overrated. When he’s healthy, an argument could be made that he’s in the general vicinity of most of those other 7 footers (except maybe KD and Joker) as far as dominance and building a team and strategy around, but you can’t because he’s so unreliable health-wise. Anyway, I’ve beat him up enough, but I feel like I have to defend my position. 😂 Because it has nothing to do with that one time when he cut me off in traffic speeding by in his Ferrari. 😆. Made me late to the airport and I missed my flight. 😜

Anyway(s) 😛, about to start pregame so I leave it at that. Last minute prediction for tonight: score 110-107. I’ll let you guess which team has what score. 😂 Tatum will wake up tonight, and he’ll have 28 pts, 8 boards, 10 assists. Will it be enough?

@Th3solution definitely yanking your chain, as I knew it was a leading question 😛 and I know you have the narrative to uphold. But my point still remains 😁 Also I don't really care who gets paid what, none of my business, but they aren't building a team around him either, so it is kimd of moot, he is the third option and helps us remedy last seasons biggest flaw, the big man who can't space or score ruining the offensive flow. He was the available big man who can space and score and it has worked out quite well up to this point.

Score for tonight? I don't really do predictions, but let's go for 129 - 99 Dallas crowd to leave by the third quarter. For no logical reason other than to tempt the universe once more to have Dallas actually show up to a game 😛

I think it should be a close game really.

Celtics tried really hard to let the Mavs back in it by getting up big and then spending the entire fourth quarter walking it up the court and taking bad shots with no ball movement to let Dallas go on a big run. And yet... This year they manage to not lose when they do that sh** quite as much as last year haha.

They still need a good slap for doing it again. It's such an ineffective way to play with a lead and completely wrecks all of the rhythm that built up by playing Celtics basketball But they eventually realised and got Derrick White to run some plays and get the ball moving again 😬😬

@Ravix Oooh.. I was close. Yeah, this is a definitely a sweep. 😅
Pretty pathetic and embarrassing display by the Mavericks there. Kyrie gives you that game and you still can’t even really ever make it a game.

I was right about Tatum coming to life. But Brown is still series MVP imo. He takes the most high quality under control shots and better defense of the two stars and is more clutch.

@Th3solution it maybe should have been 129-99 too 😅 it was definitely a blowout game that Boston made close with poor decisions in the 4th. Even after the good 5 minutes the Mavs had 1st quarter making it look like it'd be a game, to have it be a one point game at half time and then collapse for the third quarter is pretty bad from the mavs too.

It didn't really take Luka long to start thinking negatively as well. I thought early in the first half he was definitely going to get a technical at some point, but he fouled out instead at the end. And every bit of slight contact he'd just fall over and sit there while Celtics got fast breaks 😬 that stuff just kills teams. Like I say, it annoys me when Tatum spends time moaning instead of defending. But sitting on the floor all the time is next level 😅

@Ravix Luka wasn’t good tonight. He had a decent line, but his next level development is to tighten up defensively and cut down on that complaining and flopping. I will say that I’ve never seen a marquee / face of the NBA type of player foul out that early in the playoffs. Like I said, I prefer the refs swallow the whistle, especially at the end of the game. I didn’t pay attention to his first 4 fouls but the last two were… I mean, come on — Let the guys play. I hate how inconsistent they are with the offensive hooking fouls. It’s like traveling, they let players do it all game then all of a sudden call it randomly. Ditto for moving screens and defensive 3 seconds. You can almost call some of these every single possession and I’m not sure when they decide to call them. Some players get the star treatment and some don’t. Jordan was known for always getting the calls and players used to complain that if there was something questionable it always went his way

@Th3solution hoping Kyrie be guarding like this tonight 🏆😁

@Ravix 😂 Yeah, I saw that last game.

Luka had a couple of those too. The first half he was playing matador style defense waving the red cape and then quickly spinning out of the way as they pass by untouched; then the second half he was playing NFL linebacker style defense where he just tackled them instead. Can we see something in between please?

By the way, I read something about KP trying to play tonight. 🙄 The report 2 days ago was that it was a 6-8 week injury. Uh… ok, one of those two things is a lie or a drug induced delusion. They both can’t be true.

@Th3solution I think journos are guessing a bit on the length based off other cases, which might vary in severity. I think the facts are, he wants to play and can move around fine, but because it is such an unknown quantity they have said whatever medical decides is the law and that is that. But he has still been pushing to at least try it out to see. But I assume medical will just say "we can't clear you because it might blow up your entire tendon" (I can imagine he will blow it celebrating if they do win tonight anyway, though, to be fair, so why not play a fee minutes haha)

If Boston can't stay switched on for the full 48 tonight though, you can imagine me pulling my hair out and rolling my eyes. I don't mind if they play hard and lose tonight, but if they let up for even 5 minutes, they will need a good slap. I don't like the mentality of "well, if we lose we can always win it at home" taking over. F*** that, win it there and get it done should be the mentality, at least in terms of effort and concentration. They have the chance to deflate Dallas and the crowd to get to a certain game scenario, but if it gets to that point they should step up their game and not relax. Unless it is really over and done and the benches are emptied. And even then, bench should play hard haha.

@Th3solution they said at HT that Tatum is the only player that showed up. They know nothing, he is playing utter garbage and his head has not been in it since minute 1. He won't box out, he won't attack with force, and he is just giving petty fouls. He needs the biggest of all slaps 😅

@Ravix [Insert gif of Tatum standing in the middle of the key watching Lively ferociously dunk]

Celtics just need to burn the tape of this game. They didn’t let up for just 5 minutes, they let up for 48 minutes.

Dallas role players finally showed up. And the defense in general finally showed up. And the centers finally played like they usually do. Luka was Luka and Kyrie was Kyrie. It’s the others guys who finally looked comfortable. Celtics, I don’t know. They didn’t look like their heart was in it. Honestly, I’m not surprised because you can only whip a racehorse so hard before it just runs out of energy. They’ll come out better in game 5.

Edit: Just saw this and thought it was interesting:
No NBA team has ever won a series after going down 0-3.
No NBA team has ever won a series after losing by 38+ in a Finals game.
History will be made...

@Th3solution don't burn the tape. Force Tatum to watch his facial expressions every time he didn't go for a rebound or box out. Then burn it.

It was what I mentioned a while ago, we are not a good rebounding team, we just have deceptively good rebounding stats based on execution of everything else (usually) But if the defense isn't there initially, we just ball watch and hope, which is just inexcusable. And Tatum is the worst offender. He just looked like the game passed him by from the start and it was like he was surprised anyone on Dallas dared to get a rebound. They showed the clip of him saying to his son "just one more game" and it was clear his attitude was to expect Dallas to roll over, despite saying otherwise in media beforehand.

Holiday was really trying to get it going offensively, but just had a plain stinker, which is fine, he couldn't hit a layup and kept getting sped up on his shooting, which is rare for him. Happens every so often, but it's weird to see him lack composure in the paint.

So on a night where Tatum was giving off "whatever" vibes, I think it just poisoned the whole teams mentality. Your stars can't do that, ever. And no one else had a good enough game to cover for it.

The series is incredibly intriguing psychologically now, though. And it will be interesting to see the response from both teams. Will it be that Dallas just had a last hurrah for their home fans to not get swept and they revert to type in game 5, or will Boston be stewing on this and be unable to snap out of it after 2 days thinking about how bad they were rather than just being able to get back to it the next night like in the regular season.

To me, the pressure of Boston being at home is now worse than having to bounce back away. Because if there is even a few minutes of bad play at any point the crowd will be negative and audibly groaning, and that can affect the players too.

@Ravix It is always interesting to see the psychology of it. Because you’re right - some teams just roll over and completely lose their mojo when they suffer a loss, especially a blow out. It can shake confidence, which for a skill-based game is really important. If this was a 100 meter dash or boxing, then confidence, keeping composure, and getting back into zen mode isn’t so important and you can win on pure unadulterated adrenaline and anger. But both teams have to keep focus at this point.

I’ve seen collapses before where a team has control of a series and just completely falls apart for several games. I don’t think Boston will do that. Mostly because they are so deep in their starters. So even if Tatum and Brown struggle again, someone will come through. Whereas Doncic and Irving have to both play well on the other side. Washington had a couple games in the high 20’s and helped carry them in the Clippers series, but hasn’t been dominant again. The rest of the role players are only supplemental and play off of Luka and Kyrie.

The post game comments were mostly okay, from what I saw. Although Tatum did look and sound particularly beaten and downtrodden. Coach seemed upbeat, and so I think he’ll keep them on task.

From the Mavs side, everyone seemed elated and relieved, so it might be that they just wanted one to avoid the sweep and can just call the series a success here on out, no matter what happens. That’s not a good attitude to have either. They need to have the killer instinct also, and not just coast through the next game to rush on to vacation.

In was a cool moment to see Kyrie’s and Luka’s fathers embrace and share a moment there at the end of the game.

@Malaise I hadn’t seen that or calculated it, but that is interesting. I think it was the Mavs-OKC series where Mavs won the series 4-2 but the cumulative score was a tie.

@Th3solution Joe Mazzulla loves it. So I'm not surprised at that. He thrives on things going wrong. They even started to mention this in the mainstream coverage, so the league is catching on. I belive the word they used was a "sicko" 😁 it's just how he's known to be haha.

I didn't get to see any post game coverage, I was too tired and didn't want to see Tatum sulking any more than I had to 😅

It might be a bit similar to last year when the Celtics almost came back from 3-0 vs Miami, in that the emotional effort it takes to do that means by a certain point you are drained physically and mentally. When they got it to 3-3 people spoke about momentum, but I worried about a drop off because of the way it happened. The Derrick White tip-in buzzer-beater was a hard emotional high to match in the next game. And that is why I eluded to the potential of Dallas not capitalising next time. If they used up all their effort just to "show they can do it" rather than actually wanting to do it 3 more times, which does seem like a trait they might have as a team.

If Dallas do do that three more times, all power to them and they deserve anything they get out of it. But then you'd also imagine Boston couldn't play that badly 3 more times in a row either 😬