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sorry everyone. Decided to go see some music instead of writing. Preview will be up around 9 tomorrow

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It’s GAME DDDAY!!!! Woooooo!!!

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Listening to ringer podcast, I think people are loosing their mind on how Warriors have no chance. An example:

"Mavs are better because they won RS 3-1. Couple of sentences later, Suns are definitely better than Warriors. So Mavs definitely better than Warriors"

What? Completely forgets that Warriors beat Suns 3-1 in RS.

I am not saying that we handily beat them or even that we will necessarily beat Mavs in series. But people have Luca just crushing Warriors by himself - an unstoppable force, Warriors have nothing to stop him.

Let's prove them wrong, Dubs.

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Warriors were 2-2 v Phoenix this year, but your overall points stand.

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Vegas hasn’t forgotten the Warriors unfortunately.

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I'm forever going to be annoyed that the Warriors didn't get a chance to expose the Suns because it will allow people to say shit like this with no way to push back.

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The Suns showed it’s not enough to get 3 blowout wins. Let’s go shut all the bandwagon Dallas experts up with a gentleman’s sweep. Gotta get that 3rd home game $$ after all.

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For now... if we beat the Mavs, they won't say it anymore. If we lose to the Mavs, it never really mattered in the first place.

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> If we lose to the Mavs, it never really mattered in the first place.

Winning or losing to the Mavericks doesn't affect how they would have done in a hypothetical matchup against the Suns though, they are two very differently built teams.

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Dubs split the season series with the Suns 2-2. Interestingly, though, the only teams the Dubs had a losing record to in the regular season were the Nuggets (1-3), Grizzlies (1-3), and Mavs (1-3). We've already knocked out the first two - here's hoping for the trifecta.

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It's fate

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May 18, 2022·edited May 18, 2022

I'm not hearing anyone say the Ws have no chance. I'm hearing a lot of Warriors in 6 or 7 games, and also a lot of Mavs in 6 or 7. Nobody (other than media trolls) are giving any weight to the regular season games.

The general feeling seems to be that Luka will get his, because there really isn't such a thing as a good matchup for him on defense, but the Warriors could go at him on offense, make him defend in iso or run around all the screens, and perhaps start to wear him down later in the series.

Of course there are the idiots like Skip Bayless and Kendrik Perkins, but I'm not counting them.

But yes everyone is very high on the Mavs right now given their complete dismantling of Phoenix. Can't say it's undeserved.

If the Dubs bring their A-game tomorrow then there will be a different tune being sung come Thursday!

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I know Game 7 was a complete blowout, but is winning in 7 a “complete dismantling”?

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The Cavs beat the Warriors in Game 7 by a few points and to this day you'll have people saying the Warriors needed KD and couldn't have beaten the Cavs without him.

Just the nature of losing I think. The winners write history.

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No, I think people are overblowing it, as these things always go. But they did win 4 of the last 5 games of that series, with pretty big margins, and there was an obvious scheme change between games 2 and 3 that could be linked to their ability to turn around the series.

I think the Mavs are very good and present some real matchup challenges for the Ws, but it's not like this is the first time the Ws have faced a team presenting with matchup problems. Gotta play the games to find out.

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Only 21 more hours!

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Wow, the game was a free throw fest: 32 & 34 FTAs for Boston and Miami, respectively.

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I didn't watch the second half of the game, but I'm wondering if Miami can win this series if they make Brown beat them rather than Tatum

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They had good one on one Defence and doubled Rob Will on every drive in the 3rd QTR. And that meant Brown was left trying to beat 1 on 1, and he didn’t do that great

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Random observation from watching the heat celts game: mavs/dubs shoot a lot of 3s and have a more "finesse" game compared to celts/heat who are both very physical hard-nosed teams. On the one hand, that could mean the winner in the east comes out more beat up, on the other hand could mean the winner of the west won't be prepared for that (although I have to think we would be from memphis). Will be curious to see if that continues as these series play out!

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Well the OG 4 (includes Looney) have seen it all before, and yea I think the Memphis series, even the last 4 games of the Denver series, has prepared the rest of the team

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Jimmy B about to raise his coffee price to $40/cup in honor of all the 40 pieces he's dropping in the playoffs.

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The Butler did it

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The Butler did it in the living room with the knife (dagger).

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Heat: #5 offense, #2 defense

Celtics: #8 offense, #3 defense

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An absolute Jimmy Butler masterclass

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May 18, 2022·edited May 18, 2022

I loved his back to back steal breakaways, lol

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Got to the free throw line a million times, but did it the old fashioned way.

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It is his go to move…

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The ol Dwade

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Super impressive

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Yeah. I still think Boston wins the series and Miami had a big rest advantage with this game which probably contributed to them taking over in the second half but it was still awesome to watch.

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Depends in part on whether Smart can play and when Horford gets out of health protocols. Those guys make a difference for the Celts.

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Maybe. But because the games in the conference finals are so close together, being rested coming in may be a cumulative advantage. Don't know who scheduled this, but it seems crazy.

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Still overlooking Miami, huh?

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Yep, I’m thinking the same both in regards to todays game and the series. But still incredible to watch.

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What a Kobe like fadeaway from Butler there

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Sheesh, Memphis's defense gave us trouble but these two teams looks like a notch above that

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Memphis was just athletic chaos much of the time. These are legit, complete defenses.

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Man I don't know, I thought Memphis was very legit and very complete without Morant.

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May 18, 2022·edited May 18, 2022

They were really good without Ja, but I thought they made their fair share of mistakes too, especially on help defense. I think both of these East teams are better, main question is whether they can score (which was also Memphis' problem without Ja, in the end).

All of these teams are good though. NBA has great parity this year.

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I saw a lot of impressive blocks in the Celts-Heat game this evening. If we get past the Mavs, getting to the rim against either team is going to be tough. We'll need Porter and Kevon on the boards too. Of course first we have to beat the Mavs....

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Agreed.

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Defenses built to beat just about anybody.

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Let's go Heat, close this one out

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My goodness. Butler really wants that ring this year.

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One of my favorite non-Warriors. Became a top 10 player in the league basically because of confidence and because he "wants it more" lol.

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Williams did well to land safely

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May 18, 2022·edited May 18, 2022

A likely flagrant 1 coming up here for Bam. Probably looks worse than it actually was. Takes his eyes off Rob Will, the RW jumps

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I’m not sure Bam should do anything differently. Just an unfortunate play.

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author

First time in three years that I didn’t care about the NBA lottery… so much that I completely forgot it happened today

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author

I’ve been pondering how to / whether to do another Draft Tournament. I feel like it’s likely GSW trades the pick. I do have a mild ball crush on Kessler… I’m just a sucker for elite shot blockers.

If I do do a Tourney, then I guess I’d do a bracket of everyone outside of the consensus Top 20…?

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May 18, 2022Liked by Eric Apricot

Unfortunately we won't have time for it. Game 7 of the Finals is June 19th, the parade will be June 21st, and then the Draft is June 23rd.

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author

That’s a content problem I’m dying to have

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author

I guess I’ll do a Draft Tourney exactly if we don’t make the Finals

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Just gonna have to draft the next Dray/Poole/Looney I guess

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I was alerted it happened 5 minutes after it happened.

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Nothing wrong with picking #28, just sayin'.

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Got a pretty good track record with #28!

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