It’s the conference finals! Game four edition.
The Pacers and Timberwolves both face elimination.
Welcome to the first playoffs in any Lemmy NBA community history.
Mavericks @ Timberwolves
Gentleman’s sweep, incoming
I haven’t been following the whole playoffs super closely, but it seems like Luka’s probably playoffs MVP so far, right?
If you’re talking averages it’s definitely Tatum. OKC did well on Luka. But in terms of eyeball test and clutch, it’s Luka.
Celtics @ Pacers
Sadly, Pacers once again CHOKED the game away late in the 4th. They had turn over after turn over. And couldn’t make a shot.
Yep.
These conference finals have been horrid.
Jaylen Brown seems to have a high acceleration. The opposing team should have help defense. To the Pacers’ credit, they did their best to defend Brown for me. If there’s help defense, does he have good passing and court vision like Doncic? If no help defense, he can rely on his acceleration to score repeatedly.
The Pacers should have been able to dominate the paint, because they have bigger and stronger players.
If anything, I think the Pacers did a good job resisting doubling. The Celtic’s strategy is to always have many shooters on the court. Normally they would be able to probe the defense to draw a double team and then send the ball around to the uncovered player. To me, it looked like the Pacers kept everyone covered and guarded passing angles. Many of the Celtics possessions ended with the ball handler looking for an opening for 15 seconds and settling for a loosely contested 3.
There were at least 2 times in game 4 when Brown got past his defender and there was a help defender. I thought it was the right defensive play. Easy layup for Brown if there was no help defense.
On another note, I guess 1 of the things that the Pacers tried to prevent was the Celtic shooters getting hot. Hard to beat the Celtics when they’re raining threes. I googled. They have the most 3-pointers made in the 2024 playoffs. The Pacers rank 4th.
My fear for the Pacers is that the way they lost game 1 and 3 is going to haunt them mentally for the duration of their careers. Celtics are going to be a mental road block for them.
Is Nembhard playing for Canada at the Paris Olympics this summer? (I hope Jamal’s hungry :)
We’ll see. He didn’t sign up for the 3 year commitment. Well SI says he’ll be at the training camp for Olympics.
I love how deep the team and talent pool is!
