NBA thread

I did not see the PG13 trade coming,and I feel bad for Russ. It furthers the narrative that players leave because they can't win with him, and I don't think it's all his fault. Surely he has to get traded now, but who is going to take a gamble on that super max?

I'm glad Kawhi didn't go to the Lakers though. We can't celebrate the end of one super-duper team, just to get another immediately.

The Heat and Pistons have both put themselves in no man's land, so they'd be my choice. Plus the Eastern Conference sucks. The Heat are probably more likely as I don't really see the Pistons paying both Griffin and Westbrook. It would be damn interesting with those two on the same team though. 

Timberwolves fan here. They were absolutely flustered, Luka and Kyrie broke their defense and the Timberwolves didn't know how to respond. That's why you saw them scrambling around throwing every defense in the playbook at the Mavs- zone, drop, high wall, doubling both Luka and Kyrie, etc- to no avail because Luka and Kyrie were hitting everything. Wtf do you do in that situation, where the other guys are hitting everything no matter what you do? It was a tall order, but I don't think the coaching staff responded well. Comes with experience I guess.

I have to say, I did NOT expect this. I'm more befuddled than mad or sad. I did not see the Mavericks being this much of a challenge, I thought Denver was the best team in the west and that beating them meant we had more or less smooth sailing to the Finals. That did not happen, because this is a different Mavs team. They play defense and then you have Kyrie and Luka to deal with on the other hand. I think they're going to give the Celtics everything they can handle.

Thanks for rez'ing this thread btw, I had been thinking how bsn needed an NBA thread for the NBA playoffs and it turned out we had one all along! 

its interesting to me that it was Luka, not Jokic, who "solved" the Wolves defense. Kudos to Dallas, I did not see that coming. I now find myself in the awkward spot of deciding whether to root for Kyrie Irving, or the Celtics, two things I never thought to find myself doing.