do work son
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Being held down by arguably the best player in the NBA is being exposed. Interesting.
2013-2014 NBA Thread - IND @ WAS and OKC @ LAC on ESPN
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Being held down by arguably the best player in the NBA is being exposed. Interesting.
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6'9 defender like Bron guarding DRose in the 4th quarter is being exposed? You learn something new in this thread everyday.
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He was also missing free throws and turning the ball over it wasn't just Bron holding him down. They had a chance to win I think it was game 3 or 4 and rose threw up an air ball with time expiring to go to overtime Bron was on him. Tho lol
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When's the last time somebody has really done well with LeBron guarding them when he really puts forth the effort?
Dudes be asking too much man.
Dudes be asking too much man.
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????? Depending on one single player to handle all of your offense, being helpless when that player is locked down?? Yes, that means the team offense was exposed. It was not built to go against an elite team in the playoffs.
I'm not blaming Rose, I'm saying the team wasn't ready to handle Miami from an offensive perspective.
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He missed 1 free throw in game 4 and another 1 in game 5. He averaged 3 TO's per game in that series. Not sure where you're going with the first part of your response.
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You really gon' make us post the video? They were up 12 with 4 minutes left. They made him look bad.
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They weren't ready to handle Bron guarding Rose. You are correct.
darthska
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I think the TOR/BK series is more entertaining than the GSW/LAC series. I actually think that series, basketball wise, is pretty damn boring.
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Bron was next level
that playoff run until the finals and wasted Wade's last year of true greatness.
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http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2014/story/_/id/10860963/is-russell-westbrook-blame-nbaIs Russell Westbrook to blame?
Let's do a little exercise. I want you to count nine Mississippis.
One Mississippi.
Two Mississippi.
Three Mississippi.
Four Mississippi.
Five Mississippi.
Six Mississippi.
Seven Mississippi.
Eight Mississippi.
Nine Mississippi.
Whew! Seems long, right? Next step: Do the same thing, but this time while you're counting to nine, I want you to imagine Russell Westbrook dribbling the ball.
I'll wait right here.
Done?
So that felt unbearably long, huh? There's a reason we did that. That is the average length of time that Westbrook has possessed the ball in between passes this postseason. Actually, it's 8.7 seconds, to be exact. Sometimes it's longer than that, sometimes a bit shorter. Almost nine seconds on average.
This is what we've learned from SportVU's 3D cameras that have tracked every possession of every game this season. Westbrook pounds the ball more than anybody in the NBA. In the regular season, Westbrook received a HabersTrophy in the ball-hogging category by averaging 7.8 seconds of possession between passes, the highest such rate in the NBA during the regular season.
You thought that was sticky? The ball has been sticking like glue this postseason. Westbrook's NBA-high ball-hogging rate has now crept up in the postseason, and he's shooting 34 percent from the floor and 18 percent from downtown. His average time of possession is by far the highest of any point guard this postseason.
And now the Oklahoma City Thunder are one loss away from a first-round exit.
Scott Brooks isn't known for drawing up masterpieces on the whiteboard. But in Tuesday's heart-wrenching Game 5 loss, there were times when it seemed he didn't even bother to use the whiteboard at all.
In what's become a growing theme in this series, the OKC offense looked tortuously stagnant once again as Westbrook missed 21 of his 31 shots from the floor, a barrage of them coming just seconds into the shot clock as Kevin Durant looked on from the periphery. Other times, Westbrook would pound the ball and pound the ball until there was nothing left for him to do but force a pass to Durant. At the 6:30 mark of the fourth quarter, he dribbled 14 times trying to find penetration before eventually fumbling the ball to Memphis in the lane trying to hand off to Durant.
Memphis knows every one of Oklahoma City's play calls, but that's like being impressed someone knows his own phone number. The Thunder run simple stuff. Often they punt after the first action doesn't work out to their liking, and the offense then devolves into awkward isolations from Westbrook. He ended up with 13 assists, but most of those seemed by accident than by design.
After a string of Westbrook isolations in the fourth quarter, Durant -- whether due to fatigue or apathy or a combination of both -- put his hands on his knees in the middle of the play as Reggie Jackson dribbled into a corner. For several minutes of action, the prohibitive favorite for MVP stood still idly in the corner, just like that. The offense has looked completely lost down the stretch. In the four overtimes in this series, Durant is 7-for-14 with 22 points while Westbrook is 0-for-14 with one measly point.
The result is that after five games, OKC is one of just three teams scoring less than a point per possession here in the playoffs. And that's including the bizarre string of lucky four-point plays. They employ two of the top scorers in the game, but they can't find any openings in this gritty Memphis defense, which scrambles everything they try to run.
But if you thought the Thunder's offense was isolation-heavy on tape, you might want to check out the following numbers. So far in this series, the Grizzlies have tallied almost 500 more passes than the Thunder. According to SportVU cameras, the Grizzlies have 1,717 passes, compared with the Thunder's total of just 1,239. And it's not getting better. Tuesday marked the widest gap of the series as Memphis moved the ball 393 times while the Thunder registered just 253 -- a difference of 140 passes.
The Thunder average the fewest number of passes of any playoff team once we adjust for overtimes. According to SportVU tracking, they've registered just 228.9 passes per 48 minutes, which is more than 50 passes below average and about 13 passes fewer than the next-lowest team, the Warriors at 242.2 passes.
Is this a season-long trend? During the regular season, the Thunder averaged 263.9 passes per game with Westbrook in uniform. So Tuesday's performance -- in an overtime period no less -- checked in below normal. The Thunder averaged 10 more passes (273.9) in their 36 non-Westbrook outings in the regular season. This, by itself, isn't necessarily an indictment on Brooks, but it's worth noting that Tuesday's iso-fest with Westbrook running the show wasn't just a one-game blip.
It's also worth mentioning that passing a lot isn't necessarily an indication of a healthy offense. According to a study by the Harvard Sports Analysis Collective, the Spurs have the highest passing score in the NBA, but plenty of teams dish the ball a ton without much success. For instance, of the seven worst offenses in the league, four of them rank in the top 10 in the study's pass score. Charlotte has averaged a playoff-high 331.3 passes per game, but they've gone fishing. So the recipe for OKC shouldn't be to pass just for the sake of passing.
But they have to do better than this. And that burden falls squarely on Brooks' shoulders. This isn't to say that Durant is faultless. After all, he did miss the free throw in the closing seconds of overtime (pardon Joey Crawford's interruption). And Durant did shoot just 10-for-24 on Tuesday to drag his postseason field goal percentage to 40 percent. Tony Allen deserves credit for much of those miscues and Durant's fatigue late in the game.
Fatigue is a significant factor. Durant has played 47.8 of a possible 52 minutes per game this series, which seems a bit excessive. Remember, he played 2,000 more minutes than anybody not named LeBron James over the past four seasons.
The Thunder are at their best when Durant and Westbrook aren't forced to do everything and they're finding open shooters, as a study by ESPN's Dean Oliver and Alok Pattani found. It's just that they were hell-bent on forcing Durant and Westbrook actions that they became predictable. To that end, their third-leading scorer, Serge Ibaka, had zero field goal attempts in the fourth quarter, and in crunch time, played more like Kendrick Perkins than a guy who averaged 15 points per game this season.
Durant needs help. And Westbrook does, too. For Brooks, time is running out.
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Damn i remember that game man such a great comeback.
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I kinda hope Tyler Ennis falls to a team like OKC but unlikely.
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He's was missing key free throws and having key turnovers in very tight spots which could have turned the game in the other direction that is where I'm going with that
Retto
formerly toretto
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In my opinionated order, divided into tiers as well...
Tier 1:
1. OKC/MEM
1A. HOU/POR
Tier 2:
3. SAS/DAL
4. LAC/GSW
Tier 3:
5. IN_/ATL
Tier 4:
6. CHI/WAS
7. TOR/BKN
N/A. MIA/CHA
Tier 1:
1. OKC/MEM
1A. HOU/POR
Tier 2:
3. SAS/DAL
4. LAC/GSW
Tier 3:
5. IN_/ATL
Tier 4:
6. CHI/WAS
7. TOR/BKN
N/A. MIA/CHA
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TOR/BKN has been a good series don't understand why its being ranked so low
Retto
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I agree, from a pure basketball standpoint. It just lacks a bit in entertainment value to me, which kinda swayed my rankings a bit..but that's moreso due to the Nets rather than Totonto.
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It was Lebron, Haslem & Bosh that were blowing up Rose's pick n'rolls
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Its hard for me to even enjoy the OKC/MEM series because I feel like I'm about to die every damn game.
My order:
OKC/MEM
HOU/POR
SAS/DAL
TOR/BKN
LAC/GSW
IND/ATL
CHI/WAS
MIA/CHA
My order:
OKC/MEM
HOU/POR
SAS/DAL
TOR/BKN
LAC/GSW
IND/ATL
CHI/WAS
MIA/CHA
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The MIA/CHA series was a joke. 
Damn Al's foot for failing him after the season he had.
That 1st quarter where he limped to 15/4 showed you what he could've done.
Damn Al's foot for failing him after the season he had.
That 1st quarter where he limped to 15/4 showed you what he could've done.
yeezusdisciple
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why the hell are 2011 playoffs in 240p :x
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