i don't think there is anything strange here at all.
this season is going about as I expected. we weren't a playoff team last yr., we just "benefited" from the state of the east. the eastern conference seems better this yr. and as I said at the beginning of the season our record will be determined by how well or bad the eastern conference is. and overall the east seems better and big surprise! we are out of the playoffs as of today.
there are no mysteries with this team when it comes to why we don't play well though. when our shots don't fall we play horrible D. for a team that practices and preaches D so much i'm disappointed in this.
seconded. there was a clear divide on this site over the summer of the group that felt last year's playoff push was due to talent and cohesiveness and those that believed there was smoke and mirrors involved. I personally was part of the latter (and had many a battle trying to defend my position to the majority opposing view). People forget just how much had to go right in the last month last season just for us to sneak in at the 7 seed with 40 wins (including 2 wins over cleveland in the second to last week where they were dealing with numerous injuries one game and rested everybody the next). Miami and Indiana are drastically improved from last season, each essentially acquiring an all star in the offseason that wasn't there last year. Washington may be in trouble but they certainly have the talent to turn it around in a hurry.
I said this last year and as of this point in the year it still seems true to me, there aren't a whole lot of teams in the league you can say we are definitively "better" or "more talented" than. CBS is an advantage and a top 3 nba coach, no doubt. however by my count the only teams we absolutely can consider ourselves above as a whole are Philly, Brooklyn, Denver, LAL, Portland, maybe Utah, and maybe Milwaukee. that leaves 22 teams that have the potential to finish ahead of us IMO, of which there are at least 7 which should absolutely be considered better than us (Cleveland, Indiana, Miami, GS, SA, LAC, OKC).
also lest we forget, we were relatively healthy to finish last year. knock on wood we haven't really been bit too hard yet by the injury bug save for Smart so far, but the long season takes its toll on every team. would another playoff appearance shock me? of course not. we have the coaching and depth to pull it off. but struggling to hit 37 wins and missing the dance entirely wouldn't shock me either, especially with how much better teams that finished below us last year have gotten.
The team was 14-10 going into the Cleveland game. That's a .560 winning percentage, which projects to 46 wins. I had their upside at 48 and a 4th seed prior to the season start, so they were certainly in the hunt. Prior to this week they were doing a good job or replicating some of the results from last year's run into the playoffs.
The Cleveland game really exposed them for what they are which is a very bad shooting team. And let's face it, when you are not good at shooting the basketball, you are generally not good at basketball. That they are even 14-13 now with one of the worst shooting teams in the NBA is a good sign. The bad sign is that the teams lack of basic basketball skill (shooting) is starting to wear on them mentally, and like Crowder said you can see them hanging their heads and feeling sorry for themselves. That has to end.
