NBA Season 2022-23

[Goldstar88]

Mavs lost 7 of their last 8. Do you think Luka wants out of Dallas now? Should we go after him?

Luka is a talented player, but he’s a big part of why the Mavs have lost 7 out of 8. He plays zero defense and is often a blackhole on offense.

[SparzWizard]

Looks like we are cemented into the 2 seed. Time to rest up and prep for the 1st round. Jimmy Butler coincidentally looked like he jumped into a time-machine today as the Heat head towards a likely 1st round matchup against us.

Eh, they're probably a bit tougher matchup than the Hawks, though I put them on the same tier as Toronto and Chicago, too. But they're clearly not the same team as last year. Their offense is near the bottom of the league, and their defense has been solid for the year but subpar in the past 20 games or so. As long as we don't pull our "playing down to their level" crap, we should easily take care of the Heat in 5 or so.

That said, we do still need to win one or two more games to solidify HCA over Denver and the West if we get to the Finals. That's probably more important than HCA against Milwaukee.

I'd worry about Denver when we get there. The West is no cakewalk either, Nuggets haven't sniffed an NBA finals before. They prob will get bounced in the second or WCF. Besides, to be the champ you gotta win playoff games on the road.

[celticinorlando]

Not buying the Heat are sanEdited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.ging until the playoffs talk. That team struggles to score and its going to take 35 plus a game from Butler to keep this competitive. I do not think he has that in him.

They are not nearly as good as last year.

[Roy H.]

Not buying the Heat are sanEdited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.ging until the playoffs talk. That team struggles to score and its going to take 35 plus a game from Butler to keep this competitive. I do not think he has that in him.

They are not nearly as good as last year.

d b a g

[Moranis]

Mavs lost 7 of their last 8. Do you think Luka wants out of Dallas now? Should we go after him?

Luka is a talented player, but he’s a big part of why the Mavs have lost 7 out of 8. He plays zero defense and is often a blackhole on offense.

Yeah, that has been my criticism of him.  In the playoffs when he often goes over 40 minutes a game, the blackhole stuff matters less since he is on the floor more, but even last year the Mavs were barely better with him in the game because he was so usage heavy (his on/off differential was much better in the playoffs when he played a bit more).  That is the part of the game that Luka is going to have to get better at.  He is never going to be a + defender (though he can at least try on that end), but he has to play offense more like Lebron did in his prime (and even Lebron's teams suffered when he was on the bench).  He just has to scale back the ball dominance.  The offense can still run through him, he just has to be better about keeping the ball moving and getting his teammates more involved in the action.

[Phantom255x]

Not buying the Heat are sanEdited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.ging until the playoffs talk. That team struggles to score and its going to take 35 plus a game from Butler to keep this competitive. I do not think he has that in him.

They are not nearly as good as last year.

d b a g

Haha I thought you were calling him a "d b a g" and was like huh? 

[Moranis]

Mitchell with his 12th 40 point game and 3rd straight.  Both are regular season franchise records for the Cavs.

[Roy H.]

Mitchell with his 12th 40 point game and 3rd straight.  Both are regular season franchise records for the Cavs.

That surprises me.  I know that historically Lebron has focused on an all-around game more so than purely scoring, but I'm surprised he never put up 40 in three straight.

[Roy H.]

Not buying the Heat are sanEdited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.ging until the playoffs talk. That team struggles to score and its going to take 35 plus a game from Butler to keep this competitive. I do not think he has that in him.

They are not nearly as good as last year.

d b a g

Haha I thought you were calling him a "d b a g" and was like huh? 

Haha.  I didn't even consider that it would be interpreted like that.  Oops, lol.  No, just letting everybody know that CIO didn't insert some horrible profanity randomly into the middle of his sentence.

[Moranis]

Mitchell with his 12th 40 point game and 3rd straight.  Both are regular season franchise records for the Cavs.

That surprises me.  I know that historically Lebron has focused on an all-around game more so than purely scoring, but I'm surprised he never put up 40 in three straight.

He has had some great stretches, but nope, no 40 point games 3 straight.  Kyrie didn't do it either.

[gouki88]

Think Kyrie might play better defense than Luka. It’s bad…

Luka’s checked out. His body language tells it all.

Unless OKC or another team ahead of them starts losing a handful in a row, I think DAL is going to miss the playoffs entirely

Yeah, it is essentially a cut and paste of what happened in Kyrie's time here. I think this is a record time for him to tank a team though, so he's still growing

[Celtics2021]

Think Kyrie might play better defense than Luka. It’s bad…

Luka’s checked out. His body language tells it all.

Unless OKC or another team ahead of them starts losing a handful in a row, I think DAL is going to miss the playoffs entirely

Yeah, it is essentially a cut and paste of what happened in Kyrie's time here. I think this is a record time for him to tank a team though, so he's still growing

Yeah, I thought it'd be fine this season, with the Mavs flaming out early in the playoffs because they don't have the necessary defensive personnel, and then after he signed a new deal he'd tank them next season.  I'm shocked by how rapidly it all went under.  Also, true to Kyrie, it will be someone else's fault.  It always is.

[SparzWizard]

Anybody listened to Richard Jefferson's tweet, basically discrediting the Celtics and crediting the Bucks and that the playoffs are what matters between these two teams lol

[Phantom255x]

Anybody listened to Richard Jefferson's tweet, basically discrediting the Celtics and crediting the Bucks and that the playoffs are what matters between these two teams lol

I honestly don't really care what the media has to say. They said the same stuff last year too. There's people who still think PHI can make a run at the Finals (lol)

[Moranis]

Dallas has 3 games left all at home against the Kings, Bulls, and Spurs.  They could easily win all of those games, especially with the Kings basically assured of the 3 seed. 

OKC has 3 games left as well, but they could easily lose all 3 as they have @ GS, @ Utah, Mem.