2024 NBA Season and Playoffs

[Celtics2021]

I don't really care about standings, other than the C's having the #1 seed. None of these teams should beat the C's in a 7 game series with 4 in Boston.

Barring terrible shooting luck (like vs MIA last year, 30% vs 44% from three for the series), or injuries, C's should win the East.

In theory I want the Cs to have the 1 seed, but that also places more pressure on them to win the title. I certainly don't want to see the Cs do this year what the Bruins did last season.

The Bruins had “best record in league history pressure”, like the 73-win Warriors that also fell short.  The Celtics would just be a 1-seed — I’m not sure there’d be much additional external pressure aside from what will be there anyway heading into the postseason as one of the top 2-3 teams.

[Kernewek]

I don't really care about standings, other than the C's having the #1 seed. None of these teams should beat the C's in a 7 game series with 4 in Boston.

Barring terrible shooting luck (like vs MIA last year, 30% vs 44% from three for the series), or injuries, C's should win the East.

In theory I want the Cs to have the 1 seed, but that also places more pressure on them to win the title. I certainly don't want to see the Cs do this year what the Bruins did last season.

The Bruins had “best record in league history pressure”, like the 73-win Warriors that also fell short.  The Celtics would just be a 1-seed — I’m not sure there’d be much additional external pressure aside from what will be there anyway heading into the postseason as one of the top 2-3 teams.

Hopefully losing to Miami has the same effect on the C's that losing to the Warriors (eventually) had on Dirk. I think that's what we'd all prefer, anyway.

[keevsnick]

I don't really care about standings, other than the C's having the #1 seed. None of these teams should beat the C's in a 7 game series with 4 in Boston.

Barring terrible shooting luck (like vs MIA last year, 30% vs 44% from three for the series), or injuries, C's should win the East.

Sounds like a lot of pressure to me.
Also what a delusional way to go through life thinking the heat won a 7 game series based on “terrible shooting luck”

The Celtics suddenly always have “terrible shooting luck” when the pressure ramps up

The numbers are what they are. One team shot waaaaay over their talent level, the other shot way under. If that's not at least partially shooting luck I don't know what is.

Maybe partly. I'm not sure luck can account for an entire series.

Luck doesn't need to account for "an entire series." It was a seven game series, evener WITH the shooting luck. If the shooting swings even a little bit the c's win the series.

The c's shot 59% from two point range, and shot 22 more FT's in that series. The Heat shot 50% from two that series. Three point disparity is most of the reason the C's lost. The c's made 8 less three points despite shooting like 60 more of them.

[jpotter33]

Wasn’t there a stat that highlighted how historically absurd that Miami series was in terms of shooting discrepancies? I don’t remember what stat it was (perhaps expected field goal percentage vs actual field goal percentage?), but I thought I remember seeing somewhere a stat demonstrating how much of a fluke it was that Miami took that series with Boston missing wide open, high percentage m shots and Miami hitting tough, low percentage contested shots all series long.

[Kernewek]

Wasn’t there a stat that highlighted how historically absurd that Miami series was in terms of shooting discrepancies? I don’t remember what stat it was (perhaps expected field goal percentage vs actual field goal percentage?), but I thought I remember seeing somewhere a stat demonstrating how much of a fluke it was that Miami took that series with Boston missing wide open, high percentage m shots and Miami hitting tough, low percentage contested shots all series long.

Yeah, that's what kicked off the more general chart I put together on the last page. Lots of chatter like this:

In their nine postseason wins against Milwaukee, Boston and Denver, the Heat are shooting 46.9 percent from three - including 48.7 percent on 'heavily contested' threes.

It's historic, and timely, shooting, and it's going to be a part of this team's story no matter what happens.

https://twitter.com/CoupNBA/status/1665758646020583426

I don't like that this takes out losses, not to mention the New York series, so I made a more general % chart.

(apologies for everyone about not factoring in the 'openness', but going through and finding the 'heavily contested' threes for each game was going to be too much work. The NBA stats export function isn't very clean.)

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

Wasn’t there a stat that highlighted how historically absurd that Miami series was in terms of shooting discrepancies? I don’t remember what stat it was (perhaps expected field goal percentage vs actual field goal percentage?), but I thought I remember seeing somewhere a stat demonstrating how much of a fluke it was that Miami took that series with Boston missing wide open, high percentage m shots and Miami hitting tough, low percentage contested shots all series long.

It was definitely absurd. And for me, at least, definitely an instance of "Oh of course that happened against Boston."

[SHAQATTACK]

If Cavs get too good ,  Bron and Bronny might push their way back on 

[Vermont Green]

It wasn’t just how they were making them, it was also who was making them. Journeymen bench players. Down 0-3, we came back and got to game 7 but then Tatum rolled his ankle in the first quarter.  We had a legit shot at a historic comeback.

[Donoghus]

Far cry from the slam dunk competitions of yesteryear.

Shams Charania
@ShamsCharania
Sources: The NBA’s likely Slam Dunk Contest participants at All-Star Weekend:

Mac McClung, Jaylen Brown, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Jacob Toppin.

[Kernewek]

I had a big post that got deleted because I was logged out, but Miami's 3P performance in the play-in plus the playoffs was very feast or famine. They were about average in the play-in, caught fire against Milwaukee, struggled against New York, caught fire again against Boston, and came back to earth against Denver:
(Column is overall FG%, green line is regular season FG%, yellow line is regular 3P% and black line is 'playoff' 3P%)


Whether it's terrible shooting luck or not, I'm not sure anyone could look at the tape to find significant differences in how to defend Miami from deep between the ways Milwaukee, New York, Boston, and Denever looked to play against Miami.

Always possible I copied a row wrong, of course, but I don't think so. Data is from BBRef.

One last way to think about Miami's shooting to put it to bed (chart for visual aid): out of all the teams Miami played in the postseason, who allowed the fewest wide-open threes on their way to the Finals?

A: Boston. It didn't matter.

The numbers:
The Heat averaged 11.0 wide-open 3s per game.
14.2 Open 3's and 14.2 Wide-Open 3s against the Knicks,
16.4 Open 3's and 10.4 WO3 against the Bucks,
13.6 Open 3's and 9.6 WO3 against the Celtics.

Or, for what we really care about (New York vs. Boston):
The Heat shot 31.8% on open 3s and 37.6% on wide-open 3s against the Knicks.

Against the Celtics these numbers were 42.1% and 58.2%.

I've been up for a while, so my numbers might be off, but the upshot is that Miami made something like 15% more open- and wide-open threes against us compared to their shooting against New York even though they were getting... 19% fewer of those looks in total? (23.2/28.4)

In the words of the best Steven A Smith parody on the internet: "To me, that's preposterous. Crab Rangoon, things of that nature."

[No Nickname]

Is there a search function on the message boards?  Apologies for this if it's old news.

Just saw that there's interest in Marcus Smart from the Lakers and Bucks.  Ugggh, I'd hate to go up against either of them if they had Smart. 

https://x.com/TheDunkCentral/status/1753431524781760718?s=20

 

[Neurotic Guy]

Far cry from the slam dunk competitions of yesteryear.

Shams Charania
@ShamsCharania
Sources: The NBA’s likely Slam Dunk Contest participants at All-Star Weekend:

Mac McClung, Jaylen Brown, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Jacob Toppin.

Still doesn’t interest me. 

[MattyIce]

Is there a search function on the message boards?  Apologies for this if it's old news.

Just saw that there's interest in Marcus Smart from the Lakers and Bucks.  Ugggh, I'd hate to go up against either of them if they had Smart. 

https://x.com/TheDunkCentral/status/1753431524781760718?s=20

it would be reminiscent of rondo on the bulls blowing up our plays on the floor and from the sidelines during that playoff series til he got injured

[Celtics2021]

Is there a search function on the message boards?  Apologies for this if it's old news.

Just saw that there's interest in Marcus Smart from the Lakers and Bucks.  Ugggh, I'd hate to go up against either of them if they had Smart. 

https://x.com/TheDunkCentral/status/1753431524781760718?s=20

Sure there's interest, but the Grizzlies just traded two firsts for Smart and they’re going to turn around and trade him for Connaughton and Portis, and a 2nd from Milwaukee? The Lakers have slightly better assets, but not much.  It’s not like Smart is on an expiring deal — Memphis has no need to move him.

[celticsclay]

Is there a search function on the message boards?  Apologies for this if it's old news.

Just saw that there's interest in Marcus Smart from the Lakers and Bucks.  Ugggh, I'd hate to go up against either of them if they had Smart. 

https://x.com/TheDunkCentral/status/1753431524781760718?s=20

You are leaving out the key part of the report which is that grizzlies have no interest in trading him and rebuffed the suiters