Did the Cavs just make a horrible mistake

[celticsclay]

He played what, 40-41 minutes before overtime and looked great doing it.  Got to the basket a few times and finished.  Played efficiently aside from a few hero shots.  Made a game-saving block on Curry with 24 seconds left to go in the game.

It's easy to blame Blatt and the medical staff in retrospect, but what do you want them to do?  Sit Kyrie out in OT because it's 5 minutes of extra play, even though he was looking fine before that?  Play Dellavedova instead?  Imagine the flak Blatt would have gotten if he did that and the Cavs ended up losing.  Every Cavs fan would be incredulous if he made that decision.

Those 5 minutes could potentially decide the outcome of entire series.  The Cavs had a chance to steal game 1 on the road and they went for it.  Can't fault them for that.

He played the first 18 minutes of the game. He gave Mozgov a breather after 9. Yes it is results oriented, but it is reasonable to say they could have given him 3 minutes of rest  towards the end of the first quarter and another 4 in the second. I would have the same argument towards Stevens if he played Smart the first 18 minutes of game time coming off an injury with his first intense play in two weeks.

[MJohnnyboy]

I don't think they had a much of a choice. If the Cavs want to win they need consistently good production from 40+ minutes of Kyrie and James to even compete with the Warriors. That's what happened last night. Frankly I think even with a healthy Love and Irving the Warriors still beat the Cavs but this is a shame that this had to happen. As much as I love seeing Lebron lose, I want to see him lose at full strength, not when his resources are down.

Golden State, one of the most remarkable teams in recent memory, gets a cakewalk to the championship. Hopefully things will be harder next season with OKC back to full strength with their squad.

Seriously though, the 2015 NBA playoffs have reallllllly sucked.

[D.o.s.]

I don't think they had a much of a choice. If the Cavs want to win they need consistently good production from 40+ minutes of Kyrie and James to even compete with the Warriors. That's what happened last night.

This is how I feel about it to. And, like our 'troll' was saying, we'd all be reading the 'Blatt should be fired/Kyrie is a Edited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline./Back in the GOOD OLD DAYS/Willis Reed wasn't a Edited.  Profanity and masked profanity are against forum rules and may result in discipline.' threads right now if he'd sat Irving after 40 minutes or whatever arbitrary number you want to sett.

[SCeltic34]

He played what, 40-41 minutes before overtime and looked great doing it.  Got to the basket a few times and finished.  Played efficiently aside from a few hero shots.  Made a game-saving block on Curry with 24 seconds left to go in the game.

It's easy to blame Blatt and the medical staff in retrospect, but what do you want them to do?  Sit Kyrie out in OT because it's 5 minutes of extra play, even though he was looking fine before that?  Play Dellavedova instead?  Imagine the flak Blatt would have gotten if he did that and the Cavs ended up losing.  Every Cavs fan would be incredulous if he made that decision.

Those 5 minutes could potentially decide the outcome of entire series.  The Cavs had a chance to steal game 1 on the road and they went for it.  Can't fault them for that.

He played the first 18 minutes of the game. He gave Mozgov a breather after 9. Yes it is results oriented, but it is reasonable to say they could have given him 3 minutes of rest  towards the end of the first quarter and another 4 in the second. I would have the same argument towards Stevens if he played Smart the first 18 minutes of game time coming off an injury with his first intense play in two weeks.

Certainly a fair point and I agree that he should have gotten a break there.  I watched the entire game but I overlooked the fact that he was in there for 18 minutes straight.

Still, when you play that well on a road and have a chance to steal game 1, gotta go for it.  Lose-lose situation for Blatt.  Gets blamed either way when a loss is the outcome.

[celticsclay]

I mean, that's sort of the unspoken endgame to calling someone a troll, isn't it? Or to shame them into not posting? I thought we were on the happiness and friendship bandwagon here at CB?

Just because someone is a Celtics fan does not preclude them from posting things that are dumb, and they should not be granted immunity from other posters noting it.

if i went on a Lakers forum and just started forming my own threads about Love saying he was never going to come, claimed I wasn't a Cavs fan and then insulted posters and put lots of  in my posts I would not expect to be loved and adored. I would also expect someone to ask me what I was trying to accomplish. If i posted the same point over and over again that Love wasn't going to play for them I think eventually people would ask me why i was doing that. That is what has happened here. To be honest I think everyone has been pretty friendly considering.

[D.o.s.]

I mean his first post in the thread was talking about the amount of rest he had -- i.e. a direct rebuttal to Windhorst's point. It was met with a (fairly condescending) "there's no point in engaging with you."

I'm not saying Han didn't shoot first or anything, but just from reading this thread it comes across as kind of dickish.

[celticsclay]

I mean his first post in the thread was talking about the amount of rest he had -- i.e. a direct rebuttal to Windhorst's point. It was met with a (fairly condescending) "there's no point in engaging with you."

I'm not saying Han didn't shoot first or anything, but just from reading this thread it comes across as kind of dickish.

Dos I understand how if you only read this thread it can come across a bit differently. However, the posts in this thread are just part of a larger context of insulting celtics fans and using eye rolls while stating about 40-50 times that love will stay in cleveland in the last month.

I mean today alone,  he/she already started their own individual thread today to point out love's comments that he thought he might not stay in cleveland unprompted that concluded like this

"But hey I am have been burying my head in the sand all year. Definitely sounds like a guy who is dying to get out of the Cleveland according to "reports"!! "

This is after the poster had made the same point a few days ago repeatedly on a 4 page thread about whether Love would say. After a certain point saying the same thing over and over about while explaining you don't care about either team is a bit obnoxious.

[LGC88]

GS was down by 10pts, 2 minutes before the end of the 1st quarter, and yet Kerr rest Curry.
Cavs should have bench Irving at that time too. I don't buy the argument "he had no choice if you want to win". It's like saying Kerr didn't care to lose so he gives Curry a rest instead.

[D.o.s.]

@Clay, fair enough.

GS was down by 10pts, 2 minutes before the end of the 1st quarter, and yet Kerr rest Curry.
Cavs should have bench Irving at that time too. I don't buy the argument "he had no choice if you want to win". It's like saying Kerr didn't care to lose so he gives Curry a rest instead.

Do you think that you have a better chance of winning basketball games if you play your best players for more minutes or for fewer minutes?

[PhoSita]

I'm not saying Han didn't shoot first or anything, but just from reading this thread it comes across as kind of dickish.

I love off-hand pop culture references like this.

[PhoSita]

I mean today alone,  he/she already started their own individual thread today to point out love's comments that he thought he might not stay in cleveland unprompted that concluded like this

"But hey I am have been burying my head in the sand all year. Definitely sounds like a guy who is dying to get out of the Cleveland according to "reports"!! "

This is after the poster had made the same point a few days ago repeatedly on a 4 page thread about whether Love would say. After a certain point saying the same thing over and over about while explaining you don't care about either team is a bit obnoxious.

I agree with you on the bolded point. 

It's annoying and disingenuous when somebody claims to be impartial while constantly harping on a particular point at every opportunity, suggesting some sort of bias or agenda -- even if it's just a desire to play devil's advocate / crush the dreams of the fans of an also-ran team windowshopping another team's stars.


On the other hand, is emoticon abuse only an issue when an "outsider" does it?  What do we call it when a Celtics fan does it?  There are at least a handful of posters I've noticed around here who make frequent, arguably obnoxious / smarmy use of emoticons.  It's not limited to non-Celts fans, is all I'm saying.

[LGC88]

@Clay, fair enough.

GS was down by 10pts, 2 minutes before the end of the 1st quarter, and yet Kerr rest Curry.
Cavs should have bench Irving at that time too. I don't buy the argument "he had no choice if you want to win". It's like saying Kerr didn't care to lose so he gives Curry a rest instead.

Do you think that you have a better chance of winning basketball games if you play your best players for more minutes or for fewer minutes?

Not sure what you are trying to say here. So I'm gonna simply answer your question.
You have a better chance to win basketball games if you play your best players for more minutes.
Again I'm not sure what he has to do with my answer. Maybe you are implying that benching Curry was a mistake?
Anyway, trying to win game 1 by playing Irving too much might cost them the series (apparently he's out according reports).