This was always a concern with our team, because IT can be taken out of his game so easily.
Yeah which is why he was their leading scorer 17 games in a row.
And has been a primary reason why we have lost the last 6 quarters...
Easy to do things in the season. How was IT again in the playoffs last year when he was taken out of his game?
Please, an exaggeration he was their leading scorer in the playoffs and their ONLY scorer. You're ragging on him for be the leading scorer on the eighth who got swept by the best team in the east. Where was his help? Where was Bradley? Crowder? Turner? When the Cavs were honing their defense on him, how come others didn't step up. If they did, it would take some burden off him.
Yeah, real impressive when you're the leading scorer shooting 33 fg% and 17 3PFG%. 
It just shows what his role truly is: a sixth man volume scorer.
Sixth man?! The man is averaging 22 and 6 is this season are those sixth man numbers?
Yes, he is ideally a sixth man. His size and defense are too big of a disadvantage and his game is too easy to game plan for to be a legitimate starting point guard on a contending team.
I disagree.
Hes more than a sixth man and can certainly be a starter. When he is taken out of his game, we cant afford to see everyone else be garbage too.
Where was Jae? AB didnt generate any offense, Turner was garbage, Kelly was garbage, neither Sully nor Amir did jack.
IT is not really the problem.
Hes not Chris Paul or Steph obviously, but to say hes not starting caliber is too much.
Sure, he's starting caliber on THIS TEAM (at least this year - Smart should take back his starting position next year). But can you really say that he's an ideal starting caliber point guard? No, his game is totally tailored to be a sixth man, which is why it's his ideal position.
You are completely wrong.
The reason why he is such a dangerous scorer is because he is so DIFFICULT to gameplan against. He's a guy who can score in just about ever imaginable way. He can hit the three, he has a deadly midrange game, can shoot off spot-ups or off the dribble, can get into the paint and finish at the basket, gets to the line at an elite rate, makes his free throws at an elite percentage, etc.
Isaiah Thomas is probably one of the top 5 scorers in the entire NBA for all of the above reasons. I'm not talking in terms of pure scoring numbers, but in terms of scoring talent/skill/ability.
The guy has been on an absolute tear since the All-Star break and has been nothing short of elite. The game today was a terrible effort, but you can't blame Thomas for that - one or two bad games in 20 is hardly something to get frustrated about.
Putting a lanky, athletic defender on him isn't exactly rocket science. Pretty much every time that has happened IT has been limited - Shumpert, Livingston, MCW, etc. He's struggled against every single one of those guys. Further, it's amazing that more teams don't do it and then take advantage of him offensively more often.
This is just mythology. First off, in regards to last year's playoffs, the ONLY game that Isaiah got 'limited' in was Game 3, in which for whatever reason the refs would not give him a foul call. This became extremely obvious very early in the game and he only played 21 minutes in that game.
In the other three playoff games Isaiah scored 22, 22 & 21 points and dished out 10, 7 & 9 assists. He got to the FT line 8, 10 & 12 times, nailing every one of them.
In their last 2 regular season matches, Shumpert has gotten large minutes (34:47 & 34:42) and was on the floor against Isaiah as much as possible (35:47 & 34:02), I suppose in some misguided attempt to have him 'limit' Isaiah. Isaiah has lit him up for 49 points in those two games, getting to the FT line 19 times and dealing out 8 assists. Isaiah's combined scoring efficiency (TS%) in those two games was .578.
Yeah, Shumpert did a fantastic job of limiting Isaiah there. He was called for 9 PFs in those two games. Meanwhile, he scored 16 points of his own on miserable .508 TS efficiency, so there is that.
If teams want to put a defensive specialist on the floor to try to shut down Isaiah, then they have to also incur the cost to their own offense for doing so.
This is what you call confirmation bias.
1) You're really going to use the last two games of the regular season last year - you know the games where their stars sat because they were resting - as evidence for your claim? Yeah, that's not a fair assessment to use. Using those games as an example, you could argue that we're a better team than Cleveland, which is an illogical argument to make given the context. Thus, you also can't use that argument here. Put Bradley out there on Kyrie with our three rookies and Young. How do you think his defensive stats are going to look then?
Umm.... nope. Those two games were from THIS year. But nice try.
2) Speaking of context, it's funny that you don't mention the percentages that IT shot in the playoffs. Could there be a reason for that - perhaps because they don't fit your narrative? Let's take a look at his shooting percentages to find out:
FG% 3P% 2P% eFG% FT% PTS AST TOV
2015 Playoffs: .333 .167 .417 .361 .967 19.0 5.4 3.5
2015 Season: .411 .345 .473 .495 .861 17.5 7.0 2.6
I'm not sure what your definition of the word "limited" is, but this pretty categorically characterizes being limited in a playoff series. Other than FT% and assists, he was significantly limited to a much lower standard than his regular season statistics. It doesn't matter if he's scoring 20 points if he's shooting 33% and 17% from the field to get there. Only Kobe apologists look at those numbers and say they are good..
Sure, because ultimately scoring efficiency is far more relevant (because it measures effect on the scoreboard) than shooting efficiency. In case you missed it, Isaiah got to the FT line a ton in those three games. And he also dished out a ton of assists. Even though Isaiah didn't shoot all that efficient, he still created points very efficiently.
But if you are of the school that still worships batting average, RBI's and the Game Winning RBI stats, more power to you.
Bro, I think you're thinking of last year, because Shump didn't start in the games this year, so it's not like he was on him all that much. How the hell is he supposed to "limit" IT when he's not even guarding him or even on the floor with him for the majority of the time? Can we say that Marcus Smart didn't limit a guy when the guy didn't score at all on him, but he did score when Smart was on the bench or guarding another play? No, that's non-sense.
On Feb 5, Shumpert came off the bench 7 minutes into the game and was on the floor most of the rest of the game when Isaiah was on the floor:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/plus-minus/201602050CLE.htmlOn March 5, he entered the game after just 5 minutes and again, was on the floor most of the rest of the game when Isaiah was on the floor:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/plus-minus/201603050CLE.htmlCertainly, Shumpert didn't cover Isaiah exclusively. Switches happen. But he was on the floor for ~35 minutes in each game and overlapped with IT for probably two-thirds of that if not more. What was the great value add of having him on the floor? For his offense?
How well did Livingston shut Isaiah down in the last Golden State game? Oh, he only played 20 minutes. And only some of them overlapped with Isaiah. And, indeed, Isaiah didn't score much during those overlapping minutes. Of course, neither did Livingston. Which is why Livingston was only on the floor for 20 minutes.
And there is the rub: If you put one of these "lanky athletic defender" guys on the floor for enough minutes to try to 'shut down Isaiah", then you have to tolerate their sub-par offense as well.
