Second Round (Non Suns) Playoff Games

[Wormwood]

Split T:

Ayton's rebounds will go WAY down vs. the Clippers: he's going to be defending out on the perimeter a lot. Clips more or less neutralized Gobert this way.

The Suns big advantage: the offensive sets they run with CP3 are way more complicated, and run much more effectively, that what the Jazz have been throwing at them Additionally, Donovan Mitchell has been playing hurt bad enough that if this was the regular season he'd be sitting.

The Suns are coming into this with a full week of rest, which should help a bit in terms of having that little extra "burst" and pop that the Jazz don't have right now. I also think with Leonard out, Bridges and Crowder are going to make George's life more difficult.

[Split T]

I’m mostly thinking the offensive glass. If the clips are going to defend Ayton with Morris or Batum, he should be able to get a ton of second chance points. That’s how he forces them to play Zubac.

[Wormwood]

I’m mostly thinking the offensive glass. If the clips are going to defend Ayton with Morris or Batum, he should be able to get a ton of second chance points. That’s how he forces them to play Zubac.

Good point.

Either they play Zubac, play 1v1 with Morris / Batum, or double him with Morris / Batum. The latter option is REALLY not going to work when/if CP3 plays. Doubling Ayton will leave a good three point shooter open, and Paul will find them (or it will free him up for a mid-range). 1v1 against Ayton probably is too great of a mis-match. Clips best option is to wait to double until Ayton is in the post, and hope he can't / won't pass out of it, or that their rotations are quick enough that the Suns can't exploit them.

[Split T]

I’m mostly thinking the offensive glass. If the clips are going to defend Ayton with Morris or Batum, he should be able to get a ton of second chance points. That’s how he forces them to play Zubac.

Good point.

Either they play Zubac, play 1v1 with Morris / Batum, or double him with Morris / Batum. The latter option is REALLY not going to work when/if CP3 plays.

I’m really not sure why Rudy hasn’t done this. He did it for like 5 minutes in the 3rd Q, but Jazz had 7 offensive rebounds in a game when the clippers played a C for 8 minutes and the Jazz had one for 48 minutes. Clippers actually had more offensive rebounds.

I’ve seen some stats that show the clippers are winning the matchups when Batum is out there with Rudy. Perhaps Batum is doing something to keep Rudy off the glass. I’m curious now and going to see who was out there when Rudy got his offensive boards.

[ShelC]

I think we have a higher bball overall to take advantage of smaller defenders on DA. We've been very good at throwing it up at the rim so all DA literally has to do is tap it in. Morris/Batum/PG aren't stopping that. You worry about guys taking DA off the dribble, but he's held his own well enough in the past and as long as he's not fouling, we should be able to help out.

I'd actually prefer them going small I think and letting DA eat and grab rebounds because Zubac has played him pretty tough in the past. Zubac is a guy who knows he's less talented, but works hard and is physical down low which I think bothers DA. I almost wonder if forcing them to play Zubac would be to our detriment with DA.

[Split T]

I think we have a higher bball overall to take advantage of smaller defenders on DA. We've been very good at throwing it up at the rim so all DA literally has to do is tap it in. Morris/Batum/PG aren't stopping that. You worry about guys taking DA off the dribble, but he's held his own well enough in the past and as long as he's not fouling, we should be able to help out.

I'd actually prefer them going small I think and letting DA eat and grab rebounds because Zubac has played him pretty tough in the past. Zubac is a guy who knows he's less talented, but works hard and is physical down low which I think bothers DA. I almost wonder if forcing them to play Zubac would be to our detriment with DA.

Perhaps, but it takes the clippers out of their switching scheme. Puts them into a drop defense where CP3 will feast. The clippers went through like 4 or 5 schemes against utah before fully settling on this small ball switch scheme. We need to show we can attack any scheme the clippers can throw at us.

[LazarusLong]

Random fact:

Ben Simmons has missed 45 foul shots in the playoffs.

Phoenix Suns, as a team, have missed 29.

[Superbone]

[Superbone]

I was putting my commentary in the wrong thread...

I was hearing some Kevin Durant slander in the media this past week. People need to put aside their feelings about his free agency decisions.

He's absolutely the best player in the league right now. The Nets couldn't have replaced him with anyone else and still won game 5 against Milwaukee.

No thanks. I don’t respect him.

You don't have to respect his choices, but he's still the best player in the world right now. My point was that some people in the media were trying to mesh those two things, and it's pretty illogical if we're having a discussion about the best players.

It’s a team sport. I don’t enjoy watching Durant go one-on-one. I enjoy watching teams like the Suns who play team basketball. Everybody contributes.

What you enjoy watching and who's actually the best player are different.

I'd also suggest that the D'Antoni and Nash Suns offensive style was very similar to how this Brooklyn team plays, and you probably enjoyed watching them.

That's the best player in the world we saw tonight? I don't see it. But you're right about this, I didn't enjoy watching him come down and miss three after missed three tonight. Ugly basketball. You would think the best player in the world would have a little consistency.

[Superbone]

Random fact:

Ben Simmons has missed 45 foul shots in the playoffs.

Phoenix Suns, as a team, have missed 29.

And then there's this:

[Flagrant Fowl]

No thanks. I don’t respect him.

You don't have to respect his choices, but he's still the best player in the world right now. My point was that some people in the media were trying to mesh those two things, and it's pretty illogical if we're having a discussion about the best players.

It’s a team sport. I don’t enjoy watching Durant go one-on-one. I enjoy watching teams like the Suns who play team basketball. Everybody contributes.

What you enjoy watching and who's actually the best player are different.

I'd also suggest that the D'Antoni and Nash Suns offensive style was very similar to how this Brooklyn team plays, and you probably enjoyed watching them.

That's the best player in the world we saw tonight? I don't see it. But you're right about this, I didn't enjoy watching him come down and miss three after missed three tonight. Ugly basketball. You would think the best player in the world would have a little consistency.

Now you want to have a discussion about his ranking after he has one bad quarter in a playoff game, but not after he has a 49-point triple double?

Just admit that you're too far into your own feelings about his free agency decisions to objectively evaluate him.

[Superbone]

You don't have to respect his choices, but he's still the best player in the world right now. My point was that some people in the media were trying to mesh those two things, and it's pretty illogical if we're having a discussion about the best players.

It’s a team sport. I don’t enjoy watching Durant go one-on-one. I enjoy watching teams like the Suns who play team basketball. Everybody contributes.

What you enjoy watching and who's actually the best player are different.

I'd also suggest that the D'Antoni and Nash Suns offensive style was very similar to how this Brooklyn team plays, and you probably enjoyed watching them.

That's the best player in the world we saw tonight? I don't see it. But you're right about this, I didn't enjoy watching him come down and miss three after missed three tonight. Ugly basketball. You would think the best player in the world would have a little consistency.

Now you want to have a discussion about his ranking after he has one bad quarter in a playoff game, but not after he has a 49-point triple double?

Just admit that you're too far into your own feelings about his free agency decisions to objectively evaluate him.

OK

[AmareIsGod]

It’s a team sport. I don’t enjoy watching Durant go one-on-one. I enjoy watching teams like the Suns who play team basketball. Everybody contributes.

What you enjoy watching and who's actually the best player are different.

I'd also suggest that the D'Antoni and Nash Suns offensive style was very similar to how this Brooklyn team plays, and you probably enjoyed watching them.

That's the best player in the world we saw tonight? I don't see it. But you're right about this, I didn't enjoy watching him come down and miss three after missed three tonight. Ugly basketball. You would think the best player in the world would have a little consistency.

Now you want to have a discussion about his ranking after he has one bad quarter in a playoff game, but not after he has a 49-point triple double?

Just admit that you're too far into your own feelings about his free agency decisions to objectively evaluate him.

OK

I think he's an otherworldly talent. I'm definitely not a fan of his. You can literally remove the team completely from him because he could care less about the team and his teammates. The guy is a mercenary out for himself and is one of the most sensitive crybabies whenever he's interviewed or someone on Twitter says anything negative about him and he goes full meltdown. On top of that, he's extremely homophobic or at least has made some horrific comments on Twitter towards others that were very vulgar and homophobic.

Is he an amazing basketball player? Yes. Is he anywhere near one of my favorite players? Not at all. He's right there with James Harden near the bottom of my list.

[Mori Chu]

I really don't like the idea of playing the Clippers. They were basically built to beat a team like ours, which is constructed very similarly to the Jazz. If we want to be the favorites, CP3 has to be back for Game 1. Otherwise, we're probably starting off 0-1 hole and losing home court advantage.

I see the similarities between us and the Jazz:

- star SG scorer (Book / Mitchell) who is a threat to give you 30ppg in any given game
- old veteran PG (CP3 / Conley) with a lot left in the tank
- defense-first center (Ayton / Gobert) who is not a go-to guy on offense
- bunch of 3-and-D wings

But I think we have some important differences too:

- our veteran PG is healthy, ignoring COVID outage (CP3) as opposed to out for the series (Conley)
- our veteran PG is frankly just a lot better than theirs (CP3 >>>>>> Conley)
- our star SG is healthy (Book) as opposed to nursing a bum ankle and noticeably limited (Mitchell)
- our center (Ayton) is much better at P&R switching, guarding guys on the perimeter than Gobert; harder to render ineffective against a small lineup
- our 3-and-D wings are much better defender than Utah's, much more athletic, more reliable overall
- our bench is much better than Utah's
- our star SG is more of a team player, buys into the system more, gets other guys involved more

This last one is really important. I am watching Mitchell out there chucking up bad shots and hurting his team. He doesn't know how to help them when he can't be a dominant scorer or great athlete. I honestly think that if Booker were in the same situation he'd be finding other guys open shots, setting guys up, taking fewer/smarter shots, acting as a decoy at times, and just generally trying not to hurt us out there and buying into a team system more. I really believe Booker has a better understanding of this than Mitchell has shown, and it's part of why I like Booker better than Mitchell even though Mitchell is probably a little better in terms of pure scoring nastiness and ability to make a big clutch shot at the end of a game (when healthy).

I think we're a much better match for the Clippers than the Jazz have been. Especially once you factor in Kawhi's likely absence, I don't see how PG13 and the remaining Clippers can beat us in a 7-game series. Bring em on.

[AmareIsGod]

Yeah, I'm not buying into people that are fearing the Clippers. Health wise we're in a much better place than Utah (knock on wood) and we went 3-0 vs Utah during the regular season when both teams were in a healthier place.

Which leads me to, I don't fear Utah either. I think that the Clippers minus Kawhi will struggle vs. a healthy Suns team. Ayton is a much different center than Gobert and our defense is better than Utah.

[JeremyG]

Nobody knows what either part of that tweet means. What does "progressing to be a game-time decision" mean? What does "working toward a return to the lineup" mean? Is Conley going to return tonight? Why is Woj being so cryptic?

[Indy]

Nobody knows what either part of that tweet means. What does "progressing to be a game-time decision" mean? What does "working toward a return to the lineup" mean? Is Conley going to return tonight? Why is Woj being so cryptic?

He isn't being cryptic. He is just reporting what he is hearing. Those are just lots of words to say "questionable" but the sources want to make it sound more positive.

[JeremyG]

Nobody knows what either part of that tweet means. What does "progressing to be a game-time decision" mean? What does "working toward a return to the lineup" mean? Is Conley going to return tonight? Why is Woj being so cryptic?

He isn't being cryptic. He is just reporting what he is hearing. Those are just lots of words to say "questionable" but the sources want to make it sound more positive.

Yeah but "progressing to be a game-time decision" sounds like Mitchell was expected to be out or like he missed the last game. Very strange.

[Split T]

Does anyone get a friendlier whistle than Trae Young? He gets every call…it’s very annoying

[Nodack]

Nets/Bucks tied 3/3
76ers/Hawks tied 3/3

Jazz/Clippers Clippers lead 3/2 with Jazz ahead big at half time.

Michelle doesn’t look too hurt at all.

Awesome!