TGR 41: Final Stretch Predictions

@Danny
less fouls are called in the playoffs, heat will make it out of the 1st rd, but i dont think they are going to beat the bulls and celtics to get to the finals.

ho man, Heat goes down again!

Heat have two great closers, and they cannot beat the Bulls.

I'm going to be frustrated when the Heat get playoff-calls and begin a run in April/May.

innocent bystander :
“Los Bulls” defense is suffocating

but their offense is much less impressive

D-rose is pretty darn good, my friends!

"Los Bulls" defense is suffocating

Asik just air balled a free throw after a flop haha

The Heat are playing terrible, too many jump shots, LBJ & Wade need to attack the basket

Miami falling apart late yet again.

Rose 6 attempts at the rim per game, Russ 7. Same FG%. From 3-9 feet Rose slightly above average on FG%, Russ 9 percentage points below. Rose mildly to well above average from 10-15 feet and 16-23 feet, Westbrook mildly below. Rose almost average from 3 pt land, Westbrook 8 percentage points below. Westbrook 8 FT attempts per game, Rose a bit over 6.

The bulls defense is so good. All of Miami's shots are long twos..

Noah's free throwing shooting form is weird... it's like he throwing a pass

Rose may be the only guy in the league who can still be raved about by the announcers despite having only a 15 (on 15 shots) point and 5 assist game.

don't know about MVP, but if they gave out MUUPDTTB

"Most Unbelievably Unreal Player Driving To The Basket" awards,

then D-Rose would win hands down

How can Jeff Van Gundy be a basketball coach/analyst? He looks like a Chemistry professor. Or a certified public accountant.

(course, his brother looks more like the owner of a Gyro restaurant than a coach as well)

Rose has one of if not the best floater in the league. Russ doesn't use it that often.

Rose is unreal driving to the basket. Every time he goes to the rim, you can just see a highlight reel coming up.

All other aspects of his game, though, are much more ordinary.

looks like rose has more moves around the rim

Rose has been slumping lately. He and russ have basically the same shooting percentage right now. Obviously rose takes more 3s, though.

I think Rose is shooting too many threes. He had a couple hot months and Bulls fans went bananas thinking he was a 40% 3pt shooter. He's down under 33% now.

@andrew
Agreed. If Rose wins MVP he will be one of the worst winners since Nash's 2nd or Iverson's win over Shaq.

@justin

Thanks. also, i really think our defense could be as good or better than Chicago's with the right schemes. I think we have better individual defenders at each position (when Perkins comes back at center vs. Noah) given our length and size.

Rose doesn't get as out of control as Russ does. Plus he plays more intelligently I would say.

I am hoping the heat win today so that the rose for MVP train will slow down a little bit.

Bosh is beasting

Justin, if you replaced our coaching staff with Chicago's, how good do you think we'd be relative to now? What they're doing on the defensive end there with Thibs/Adams is amazing.

@Thunder S
Rose has that move where he slashes through the paint at a 45 degree angle full speed, draws the d in, stops on a dime, ball fake 180 and either hits a floater or reverse layup. Pretty filthy stuff.
Russ go beast-mode and turns it over.
plus Rose is the franchise and Russ is a great 2nd best player in OKC.
Otherwise I think they're pretty close.

Thunder S :
For those who watch a lot of rose, what makes him better than russ?

He's shooting better, and I'd say his experience at the position gives him a lot more savvy at this point in their careers.

For those who watch a lot of rose, what makes him better than russ?

@Daniel
The Heat have been great early in games its the 4th quarter where they go into ISO mode (remind you of someone else?) that's going to be interesting.

@innocent bystander
yeah live games always seem to go faster because no commercials

Heat looking great so far, they're playing pissed off and it's working.

one thing you gotta love about watching NBA...

it's nice how they sneak in a little basketball between all the commercials!
:(

@innocent bystander
hahaha, thats hilarious.

Are The Thunder going to wear "El Trueno" for Latino Heritage Week or whatever? That would be kinda cool.

Thunder Shoot Around Report: Suns

9:30 practice time, heh -- no superstition there

Kevin evidently feels fine this morning... very good

Green and Warrick for career
http://bkref.com/tiny/sPgf8

will Vince Carter play today?

He butted heads with teammate Channing Frye in the Boston game, and did not play in the following game against the Bucks. Currently listed as day-to-day.

I'm thinking he won't go today (head concussions are no minor thing). If he doesn't, that improves our chances quite a bit.

With Nash not feeling so pelvically good, I guess Aaron "Chris Rock" Brooks will be getting a lot of burn today...

Great NBA Sunday, can't wait for it to start!

Nash currently enduring a pubic bone irritation.

I simply HAVE to post the following quote from Nash:

"The muscle group in my underlying stomach muscles shuts off so you lose a lot of control. Then there's shearing forces and I have issues with my pelvis. I've had a lack of control because that muscle has been shut off for the last week but the pain just started. Playing like that for a week has made it inflamed. I just have to start back at step one and get my strength back. I definitely am not trying to shut it down. I'll try to get back on top of it and stay ahead of it."

Gripping stuff! (pun intended)

TaoMaas :
I might agree with you, Justin, if it weren’t for the fact that the Celtics seem to be getting more production out of their bench because they added Uncle Jeff. I think the answer lies in the middle…it helped to replace Jeff with Serge in the Thunder’s staring line-up, but we’ll never know how much it might have helped our 2nd team to play Green off the bench alongside Harden, Maynor, and Collison.

I am happy for Jeff, but wasn't it better for our team to parlay the excess of forwards into a couple of centers? And trading with teams in the other conference? Cha Ching!

I'll cheer for Uncle Jeff (and the others) except for 2 games a season.

enjoying the pre-game write-up at brighsideofthesun.com...

The writer describes Ibaka, Collison, Mohammed, and Harden all as Suns-killers. Hope so. This quote is interesting:

"A few years ago, I still remember Nazr Mohammed dropping 30 and 11 on the Suns while playing for the Spurs."

Well, I doubt Nazr (aka Larry) does that tonight, hehe. But I hope he has a good game nonetheless.

Bulls-Heat is such a conflicting game for me... I want BOTH teams to lose so bad
:(

@TaoMaas
this year lakers bench is a bit better, but last year was only 3 deep off the bench, so if our rotation players are good, it doesnt matter if a player who never plays is good or not.

@TaoMaas
I think Harden has done great job as leader of our backups.

He's just getting hyped up a bit because he's in Boston. Even in that GSW game (that I watched) he was playing poor defense for a lot of it, let Louis Amundson drive past him with the dribble, had six fouls in 28 minutes, and three turnovers. He's great in that he'll score off finishes from Rondo, but other than that it's still the same ol' JG... just wasn't a fit here.

@TaoMaas

Green isn't doing anything in Boston that he wasn't doing here. He's still a net negative I believe.

@f5alcon

Whoa! Don't undersell the Lakers bench! Not when they've got Odom coming in from there! Frankly, I think other teams could deal with the Lakers' starting five...it was Odom that was the X-factor.

I might agree with you, Justin, if it weren't for the fact that the Celtics seem to be getting more production out of their bench because they added Uncle Jeff. I think the answer lies in the middle...it helped to replace Jeff with Serge in the Thunder's staring line-up, but we'll never know how much it might have helped our 2nd team to play Green off the bench alongside Harden, Maynor, and Collison.

@TaoMaas
it reflects on the talent of the team, id dj a bad player, no, but the rest of our players were better at that position, he might be getting decent numbers, but the bobcats suck, he isnt making them win. Not everybody can play, and the bench doesnt have to matter at all, the lakers won last year with only 8 players having more than a 1000 mins. Their bench wasnt deeper than that.