Serge Ibaka out for rest of playoffs with calf injury...

They play better with Collison at the 4. Always have.

 

Ibaka isn't the only cunning guy on the team that can slap a ginger (Matt Bonner this time) in the balls and get away with it. They'll be okay.

 

Love the spurs and admire all they have accomplished...but

Last season: Kobeless lakers, not having to play the nuggets because of injuries, david leeless warriors, not having to play the thuder...

this season: not having to play the rockets, ibakaless thunder......

Has a team been more fortunate in 2 seasons in a row match-up wise in NBA history?

 

Heat got to play through an incredibly soft Eastern Conference the last two years, tho I don't remember the exact teams.

 

Are you looking at who the heat have had to go through every year? LOL

 

The pacers and bulls were tougher than anyone the spurs had to face. For pity sake, the spurs swept a weak grizzlies and got to rest while the heat had to play a great pacers team last season

 

Now they can showcase Stephen Adams.

Bad news for Darrell Maori. He's gonna get exposed for the harden trade after Adams goes Haka on the Spurs.

 

They play better with KD at the 4. That has been OKC's best lineup the last 2-3 seasons. In the Clippers series, Blake Griffin made them pay for that lineup more than any team I've ever seen. KD at the 4 will work very well against the Spurs, especially when Splitter is in the game (but Pop will pull him when KD moves to PF).

Against the Spurs, OKC will have a problem guarding TD. Ibaka no longer goes for every pump fake and turned into a very good on-ball defender this season. It seemed like he had TD figured out. Collison isn't big and strong enough to slow TD down and Adams won't have a clue. Both guys will rack up fouls quickly. Fouling unnecessarily has been Collison's weakness his entire career and Adams is the worst foul magnet the NBA has seen in a while. Perkins is the best option but he creates a 4 on 5 situation on the other end. Regardless, the Spurs will have a layup drill with Ibaka missing.

The only shot OKC has is for RJ to play like a star and produce each and every game. He beasted against the Spurs all 4 games this season.

 

no offense. but those kobe-less lakers woulda still lost. and they swept the lakers like they should have. it's not like they struggled v. em. and not having to play the nuggets? really? those nuggs teams were def more a regular season team. that dubs team even without lee was much better defensively and their shooting was HOT in that playoffs. spurs woulda waxed the nuggets too...so even if they're "lucky" it woulda been the same result.

they were fortunate westbrook got hurt tho yea. but sweeping the grizz in the wcf is no joke. in fact, that's really impressive. imagine if we did that, 2 sweeps, and a win v. a warriors team but people saying but....

and avoiding us this year? looking at our respective playoff plays, we woulda lost too. we couldn't even get past portland. that's hardly anything worth mentioning as the spurs getting lucky. lol.

imo the 94 and 95 rox avoiding seattle is an even bigger break than that. but they choked, and we took care of business. ah good ol clutch city days. unlike now...

def not the most fortunate team tho imo (the spurs)

 

can you explain how that pacers team was that great? just cuz they played the heat well? the grizz won 7 more games in the regular season, both were 1 and 2 in drtg, and grizz were even a little better offensively. grizz beat clips 4 straight and beating okc 4 straight (even without westbrook) was more impressive than any run the pacers had to get to the ecf.

seems like a weird bias.

 

This is why it is so terrible that the east is so weak. Both western possible finalists are weakend by injury because they had tough series from round one. And the heat have yet to play a serious game.

 

Steven Adams is going to beast. I think OKC starts Perk @ 4 and Adams @ 5.

 

Wtf, plantaris is a tiny muscle/tendon in your calf thats mainly for proprioception, its pretty painful when it tears but it doesn't really do anything? I wonder if you could just play through it, theres nothing to heal besides the tendon just scarring into your other calf muscles.. wierd.

 

Every team needs a little bit of "luck" or "help" or "breaks their way".

He's talking about the Rockets here but point remains...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Preemptive plea to stop asterisk talk. Look back at 6 decades of NBA history, hard to find playoffs where injuries didn't play huge role.</p>&mdash; Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/statuses/467448046251704320">May 16, 2014</a></blockquote>
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And while everyone wants to give the series to the Spurs(and maybe will prove rightfully so in the end), they still, you know, have to go out there and win it.

 

Yes, the Spurs are very "lucky" to consistently have one of the best records in the west every year. Since drafting Tim Duncan, their reg. season ranks:

• 4
• 1
• 4
• 1
• 2
• 1
• 3
• 2
• 1
• 3
• 3
• 3
• 7
• 1
• 1
• 2
• 1

 

Just put in Thabeet, and let him wreak havoc on the opposing players.

 

I am surprised few people noticed that. Ibaka got injured when Paul flopped to the floor and tripped Ibaka to prevent him from getting the rebound. I remember the announcers were praising Paul for a "heady" play of throwing the ball on Ibaka who was lying on the floor out of bound. I thought that was a dirty, not heady, play.

 

Fourth for Wade and Haslem.

 

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Cliff w the assist.