The 6th seed is not determined by the play-in. And the lakers actually finished 7th. So the play-ins did not have any influence on their seeding.
You're missing my point--my point was that the existence of the play-in influenced both teams' behavior during the regular season, including the 6th-seeded Warriors. They knew the worst that could happen is they were in the play-in and felt confident they'd still end up in the playoffs at the end of the day, and they were proven right. There was no healthy fear of being out on their asses, so they load-managed all season. Screwed up the entire seeding and also made the regular season that much more pointless.
Ah ok. I see your point. Not sure I totally agree. But also not sure I totally disagree. So there might be some truth to your comment.
Fair enough. I know a lot of people liked the play-in. I just really miss the regular season feeling more meaningful
Cant have either of these teams advance beyond the next round. Hope Denver and/or Phoenix is up to the task.
rooting hard for the lakers, and i think they're the only team that can play GS without getting completely obliterated by the refs, but fully expect GS to win
God i hate the Lakers so much. Even more icky with LeBron who's not so much someone to hate, he's just off putting and gross to me. He gives me serious Karl Malone vibes-he's basically a modern day version of him on the court anyway. No matter what year, what players. You can always count on the Lakers being helped out of a bad situation by other organizations. All their championships are bought. They're a cheat franchise and i almost want to put an asterisk for every Lakers championship after Minneapolis. Unfortunately, I don't see the Lakers losing to anyone if AD is healthy. You need to match their size while outshooting them. Without any true bigs on most of these teams, AD and Lebron will feast. At this point, it may not seem the best strategy, but i take my chance with a taller, bigger body to force AD to beat him from the outside. He obviously can, but chances are he can go cold or get hurt on a drive vs just looking like Wilt against your short PF's in the paint. Lebron will overpower his way to the basket against any team's F. Nothing they can do to stop that. Denver doesn't have the experience, AD and LeBron will feast at the basket. Phoenix looks too inconsistent like they need a lot more time to gel and they're too injury probable. Looney made Sabonis feel small, AD going to make Looney feel like a midget. Wiggins aint strong enough for LeBron and Draymond aint quick enough-Draymond resorts to shenanigan's and gets suspended-thrown out of a key game and costs his team the series. Curry coming off a great game 7 but his shooting isn't Steph like right now and he was getting to the basket with ease-he's not doing that with AD's length in there. I don't think Boston can beat the Lakers for the simple fact that they should have beaten the Warriors and couldn't. If they can't beat an aging Warriors, why would they beat AD and Lebron? Sixers? I mean there's the Harden choking history, but Embiid just won't use his size advantage to dominate them inside. All that size and he wants to play like Curry. Love Jimmy Buckets but nah. NY? Pfft. All of what i said above and now add the Lakers 6th man-Referee is HEEM. The Lakers 6th man of the year since 1971. It's over.
Can yall imagine if Hakeem got to play against only PF's like Buck Williams, Antoine Carr, AC Green, Terry Cummings, Tom Chambers, Shawn Kemp, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone etc etc as the opposing teams biggest players on the floor? He'd be the undisputed GOAT 30-15-5-5-5. Man, his career high bpg is 4.6 so maybe that jumps up to over 6.5 a game sheesh..2 way dominance with aesthetic and grace and finesse with intimidation. People impressed how Jimmy ups his game in the playoffs, because he's lower tier all star level in the regular season. Hakeem ups his playoffs from HOF regular season lmao. I'd give anything to make a DR34M come true again.
BTW, the King James Bible was published on May 2nd back in the 1600s. The Lakers would go to 5-2 in the playoffs with a win.
I've been noticing that players are wrapping their knees with that cold stuff during the game. That was usually the sign that they weren't coming back in the game. That's modern medicine for you.
