Western Conference Semifinals: (1) San Antonio vs. (5) Portland

OKC are way more talented and match-up well with the Spurs but Roxs fans underestimated the impact of COTY McSuccess; they should learn from this and not commit the same mistake by selling coaching guru Scott Brooks short.

 

Pretty much the summary of the series:

 

spurs will defeat OKC imo

 

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=8955386&postcount=331

If you click on the link above, I would say that the second paragraph of that post of mine pretty much describes the Trailblazers' 2013-14 postseason.

 

Based on the boxscore, the Spurs are not giving LMA & Lilliard the crazy, wide open shots we were giving them and it's causing to shoot at a high clip with a bad percentage. Is that true, are they sending double teams or just playing them tight 1-on-1 defense or what is it?

 

The Spurs are contesting the shots of their wings way better than us, but Lillard and Aldridge are just missing (they're not letting Aldridge push his way into relatively close shots like Jones did though, and the refs are calling his push offs as charges). Lillard just can't seem to buy a 3 to save his life.

This is Lillard shooting 3's against us

http://on.nba.com/1nvkePS

This is him against the Spurs

http://on.nba.com/1nviEgL

They're not even contesting them

 

or are we over rating our talent?

 

The problem is the Harden think he is the best though he isn't! And to make this worst, fans just keep treating him as the next Kobe and consider him the top 5 player at this moment.

 

This makes me feel better. The Blazers arn't even putting up a fight. it also shows our team is fishing because of things on our end. We fix them, this mob because no problem.

 

Harden is the best shooting guard in the league. Kobe didn't value defense straight away either.

When Harden plays hard on both ends he is the best 2 guard in the NBA..I said it twice to get it through your head.

 

That's actually false. Kobe started out as a role player for prime Shaq and "Frobe" was then known as a defensive stopper, a guy who will often try to defend the best perimeter scorer. Then he threw Shaq under the bus, got his own team and has been pretending to play elite D ever since. Also, Harden is the best SG only during the regular season when Wade is sitting out games, chilling like a boss while waiting for the play-offs; Harden is easily outclassed by a healthy Wade.
Harden is the best SG when it does not really matter: empty stats, fake Corey Magette-like superstar. And that's all he will be until he get his head out of his ass and starts working on his game.

 

You can keep saying it for more times. Can he play hard as you claim when Rockets are on the edge facing elimination by Blazers?

 

He is best at turnovers yes, shooting no, rebounds no,passing no, not hustling on offense or defense yes. Harden was made a star player by the media. He is a inconsistent as Wesley Johnson

 

Also Dwayne wade is best SG in league . he does everything harden does but better

 

The Spurs weren't "horrible" against OKC and it wasn't a matter of they "won't get fired up in the reg season against the big guns". I'll bet you didn't watch a single one of the games.

Spurs put their best players on the floor, gave it all they had and lost anyway. They definitely cared and didn't use the games as "preparation".

You dumb things down and exaggerate. How many regular season Spurs games did you even watch?

 

The playoffs are about matchups, the Spurs lost to OKC like they lost to us because they can't really contain their players.

Their defensive strategy is a non physical attempt to try and lead the opposing team into taking bad shots, yet OKC are always taking bad shots and hitting them, it doesn't really hurt them because it's basically who OKC are, Harden does a lot of that as well, hence part of the reason for his amazing record vs the Spurs, they don't have a Bruce Lee Bowen anymore to rough guys up like Allen did Durant.

They also have issues with Ibaka's athleticism (and had similar issues with Jones, who has scored multiple times by simply jumping and reaching over Duncan for offensive rebound putbacks), Duncan is 37 yo with a bad knee, as great as he is, he's not jumping much any more, leading to constant double figure rebound games.

 

A turning point between the two teams is now Ibaka can successfully guard Tim Duncan. OKC can bench Perkins, move KD to PF (which takes their offense to another level) and the Spurs cannot punish him on the other end like the Grizzlies or Clippers.

I'm not saying OKC would beat the Spurs if they get past the Clippers. It would be 50/50 IMO.

 

So by saying it's 50/50, what you're really saying is you have no idea... because it's not like the Spurs had a 70/30 chance before Ibaka learnt to guard Duncan(if that really even is true).

If the Thunder decide to use KD at PF, there's going to be so many points in the paint between Duncan, Diaw and Splitter.

 

My god this is the most idiotic thing sorry but a inconsistent Wesley Johnson ? Gtfo out of here ... & wade better than harden ? Yeah when wade only plays 50 games & rests whenever he wants of course he will .... My god

 

No they didn't give it their all since, as demonstrated by their current play-offs form, they have an extra gear that they can kick in. And I did watch many Spurs games and I distinctly remember Popovich going all "CIA POP" with a BS excuse about Leonard missing an OKC game due to an appointment at his dentist, thus losing the Spurs main "Durant-stopper". Roxs fans want to believe that the 4-0 regular season sweep of the spurs meant something but the reality is that the Spurs would have exposed even more the fact that the Rockets team as currently constructed and coached are just pretenders should the two teams have met in the play-offs.