They lost, right?
They did. At the time of the post, they had given up a big run, falled down by 20+, and closed the game to within 4 with like 3 minutes left
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Tough when 2 of your 3 high usage guys go 7 of 34
Yeah - shot 39% from the field and 21% from three
To crib a Zach Lowe-ism, of the 8 teams that lost game 1, they have the clearest āplay better adjustmentā to make. The general run of play (+11 shooting possessions) is somewhat promising
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Yeah Iām actually somewhat into the Rockets chances still. I think the Warriors are old and rest matters a ton for them. Make a few more shots and be prepared to grind the series to 7 and see if you canāt wear down those old legs.
That said, I really dk what lineups they should be looking to maximize. If Green canāt make a ton of buckets himself theyāre prob drawing dead bc where else is the O coming from? But I dk, heās just kinda not that guy at this point in his career and he may never be.
Can I point out that Kyle Kuzma had a 22 trillion
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The only two deadline takes I recall having (Iām sure itās not bc they both seem vindicated) were the Jimmy deal was smart for the Warriors and that Kuzma couldnāt possibly be a good idea whatever the other circumstances surrounding that deal.
Firings, 'cheerleader energy' and lost trust: What really led to the Luka Doncic trade - ESPN Interesting recap of all the Luka crap
Itās all he said/she said obviously but whatās clear is that there is no shortage of Mavs employees and associates lining up to put a knife in Harrisonās back.
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Yeah whatever we might think of Cubanās ball knowing and all that, itās pretty clear that org was a mess for a while and prob at least contributed a little bit to why Nico went rogue like that.
Landry Fields fired
It looks like Stew is going to be a game time decision with his knee injury. I donāt like that.
Cannot afford foul trouble from Duren tonight. He had a couple of avoidable ones the other night (mixed in with some rage inducing bad calls). But I just donāt see the Pistons having a chance if Paul Reed has to play much more than 15-18 minutes.
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I honestly think it really comes down to Cade, fair or not. Heās their dude, they, as of this moment, donāt have a second one, and if heās going to score 21 points on 21 shots and turn it over as many times as the Knicks did, they probably wonāt win the game.
This isnāt an indictment of him whatsoever, but itās sort of the structure of the team offensively at this stage. Pistons have too many guys you just donāt really worry about offensively on the playoff level. They even got as much as they could rationally ever hope for from the Harris/Hardaway/Beasley group.
The other thing to me is to improve defensively, which probably starts with doing a better job on Towns, but the guy to do that, I think, is Stewart. The best thing the Pistons did this year offensively was push the pace and run in transition, but you donāt get that opportunity if you give up 123, if anything I thought that the Knicks run was really based on transition off of Detroit turnovers (Stewart rough here too) - a few of those Cam Payne threes especially.
While the Knicks shot a reasonable 38% from thre, Iād also bet that Cam Payne doesnāt make 3 again!
If you were to rank the top 5 players in this series, how many do you think the Pistons have?
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(Laudatory)
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Iāve never realized how much I dislike Jalen Brunson until these last two games
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This is 90ās basketball. I certainly dont mean that to be a compliment but also not completely as a dig either.
Competitive but very ugly. Mostly 2ās that are extremely hard earned.
Detroit has 4 assists on 21 made field goals
I donāt know if thereās a players whose likeability shifted so much between college and high school
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Also evident for another year that the coach who made his name on defense over 15 years ago might not be the guy in a 7 game series. Particularly with this group.
Theyāre pretty hopeless in the halfcourt.