Game Thread NBA Playoffs Thread - 2023 Eastern & Western Conference Finals!

I do. The best player in the world is in their rotation.

 

Nuggets didn’t make LeBron miss 6 wide open threes. They didn’t make him fumble away a wide open dunk opportunity. LeBron let his teammates down.

 

Miami proving that you don’t need a super team to win it all

 

We’ll see. They’re def showing they can compete. Denver, LA, and Boston aren’t super teams either by the way.

 

He looks extremely fatigued. I think his mind still feels like he's 29 so he expects his body to perform, then he just in for too many minutes at his age, and toast at the end.

Especially in Denver with that altitude.

Remember Stockton and Duncan's minutes? They played great up to age 40 but it was nothing like the minutes LeBron is playing.

 

Stockton played 27 mpg his last season but even more impressive, he didn’t miss a single game in his last 5 seasons! Stockton played more games by a mile than LeBron has.

 

Butler has looked like Michael Jordan these playoffs.

 

Super fun to watch the heat

 

Undrafted players earning their way!

 

Jimmy Butler and all the 4 undrafted players

 

When was the last time an 8 seed started the conference finals winning 2 on the road?

 

How many undrafted players can the Blazers get for the #3 pick?

 

Think I'd bet the west is about 10-1 more likely to win than the east though.

 

8th seed with 4 undrafted players

 

Good question. I remember the Knicks making it to the finals in 1999 as an 8 seed. But it was kind of a silly seeding as it was the 50 game lockout year with back to back to backs.

Also the Rockets won the title as a 6 seed when Drexler got there. But they were the defending champs, so again not really a typical 6 seed.

I don't remember ever having 6 7 8 seeds as strong as this year. I'd say there is way more parity in the league now though. Denver was a 1 seed with 53 wins while the Blazers were a 5th seed with 54 wins a few years ago.

 

What was most crazy is that it felt like a re-run.

 

Jody to Cronin… see we can surround Dame with cheap undrafted players like Miami and compete for championship

 

Nope! You're Wrong again.
Stockton Regular season 1504 games plus 182 total playoff games = 1686 total games in his career.
Lebron regular season 1421 games plus 280 playoff games = 1701 total games in his career.

I would also like to point out total minutes played by LeBron absolutely dwarfs Stockton by a staggering 6329 minutes. 54093 minutes played by Lebron as opposed to 47764 mins played by Stockton in the regular season.
It would be reasonable to assume he played more minutes per game in the playoffs as well.
6397 mins in 36 series for Stockton
11564 mins in 53 series for Lebron.

That adds another 5167 mins played to the 6329 mins played in regular season for a grand total of 11,496 mins.

If you break that down into 36 min games. It essentially adds 319.3 games to his career.

RECIEPTS
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/stockjo01.html
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jamesle01.html

 

Well, he does have an All NBA all-star in Bam.