₦airaland Forum

steady986:
Who is the Urckle lookalike?

He is on the Pacers team na, lol. Walks like him, smiles like him, looks like him. He just needs dem big ol glasses and suspenders

Sigh. So we have to hear reggie miller's ugly voice consistently mispredict another game. Oh well....

Lucky 3 ball not falling tonite!

Knicks want to make this hard

larride:
That last year run don enter him head. Instead of improving on his game, decided to took the easy way to start spamming 3s.

An horrible performance in this series.

Even as bad as people say Nuggets are, they forced a game 7.

Yeap, he should have worked on the things that matter post season. Reading double teams, learning how to pass out of them. Or force the issue and make them foul you. Instead of bailing yourself out with the 3 ball

steady986:
And this looks like the beginning of their prime. It's only the CBA that can tear them apart, when they have to start paying guys.

I hope Sam Presti figures it out this time. I think everyone is tired of the era of superstars in their prime jumping about to collect ring. People want to see home grown teams winning. I havent seen anyone express real hate towards the last 4 playoff teams, even the team with urckle lookalike Everone appreciates these guys put in the time to get here.

steady986:
If SGA does what the great KD and Westbrook couldn't do, we're going to have a conversation

This life eh. They were begging KD, then Harden then Westbrook to stay. We never saw a dynamic team like that, and never thought we would ever see it again. And here we are. Young humble team playing hard and smart, no egos. Ol boy, na make all man dey humble o. No one is too big for time to leave behind

Knicks have a choice. Swallow your pride and setup the defense to stop Halliburton, instead of allowing him to get comfortable.

I say pride because a defensive minded coach doesnt like to think any one player can beat his "brilliant" defense. Even with evidence on the stats sheet.

When I saw Tibs letting an injured Towns play meaningless minutes and giving meaningkess fouls with 30s left on the game, I fear for knicks that Tibs pride will win here. If Im right and he sticks to the same defensive plan, they going fishing.

No one is asking Tibs to change his identity. But at least admit the reality in front of you and make meaningful tweaks. Resoect Halliburton as a killa, double team him and make the rest of his team try to outgrind you.

Roland17:
I used to like this cat because of his toughness. I watched this man in college during Villanova’s championship run and continued after he got drafted by Dallas.

But something about how he gets his points after he joined the Knicks changed. Now he just foul baits despite initiating contact, flops and whines at officials throughout the game.

There are other small PGs like TJ McConnell, Pritchard, GPII, McBride who play the right way. He pulled this same crap against my Celtics and the refs just continued to send him to the FT line.

Its not his choice. There is no creativity in knicks offense. As the primary ball handler, he has to make the decision too many times. So he shoots the 3 or tries to iso on a stacked defense. He is being misused, its not really his fault. Smaller guys playing this way will always draw more fouls. But it cant be the only game plan

larride:
54 points from the bench players out of 98 is ridiculous. Left to the starters, this would've been a 50pts blowout.

Not really o. The scoring really doesnt tell the tale. Those wide open 3s by the bench were part of the game plan. Edwards, even Randle at times was seeing a triple team. The crazy part is how that triple team defense switches back to man to man. I saw Edwards actually lose some confidence!

Master coaching by both teams, but okc showed real heart. The kept executing in spite of those dagger 3s by Minny

greypencils:
If I am to diefy anyone at all, MJ for making me watch basketball, Iverson for making me play basketball. Na the guy fit and And1 draw me enter basketball. Any other person, we watch, we enjoy the moment, we move.

Ol boy, I showed my son a clip of MJ dominating the court one day. I was like son, this is how you do anything you do!

Skrrrrrrr:
Atleast steph was still carrying his team with the opponents best defenders chasing him all through the game, he would probably still be playing if he hadn't been injured. He got injured and his team couldn't win one game. That is impact. We can see it in the plus minus.
Lebron has the worse plus minus among all players in the ALL NBA team, but first team, second and third.
What does he actually do?

There is no need to hate either of these greats my guy. Neither of them should be on first or second team all nba. This is the truth, we can accept that truth and still give both of them their flowers.

Roland17:
Tibbs was desperate man and showed from the changes in lineup!! He threw everything to the wall and one stuck.

Credit to him for digging into his lineup for the first time in the season and for finally taking the offense away from Brunson and playing through KAT. The Pacers have Brunson figured out.

KAT is a problem if and only if he can play within himself and stop getting into foul trouble. Rick Carlisle let this one slip away, he should have done better with a 20 point lead. The Pacers can’t give the Knicks any life, they absolutely have to win game 4.

Maybe he read my rantings on nairaland and decided to budge for once

steady986:
Playing 20 years is not the question. The question is can you be in your prime for the entire 20 years?

Lebron is not in his prime. He is good enough to be in starting 5, and #2 or #3 option on any team. This is a good enough imo. What we dont want is endings like Barkley, Shaq etc.

steady986:
We'll never see anything like this ever again. Never.

Its like the 4 minute mile. Once one man broke the mental barrier, everyone started doing it. Even now there are 60, 70 year olds that move like they in their 30s and 40s. I wont be surprised if some of these young cats play 15, 20years in the league as well

steady986:
No other player in NBA history has made all-NBA more than 15 times. LeBron has made it 21 times.

Insane length of peak

Agreed. Again, I think he should write a book or podcast or something, pass this knowledge down.

Roland17:
Are you watching their ISO heavy offense with Brunson? There is no strategy here for the Knicks, it is just too predictable.

I didnt bother because I feared the inevitable. Tibs, like his mentor JVG have a fundamental coaching issue that they refused to budge on. They both believe stellar defense is really what you need to win. That the offense will take care of itself if you play great defense. Hence the predictable looking offense. Rockets had prime Yao and Tmac and top 3 league defense, but out offense was easy to figure out. JVG was the coach, with his able assistant Tom Thibodeau. Our defensive rating would be like 3 or 4th in the league, but our offense was always like #15 out of 30. With Tmac and Yao!

Do I still sound pained? No. In fact I have "forgiven" them

Roland17:
But isn’t that how the Knicks have played all season, especially in the final minutes of games?

They are heavy on Brunson ISOs. They are not exactly doing anything different from what they have done all postseason.

While the Knicks have better players, I believe the Pacers have a deeper roster with better 1v1 ball defenders. They also play a style that exposes the Knicks.

More like exposes the Knicks coach. They could lose this series, on the strength of Carlisle being a better student of the game than Tibs

Ridwan1821:
Maybe Giannis. Tatum just needs to be consistent and stop having many off nights.
If Tatum can deliver the sort of stats SGA/Jokic/Giannis dropped this season I think he'd get the MVP.

Well, till 2026/2027 for Tatum. Hopefully he comes back sharp.

I really would like to see him in a different system. I feel like we are only seeing half of what he really is - all this assuming he comes back 100% after injury

Roland17:
I have always maintained that R. Carlisle remains one of the most intelligent coaches out there, especially in late game situations. The Pacers did something my Celtics were able to do only ONCE and that is to force Brunson to play defense. He gets in foul trouble anytime he is forced to play defense on the other side.

I agree on Carlisle's intelligence. But this game was more about Knicks getting scared and leaving Brunson to shoulder all the offense in the last 3 minutes. That and prayer 3s that fell for the pacers. Fundamentally Knicks are a better team, even with all the rotations Carlisle tried

steady986:

This tells me Giannis and Tatum need to find new homes

This feels like karma for that pacer fan getting beaten in nyc. wow

Skrrrrrrr:
The timberwolves are gonna get swept.
I still maintain that they aren't a spectacular team and only managed to beat the warriors because steph got injured in game 1, which was coincidentally the only game they lost.....

After 1 game? Lol, fans be bold!

steady986:
Ehn, LeBron can't win a ring, but Luka can

Luka will never lead a team to a ring. Never. He will never have the mentality

larride:
What Alex Caruso was doing for not guarding anyone though, basically just pulling and the refs allowing him to get away with it.

He didnt do anything wrong. Folks just not used to hard nosed playoff bball anymore. What type of pull can Caruso use on Jokic?

End of an era for sure. I cannot see curry, durant, lebron winning a ring again. Its jist not about skill. Its also how the younger athletes have adapted the game. I did not think it was possible to guard Jokic and Murray like they did, and not get in foul trouble.

aliondo:
ThunderUp

This team is truly OKCs own. Built from the ground up!

Ridwan1821:
I see you all are happy the Knicks knocked us out of the playoff.
I believe with Tatum available, we stood a better chance.

We were there in 2023 when the Celtics took Game 6 in Miami to come back from a 3-0 deficit, though they lost game 7.

The offense in the first quarter yesterday was so poor from the Celtics. Only Jaylen Brown came into that game. We had 20pts and Brown had 13pts out of it.

Brown didn't start the second quarter greatly and that was the beginning of our misery as the other Celtics players couldn't complement him (Brown).

I believe the story would have been different if Tatum was available.

I can see New York fans celebrating like they've won the NBA Championship.

Y'all are losing to the Pacers.

Who cares, we want to see a complete nba team winning the ring, not 3 ball merchants taking an easy path through injured teams to steal a ring

Na Jokic dem collect ball for im hand like rookie? The young shall grow!

The last time we saw Pacers-Knicks in the ECF was 2000? Man that was a different era! Mighty mouse, Rasheed Wallace and the trailblazers. Chris Webber, Stojakovich and the Kings, Tim Duncan and the Spurs, Alonzo on the Heat, Rockets still hadan older Hakeem, Barkley, and a PG named Moochie My goodness that was a fun time to be an NBA fan, you could watch all your team games locally without cable. Before this corporatized milkshake product we have today.


Half the guys in the NBA then, they would be too thug or street for the NBA today

greypencils:
If you ask me, Anunobi has been my man of this series both for his stats and for his Nigerian roots. I have watched his growth from his rookie days as a raptor and I have loved it. I never thought I will see him play first team at this level. His growth has been silent, but very remarkable. I love to see Nigerians thrive anywhere and everywhere neverminding the countries our allegiance lie.

He found a coach that values hard work in the little things

aliondo:
Where was this version of J. Brown since??

Microwave, gets hot quick