Then you don’t watch basketball.
I was at this game and LOLCP3
This clip didn’t even have CP fouling Russ on the 3PA to lose.
Pop coached a great series and wore Harden down by continually guarding him with good players and making everything difficult. Harden had no other ball handlers on that team and could barely take a possession off, never mind have someone take over for a quarter.
The whole concept is so ridiculously stupid. Paul made mistakes in that game. Just like he made great plays in others. How can people who come from a poker background be so results oriented?
Because I’m ridiculously stupid, bad at poker, and don’t watch very much basketball 
Why include a video that explicitly says the refs made two incorrect calls vs the clips and cp3?
Also a semi-casual fan and completely agree.
It’s not about “super teams”, it just feels artificial. The struggle is part of the narrative. That’s why it was cool to see Lowry win with the Raptors, or Dirk with the Mavs.
When Durant joined a team that had won 70+ games the previous year and then romped to the title, who cares? They were supposed to given that roster. There’s no fun story there.
It would be like if Jokic and Lillard and Embiid and Giannis all got together and fucked off to the Knicks or something. That wouldn’t be fun.
He fouled Russ on the arm on the 3. He shouldn’t have even made it questionable tbh. And that first turnover is horrific. Second is pretty standard last play stuff (no call).
The post up thread about Harden’s playoff exploits is pretty thorough. It’s really strange that you guys think regular season success and playoff success are synonymous. The Hawks won how many games a few years ago? Giannis is far and away the best player on both sides of the ball in the regular season. Shit. Doesn’t. Matter.
Oh well, not trying to pick a fight over it. Sorry if writing that the concept of anecdotal analysis is silly to me. I did not mean you are stupid.
So much of the perception of winners and losers, clutch and chocking, is based on very little proof and analysis and a lot of what we want as fans imo.
It’s a weird American thing where we get mad at the regular season for not being as interesting, then also arguing only the playoffs matter. The 82 games don’t matter, but 4-~25 games matter way more.
Like it’s perfectly built for first take style narratives, but it’s also just so, so lazy.
The regular season doesn’t matter. Are you even paying attention to these playoffs?
1 Like
I literally wrote that it isn’t and mentioned Giannis specifically. That post isn’t thorough. It just says “choke” a lot and provides little to no statistical backing or even analysis. That’s my point. In Harden case it’s even worse because it’s not like his teams severely underachieve. Part of the problem of leading bad teams to 50+ wins in the regular season is that they remain bad teams in the playoffs, only it’s easier to exploit them.
All I’m saying is that there might be actual basketball reasons why player A will have trouble in playoff setting (we have a prime example with Giannis). There might be none and it’s a small sample size or unlucky. To achieve some yips status, you need some far better evidence imo.
1 Like
In that we’re headed for 1v2 in each conference playing each other?
lol did you even watch the Nets regular season?
We can agree that Harden’s beard is probably smelly, though, right?
Like, do you mean that they had a bunch of injuries? So did every team. Every star missed 10+ games except Jokic.
No one is saying regular season equals playoffs, but if you’re judging someone’s career it shouldn’t be 100:0 either way. Not 50:50 either, but both matter.
I had mono during my sophomore year in high school and had to miss the second half of the season.
Jwax does any of this have to do with Harden previously playing for your favorite team?
Lol they literally sat KD for over half the season because it’s so irrelevant. And now he’s the best player on the planet and going to carry them to a title, even if Harden never comes back.
Well, I was in Dallas for the closeout Game 4 in 2012 when Harden took over the 4th quarter and carried Russ KD to a win. Then I watched that same Harden play like complete ass in the Finals (he was like 22 though). Other than that, not really. Russ has choked a ton in the playoffs. I was at 2016 WCF G6.