Man I haven't been this excited to watch a sporting event in a very long time. Good luck to those who have money on the Cavs. That said, I hope Lebron and company eat a giant dick.

People that bet against Oracle, I.e., degenerate gamblers.

Go dubs! Time for back to back.

Legggoooo Cavs




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Please be shutting the **** up zoltan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6S1JoCSVNU

.

Congrats guys

Thanks doc

Dgaf- hope you didn't hedge


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Please be shutting the **** up zoltan

I've always been team Kobe but man.. Nobody can ever talk **** about lebron now

Congrats to DGAF, Miami and anyone who had Cleveland. DGAF, your life is preserved - you can come out of hiding now

Haha thanks. What an amazing game. I was more nervous watching it than I remember being nervous ever in my life- seriously. I thought Lebron was going to run bad in some weird spot again and the narrative was going to be he's a choker/not the GOAT because he doesn't win Finals, blah, blah, blah...

And he did run bad for a while when he kept making the RIGHT basketball play and dishing to guys who can hit the 3 but they were just missing. People on twitter were killing him for not shooting the ball himself every time lol (which is just not basketball obv)... And then Kyrie showed up and Lebron finally got some help- which you need in a team sport obv (think about Klay going bananas in OKC saving their season temporarily and saving Steph temporarily from any gross narratives). And then Kevin Love showed up and played amazing D wtf!!!

Not sure why I'm such a Lebron fan. Maybe just because basketball was a huge part of my life growing up and I've legit thought he played it the best (ever) for a long time now. Or... maybe because sorting through variance and dealing with haters (Lebron has run really bad supporting cast/coach wise compared to Jordan and Kobe in his career imo) is such a big part of my life now. IDK.

Pretty ****ing happy rn though, and I while I didn't hedge (Kendrick Lamar voice- "**** that") it's not about winning a bet (I lost way more last poker trip on red/black flips at the table :0). I'm just happy for Cleveland. And I'm really happy for the King. And I'm also personally happy I won't have to hear as much dumb results oriented **** said about the King from my friends/in bars anymore.


I feel like Kyrie may have turned the corner this series (not just because he won- though the confidence people get from winning is huge in all things obv). If he stays healthy it's gonna be scary. And if Cleveland locks him up and Lebron and TT and JR and they part ways with Love and Shump and Mo and Mozgov and they get more/better pieces, the rings could actually start flowing for a while in The Land.

hahaha... nice

Yeah well I am not sure if the narrative is justified or not but how a player plays in big games is a serious part of their legacy. A lot of it has to do with the fact that everyone is watching. I think Lebron actually played a fairly mediocre game, especially in the first half. He had some turnovers and just didn't get to the rim as much as he needed to. He played some serious defense though and that block on Andre from behind was a huge swing/game changer. It is funny how much variance is involved though since even in that play it ends in a dunk rather than a cradle/rock it/layup crap that got put up if Andre is healthy and not playing with a back issue.

The real thing here was the Splash brothers performance. Steph made many very sloppy passes and the team as a whole failed to take what they were given which was the way they won the first few. That is, if you are going to dedicate that much of your defense to stopping Curry, you get picked apart by backdoor layups and 15 foot jumpers. I about lost my mind with the behind the back pass out of bounds. Then there is Klay. I mean he just failed to make shots. Simple as that. Yes they were both forced to make tough ones but that is what they do.

So, in summary, this is going to be a huge legacy game for Lebron and a solid demerit for Steph. That bums me a little but it is what it is.

Do you mean mediocre compared to his games 5 and 6? Even then I would take issue with that. He almost had a triple double in the FIRST HALF iirc. I was reading an article the other week about bias in judging (figure skating, gymnastics, etc) and it was talking about how we have a hard time 'erasing' previous performances from our mind, no matter how professional or well trained/unbiased we are. I'm sure that as fans we project these subconscious narratives onto a live game instead of being objective about any given performance.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using 2+2 Forums

Yes I agree with you to an extent. The measuring stick is different and the bar gets set pretty high. Fair or not is a point worth arguing but when you start talking GOAT, you are going to have to live with it. I am just not that big a fan so there is obviously bias but for you guys that are, you dodged a huge bullet. If the cavs lose this game and Lebron shoots 9/24 and 1/5 from 3 and 0/5 in the last 5 minutes you are looking at a different meaning of goat.

Oh hey Skip Bayless...

You cannot compare Steph to LBJ. I mean the Cavs strategy on O/maybe the turning point in the series was (whenever one of the super garbage guys like Varajo or Ezeli weren't out there) to set a screen with the guy Steph was guarding (because GSW switches on screens 100%) and then have Lebron or Kyrie just abuse Steph. That was legit the game plan that won them the series because Steph is such a poor defender.

Lebron's D otoh is otherworldly and game changing in the opposite way...

I think Lebron gets docked hero points because everything looks like it comes so easy to him, because of his size and speed/athletic ability and basketball IQ and vision and all that. Steph otoh gets hero points (usually) because he's short and skinny and of normal strength/athletic ability- he's just quick af and shoot from long range like no other.

But Skip, numbers do not lie. A triple double is a triple double. And so on... And yeah, that block was just insane wow wtf timeless who else does that?

Lebron has to do everything and he doesn't get to rest because he's so valuable they die when he goes to the bench. Ofc he's spent at the end of games/series.

Yeah this for sure, they're never even within striking distance during those 'clutch' minutes if not for LBJ being superhuman earlier. The thing is, discussions about clutchness are really just discussions about mental toughness and preparation. And any athlete that's in GOAT talk is going to have those attributes in spades. Now I'm wondering how mentally tough Steph is. He's been in the league long enough to where a bad shooting night shouldn't affect his whole game in a freaking gm 7. That mouth guard toss was just lololol butthurt.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using 2+2 Forums

disclaimer. im not a die hard gsw fan. only rooted for them becuz they from killa cali. not a real lebron hater. just disappointed in how he handles himself sometimes off court.

however, i have watched nba for 30+ yrs(plus i slept at a holiday inn express last night), and imho gsw did as much to lose game 7 as lebron did to win it. basically the only one that showed up was green.

you can argue cavs d caused the splash bros to clam up but they had their fair share of decent looks and basically made nothing.

i also agree with surfdoc that curry's sloppy play was super frustrating since it was an issue all playoffs and he never fixed it. his lack of d and turnover ratio almost washes out his 3pt shooting edge.

also i dont think anyone is including curry in goat discussion. he's just a great shooter thats exciting to watch. dont get the lebron vs curry debate.

either way, lebron earned the championship and cemented his legacy and gsw has to live with the fact they let it slip away.

The 6 foul calls that led to that tossing were absurd though, especially the final one. In last nights game, there was another foul called against curry that was one of the worst calls I've seen in NBA history. I don't mind him getting fired up, since he was out of the game anyway, it's very common for players or coaches in this situation to do something like that to kind of get the refs attention and hope to get them to wake up in the next game (whether that has any effect or not is debatable, but it happens all the time).

A similar ejection happened in the OkC series with Livingston, who along with Curry, never had any ejections in his career prior to his ejection. These guys weren't being "babies," they had legitimate gripes on the calls against them and anyone who watched the last two series should know that.

I'm not using that as an excuse for losing the trophy though. Steph has been half a step slow since his injury, and since then has really only been "good" and not God like. Couple that with sloppy turn overs, limited bench production, and klay sea sawing between looking like he was stoned and producing nothing to playing like a God they definitely dug their own grave to an extent despite the bs with the league and the officials. Oh, and lebron and Kyrie being complete beasts also helped too. Hell of a series by both of them, they looked like they wanted it more. Dray was the only warrior who looked like he wanted it bad last night though, so props to him as well.

And don't even get me started on Harrison Barnes and Kerrs use of Ezeli last night. Good God that was terrible.

I don't buy the fired up argument. There's a cap on how petulant/unprofessional a grown man can act in the face of bad calls and adversity. Curry acted like a brat, that's all. It's game 6 of the finals, everyone is fired up. It's hardly like he's been targeted by refs in his career. Seems like Cle exposing Curry's D put the spotlight on him and yeah, the refs blew a bunch of calls.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using 2+2 Forums

Rewatch that game

Steph should've been called for his 6th approx 2 possessions but the refs let them play.

No one is complaining about that


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Please be shutting the **** up zoltan

To have such great players lean on you in the final minutes of game 7 shows the massive respect James has with his team. So much pressure and weight on his shoulders, basically going 1 on 1 every offensive possession for the last 7 minutes. Such a humble guy at the end of the day, nothing but love for Lebron James.

GSW live and die with the 3-point shot. We of all people know the variance in 40%ers. Curry's two near airballs/turnovers towards the end were brutal to watch, obviously was in his own head a bit. This series was all-time tho, respect to Cavs and Warriors.

Closing Argument:

Teams up 3-1 in the Championship round were 32-0 prior to this year.
The team up 3-1 this year had the most wins in NBA history this season.
The team up 3-1 this year had home court advantage.

Then Lebron did this:

41-16-7-3-3 (W)
41-8-11-4-3 (W)
27-11-11-2-3 (W)

https://instagram.com/p/BGvDauCM09k/


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Please be shutting the **** up zoltan

Just pointing out that the GOAT discussion wasn't about Steph vs Lebron. It was about Michael.