big vince was really the highlite

Disgusting game. Good defense from both, but really the C's offense was just an abomination at times. You can't give garnett the ball basically at the 3pt line and ask him to take ben wallace to the rim. When rondo wasn't in the game, it seemed like nobody could beat their defender off the dribble. Ray may not be what he once was but it's wally z on him, you gotta get him going on some pick and rolls or some isos or off the ball screens or something. The thing i really don't understand about it is that ray has had long stretches this season in games where he would be the primary ball handler on offense, and while it clearly isn't his strong suit, he would frequently just dribble around randomly and use that quick release to get medium range jumpers and floaters off. Against a guy like wally, this would be great.

Ugh that game hurt to watch. Just terrible.

seriously I tilted so hard after we dominated the first Q thanks to KG and Rondo, then watched a 2nd quarter lineup of Cassell, Posey, Powe, PJ Brown, and Pierce. WTF Doc is so dumb

I love it when Sam makes one shot and you just know that the next time he gets the ball he is jacking it up.

i seriously think that if doc wasn't allowed to substitute players, call plays or get in thibodeau's way he'd be a great coach. so basically if they just interviewed him before halftime. preferably from his living room.

Doc is actually an underrated play caller. Cs rate very well coming out of timeouts

You should probably draft him then IMO

This was the best I've seen KG play all season AINEC

He may be good at play calling but he basically mis-matched himself with the 2nd quarter lineup as the cavs outscored them by 10 or something? wtf?

you are obviously unfamiliar with Doc Rivers playoff basketball

idk whether anyone still cares about this (or if anyone besides vickery and myself ever did) but i did some digging/fooled around in excel and i think that the guy who said cavs had a 2% chance of winning was looking at the log5 predictor for the celtics/hawks series

evidently

Yeah like when they were down 2 and called a play for Ray Allen to jack a 3.

Might be the strangest game I've ever seen. If you asked me to guess the score with no scoreboard-- just watching, I would have thought it was like 58-55 or something. I honestly can't remember any periods of nice offense from either team barring that first little stretch in the first quarter by the Celtics.

or what about in the beginning of the third after a full TO, doc calls a play for an entry pass to KG on the strong side block, then perk sets a back screen fot rondo freeing him up for a 21 foot jump shot off the weak side baseline from KG's x-court pass.

Not really Rondo's forte imo.

I'm pretty sure he was using the right data. Using Celtics and Cavaliers full year stats, log5 does put the Celtics at about 98% to win. I'm not saying I like the data after watching tonight's game, but even using post trade Cavs data and bumping Lebron's minutes to 48, you still get Celtics 95% to win.

it's weird, i'm a complete math guy, and i think math can explain a lot of things, but even those numbers offend me.

i threw some stuff into excel and i don't think it's perfect but through 6 games i have the celts at ~80%

edit: that is to say 80% to beat the cavs in 6 games or less. also have the celts over the hawks at ~90% in 6 or less. so my question is how did you do it?

obv possible i screwed up somewhere b/c i did it pretty quickly but given that the log5 is based on win% and the hawks win% is almost 10 pts < the cavs i find it hard to believe that both are two% to win. this site had the hawks as ~1.6% to beat the celts more log5

Let me put it this way... over the course of year, the Cavs have the statistical profile of a below .500 team, just a couple point better than the Hawks. Think of the odds in terms of the best team in the league vs. a sub .500 team.

To be fair, you do need need to adjust the full year stats for the LBJ and Varejao injuries, the trade, and for LBJ playing 48/game during the playoffs. And the Basketball Prospectus guy does mention it in the article.

i love how the gambling guys come out for the playoffs.

laserboy please keep posting.

I see your mistake. You are using actual win%'s rather than pythagorean win%'s. Basketball Prospectus uses Points Scored/100 and Points Allowed/100, and projects win%'s from that using pythagorean wins.

LOL Cleveland

right and the adjustments are extremely important so i don't see the purpose of citing 2% as the cavs' log5 expectation . if he knows it's not reliable, why bother. anyway, i also realized that i used actual and not pythagorean win totals which accounts for some stuff.