He's worth 9 figures at this point from BTC I think so I doubt he's too worried about a few of us jabbing his trades.

Nice response from Clippers.....Clarkson coming back to earth means Jazz need Conley back, although Ingles does give them a little more size on D. Wonder if he can go in gm 5.

Total disrespect. Obviously with regards to Embiid who anyone with eyeballs notices is at an elite level but Simmons also. Simmon's athleticism and ball handling, passing, etc resemble a Lebron James in his prime that cannot shoot. If Simmons could shoot the basketball he would probably be in the conversation for top ten of all time. Obviously that's a huge part of basketball and Lebron was able to get to an elite level of scoring from many different angles but Simmons does everything else at a very elite level and teams have to respect his ability to bull charge and score the basketball at a similar level to the prime Lebron years.

Just open your eyes a bit man.

Gobert heating up.

always like these analysts saying how there's a lot of time left for the teams getting blown out, when their actual win probability is like 0.3%

They've been instructed to give hope to the audience for a competitive game down the stretch so they don't tune out.

So all tied up at 2-2 but the Clippers have outscored the Jazz by 31 overall. Would be a pretty big form turnaround for Jazz to win from here even with the extra home game.

Very prescient.

but...the jazz best player went 4/4. if he just shoots more they win. ez game!

What makes this even more interesting are the shooting numbers. Bear in mind the Clipse were the better shooting team and are going small which theoretically benefits shooting.

G1 - Clipse 38% Jazz 34% - Jazz win by 3
G2 - Clipse 37% Jazz 51% - Jazz win by 6
G3 - Clipse 53% Jazz 43% - Clipse win by 26
G4 - Clipse 41% Jazz 41% - Clipse win by 14

Judging by the shooting variance numbers, it would seem to me that the Clippers are less reliant on shooting luck. The teams are basically dead-even in 3 point shooting percentages thus far in this series, but the Clippers are +7.7 overall.

The Jazz, much like the WOKELYN Nets, are fu.cked.

Ha broken clock.

Steve Nash needs to pull a 2015 Cavaliers NBA Finals type strategy and slow the game down tremendously for the Nets to have a chance to win.

Make it a grit or grind affair where Durant not only scores but does EVERYTHING on the court (I'm talking DEFENSE, REBOUNDING, ASSISTS, HUSTLE PLAYS) and THEN and ONLY THEN can you win G5.

AiMcL has spoken.

:: drops mic ::

Speaking of which, it still blows my mind that Lebron got a 2-1 lead on the god damn Warriors sans Kyrie and Kevin Love in the finals. Holy hell playoff Lebron was a beast.

Katie isn't LeBron

Yeah I remember watching that series and I was AMAZED at his performance.

Superhuman type stuff.

Yeah you're right, KD will be joining the Bucks by the end of the 4th quarter.

All the remaining series sitting at 2-2 with the suns basically going on vacation for a week. Huge advantage for suns to be fresh as heck for west finals and hopefully the nba finals (with home court). Injuries to all these teams has this absolutely WIDE open.

FMP

These NBA Playoffs has truly become a war of attrition.

Yep, according to Championship odds that I can see, Bucks are faves with 20.5% implied chance of winning it all, and Philly are 6th faves with 11.2%. Unheard of to still have 6 teams within 10% of each other this late in the season.

After a year+ of limited to no fans people are forgetting how much home court advantage equates to in the NBA playoffs. In an article I found it shows that Home Team's in the NBA playoffs historically get a 14% boost in expected win/loss percentage Vs a 10% boost in the regular season. Out of the four major sports in the US, Home field/court is most beneficial to have in basketball.

The Jazz had the best home court record in the NBA during the regular season and now have a full capacity of fans to pack their stadium. The Clippers still working under 50% capacity. I do think the Clippers seem like the better team but wins in Utah are going to be tough. Same goes towards Atlanta getting another win in Philly.

I disagree.

I have no stats or cites to back this up but I think both college and pro football are more valuable.

Charges dropped, but yeah his brothers are quite menacing.

I like the under today, +-4 that’s a good line so I’m not gonna bet but no lock today just gambling

The Nets just need to get hot from 3's for a couple of games - the Bucks aren't a Warriors-type juggernaut. I think people are understating the amount of variance involved in what is now a best-of-3 series.

The better comparison is the 2015 ECF. Lebron was facing the Bud-coached Atlanta Hawks team that was almost exactly as good as the Bud-coached Bucks this season (+5.8 Net Rating, 4th in the league for the Hawks vs +5.7 Net Rating, 4th in the league for the Bucks). The Cavs were already down Kevin Love for the playoffs and Kyrie Irving was ineffective in Game 1 due to injuries and missed Game 2/3. Kyrie came back for Game 4, but wasn't really needed (he played 22 minutes and the Cavs won by 30 points). Lebron was also nursing a back injury that broke his jump shot the entire playoffs. The Cavs easily swept which is why people don't remember this series.

It was just a random article which was mostly trying to illustrate that home ice advantage had really no impact compared to the regular season in hockey. Football was actually quite close to basketball with baseball being closer to irrelevant similar to hockey. Main thing I was trying to point out was that it's actually a thing and that Clippers/Mavs series was an anomaly. Clippers probably have the least home court advantage of any team left in the playoffs not only cause they are only filling about 45% capacity but also cause of their fair weather friend fan base. Let's be honest, Utah and Philly fans going to be rocking their arenas much more than any team left in the playoffs. It's a real advantage there.