The NBA - basketball talk

A different curse than just basketball, just like Cleveland's curse.

But as far as I understand it, it's just about one Chicago team, right? It isn't even listed among the 13 most cursed sports cities in the US.

Yeah, but it's a team cursed by a freakin' goat.

Re average margin of victory in 7-game-series: Call me insane or life-less, but I found that these Finals do have the highest average margin of victory for all basketball series that have gone 7. The highest I found previously was the 2009 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals (Atlanta over Miami, 19.143); the highest in any Finals is a tie (14.429) between 1960 (Boston over St. Louis Hawks) and 2005 (San Antonio over Detroit). It currently stands at 19.667 after six games; Game 7 would have to be won by 16 points to tie the record.

One team (the Cubs) that has by itself had more years without a championship (over 100) than most multi-sport cities. The Cubs have gone 108 seasons without a championship. By comparison, most of the cities in that article have won at least one championship, San Diego has gone 112 championship-less seasons, and Cleveland has gone a hilarious number that should only get funnier.

Also, there are many Chicagoans who aren't Cubs fans, and many Cubs fans that aren't Chicagoans.

I'm all in for Cleveland. Lebron may not be an underdog, but the city sure is. And he's only won 2 out of 6 finals.

Besides, Golden State hasn't been underdogs since last season. Their team and Steph Curry in particular have completely eclipsed any talk of Lebron.

Any team with Lebron is automatically not an underdog; the moment Lebron is on your team, the sports media gushes about how you have "the king." For the past two games he's gotten eighty two points, twenty four rebounds, and seven steals. And yet, he only really did this in Games 5 and 6, and those two championships he won were with Miami, not his "beloved" Cleveland.

I agree with the fact. Though of course not being a Cubs fan does not translate to a White Sox fan in Chicago either.

Speaking of NBA:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/playoffs/2016/06/17/stephen-curry-lebron-james-kyrie-irving-warriors-cavaliers-finals/86025846/

Unless Curry gets a Get A Hold Of Yourself Man moment, I think GS's chances of winning are now narrower by the second. He ought to redeem himself on this one.

edited 18th Jun '16 3:55:27 PM by general_tiu

65-35 for GS in my opinion. Thing is, if Lebron is in the zone, Cleveland might still lose. If Curry does the same, GS can't, he is completely unstoppable.

In any event, we might be in for a career-defining moment from either Steph or LBJ - or, if we are lucky, both (in which case I still think GS is better).

Or maybe the real hero of this game 7 will be Love who will put seven three-pointers and end up with 35 points. You never know.

Love is definitely a factor. He is itching to prove himself so that can turn out really great or really badly for the Cavs.

I'm honestly getting tired of these more-than-10-point blowouts. There's one team playing brilliantly, one playing like total shit; there's just no real tension.

I feel like Kerr would be an obstacle for any Get A Hold of Yourself moment Curry could have. There's nothing necessarily wrong with him saying that he's happy with Curry having been upset with the ref's decision, but he doesn't seem to get upset with his players at all.

At this point it comes down to psychology. Some players will get better when being screamed at, some won't. Some will improve after you criticize them in the press, and some will have a better reaction if you support them or shift the blame somewhere else (on the refs, for example).

It's really hard to know, but I assume Kerr knows how Curry works. I hope so for him, at least. If they end up without the title this year, it will be a huge disappointment after setting the all-time best season record.

Kerr got so mad he literally broke his whiteboard in half. I don't think he's a hard ass but I think he knows how to call out players when needed.

Lebron has immortalized himself with this one, but Kyrie is the MVP in my heart with that shot.

edited 19th Jun '16 7:43:54 PM by NoChorus

And Cleveland redeems itself. Congrats to Cleveland!

So, is the Cleveland curse broken now?

For sure - there was a fairly big brouhaha in That Other Wiki when that guy from Cleveland won the MMA title over whether that counted.

Well, one thing's for sure, history will remember this in two ways. Cleveland finally ending its championship drought in a major sports event and GSW as one of the biggest, if not the biggest chokes in NBA.

edited 19th Jun '16 8:11:26 PM by Hoki

It's the biggest choke, no question about it. Coming into today, teams up 3-1 in the Finals were 31-0. This will probably haunt them for life.

God Clarifies That He Still Hates Cleveland Fans Despite Cavaliers Championship

http://www.theonion.com/article/god-clarifies-he-still-hates-cleveland-fans-despit-53115

I have rarely been happier to be wrong. Coming back from 1-3 aithout home court advantage, that is a tremendous performance.

Is Varejao a NBA champion or not?

They'll probably give him the ring. Though he did play a lot of dirty basketball in this series. Flopping I mean. But Lebron has a very close relationship with him, so to deny him this would be kind of petty.

He played like he did for the Cavs, so I doubt it will be used as an explanation anyway.

And the "bad for me" news just keeps on coming in:

• The Bulls trade away Rose to the Knicks, lose Noah to the Knicks, and    sign Rondo, my most disliked player, to replace Rose   .
• Kevin Durant signs... to that Warriors.

RIP league.

God, this has to be the lamest move a superstar has ever made in the history of the league. Lebron going to Miami wasn't nearly as bad. And I loved KD man.

Thing is, this isn't even going to work well. But the concept.

This is the wackest shit.