2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

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Who ya got?

Raps in 4
2
13%
Raptors in 5
1
7%
Raptors in 6
2
13%
Raptors in 7
5
33%
Warriors in 4
1
7%
Warriors in 5
2
13%
Warriors in 6
0
No votes
Warriors in 7
1
7%
Warriors go up 3-0, Drake takes off sweatshirt to reveal Warriors KD jersey
1
7%
Raptors win 4 straight, Drake rips off Warriors KD jersey to reveal Raptors KD jersey
0
No votes
 
Total votes : 15

Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby NovU on Fri Jun 14, 2019 2:03 pm

Total team effort by the Raptors as Kawhi almost pulled off a nice LBJ's invisible mode, lol.

What if Klay didn't get injured again? Would we have game 7?

Credits to Vanvleet, hitting big shots and making big plays.

air gordon wrote:i can see toronto fired up to win the franchise's first ever championship in game 6. the raptors will get down early as usual then wear down the W's. the caveat being iggy finds his inner robert horry,

Kinda scary how your prediction was right on the money. Iggy was splendid.





Kawhi has 2 finals mvp. How many does Curry have?
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby [Q] on Fri Jun 14, 2019 2:17 pm

There would be a game 7 if not for vanvleet. Dude has been huge all playoffs long
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby Andrew on Fri Jun 14, 2019 2:53 pm

I don't know if I've seen a sloppier end to an epic NBA Finals game, but it was an epic game nevertheless. Hats off to the Warriors for a valiant effort, but congratulations to the Raptors for the championship!

VanVleet was great for Toronto. I'm not sure it's right to call him the unsung hero because he is getting a fair amount of praise (and rightfully so), but in any event he was incredibly valuable as the proverbial spark plug. Great run for Leonard, finishing with the third most points in a single postseason (732, behind LeBron's 748 and MJ's 759). Have to imagine we'd be headed for a Game 7 if Thompson didn't go down, though. 32 points in 30 minutes.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby I Hate Mondays on Fri Jun 14, 2019 6:39 pm

Let's do a brainstorming on how to convince Dad VanVleet to have a kid every year. I'll send him the emails.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby Dee4Three on Fri Jun 14, 2019 7:20 pm

Klay Thompson tore his ACL.

What a disaster for the Warriors.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby Andrew on Fri Jun 14, 2019 7:55 pm

That landing did look rough. He wanted to keep playing, too. No way that was happening after Durant, but heart of a champion indeed.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby air gordon on Sat Jun 15, 2019 12:38 am

NovU wrote:
air gordon wrote:i can see toronto fired up to win the franchise's first ever championship in game 6. the raptors will get down early as usual then wear down the W's. the caveat being iggy finds his inner robert horry,

Kinda scary how your prediction was right on the money. Iggy was splendid.

add it to the pile of useless posts (Y)

another great game to finish off what was one of the better playoffs in recent years (Y)

now on to what should be an eventful offseason
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby Jeffx on Sat Jun 15, 2019 7:47 am

I have to LOL @ folks who say Toronto's championship isn't legit because GS wasn't at full strength. In 2015, the Warriors defeated a Cavs team without Kevin Love & Kyrie Irving.....in 1999, San Antonio beat a Knicks squad without their best player.....in 1989, Detroit swept a banged-up Lakers team....I could go on and on. Should we put an asterisk next to those titles? Please...you play with what you have.

Amazing that Kawhi Leonard is only the third player in NBA history to win Finals MVP with two different teams. Lot of credit goes to Masai Ujuri. He knew the Raptors weren't getting to the next level with Derozan. He had the cojones to go all in on Leonard.

And of course, another ex-Knick gets a ring.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby volsey on Sat Jun 15, 2019 8:27 am

Jeffx wrote:I have to LOL @ folks who say Toronto's championship isn't legit because GS wasn't at full strength. In 2015, the Warriors defeated a Cavs team without Kevin Love & Kyrie Irving.....in 1999, San Antonio beat a Knicks squad without their best player.....in 1989, Detroit swept a banged-up Lakers team....I could go on and on. Should we put an asterisk next to those titles? Please...you play with what you have.

Amazing that Kawhi Leonard is only the third player in NBA history to win Finals MVP with two different teams. Lot of credit goes to Masai Ujuri. He knew the Raptors weren't getting to the next level with Derozan. He had the cojones to go all in on Leonard.

And of course, another ex-Knick gets a ring.


Agreed. And I have a feeling if the Bucks had been in the Raptors place and won the championship the narrative would have been different.

Obviously Durant in the one quarter he played had a huge impact, and Klay was dominant in game 6 when he played; but that doesn't take away from the Raptors win. GS shut down Leonard for the most part better than any team in the playoffs. And the Raptors shut down Curry for the most part pretty well with the zone plus one D.

The point I'm getting to is adjustments can and were made. Who knows, if Durant and Klay were healthy obviously the series would have played quite differently but maybe the Raps would have made the necessary adjustments and the final outcome would have been the same. Maybe Draymond wouldn't have had the huge impact he had in game 6, maybe Iggy wouldn't have had the same efficiency as he would've had less touches; too many different aspects to speculate outright from one viewpoint.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby bowdown on Sun Jun 16, 2019 1:43 am

The Spurs now look bad for trying to tarnish Kawhi Leonard's reputation. He stuck to his guns and won a Finals MVP with another team. Derozan must feel bad as well as it seems he was the one holding them back with his no 3pt shooting ass. The only thing I don't like about the Raptors winning the championship is Drake. Other than that I am happy for them.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby [Q] on Sun Jun 16, 2019 8:56 am

Jeffx wrote:And of course, another ex-Knick gets a ring.

Lin for the win!

Linsanity>Melo


Overall, you can't put an asterisk for the Raptors because they should have lost so many times before the finals and still managed to make it. They deserve everything they got
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby Andrew on Sun Jun 16, 2019 2:13 pm

It's worth mentioning the injuries as a factor and fair to wonder What If, but a lot of teams over the years have benefited or suffered as the result of good and bad fortune. Plenty of teams have also let golden opportunities slip. As I said before, I once put stock in it, but I'm not a fan of the asterisk concept these days.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby NovU on Sun Jun 16, 2019 2:27 pm

To be fair, no matter what the Spurs' done, they were gonna look bad. Kawhi, after all, was a league top 3 players all along and some of us knew it. Imagine getting KD, Curry, LBJ, or Harden in return for DeRozan. You just don't simply replace a player of their caliber and expect to keep winning like before. But perhaps they should have taken on picks and players in development over an established player like DeRozan and hope for the future. But perhaps as benji mentioned before, Greg Pop didn't wanna coach a rebuilding team in dwindling years of his career.

On individual level however, DeRozan had a blast season becoming the first ever Spurs player to average at least 20 ppg 5 reb 5 ast. Ofc that didn't reflect on Spurs winning column too much and they did never looked like the Spurs of last 2 decades. It goes to signify true value of Kawhi just as LeBurn-less Heat/Cavs.



On the note of sore losers asterisking the Raptors season, no real reason to feed those troll sore losers. Rather than a simple congrats on a very deserving team, the first thing they mention always are 'oh who got hurt' and 'only if who played' scenarios. Just not worth it...
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby Andrew on Sun Jun 16, 2019 2:47 pm

True. There'll always be fans who say that and at the end of the day, it shouldn't be paid much mind.

It's interesting how perception has shifted regarding the situation with Kawhi and the Spurs. Kawhi telling his side of the story obviously has an impact on that, but it's not like the Spurs have a bad reputation of being unprofessional. It comes down to who wronged whom first, who broke whose trust first. Tony Parker's gaffe clearly didn't help the situation and ended up contributing to the ill-feeling from Kawhi's side. The stuff about Kawhi hiding from Spurs personnel in New York and allegedly not being forthright with the team is a bad look, but was that in response to something the team did first? Was their lack of trust in him due to an incident that Kawhi could've handled better?

It may sound childish to focus on who started it, but I think it's relevant. Both sides have a lot of goodwill banked, which is what makes the split so fascinating. One side had to have done something first that caused a rift, and it only grew from there. That may be as close as we get to the truth of the matter. I suppose it doesn't matter in the long run since what's done is done, but it's one of the stranger splits in NBA history, given the parties involved.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby NovU on Sun Jun 16, 2019 7:58 pm

Seems to me, considering his behaviour at that time, his mind already left the Spurs. We all had a friend whom we always found annoying and eventually you put enough distance you were able to get rid of him from your life. Rather than it being one time divorce deal, it looked more like gradual break up to me.

Kawhi was always capable but a lot of credits went to the team and system when it was mostly Kawhi’s excellence. And team never gave him freedom/respect which the Raptors did and were perhaps never going to. People can preach teamplay all year long but at the end of the day this game is won with superstars. You only needed a rookie coach Nick Nurse to win it all. Did he really outcoach 29 other coaches in the league? Brand of basketball is secondary, its stars league first. Meaning letting your superstar loose often times turns out to be the best ball the team can play as it allows them to get going. Saying this, becuz I believe Kawhi wanted out to prove he is better than Spurs ball and he was more than advertised before too late.

Kawhi rested entire season last year and Derozan averaged over 20-5-5 for the Spurs this season but the result is mere 1 more regulat season win and same first round exit. Isn't it ridiculous? You just added 20-5-5 over player but you only improved by 1 win. Same Greg Pop's brand of basketball too. Note that with Kawhi, the team most likely could have won close to or exceed 60 wins which gives them legit contender status as proven in countless years. Why the best player matter? There you also see, LBJ and Kawhi could make Irving, Bosh and Lowry look like winners. Teams achieve greatness because of top players and not secondary ass player who alone can lead to nothing neither because of Kerr/Pop's excellent brand of ballsack. drops the mic*
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby Andrew on Sun Jun 16, 2019 11:15 pm

I don't know about Leonard not getting his due as a superstar, but if nothing else it does seem that he felt the team didn't stand by him when he was injured. Glancing back to a report around this time last year, the fact that he sought treatment outside of the team's medical staff and didn't feel supported in doing so seems to be a sticking point, and more recent comments back that up. Something led up to that decision and turn of events, so we're still left to speculate as to who broke protocol first, who wronged and offended whom first. Either way, I agree it was a series of events that led to the split, not a spur of the moment thing (no pun intended).
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby air gordon on Tue Jun 18, 2019 12:45 am

NovU wrote: You only needed a rookie coach Nick Nurse to win it all. Did he really outcoach 29 other coaches in the league? Brand of basketball is secondary, its stars league first. Meaning letting your superstar loose often times turns out to be the best ball the team can play as it allows them to get going.

i think there is some truth in your post but as far coaching, i am not sure. it's almost like the chicken and the egg question. how can someone tell how good of a job a coach is doing? Did the great Michael Jordan become a champion because of phil jackson and the "triangle" (which wasn't used in late game situations)? or perhaps a bigger a fact was Scottie Pippen elevating his game to an all star level?

you can catch some in games things like toronto just picking on cousins with the high pick and roll or on defense ignoring any warrior player on the perimeter except Curry/thompson.

but gameplans, in game adjustments, etc... that seems like something you would see in the game film.

the spurs record this year was a great accomplishment though. clearly derozan is not on leonard's level but for the spurs to win that many games in the West, kudos to them. credit to the raptors as well but they don't match their East seeding/record using the same load management with leonard against mostly West conf. teams.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby Andrew on Tue Jun 18, 2019 2:59 am

It's also unfair to reduce Nurse to the role of glorified babysitter when the team wins, but lay blame at his feet when they lose (the timeout in Game 5 comes to mind). If he deserves blame, then he also deserves credit. Also, while he's in his first year as an NBA head coach, he'd been an assistant with the Raptors for a few years, and coached in the G-League and overseas. It's his first really big gig, but he's far from a novice. In that sense, he's not unlike a lot of the coaches who are considered all-time greats; first time captaining this particular ship, but not their first command, so to speak.

There's no denying the impact and importance of star players, but it wouldn't be right to say the coaches don't have any impact. If that were the case, we wouldn't see coaching changes pay off. Let's not pretend that the outcomes are governed by the star players to the point that a team could pluck any fan from the stands (or maybe one of us keyboard/armchair analysts) to be the coach and they'd be just as successful. The coaches are the ones making adjustments, devising strategy, advising players based on what they can see from the sideline, working with them in practice. That's not even getting into managing egos and morale, and getting a team on the same page. Unifying leadership, as well as the Xs and Os. It's the difference between a cohesive unit and the inmates running the asylum.

The late great Dr Jack Ramsey once recalled that Bill Walton, one of the most intelligent players in league history, said to him during a timeout: "Don't assume we know everything". Ramsey noted how rare it was for a player to so openly say that the team is ready and willing to receive instruction, and valued it. Tremendous players that are poorly coached or utilised may win in the regular season on the strength of their talent alone, but we see it come apart when it matters the most. Mike D'Antoni probably remains the prime example of that. He's had teams that could've and should've gone much further than they did, indeed all the way to the championship. That kind of success continues to elude his squads, who have suffered some very disappointing defeats in series they could've and should've won. It's no coincidence.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby air gordon on Tue Jun 18, 2019 3:31 am

wow tough crowd there. It was D'Antoni's fault why the Suns lost when that Sun's team that had its key players suspended in that series against the Spurs?! Shame on David Stern really

or perhaps Jerry Sloan's teams that never won the title? those teams had the talent

Andrew wrote:Let's not pretend that the outcomes are governed by the star players to the point that a team could pluck any fan from the stands (or maybe one of us keyboard/armchair analysts) to be the coach and they'd be just as successful.

was it jake the snake that challenged "any" fan to fight him in the ring and that "fan" turned out to be Earthquake?
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby Andrew on Tue Jun 18, 2019 12:32 pm

Had to look that up. It was during a push-up contest between The Ultimate Warrior and Dino Bravo, but yeah, Earthquake made his WWF debut as a plant. That'd be a fun way for an NBA team to announce their new coach, actually. "We could win with anyone coaching us...even that guy right there!"
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby debiler on Wed Jun 19, 2019 9:31 pm

I'm only going by what I was able to observe during this and last year's Rockets postseason, here: I blame Mike D'Antoni for 95% of what went down. In light of last season's playoff exit, a veteran coach with over 20 years of experience should be able to analyze and learn from their experience. I said it before this year: the Rockets' system was completely tailored towards getting a decent win% during the regular season, when losing a couple of games due to bad luck and cold hands doesn't matter. In the postseason, things are different. You need an alternative gameplan for when the opponent has your number and/or your star player has an off night. Think back to the 2011 finals, game 6 - Dirk was ice-cold at the beginning, so they adjusted. Or the 2019 finals, game 6 - Leonard was underwhelming, so FVV had to step up. Or 1997, also game six: Jordan didn't find Steve Kerr for the win by accident, you know. As head coach, you need to recognize the necessity to react to the flow of the game. Sometimes, you can't just shoot your way out of it. There needs to be balance between the game plan and trusting your players to make the right decisions. Sometimes I feel like D'Antoni is just playing the percentages - on average, giving Harden the ball and look at him go is in fact the best thing to do. But when the intensity gets turned up during the playoffs, there need to be other options, because you will not get as many easy looks. And from what I've seen, the Rockets had no alternative game plan whatsoever.
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Re: 2019 NBA Finals: Raptors vs. Warriors

Postby air gordon on Thu Jun 20, 2019 12:14 am

dino bravo. nice

big problem for houston is clint capella and the big contract. dude was barely a rotation player in the GSW series

seems a little flawed to point out FVV hitting shots as the definitive series coaching strategy. lowry was amazing the 1st half and siakam came through with a big game.

while Steve kerr joked during the championship rally that MJ told Phil to run the last play for Steve...some things are a result of the game playing out. just saying
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