Playoffs Discussion - Finals Finished

[PacersGM]

congrats heat... guess i did too many changes 
with tanner out for 4 days i tried to beat the heat in a scoring race..
It almost worked but my 2 best player during the season really sucked...
anyway Lenard had a fantastic series with an avg of 30/4/4 and shooting over 50% form both field and 3
and didn´t miss any freethrow during the first 3 games against shultz 
priddy was just fantastic avg as a starter at C: 20points and 19 rebounds as a non option 
artest was solid as well but with JO fouling out pretty quick i had no backups at PF

[CelticsGM]

...
anyway Lenard had a fantastic series with an avg of 30/4/4 and shooting over 50% form both field and 3
and didn´t miss any freethrow during the first 3 games against shultz 
...

This is what I wrote after my playoff exit to the HEAT last season:

...
Then, and this is the worst, freaking Shultz went down. Unbelievable, of all possible injuries that can happen it's THE one that kills my game plan.
...
Now the "Shultz factor": During the season Lenard had lots of fun with Bertram, scoring 32ppg on 60% against his "defense". Out goes Shultz, in comes Holton, one of the few defenders causing problems to Antonio. Big defender and shot blocker. For the rest of the series Lenard gets 22ppg on 45% shooting. But thats not all. Shultz' got 17 shot attemps per during the season and Keogan 23. So what happens now? With the no-offense Holton Keogans attempts climb to 32 per game (after 25 in game 1) and his scoring output goes from 35ppg in the reg season to 49ppg for game 2-5.
Guess it's save to say this injury decided the series in favor of the Heat ...

Man, i feel a LOT better now ...
 

[MagicGM]

celics nice series we had. my team won every home and so did yours.

[CelticsGM]

Thanks, Magic.
Tough loss for you, as this was one the most even played series possible.
105 ppg to 104 ppg
55.4 rpg to 55 rpg
26 apg to 24 apg
both teams shot 45%, had roughly same # of FG attempts and rebounds
Magic had more steals, less TOs, Celtics had more blocks (woha, big surprise !!!)

so the main difference were these two stats:
Celtics did better from the FT line, shooting 75% to the Magic 65% and most of all, Celtics shooting more triples and converting those at a 45% clip, while Magic (especially Brice) converted less than 37%. Enough to make a difference in a tight series.


ok, looking at season stats it probably wasn't the scoring which decided this series. After getting almost 3 blocks (8.1 to 5.3) and 2 boards (54 to 52) LESS during reg season Celtics made a nice improvement there, probably accounting for the extra possessions to take the games.


But thanks to homecourt (only assured on the final day of the series, but in reality gained when my reserves pulled out a monumental 117-114 win over the HEAT on day 118) we finally beat a top team when it counts. Too bad we don't play in the West, as both our teams, Magic and Celtics, would have had a big chance to go to the finals when playing there ...
 

[MagicGM]

haha. I was looking at the team statistics and your team averaged only 5bpg so I has my lineup of:

Dwight/Al J
Andris/Al J

I wanted to attack the inside. but bam.

[CelticsGM]

well, I think Griffin (2.6 blocks) did nicely against Biedrins, a lot better than Boozer did in the reg season. But Griff also had a 7 block game against Dwight, and Strait complements my frontcourt with more blocks and rebounds, too.

so maybe the inside attack did me a favor ...



but then again, now it's me having the dubious distinction to get run over by the Hornets
 

[MagicGM]

outrun them?

[NetsGM]

Round 2 up.

For one of the few times, playoffs going kinda how you would expect them.  Warriors are a slight surprise, but I don't consider them beating the Mavs a huge upset.

For the first time probably since Pettit's rookie year, I feel I have to make some gimmicky changes to win a series.  Odd feeling.  But I like it.

[CelticsGM]

Round 2 up.

For one of the few times, playoffs going kinda how you would expect them.  Warriors are a slight surprise, but I don't consider them beating the Mavs a huge upset.

For the first time probably since Pettit's rookie year, I feel I have to make some gimmicky changes to win a series.  Odd feeling.  But I like it.

... especially since the Warriors lost !



So a brief time of enlightment comes to a close again, another Celtics season is wasted.

Hornets did what I expected, namely use their big height advantage (of the 7'6" & 7'5" frontline) and kill me on the boards. And they shot 50% to my 41% (with Yao averaging 38.7 ppg). The only reason these weren't 4 blowouts were a few more steals and less TOs, otherwise this series was a wash. I just didn't have the players to take them out on the perimeter.

What's disappointing though is that each of my players had a good game, just never in one game together. Boozer, Griff, Schabinger, Matrix (completely disappointed how old Vlad took you out of the game) and Trump (great series against Livingston) all had their games when they looked good.


So congratulations, hornets, guess this will finally be your time.
Now dare you to beat me in DJSL too ...
 

[HornetsGM]

Nice series Celts; like objects in mirrors, it was closer than it appeared...
I expected Yao to come up big against a small frontcourt, and he did. I didn't expect Radman to take Marion out of the game. I really think there's something programmed into Marion that makes him a poor playoff performer. It's weird.

Anyway, I'll need to get lucky here (and in DJSL) to win.

I'm really not anxious about this series, I expect to lose, which I guess is funny since I have home court and beat the Nets 3-1 in the season series (the games were extremely close though).
The Nets just have the mental battle completely won... I'm lucky I'm not playing in this series, or my negativity would surely cause us to lose. 

Good luck Nets, and no injuries this year, hopefully...

[NetsGM]

Round 2 up.

For one of the few times, playoffs going kinda how you would expect them.  Warriors are a slight surprise, but I don't consider them beating the Mavs a huge upset.

For the first time probably since Pettit's rookie year, I feel I have to make some gimmicky changes to win a series.  Odd feeling.  But I like it.

... especially since the Warriors lost !

 

oops

[PacersGM]

Round 2 up.

For one of the few times, playoffs going kinda how you would expect them.  Warriors are a slight surprise, but I don't consider them beating the Mavs a huge upset.

For the first time probably since Pettit's rookie year, I feel I have to make some gimmicky changes to win a series.  Odd feeling.  But I like it.

... especially since the Warriors lost !



So a brief time of enlightment comes to a close again, another Celtics season is wasted.

Hornets did what I expected, namely use their big height advantage (of the 7'6" & 7'5" frontline) and kill me on the boards. And they shot 50% to my 41% (with Yao averaging 38.7 ppg). The only reason these weren't 4 blowouts were a few more steals and less TOs, otherwise this series was a wash. I just didn't have the players to take them out on the perimeter.

What's disappointing though is that each of my players had a good game, just never in one game together. Boozer, Griff, Schabinger, Matrix (completely disappointed how old Vlad took you out of the game) and Trump (great series against Livingston) all had their games when they looked good.


So congratulations, hornets, guess this will finally be your time.
Now dare you to beat me in DJSL too ...
 

yea marion seems to disappear in the POs.. i figured the same problem here and i think it cost TOM at least a title in DSJL.
 

[MavsGM]

I made it to the third round of playoffs for the first time in almost 10 seasons.  Don't know if this is the first time where both #1 seed vs #2 seed in both conference.  Anyways, good series Warriors.  Next up is Clippers, their frontcourt of Chandler and Brand always a pain in the ass to deal with.  I wish I can get Broderick Baylor off IR for this series because I'm going to need it.

[ClippersGM-old]

TIght series with the Rockets. Good that Maggette made a long 3 pointer on the buzzer in game 3 to win that game!

[ClippersGM-old]

Very close series with Rockets. Game 4 must have been great to watch.   And Gordon almost got a quadruple double in game 5!