I always thought Shaughnessy was an idiot but...
 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/201...html?eref=sihp

now he has proved it. Not by saying that Boston will beat cleveland (which is laughable) but he managed to write an article that predicts a NBA series upset because:

1. The Celtics dont 'fear' the cavs? What is this MMA?
2. Rondo is better (only valid point)
3. Big baby contributes more?? He does?
4. Perkins is stronger? Are they lifting weights?
5. Cleveland has too much pressure because of Ernest byner. Like NBA players care about things that happened years ago in different sports

and the top reason

6. The addition of the corpses of Mike Finley and Rasheed Wallace????

Wow. Great, indepth analysis....

I don't know who is dumber, him for writing this or me for reading it....

I guess me because he actually gets paid to write stupid stuff

Baby does contribute more, but we don't have Powe anymore, so it's kind of negated. And while Sheed has been a complete waste, Finley's been pretty effective in limited minutes.

The only reason the Celtics have a chance against Cleveland is how good Pierce and Allen have looked so far. And Rondo presents many of the same problems Rose has.

Well at least you offered up a couple of valid points

I would be surprised if Boston won more than a game. Pierce is going to have to literally carry them on his back to get more than a win. Brown seems to finally have figured out they are a better team going small. Plays to Lebron and Jamisons strengths. They may need Shaq and ilgauksas and their 12 fouls against Orlando but Garnett isnt the same guy as he was 2 years ago and Rasheed is a slug.

They split the season series and the Celtics blew a huge lead in one of the games they lost. It'll be competitive at least.

I don't remember who said it but the quote went something like "this series against Miami is Boston's last important series". I think that is quite accurate.

Ainge did his job. They won a title. And now the inevitable ride back down into mediocrity (or worse).

The only team in the NBA that has a chance right now against Cleveland is Orlando. That includes the Lakers. Atlanta's length could give either cle or orlando problems but there is no way they get through both.

Not really relevant

the 2 Cle losses were the 1st game of the season and another game a few weeks ago where they sleepwalked through the 1st half, got down by 24 and just got beat (the game where leBron took the off balance three instead of going to the hole to force OT)

it wont be close

Mike Woodson's goatee agrees

I'll bet you something it goes at least 6.

that is a heck of a wager joey. I want to pull the trigger on that but I could see the cavs letting up for two games.

If the Bulls can win one, Boston can win two

I may end up regretting this but I would want to know the money line for a C's vs "Labron and the Labronettes". Her heiness has still never won anything but exhibitions and high school games. Assuming he gets a walk over in the next round may be a bit hasty....

ok

The celtics arent a whole lot better than the Bulls

Does anybody actually watch the games? Have you seen Boston play lately? What matchup does boston have an advantage at? Williams and Rondo is basically a wash because Williams is such a better shooter with 3 pt range and a 90% FT though Rondo is now an elite PG. You want Pierce against leBron? Think the 2010 version of Garnett is better than Jamison/Funny hair guy/Hickson combo? Shaq/Ilguakgas or Perkins? I'll give you Allen on the offensive end but simply because Cleveland's SG's arent asked to do much on that end because of James, not because he is the Ray Allen of 2006.

The Celts bench is not productive. Allen/Davis have their moments but that is pretty much it. Davis played great in place of Garnett in game 2 but hasnt had another good game the whole series against a pretty inept Miami frontline. The last 2 games Bostons bench hasnt done much of anything. Cleveland has a huge edge in depth.

Neither team has Red Auerbach as a coach so there isnt much of an advantage for Boston there. Plus LeBron is clearly the best player on the court for most of the game and Rasheed is clearly the worst when he drags himself off the bench.

What happens to Boston is Rondo gets into foul trouble? You feelin nate Dogg in the playoffs? They basically have no backup PG. They may get swept.

[quote=Cannon Shell;640202]Does anybody actually watch the games? Have you seen Boston play lately? What matchup does boston have an advantage at? Williams and Rondo is basically a wash because Williams is such a better shooter with 3 pt range and a 90% FT though Rondo is now an elite PG. You want Pierce against leBron? Think the 2010 version of Garnett is better than Jamison/Funny hair guy/Hickson combo? Shaq/Ilguakgas or Perkins? I'll give you Allen on the offensive end but simply because Cleveland's SG's arent asked to do much on that end because of James, not because he is the Ray Allen of 2006.


Yeah, I've seen every minute of this Heat series where the Celts have simply been the better team every game. Teams with older stars coast Chuck when they know the best chance of them surviving is to play the best seeds like Labron's boys as early as possible in the playoffs. Doc is able to get the most out of what guys are playing well and what combinations work. Rhondo is a wild card who may play like an all pro or a hack who blows lay ups. He's gifted and useless all in the same day at times. Having seen generations of this team find ways to beat younger and supposedly better players time and time again. I like the Celts chances to give this a run but assuming both get there to round 2 easily, if the Celts lose two in Cleveland to start the series you may be right about losing a short series but if the green split or better they have the talent to finish it which an awful lot of teams don't have. Sit back and enjoy it....

I will give you odds on that series Doc. You want +200?

[quote=docicu3;640207]The Heat are a lottery team with a superstar. If the Celtics are coasting then you better tell Doc Rivers who is playing Pierce and Rondo 40+ minutes a game. They should have lost game 3 and had Miami dead to rights before Wade went crazy. But Miami stinks...They have 1 guy who would start for Cleveland and the rest of the team couldnt break into Clevelands rotation. Beasley is a bum, O'Neil has been awful, Haslip is average at best, Joel Anthony trys hard, Q is Q (avg at best), Chalmers is probably below average, Dorell Wright??, Arroyo??

The thing is that Cleveland has the best player, better matchups, better bench, is younger, faster, more athletic, better rested, etc....And Doc Rivers aint turning into Chuck Daly.

Please don't be offended but if I end up playing this it will be with the same bookie I've known since '75 in college. Let's see where this is when they get ready to actually play before we assume everything will be the same for this series. The Celts need to close tomorrow to get enough rest to be ready. I don't understand why everyone wants to assume Clev. is unbeatable. Far too much made of a guy hitting half and three quarter shots for the TV cameras and not enough about playoff experience and so far his lack of it.

Not offended at all doc.

I don't think cleveland is unbeatable so much as I think Boston is done. Any of those other semifinalists (assuming atl and orlando get in) would beat Boston this year in my opinion.

Their window was short.

Cleveland is not unbeatable but there is no logical reason to think Boston can beat them 4 times out of 7.

If you watch the NBA and cant appreciate LeBron James...

There is no bigger misnomer in team sports that a guy isnt the "best player" till he wins a championship. It is so illogical that I cant believe smart people buy into it. This isnt Tennis or Golf. What team drafts a player, front office moves, injuries, coaching (bad or good) and the other guys on the team dictate who wins championships. Kobe doesnt win a title without Shaq or without Chris Chris Wallace. Jordans run isnt as dominant if Pippen stays with the Sonics instead of getting traded to Chicago on draft day, Garnett never wins anything without pierce and Allen and getting traded to the celtics. Say he got traded to NJ?

You wanna say leBron hasnt won anything? Check out the Easterm Conference Champions of 2006-07.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006%E2...valiers_season

Getting to the Finals with that crew is a far greater accomplishment than 99% of NBA championship teams. Not one player on that team was a regular starter on another team after leaving. Not one. Of the few guys who are still plying, none of them start. He basically made the NBA finals with a team where noone else was even an NBA starter. I think he has established himself.

Plus PG1985 declared them a dynasty after they won the title which kinda sealed their inevitable downfall

Getting to the Finals with that crew is a far greater accomplishment than 99% of NBA championship teams. Not one player on that team was a regular starter on another team after leaving. Not one. Of the few guys who are still plying, none of them start. He basically made the NBA finals with a team where noone else was even an NBA starter. I think he has established himself.[/quote]


Tell me you didn't waste all that bandwidth trying to drum up kudos for Labron beating the Wiz without Arenas and Butler, the comatose NJ Nets 41-41, and the Pistons on their way to two years of non playoff appearance stature. Sorry I'm not buying it until the guy shows me something other than one finals appearance they got swept in.

Tell me you didn't waste all that bandwidth trying to drum up kudos for Labron beating the Wiz without Arenas and Butler, the comatose NJ Nets 41-41, and the Pistons on their way to two years of non playoff appearance stature. Sorry I'm not buying it until the guy shows me something other than one finals appearance they got swept in.[/quote]

Exactly as i said, smart guys who are blinded by the ridiclous notion that individual players arent "worthy" until they are lucky enough to land in a situation in which all the other factors add up to a championship. Cleveland without LeBron that year was a 15 win team...maybe.

Hard to believe that I have to defend Lebron James...have you seen him play?

[quote=Cannon Shell;640215][quote=docicu3;640207]

The Heat are a lottery team with a superstar. If the Celtics are coasting then you better tell Doc Rivers who is playing Pierce and Rondo 40+ minutes a game.

Minutes so far in playoffs

Pierce 36.7 minutes
Allen 34.1 minutes
Garnett 35.3 minutes

James 40.5 minutes
Rondo 41.4 minutes

So not exactly as you said Chuck and yes I do think the C's coasted to exactly where they wanted to finish the regular season so they
1) maintained home court for a series and 2) got Cleveland early after that to minimize the number of games played before a max effort which they would need to challenge the Cavs......

Congrats on your previous post about LJ taking a 15 win team to the Eastern finals in 2006-2007 during the same year his own coaches went on record in amazement at how little he actually knew about the strategy of the NBA game.

He was of course a high school kid who missed playing at all at the college level so where would he learn the subtleties of the NBA game? Truth is even at this point he is a prolific scorer but remains an average midrange shooter who can jump through the roof with incredible show stopping end of quarter field goal range but is far from having excellent ball handling or passing skills. At least according to the NBA skills guru quoted below in this article.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...vin/index.html

He has more wow power than any player in the NBA game including Kobe who is a better shooter, so when LJ refines his fundamentals he will really have something but he's not there yet as his game is not polished like that of a great champion.

C's/Cavs should be a decent watch but it's not the mismatch your making it out to be.

[quote=docicu3;640302][quote=Cannon Shell;640215]First of all, the article was talking about a training session two years ago. Is it fair to say that maybe, just maybe, lebron has improved since? Maybe?

Secondly, in what bizarro world does lebron not have excellent passing skills as you say? He is one of the best passers in the league. He doesn't have to go out there like Kobe Bryant and decide he isn't going to shoot for an entire quarter to get his teammates involved. Its natural to lebron. He is a pure passer.

Doc, im not trying to insult you, but what "subtleties" is lebron missing? I watch him play all the time and I can't see one particular weakness. He doesn't really have a pet move but he really doesn't need one at this point.

Is there a better player in the league? Besides Michael Jordan, have you seen a better player in the last 30 years. Larry? Magic? Okay, you have an argument...maybe. Beyond that?

The whole thing about him not having a title is incredibly weak. If he is on that lakers team last year in place of Kobe, do they win a title? If he is on that Celtic team two years ago in place of Paul Pierce, does he win a title?

Lebron is most definately an excellent passer. One of the best. When I saw him play in High School at the Palestra in Philly (what a gym!) the skill that stood out to me the most was his great passes. He makes his team mates better. And he's a darn good defender also. The whole package!

LeBron James is a great, great passer who posseses phenomenal court vision...you can't even argue the opposite on that one. You can certainly argue he's not a great on ball defender. He tried to guard Rose at the end of game 3 and Rose actually abused him. Rose is pretty good though. He is far from a zero on defense however.

Cannon is 100 percent dead on in his assessment of taking the 2007 team to the finals...that would to me still be a greater accomplishment than if they win a title with this team. Sasha Pavlovic started on that team. Today he can't even break the Minnesota Timberwolves rotation. Daniel Gibson played big minutes on that team...he is a better player now and isn't even in the rotation. For God's sake, Eric Snow played big minutes on that team. Larry Hughes started at Point guard.

To say LeBron's game is not polished is pretty far out there.

In the end, however, I see no evidence that the Celtics can't play with them and win multiple games in the series. Cleveland's free throw shooting will cost them one game in the series. The Cavs are a better team though.

Well I'm glad that's cleared up now.....

Lebron's in Pistol Pete's class as a passer....

Dribbles better than Cousy....

Shoots better than Jerry West or Bird....

Knows more about the game than Jackson and Auerbach...

Rebounds better than Russell....

Thanks for getting my mind back on track, LeBron's not hype he's just the best ever.

Does he need to do all of those individual things as well as those guys to be a better player than any of those people that you named?

You said he doesnt have excellent passing skills. This is the first time that I have heard anyone say that but I disagree.

Is Lebron James a more dominant player than any of those players that you named? Russell is the the only one in the same realm.

You've got that well backwards....LeBron's played over 100 less games to this point than Pistol Pete in his career and has multiple hundreds more assists than Pete. Pete was a much better showman...but effective passer? nowhere near LeBron.

I have to say.. that Bird guy was pretty darn good and dominant..

Bird was a great player. But could he do for a team what Lebron does? Bird, for all of his great play, was a defensive liability man to man. When the Celts played the lakers, Mchale guarded worthy-not bird.

Bird was lucky enough to have Mchale, Parish, DJ. Sure he made them better but what does he do with Lebron's supporting cast?

Your point is valid though and you could certainly argue it.

This has certainly become far more spirited than I imagined when I threw this out there but in retrospect let me clear something up that I mispoke/wrote.

I should have been more definitive about separating ball handling and passing. I should have just left this critical remark to ball handling and even then a lot of even this is my disdain for what passes for dribbling as opposed to palming or carrying in the NBA currently. LeBron is a better passer than he is a ball handler. The point of the article above was mostly a knock on his dribbling and ball handling skills not his passing.

And before we waste a lot of time and energy here on how common a carry is in the NBA, yes Jordan made it an art form, but Lebron is even worse. Iverson was another incredible felon with this.

We are not going to agree on alot of this but that's okay, if we did it would be boring as hell.

They all palm the ball these days. Only gets called at the High School level.

Name one thing that LBJ cant do? If he decided to become a post up player do you think he wouldnt be the best low post scorer in the NBA? He has the vision of a top point guard, is a very good rebounder, excellent on ball and help defender, has the most range of any player alive, is unstopable in the open court, is as fast as anybody end to end, is as good an athlete as anyone and is 6'8" 260 and 25 years old.

He is like a ringer you create in a videogame, except he isnt fake, he is real.

This is the first year that he deserves some heat if they dont get the ring or get beat in a 7 game series. His previous teams were all fatally flawed but this team has the right mix of athletic role players, a low post presence, a complimentary star with a unique game and a ton of depth. They play defense, shoot well, are deadly in transistion and can go 9 deep without much drop off in production. Horseofcourse made a great point when he said they are prone to missing Ft's which may cause them to blow a close game.

But they are going to polish off the celtics in 5 and I believe that orlando isnt nearly a tough of a matchup for them as they were last year with Hedo as they are with Carter. Sure Nelson is playing well but they lost the unique dimension that Turgolu gave them and Cleveland matches up fine with them.

I agree with what you are saying. Still, I wouldnt underestimate the magic. Nelson is a huge component that they were missing last year. Vince, half man-half retired, can still have his moments.

They played their best ball the second half of the season. Look at their record over the last forty games.

They are live again and this year i think the winner comes out of the east.

Nelson has played really well but...

Vince Carter=Subtraction by addition

I think we are going to see a lot of Mr. Howard at the FT line. Shaq/Ilgaugkas/AV = 18 fouls between them

If he can make them early in the series it will be close. If he goes into a funk because he is missing or commits bad fouls like he did in the last game against Cha, orlando is in trouble. With him in the game James is a bit wary about going to the hoop. Without him in there it becomes a dunkfest.

Everyone thinks that the big Cleveland addition for the Orlando series was Shaq to matchup against Howard. While that is the marque matchup the addition of parker and moon, long athletic defenders to guard the perimeter may be the key move

Those Cavs sure look scaaarrrry tonight :eek::eek:

Shaugnhnessy-like analysis

So you're allowed to ignore whichever games make you look silly, as usual.