2024-25 NBA Regular Season Thread – Capture the Flagg or King of the Hill?

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I forget, is this the thread that starts with all the funny photos?

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YES!

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double posts why not

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im currently wearing this tee

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I can't stop laughing at the guy with the James Bond villain name chasing the small boy.

damn y’all brought it with the pics this year! well done

as far as opening night goes, we have this to look forward to

LeBron and Bronny James will share the court at some point during the season opener. They're going to get their photo op together, they'll get another with Ken Griffey Jr. and Sr., who will be there, they'll talk about it postgame and then we'll (maybe) move on with the season.

— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) October 22, 2024

also

With 6 missed FG tonight, LeBron James would pass Kobe Bryant for the most in NBA history 🤯

🔗 https://t.co/D8Eg40FnyD pic.twitter.com/BskaMH9bw7

— Basketball Reference (@bball_ref) October 22, 2024

It's hard not to think about bronny almost dying from playing hoops, but he still plays on. Under the circumstances, the Laker publicity campaign around LeBron's dream of playing with bronny in the NBA takes on a weird ghoulish aspect. The whole situation feels very wtf.

Please tell me the pic of Bron blocking Bronny is real.

it is lol

1:24 of Luka Doncic playing the worst defense you will ever see in the NBA Finals. pic.twitter.com/88SRPe0All

— 𝙍𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙮 ☘️ (@CelticsRiley) June 13, 2024

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lol "SUCK"

otm tho

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so would you rather be the clippers secure in your playoff spot but having to go thru denver and OKC just to get to the conference finals or would you rather be the warriors who have to go win in memphis in two days but then would have houston and either the lakers or wolves

don't they host memphis

ok either way

even better argument for the latter path. how much do you believe in your ability to beat this memphis team?

a one game series is just so treacherous

I think the 2/3/6/7 side is more wide open, warriors and their dark arts are a nightmare matchup for the young rockets

its an interesting matchup should it come to pass houston has a huge physical advantage but the warriors are much better at basketball

houston has been crushing with their double big lineup i would if they could get away with playing it vs the dubs they do have some guys you dont have to guard on the perimeter

i think the warriors would feel really comfortable going into a series where the other team’s best player is a non-superstar big going up against draymond. the warriors defense has been one of the best in the league since they jimmy trade and it’s hard to figure out where houston would find any advantage on offense. they don’t have any ball handler who i feel like would particularly be able to pick on the warriors’ guards

however think you could also make the argument that amen thompson is the no 1 player you’d choose to put on curry in the entire conference

one downside of playing houston is theyre very physical and energetic so even if you win theyre prob going to wear you down unless you just totally wreck them

game where they beat the dubs last week they face guarded steph all game and he finished with 3 points, dont think its really a serious approach but its interesting anyway

their offensive game plan i think will be to get offensive rebounds, which i mean lol but hey offensive rebounds are good

posted a video to the technical basketball details thread detailing how theyve rebounded 47% of their misses with steven adams on the floor which is fully mental mate he just tries to get rebound position for the whole play doesnt worry about mucking up the offense or anything hes just looking for those sweet offensive rebounds and he does get a lot of them

Until the Warriors actually win a play in game I'll just assume they're lottery destined. Pretty disappointed today but the Clips size and rebounding just killed us. That and Jimmy's three missed free throws

The Regular Season is dead! Long live the playoffs! (and the upcoming 2025 playoffs thread.)

hear hear

Would have liked to see some JK minutes. Payton is a nice defender but he is Simmons-esque on offense

Payton has hops and can dunk as well as shoot 3s, dunno why he was so hesitant tonight but he's very capable of scoring.

Initial playoff thoughts:

1. Lakers-Wolves could be fun if the Wolves can hang in there and make it a series.
2. I want the Knicks to lose to the Pistons to shut up all the Knicks fans that think they can beat Boston.

i think we somewhat have to discount the lakers and the dubs because they added stars midseason its not enough time to fully integrate let alone build a complimentary roster, saw that yesterday in crunch time where jimmy was standing in the corner while steph turned the ball over, having the new guys isnt second nature for these teams yet, which isnt to say they cant win just they get a deduction

wolves beating the laker would be very nice totally possible maybe even likely imo, randles got to have a good series and not an awful one tho he cant get baited into going iso over and over

I can see Lebron just doing Lebron things to the Wolves. I haven't really been paying attention though. Are the Lakers playing small ball? I wonder how the Wolves will deal with that with Gobert.

yeah lakers are playing a lot of small ball def an interesting contrast of styles battle of wills, luka absolutely torched gobert last year, the thing the wolves could do is play naz reid instead, or they could just live with it and try to win on physicality and rebounding

it wouldn't be the western conference playoffs if rudy gobert is not get getting played off the floor. have to assume redick knows his part, question is just if finch will make the adjustment or stubbornly stick by rudy, should be a big Naz Reid series but i think you're right, the real harbinger for the wolves is are they getting good randle or bad randle.

will be interesting to see if the lakers can stop anyone their roster is stone cold awful defensively, they had a little run where the defensive numbers were good and everyone was like huh maybe they can make this work but that never made any sense and what do you know the last x games of the season theyve been bad on that end, but regardless you can fake a regular season defense with effort but the offs are different with prepared teams picking you apart, now are the wolves the most offensively talented team perfectly positioned to dismantle suspect defenses, no theyre not, but if they play good team ball and press their advantages they should be able to put up some points

Is there a good Randle in the playoffs?

xp

randle has been so bad in the offs but hes also played 15 total playoff games which is not a lot, hes been working more as a secondary creator during the wolves recent run of good play not really forcing things which was always where things got bad for him, if he can stay in that lane much of his bad playoff stuff can be avoided, but habits are hard to break and usually pop up at inopportune times, a few bad randle crunch time possessions could swing the series def feels like a ticking timebomb

Man that game was intense. Hi level play all around feel like everyone played hard and played pretty well. Kawhi just so special man. Lots of interesting individual chess matches. Kerr throwing the zone out there off and on, draymond getting punished for freelancing often, jimmy getting the switch on bogdan over and over, Harden floater/lob threats, gp2 vs moody, no kuminga, well timed double teams on curry(a ty lue staple)

why was kerr double teaming kawhi like he coaches a bottom 10 defense

pretty hysterical that the wolves got matched up with the only team in the west that is just dying to play small ball

Kawhi was cooking them no matter what they did but those traps were late and lazy yah

Wolves have a good small ball lineup with naz at the 5 and I think finch isn’t scared to sit Rudy when needed

the match up *does* line up for a big series from ant, mcdaniels and NAW. sorta feels like if the wolves win that series we will not be talking about gobert or randle much at all

wolves promised rudy they werent going to sit him late in playoff games but then they did it anyway

ishbia 3 - headcoaches 0

FROM SHAMS:

BREAKING: The Phoenix Suns have fired head coach Mike Budenholzer after finishing in 11th place with a 36-46 record in his one season, sources tell ESPN.

pelicans axed david griffin… what a sordid saga that turned out to be

crazy amount of injuries never seen anything like that, weird zion psychological situation too, basketball might be cursed in nola they should do an exorcism

i think if he hadn't made some objectively horrendous decisions such as trading for and extending cj mccollum, trading dyson daniels for dejounte murray etc he may have been able to survive this season. but otherwise it felt like a scenario where you throw out the baby and the bathwater. however i'm reading that they're talking about bringing joe dumars in there, so...

in case there's still doubt that important elections might just not happen

https://bsky.app/profile/cwebbonline.com/post/3lmnarjvnlk2v

did you accidentally post that to this thread because of the url?

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if the dubs win tomorrow it really is the best case scenario. rockets are a tough team for them but as jordan pointed out lacking the top end talent for true playoff success. you take that matchup any day vs the alternatives.

but.. the warriors 0-3 in play-in games.

missing the week of rest is not nothing too but i think that’s something that would show up down the road (i.e. when the heat ran out of gas vs denver) as opposed to round 1

if they win either play in game they dont play til sunday night. win tomorrow and thats still ~5 days

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will there be an offs thread?

think we need to wait until the playins are done so we can have a poll

tho i guess we could just put all the teams in the poll i dont remember how we did it before

oh i see i made last years thread and there was no poll

ok i did it it has a poll this time 2025 NBA Postseason Thread - It's The Offs Baby

gotta have a poll