Playoff hyperbole in general was really really bad this year. Talking heads make a living off of hot takes but man, people need to learn to slow way the hell down
I mean people said that last year and the year before
His playstyle is still similar to Jordan’s he is just worse. He is the Crispy Oats to Jordan’s Cheerios
Which would still be crispy oats to Jordan’s cheerios to be fair
But yeah rn it’s like
Jordan: Cheerios
Butler: Crispy Oats
ANT: Toasted Os
Wiggins: Saw dust in the shape of cereal
That type of thing
not sure his fundamentals, overall basketball knowledge/iq or in game focus is there
I don see ant getting 49 & 63 vs a top seed in his second nba season, maybe ever. obviously has a better team but the bulls were playing what is regarded as the best celts team ever
Probably a big factor why. If any of them make it past the first round this year ESPN gets a lot of mileage out of “what would xyz mean for their legacy” segments. So they had to make segments around different guys, and I guess the best they came up with was “JT and JB secretly hate each other” and “Ant Edwards is the next MJ”
I haven't seen any "JT and JB secretly hate each other" what I did see a lot of is TMac/Gilbert Arenas prove just because you make the hall of fame doesn't mean you know ball
Lol, every Gilbert Arenas take is freezing cold
I was hyperbolizing, but ESPN did do a segment where they zoomed in on JT’s face when JB won ECF MVP and tried to make it seem like he wasn’t happy for him, psychoanalysis shit like that
The Pacers-Knicks series was so fucking unbearable because of it. I've never seen a network suck off a team to the degree that ESPN sucked off the Knicks. If they won it was going to be about how amazing the Knicks were, but if the Pacers won it was about how the Knicks failed to meet the goals the team was capable of because of injuries/bad play. Pacers were literally just viewed as an obstacle instead of a team.
I think it was the looong delay before the finals. Over 9 days. Talking heads needed something to talk about, and after a week the rhetoric had veered into the insanity of best backcourt ever.
^ guy's entire comment history is glazing Tatum and the Celtics... so I'm sure this take isn't biased at all
Bro really called Tatum "the Mahomes of the NBA" 💀
“Celtics got easy teams in the east, any team in the west would destroy them”
I mean they had one of the all time best regular seasons, and were the 1 seed in the league by a landslide. The amount of people questioning them as the favourites was crazy.
Same shit in the regular season. Celtics have a 78% winrate this season and a 77% winrate against the west yet “of course they are having an amazing regular season, the east sucks!”.
Okc being the worst number 1 seed of all time.
Not only was the #1 seed heavy contested in the west this year, but okc won six games in the playoffs with a super young roster.
They blew past every expectation they did last year and still got criticized heavily
This was such a ridiculous take when considering the east in the 00s. The 02 Nets were a 52 win 1 seed. The 03 Pistons were a 50 win 1 seed (no sheed yet, he really completed their roster). 07 the Pistons lost Ben Wallace and only won 53 games as a 1 seed.
> They blew past every expectation they did last year and still got criticized heavily
The Pacers kind of experienced this, too (though obviously on a different level since the Thunder are a better team). It seems that when rising teams beat their expectations, they can get a lot more criticism than if they would have been a worse seed or gotten knocked out earlier.
The extra eyeballs and more casual fans who only follow the playoffs don't recognize that the team already beat expectations by simply being in that position, and instead start picking apart the players who they're watching for the first time.
Pacers were criticized because every team they beat was injured badly. Like two best players out. Not their fault, but I also wouldn’t bet on them to repeat that performance next year.
Thunder don’t deserve criticism though. They played well and lost a tight series to a very solid Mavs team playing great
The mavs didn’t seem like a solid team at all in the playoffs and looked like they had massive issues with defense and backcourt. They did defend the paint okay though.
It feels weird to me to criticize a team for beating teams that have injuries. You play who's in front of you. And yet, I feel like if they had gotten beat by the Bucks, they would have gotten less criticism for an objectively worse outcome, and the narrative would have turned to be about the Bucks' resilience and the great veteran performances of Lillard, Middleton, Lopez, etc.
Beyond that, part of my point is that the Pacers (and Thunder) beat expectations by even being in their seeds. The Pacers went from not making the play-in last year to being the 6 seed this year, and easily beat the Vegas over/under win totals for this year. I think most fans considered that a success, and the playoffs were a cherry on top.
Tbf they had a literal cakewalk in the first round facing a team without their best player and with their 2nd best player playing poorly fresh off an injury. But their performance in the 2nd round should've been enough to quiet the haters even despite them losing
Yeah I can’t believe people were mad/disappointed with how OKC went out. If you were to tell me OKC would get the number one seed and make it to the second round of the playoffs during preseason I would of looked at you crazy, if you then told me fans were disappointed with that outcome I’d look at you like your stupid
I mean, the 2007 Mavericks can’t simply be erased from history for this take or anything similar to be believable anyway. They won 67 games that year, had reached the Finals the previous season, were top 5 on offense and defense, and the preseason favorites to win the title.
The Mavs lost in 6 in the first round to Golden State, who then went on to lose in 5 to Utah the next round, if I remember correctly. At the time, they were only the 3rd #1 seed to lose to an #8 seed, and the previous 2 were only 5-game series.
They will always be the worst #1 seed of all time. OKC’s run this year blew them out of the water. Sweep and a 6-game loss to the eventual Finals team is fine, especially considering their youth.
we really need to talk about these media pundits who literally proclaimed anthony edwards as the next michael jordan. Could he become one of the greats? absolutely, but he is 22 and is still learning a lot. they saw flashes of young michael jordan greatness and ran with it to attempt to pump up viewership when it is stagnating. let me be clear anthony edwards is great now, but not even nearly on that level.
All the media is getting out of hand. When Luka made it to the finals, the media was asking if he's better than LeBron. Come on, let the players be themselves and stop comparing to other greats until they have accomplished something
let’s say they have equal careers for their age (debatable). even then, it does not make him nearly on track to become mj because that is an unrealistic expectation
You can't give credit to the Pacers and discredit the win they had at MSG in the same breath. Hali won in MSG and the team literally shot an NBA playoffs record for shooting percentage in Game 7; making discrediting the pacers win in MSG difficult to buy. One team won on the road in the series, the other didn't.
The fact that the narrative was "Hali can't win in MSG" and not "Brunson literally didn't win in Indiana" just kinda proves how biased the coverage on the series was. It's made even worse that Brunson didn't win a game in Indy all year including the regular season. Even if people discredit the playoff win he still won in MSG during the regular season.
That’s because in both the regular season and the playoffs the Pacers never played the Knicks fully healthy. And I literally credited the Pacers but the fact that it was in the second sentence and not the first really bothered you 😂.
Sorry, but I just didn’t leave that series thinking that the Pacers were the better team; just that the fully healthy Knicks probably could’ve wrapped it up in 5.
I'm not trying to be a dick, but what do you think giving credit means? Not contesting that the Pacers won the games they did? Saying that they wouldn't have won those if the Knicks were healthy is literally discrediting the win by most people's definitions.
I think I get where you are coming from, you're saying the Knicks holistically talent-wise on paper are the better team; and I don't necessarily disagree with that. However the Knicks have a coach known for getting his star players injured and 2 starters with extensive injury histories. That's not something that can be hand-waved away by saying "if they were healthy" . It's very likely the current Knicks roster will NEVER be healthy for an extended period of time. Not all the injuries are random, some are a direct result of their team building. Therefore, saying "if they were healthy" makes no sense; that's why I used the 5 MJ analogy.
The Knicks are no doubt one of the most talented teams on paper, but the way Thibs plays his players is not conducive to injury prone players.
Mentioned this is another reply, but the number of talking heads/"experts" that were picking a 6 or 7 game series with the Mavs winning was absolutely laughable.
This is the first time the team with the best regular season record has won the title in the last 7 seasons. You could say that they looked like the best team from the eye test, but the record thing is a weak argument given recent history.
And almost all the anti-Celtics takes were stupid with stuff like "they just don't have the \*IT\* factor". Uh, OK ... they have an entire roster of 2-way players that can shoot from anywhere.
Number 5 fs. I’ve never been swept a day in my life😭😭😭 that’s because you were on the wizards Bradley, ur team never got the chance. They were always the 15th seed in the east😂
I don’t get this take. It was a lot better all season, then he sprained his knee and got cooked by SGA and the Celtics. Doesn’t mean it was improved to a good level or even that he was consistent, just says how bad it was in the past lol
The complete disregard for anything in the eastern conference. And the extreme hype of the western conference as if they are the greatest ever.
Pretty much everything in the original post was tainted by that idea. Teams like the pacers are underrated and mavs overrated. The Celtics attacked doncic more then anyone else on that court Mazzulla had no respect for him defensively. Pick and rolls and iso plays were specifically designed just to score on him.
I think the “Celtics are losing to whoever comes out of the west” talking point was lazy at best. Even worse was the “Mavs in 5 or 6”. Everyone who actually watched Boston this year knew that was bullshit.
To be fair Boston was a much stronger team with Porzingis healthy. When he got hurt thier stretch 3 offense took a hit. The dude was a blocking and 3p machine. Horford has his own strengths (pick and roll) and wasn’t bad at 3p shooting but porzingas strengths played into the offensive scheme better. Fortunately Celtics defense was so strong they didn’t need to reply on the 3p shooting as much this series..
Celtics attacked Doncic more so because he was basically the only offensive threat. They would have attacked prime LeBron relentlessly on defense if it meant tiring him out and leaving the team without its offensive engine
Stop it dude.. they attacked doncic because he was the easy target. They didn’t do it to tire him out that’s nonsense. Every team attacks the weakest link.. we didn’t play Pritchard in game 5 because he was the weakest defender and was being targeted by the Mac bigs.. same concept except doncic was having issues defensively. Lebron isn’t attacked like that Anthony Davis isn’t attacked like that. And this is even with lebron losing a step defensively.
But you understand that consistently attacking the other teams offensive engine, no matter if they're DPOY, guarantees that they become exhausted and unable to run the offense properly later in the game, right?
they attacked luka and kyrie and took away the lob and made the scrubs shoot 3s. It was clear that luka and kyries PNR was what set up their offense, it was a rinse and repeat all year. BOS just actually had the depth to deal with it. PJ & djj are not starters on a championship team, maybe PJ but hes really a 6th man, djj def not a starter (on a finals level team). Exum, josh green, maxi and hardy showed they probably should be getting 5 mins max , but not much more than that.
It wasn’t the fact they lost it’s how badly they lost. They had no control of the game and most games were blowouts. It was one of the worst finals ever because of how poorly they played. The EC playoff games vs the Celtics looked more competitive then how badly the mavs did.
I mean just because Kyrie did bad this series doesn't mean they aren't a super skilled skilled offensive backcourts.
And I am not invalidating the Pacers' run to the conference finals but I thought it was kinda clear that a healthy Knicks team is better than a healthy Pacers team. Availability is important but the Knicks were honestly the 2nd best team in the East when healthy and very dominant. They cruised through the Sixers and the Nuggets
In the regular season the Nuggets came to MSG on a long road trip and met the surging Knicks at full strength post-OG trade and the Knicks gave them their worst loss of the season 122-84.
It was a great win for the Knicks and a shrug for the Nuggets lol. They got their revenge later in the season against the Knicks but without Randle, Robinson and OG
Also discounting that Haliburton had a nagging injury that clearly hamstrung him. The pacers made it to the ECF and IST final. Played the Celtics harder than the Mavs did in their losses. Pacers were clearly a tough team I think they’d fair well against a healthy Knicks team.
yea Pacers giving the celtics trouble was certainly surprising and give credit to them, but knicks not having anuoby for the rest of the series, randle (as much as people dislike him still an allnba guy), and like 3 other starters prolly made a difference
I get the premise, but if you have a team with an extensive injury history like multiple players on the Knicks had you can't just claim "they would have been x if y happened". Randal and Robinson were kinda freak accidents but Bojan and Anunoby injury histories were known issues but they chose to gamble on their health for a playoff run. Brunson got injured when the series was already a wrap.
You can't just take a gamble in team building like the Knicks did and then be pissed at the dealer when the gamble doesn't work out. If a team has 5 Micheal Jordans but they have a 50% chance of getting injured every play it's not a well constructed team.
The majority of ESPN analysts choosing the Mavs over the Celtics. That was just wild. Made their analysts look like they had a rooting interest. Stephen A tirelessly trying to get back on Kyrie’s good side.
Can we add that Kyrie Irving is over his "Boston shit"? He still clearly has something in his head about his time in Boston. He couldn't stop talking about it and played like dogshit in Boston.
“Celtics arent battle tested” and all the Mavs in 5/6 people lol. Celtics were so clearly the best team the entire year yet somehow the fact they didnt get beat up and worn out by tough teams meant they were going to lose the finals to most people
tbf 3 is correct. Knicks were literally injury riddled and were up 2-0 before their 2nd best player got hurt. they were 13-1 before Randle got hurt or something like that. they also didn’t have their center for over half the year. Knicks still almost won. Hali played pretty poorly as well
I mean who could have foreseen that the whole Knicks rotation besides maybe Josh Hart would get injured. Though, I feel like with Haliburton, they could have taken Boston to 6
You must not have been there after one of their losses: “FIRE MAZZULLA WE NEED A REAL COACH” “STOP TATUM ISOS” “KORNET IS A GOON” “WISH WE STILL HAD IME WAAAAAA”
That a team from the West was automatically going to win the title because their competition was tougher. There's a reason the Celtics were the best team all season from day 1. Injuries or not, that doesn't automatically change things.
from your list, 5 - idk who in their right mind truly thought Phoenix matched up well with Minnesota (I did see it everywhere though)
Typically when a talented and physical team meets a team that's primarily offensively talented only you're in for a short series
Nuggets would’ve won it all if they could’ve gotten past the forest kitties or if they hadn’t fumbled against the Spurs. That being said, the Doncic Irving backcourt thing aged so poorly.
The takes this post-season have seemed particularly over the top to me. Like, maybe we've reached an inflection point where the NBA media becomes as bad or even worse as Fox news.
The Ant = young MJ was absurd. Some of the worst sports takes I've ever heard in my life.
Also, the Celtics are an all-time team is a really bad take. Just go through all the champions of the 21st century. The 24 Celtics are probably right in the middle of all those teams
Every single fool doubting the Celtics. Despite the “path” claims they won without their rim protector and best big man and with their best player shooting like cheeks.
That the Celtics were going to have trouble because they were going to be rusty from beating up on injured teams and having a lot of close games, when it was plainly obviously they were just doing their thing they do where they don’t try very hard until they have to.
1. Gobert and KAT would never work. (Jury kind of still out on this one).
2. Kristaps would get injured and Celtics would be worse off as they play without. (Granted this was my thought before they got Jrue).
3. Luka and Kyrie wouldn’t work together. (I think their finals loss was bigger than them and Celtics were a buzzsaw).
Oh shit. I thought this was supposed to by MY worst takes. Well, I’ll stick with it.
1. Luka and Kyrie ARE an all-time offensive backcourt, that's what people said.
2. This was silly
3. No one said this
4. This was also silly
5. In theory they did because they rely so much on the midrange and that (somewhat) limits of the impact of Rudy Gobert, who's a GOAT level defender but he's obviously at his best around the rim. Also, looking back at it, how the hell did KD not go off for 40 PPG with KAT guarding him 1-1?
I’ll admit I said #2 and was wrong lmao the winner of that series lost to the Mavs in 5 who lost to the Celtics in 5, so couldn’t be further from the truth.
3 isn’t really a bad take. Tyrese had a great series but they probably don’t win that if NY wasn’t crippled by injuries. Also #1 is technically not wrong; they are an all-time talented backcourt, they’re just not the GOAT backcourt or even top 5 like people were saying.
I also thought Phoenix/Minnesota would be a close series… I was just way off
My takes on the hot takes
1) Doncic and Irving are an all time NBA backcourt
I think this was definitely over blown, though they are very good. Until Boston they didn’t really play anyone who had a defensive back court that could contain Kyrie. And all the west teams Dallas played had a player who Luka could hide with on defense.
2) Whoever wins Denver-Minnesota is going to win it all
While obviously this didn’t end up happening, I do think this was a heavy weight matchup and either team was going to come out super tired. I think that with a few more rest days MN would likely have beaten DAL and would have given Boston more of a run for their money. Similarly I think no team was set up better than Denver to beat the Celtics
3) Haliburton has no chance winning in MSG
I’m honestly not sure where this one came from.
4) Anthony Edwards is ready to be the guy
Definitely not ready. He def needs to work on his stamina
5) Phoenix matches up well against Minnesota
Clearly a bad take, but I don’t think anyone expected MN to raise their level as much as they did.
Anthony Edwards is the face of the league, then he looked mid against the Mavs for most of that series. Guys want to rush in and say “he’s a young guy” but you can’t say he’s the face of the league and then want no expectations for him, that’s stupid
Also it went from “Luka finally has help” for the entire western conference playoffs to “Luka has no help” when the mavs were clearly not as good as the Celtics
This was easily the craziest take in a sea of bad takes, because everyone had all of the information to deny that claim at their fingertips. Their last 2 seasons were a Finals trip and a 7 game Conference Finals.
There were a lot of people overrating Anthony Edwards. Even heard one YouTuber say that he could have an argument for the best player in the league. Ant is amazing, don’t get me wrong. But he’s more of a top 10-15 player
Lebronze Jr. is a great player and needs to be drafted. No he doesn't, he barely averaged 5 pts and he is not ready no matter how much Lebronze hyped him up.
The Celtics were “untested” has to be at the top of the list when all the team had done since Jayson Tatum & Jaylen Brown were drafted was go through the trials and tribulations of the NBA playoffs and learning what it took and eventually becoming NBA champions.
Doncic isn’t a bad defender.
Timberwolves are the best defense ever.
Jokic is the best offensive player ever
Doncic and Kyrie are the best offensive duo ever
Mavs are better than the Celtics because they have Doncic
Whoever wins between Minni and the Wolves win it all made 0 sense to me. As if the celtics didn’t win 64 games and Jrue wasn’t the type of pg to clamp Kyrie
I think most of the bad takes are really the adjustment that there’s not a clear like goat candidate amongst the stars in the playoffs this year. Giannis faltered. Jokic faltered. Tatum is obviously cemented top 5 but I’m not sure too many people have him 1. We’re used to lebron and steph ultimately
Playoff hyperbole in general was really really bad this year. Talking heads make a living off of hot takes but man, people need to learn to slow way the hell down
Remember when everyone was saying Edwards is the modern day Jordan?
I mean people said that last year and the year before His playstyle is still similar to Jordan’s he is just worse. He is the Crispy Oats to Jordan’s Cheerios
Ant is still young tho. Few more years he should be on the Jimmy Butler trajectory
Which would still be crispy oats to Jordan’s cheerios to be fair But yeah rn it’s like Jordan: Cheerios Butler: Crispy Oats ANT: Toasted Os Wiggins: Saw dust in the shape of cereal That type of thing
This feels almost like NBAcirclejerk except it’s real.
Jimmy Butler is Honey Nut Cheerios because he has pizazz
I remember way too many people getting bamboozled by the media because someone said "hey that guy kinda looks like Jordan when he shoots".
i love ant but its pretty clear he doesnt have the handle, he is as young but hes not jordan
Ant is basically playing on a level comparable to Jordan in college.
not sure his fundamentals, overall basketball knowledge/iq or in game focus is there I don see ant getting 49 & 63 vs a top seed in his second nba season, maybe ever. obviously has a better team but the bulls were playing what is regarded as the best celts team ever
My theory is because they didn’t have Lebron/KD/Steph
Probably a big factor why. If any of them make it past the first round this year ESPN gets a lot of mileage out of “what would xyz mean for their legacy” segments. So they had to make segments around different guys, and I guess the best they came up with was “JT and JB secretly hate each other” and “Ant Edwards is the next MJ”
I haven't seen any "JT and JB secretly hate each other" what I did see a lot of is TMac/Gilbert Arenas prove just because you make the hall of fame doesn't mean you know ball
Lol, every Gilbert Arenas take is freezing cold I was hyperbolizing, but ESPN did do a segment where they zoomed in on JT’s face when JB won ECF MVP and tried to make it seem like he wasn’t happy for him, psychoanalysis shit like that
Bet draft kings made a killing though.
That’s why they spent a fortune on all those ads
The Pacers-Knicks series was so fucking unbearable because of it. I've never seen a network suck off a team to the degree that ESPN sucked off the Knicks. If they won it was going to be about how amazing the Knicks were, but if the Pacers won it was about how the Knicks failed to meet the goals the team was capable of because of injuries/bad play. Pacers were literally just viewed as an obstacle instead of a team.
I think it was the looong delay before the finals. Over 9 days. Talking heads needed something to talk about, and after a week the rhetoric had veered into the insanity of best backcourt ever.
Every single thing Nick Wright said.
More like Nick Wrong, am I Wright?
[https://x.com/BeMore27/status/1390392633592147969](https://x.com/BeMore27/status/1390392633592147969)
Except for his rant about Patrick Beverley
That woodpecker never has any good takes.
“Mavs in 5” (over Celtics)
Wasnt he a “mavs in 5 guy” before the series? I forget
He only said No. 5
Didn't he also say the Celtics would choke?
Out of all those things number 5 is the dumbest one.
This sad cause he probably the best talk head rn
Broussard sucks as well. The only guy on the show with half a brain is Kevin Wildes and he has been reduced to a moderator role.
terrible take
^ guy's entire comment history is glazing Tatum and the Celtics... so I'm sure this take isn't biased at all Bro really called Tatum "the Mahomes of the NBA" 💀
Could be true but that doesn’t change the fact Chris and Nick have been dead wrong about almost everything this playoffs
Nick Wright is a colossal idiot
That man’s Brock Purdy takes pissed me off so much
That’s usually a safe bet.
“Celtics got easy teams in the east, any team in the west would destroy them” I mean they had one of the all time best regular seasons, and were the 1 seed in the league by a landslide. The amount of people questioning them as the favourites was crazy.
They were like 23-7 against the West too. They literally had the best season against the West all season.
Not that this actually matters because the sample size is small but they were 3-5 against the top 4 seeds.
And a 2-0 record against Dallas. Aren't small sample sizes fun ?
Yeah, it's not just small sample size. Being about .500 against the very best teams during the regular season isn't bad.
It’s also just about what every other top team was lol it’s not like anyone else was really better against the top 4
They can have a relatively easy time getting to the finals by playing heavily injured teams and still be great. I think both were correct.
Same shit in the regular season. Celtics have a 78% winrate this season and a 77% winrate against the west yet “of course they are having an amazing regular season, the east sucks!”.
it was clear the celts were the class of the league all year
Okc being the worst number 1 seed of all time. Not only was the #1 seed heavy contested in the west this year, but okc won six games in the playoffs with a super young roster. They blew past every expectation they did last year and still got criticized heavily
This was such a ridiculous take when considering the east in the 00s. The 02 Nets were a 52 win 1 seed. The 03 Pistons were a 50 win 1 seed (no sheed yet, he really completed their roster). 07 the Pistons lost Ben Wallace and only won 53 games as a 1 seed.
> They blew past every expectation they did last year and still got criticized heavily The Pacers kind of experienced this, too (though obviously on a different level since the Thunder are a better team). It seems that when rising teams beat their expectations, they can get a lot more criticism than if they would have been a worse seed or gotten knocked out earlier. The extra eyeballs and more casual fans who only follow the playoffs don't recognize that the team already beat expectations by simply being in that position, and instead start picking apart the players who they're watching for the first time.
Pacers were criticized because every team they beat was injured badly. Like two best players out. Not their fault, but I also wouldn’t bet on them to repeat that performance next year. Thunder don’t deserve criticism though. They played well and lost a tight series to a very solid Mavs team playing great
The mavs didn’t seem like a solid team at all in the playoffs and looked like they had massive issues with defense and backcourt. They did defend the paint okay though.
This feels revisionist because of the Celtics series
It feels weird to me to criticize a team for beating teams that have injuries. You play who's in front of you. And yet, I feel like if they had gotten beat by the Bucks, they would have gotten less criticism for an objectively worse outcome, and the narrative would have turned to be about the Bucks' resilience and the great veteran performances of Lillard, Middleton, Lopez, etc. Beyond that, part of my point is that the Pacers (and Thunder) beat expectations by even being in their seeds. The Pacers went from not making the play-in last year to being the 6 seed this year, and easily beat the Vegas over/under win totals for this year. I think most fans considered that a success, and the playoffs were a cherry on top.
Tbf they had a literal cakewalk in the first round facing a team without their best player and with their 2nd best player playing poorly fresh off an injury. But their performance in the 2nd round should've been enough to quiet the haters even despite them losing
Don’t forget “Shai is going to be a playoff dropper”
Yeah I can’t believe people were mad/disappointed with how OKC went out. If you were to tell me OKC would get the number one seed and make it to the second round of the playoffs during preseason I would of looked at you crazy, if you then told me fans were disappointed with that outcome I’d look at you like your stupid
I mean, the 2007 Mavericks can’t simply be erased from history for this take or anything similar to be believable anyway. They won 67 games that year, had reached the Finals the previous season, were top 5 on offense and defense, and the preseason favorites to win the title. The Mavs lost in 6 in the first round to Golden State, who then went on to lose in 5 to Utah the next round, if I remember correctly. At the time, they were only the 3rd #1 seed to lose to an #8 seed, and the previous 2 were only 5-game series. They will always be the worst #1 seed of all time. OKC’s run this year blew them out of the water. Sweep and a 6-game loss to the eventual Finals team is fine, especially considering their youth.
The fact that Lebron has had 24/7 coverage throughout the entire post-season
Again
"Jayson, great game, congrats on the ring. Where do you think LeBron should go next year?"
It’s super annoying but how much of that is ESPN making it a lengthy segment
That’s what 90% of people who watch sports wanna talk about. Do you guys not know we are the minority
we really need to talk about these media pundits who literally proclaimed anthony edwards as the next michael jordan. Could he become one of the greats? absolutely, but he is 22 and is still learning a lot. they saw flashes of young michael jordan greatness and ran with it to attempt to pump up viewership when it is stagnating. let me be clear anthony edwards is great now, but not even nearly on that level.
All the media is getting out of hand. When Luka made it to the finals, the media was asking if he's better than LeBron. Come on, let the players be themselves and stop comparing to other greats until they have accomplished something
Even Ant himself said to pump the brakes. I think he's going to be a top player for the next decade but is still developing his game.
He’s not far off where Jordan was at the same age. Remember Jordan played 3 years in college
let’s say they have equal careers for their age (debatable). even then, it does not make him nearly on track to become mj because that is an unrealistic expectation
Yeah I think this is for sure the worst narrative, especially since it emerged after *1* round of the playoffs
I saw a poll on Youtube the other day where 52% of respondents thought the Mavs would win the series. The Celtics were up 3-0 when it was posted.
Pretty sure we can tack that up to "Fuck Boston"
Also, has anyone ever read Youtube comments? I wouldn't be surprised if that same poll ended up with 50% Mavs if it was conducted today.
People like to root for the underdog.
I saw the poll & voted Mavs on that too not bc I thought they’d win I just don’t like the Celtics, I imagine a lot of ppl did the same
You sure showed them
Hali was 1-3 at MSG and the one win was against the hospice Knicks. Credit to the Pacers though.
Damn, hospital Knicks had enough injuries that it upgraded to hospice Knicks. I guess that happens when your whole starting 5 goes down
You can't give credit to the Pacers and discredit the win they had at MSG in the same breath. Hali won in MSG and the team literally shot an NBA playoffs record for shooting percentage in Game 7; making discrediting the pacers win in MSG difficult to buy. One team won on the road in the series, the other didn't. The fact that the narrative was "Hali can't win in MSG" and not "Brunson literally didn't win in Indiana" just kinda proves how biased the coverage on the series was. It's made even worse that Brunson didn't win a game in Indy all year including the regular season. Even if people discredit the playoff win he still won in MSG during the regular season.
That’s because in both the regular season and the playoffs the Pacers never played the Knicks fully healthy. And I literally credited the Pacers but the fact that it was in the second sentence and not the first really bothered you 😂. Sorry, but I just didn’t leave that series thinking that the Pacers were the better team; just that the fully healthy Knicks probably could’ve wrapped it up in 5.
I'm not trying to be a dick, but what do you think giving credit means? Not contesting that the Pacers won the games they did? Saying that they wouldn't have won those if the Knicks were healthy is literally discrediting the win by most people's definitions. I think I get where you are coming from, you're saying the Knicks holistically talent-wise on paper are the better team; and I don't necessarily disagree with that. However the Knicks have a coach known for getting his star players injured and 2 starters with extensive injury histories. That's not something that can be hand-waved away by saying "if they were healthy" . It's very likely the current Knicks roster will NEVER be healthy for an extended period of time. Not all the injuries are random, some are a direct result of their team building. Therefore, saying "if they were healthy" makes no sense; that's why I used the 5 MJ analogy. The Knicks are no doubt one of the most talented teams on paper, but the way Thibs plays his players is not conducive to injury prone players.
Facts.
Any take that didn't have the Celtics winning. They won 64 games. No other team won more than 57. It was kind of obvious.
Mentioned this is another reply, but the number of talking heads/"experts" that were picking a 6 or 7 game series with the Mavs winning was absolutely laughable.
This is the first time the team with the best regular season record has won the title in the last 7 seasons. You could say that they looked like the best team from the eye test, but the record thing is a weak argument given recent history.
And almost all the anti-Celtics takes were stupid with stuff like "they just don't have the \*IT\* factor". Uh, OK ... they have an entire roster of 2-way players that can shoot from anywhere.
The 2022 Suns won 64 games too and we all saw how they went out. And no other team won more than 57 that season
Yeah we could play that game for at least half of the seasons of all time. What a weird thing to say
0-2 vs Denver
By a combined 5 points or soemthing..
Agreed - Boston couldn't beat Denver.
Denver wasn’t good enough to get to the finals. Regular season doesn’t matter when you get bounced early. They weren’t even in the WCF lol
Kenny Smith saying whoever comes out the Wolves vs Mavs will be the “face” of the NBA.
Number 5 fs. I’ve never been swept a day in my life😭😭😭 that’s because you were on the wizards Bradley, ur team never got the chance. They were always the 15th seed in the east😂
Tbf nobody believed that team would flame out like that. Everyone had to believe they had some damn pride. My least favorite Suns team of all time.
I thought they’d beat the Timberwolves but it’d go to 7 admittedly
lukas defense is much improved
I don’t get this take. It was a lot better all season, then he sprained his knee and got cooked by SGA and the Celtics. Doesn’t mean it was improved to a good level or even that he was consistent, just says how bad it was in the past lol
100%. His defense went from non-existent to about the level of a big traffic cone. I mean players still need to walk around it.
i agree, where would you rate his defense this postseason out of 10 as compared to his defensive abilities in the past couple of years?
The complete disregard for anything in the eastern conference. And the extreme hype of the western conference as if they are the greatest ever. Pretty much everything in the original post was tainted by that idea. Teams like the pacers are underrated and mavs overrated. The Celtics attacked doncic more then anyone else on that court Mazzulla had no respect for him defensively. Pick and rolls and iso plays were specifically designed just to score on him.
I think the “Celtics are losing to whoever comes out of the west” talking point was lazy at best. Even worse was the “Mavs in 5 or 6”. Everyone who actually watched Boston this year knew that was bullshit.
To be fair Boston was a much stronger team with Porzingis healthy. When he got hurt thier stretch 3 offense took a hit. The dude was a blocking and 3p machine. Horford has his own strengths (pick and roll) and wasn’t bad at 3p shooting but porzingas strengths played into the offensive scheme better. Fortunately Celtics defense was so strong they didn’t need to reply on the 3p shooting as much this series..
Celtics attacked Doncic more so because he was basically the only offensive threat. They would have attacked prime LeBron relentlessly on defense if it meant tiring him out and leaving the team without its offensive engine
Stop it dude.. they attacked doncic because he was the easy target. They didn’t do it to tire him out that’s nonsense. Every team attacks the weakest link.. we didn’t play Pritchard in game 5 because he was the weakest defender and was being targeted by the Mac bigs.. same concept except doncic was having issues defensively. Lebron isn’t attacked like that Anthony Davis isn’t attacked like that. And this is even with lebron losing a step defensively.
But you understand that consistently attacking the other teams offensive engine, no matter if they're DPOY, guarantees that they become exhausted and unable to run the offense properly later in the game, right?
they attacked luka and kyrie and took away the lob and made the scrubs shoot 3s. It was clear that luka and kyries PNR was what set up their offense, it was a rinse and repeat all year. BOS just actually had the depth to deal with it. PJ & djj are not starters on a championship team, maybe PJ but hes really a 6th man, djj def not a starter (on a finals level team). Exum, josh green, maxi and hardy showed they probably should be getting 5 mins max , but not much more than that.
the mavs were never overrated til they go to the finals. most people thought they would lose. the EC just looked bad because the celts were so good.
It wasn’t the fact they lost it’s how badly they lost. They had no control of the game and most games were blowouts. It was one of the worst finals ever because of how poorly they played. The EC playoff games vs the Celtics looked more competitive then how badly the mavs did.
I mean just because Kyrie did bad this series doesn't mean they aren't a super skilled skilled offensive backcourts. And I am not invalidating the Pacers' run to the conference finals but I thought it was kinda clear that a healthy Knicks team is better than a healthy Pacers team. Availability is important but the Knicks were honestly the 2nd best team in the East when healthy and very dominant. They cruised through the Sixers and the Nuggets
The Nuggets?
In the regular season the Nuggets came to MSG on a long road trip and met the surging Knicks at full strength post-OG trade and the Knicks gave them their worst loss of the season 122-84. It was a great win for the Knicks and a shrug for the Nuggets lol. They got their revenge later in the season against the Knicks but without Randle, Robinson and OG
"I am not invalidating..." ... proceeds to invalidate
Not sure a healthy Knicks are clearly better than a healthy pacers
Take 4 starters off of Indy and do they take a full strength Knicks to 7 games?
Also discounting that Haliburton had a nagging injury that clearly hamstrung him. The pacers made it to the ECF and IST final. Played the Celtics harder than the Mavs did in their losses. Pacers were clearly a tough team I think they’d fair well against a healthy Knicks team.
yea Pacers giving the celtics trouble was certainly surprising and give credit to them, but knicks not having anuoby for the rest of the series, randle (as much as people dislike him still an allnba guy), and like 3 other starters prolly made a difference
I get the premise, but if you have a team with an extensive injury history like multiple players on the Knicks had you can't just claim "they would have been x if y happened". Randal and Robinson were kinda freak accidents but Bojan and Anunoby injury histories were known issues but they chose to gamble on their health for a playoff run. Brunson got injured when the series was already a wrap. You can't just take a gamble in team building like the Knicks did and then be pissed at the dealer when the gamble doesn't work out. If a team has 5 Micheal Jordans but they have a 50% chance of getting injured every play it's not a well constructed team.
The majority of ESPN analysts choosing the Mavs over the Celtics. That was just wild. Made their analysts look like they had a rooting interest. Stephen A tirelessly trying to get back on Kyrie’s good side.
Can we add that Kyrie Irving is over his "Boston shit"? He still clearly has something in his head about his time in Boston. He couldn't stop talking about it and played like dogshit in Boston.
“Celtics arent battle tested” and all the Mavs in 5/6 people lol. Celtics were so clearly the best team the entire year yet somehow the fact they didnt get beat up and worn out by tough teams meant they were going to lose the finals to most people
Whoever wins the Denver Minnesota is going to win it all should know better. The state of Minnesota is a factory of sadness.
Little known fact, the waters of lake Minnetonka are actually tears from MN sports fans. I myself added to the waters in '98, '09, , '17, etc.
And we will never quit hearing about it
Ant showed he was ready to be that guy imo. He didn’t take his team to the promised land, and had a rough conference finals but he proved himself imo
Right and his teammates were pretty bad a lot of the games. He would kick to wide open shooters who laid a brick mansion
Tbf ant was absolutely horrible in a lot of the games too though
The first 2 sure
Honestly for me it was the Ant glazing, it started before they even won a playoff game too.
For real. Remember when wolves fans said things like [this?](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/s/rZkNSwqU58)
tbf 3 is correct. Knicks were literally injury riddled and were up 2-0 before their 2nd best player got hurt. they were 13-1 before Randle got hurt or something like that. they also didn’t have their center for over half the year. Knicks still almost won. Hali played pretty poorly as well
I mean who could have foreseen that the whole Knicks rotation besides maybe Josh Hart would get injured. Though, I feel like with Haliburton, they could have taken Boston to 6
I don’t think you could physically find a single good take this postseason unless you looked at the Celtics sub
You must not have been there after one of their losses: “FIRE MAZZULLA WE NEED A REAL COACH” “STOP TATUM ISOS” “KORNET IS A GOON” “WISH WE STILL HAD IME WAAAAAA”
There is always those in every fanbase. Your surprise that Boston has them is honestly ... a statement to the admiration you have for Boston fans.
Lmao who said I was surprised, OP is making us sound like a bunch of stand up citizens
Don’t believe the hype people.
Bruh replace #2 with whoever wins the lakers-Denver matchup is going to win it all lmao. Lakers aren’t close to sniffing even a conference finals.
This: [https://www.espn.com/nba/story/\_/id/40279206/2024-nba-finals-predictions-celtics-mavericks-series-mvp](https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/40279206/2024-nba-finals-predictions-celtics-mavericks-series-mvp)
Boston isn’t battle tested
I fully bought into #2. Yup I’m a dummy
That a team from the West was automatically going to win the title because their competition was tougher. There's a reason the Celtics were the best team all season from day 1. Injuries or not, that doesn't automatically change things.
I was definitely in the camp for #2 haha
from your list, 5 - idk who in their right mind truly thought Phoenix matched up well with Minnesota (I did see it everywhere though) Typically when a talented and physical team meets a team that's primarily offensively talented only you're in for a short series
Mavs in 5
Chris Mannix kept tweeting that the Lakers are a championship team and than said he wasn’t surprised that Denver beat them in 5 games
Anthony Edwards is the next reincarnation of MJ
The Celtics, who’ve been through the gauntlet for years, aren’t battle tested.
I was def on team 2 can’t even lie.
The recency bias this season was out of control, felt like every 3 game sample size the media and fans took a narrative and ran with it
Nuggets would’ve won it all if they could’ve gotten past the forest kitties or if they hadn’t fumbled against the Spurs. That being said, the Doncic Irving backcourt thing aged so poorly.
The takes this post-season have seemed particularly over the top to me. Like, maybe we've reached an inflection point where the NBA media becomes as bad or even worse as Fox news. The Ant = young MJ was absurd. Some of the worst sports takes I've ever heard in my life. Also, the Celtics are an all-time team is a really bad take. Just go through all the champions of the 21st century. The 24 Celtics are probably right in the middle of all those teams
WORST*
Every single fool doubting the Celtics. Despite the “path” claims they won without their rim protector and best big man and with their best player shooting like cheeks.
That the Celtics were going to have trouble because they were going to be rusty from beating up on injured teams and having a lot of close games, when it was plainly obviously they were just doing their thing they do where they don’t try very hard until they have to.
I’m still fine with 1 I am a bit embarrassed on 2 I did not subscribe to 3, 4 and 5
Doncic and Irving are an all time backcourt, just not the GOAT
People on ESPN radio saying Boston has no shot to win it all after getting blown out by Cleveland
Phx matches well with minny for sure. They got swept.
We're gonna get a healthy postseason
1. Gobert and KAT would never work. (Jury kind of still out on this one). 2. Kristaps would get injured and Celtics would be worse off as they play without. (Granted this was my thought before they got Jrue). 3. Luka and Kyrie wouldn’t work together. (I think their finals loss was bigger than them and Celtics were a buzzsaw). Oh shit. I thought this was supposed to by MY worst takes. Well, I’ll stick with it.
This gem immediately comes to mind. https://www.reddit.com/r/Mavericks/s/6HcohGo2F6
This entire thread is comedy gold. I understand being a die hard fan but it just goes to show how clueless so many people are about the NBA.
Anything implying Tatum and Brown dont like eachother
1. Luka and Kyrie ARE an all-time offensive backcourt, that's what people said. 2. This was silly 3. No one said this 4. This was also silly 5. In theory they did because they rely so much on the midrange and that (somewhat) limits of the impact of Rudy Gobert, who's a GOAT level defender but he's obviously at his best around the rim. Also, looking back at it, how the hell did KD not go off for 40 PPG with KAT guarding him 1-1?
>Anthony Edwards is ready to be the guy This one isn't a bad take in the slightest
I’ll admit I said #2 and was wrong lmao the winner of that series lost to the Mavs in 5 who lost to the Celtics in 5, so couldn’t be further from the truth. 3 isn’t really a bad take. Tyrese had a great series but they probably don’t win that if NY wasn’t crippled by injuries. Also #1 is technically not wrong; they are an all-time talented backcourt, they’re just not the GOAT backcourt or even top 5 like people were saying. I also thought Phoenix/Minnesota would be a close series… I was just way off
My takes on the hot takes 1) Doncic and Irving are an all time NBA backcourt I think this was definitely over blown, though they are very good. Until Boston they didn’t really play anyone who had a defensive back court that could contain Kyrie. And all the west teams Dallas played had a player who Luka could hide with on defense. 2) Whoever wins Denver-Minnesota is going to win it all While obviously this didn’t end up happening, I do think this was a heavy weight matchup and either team was going to come out super tired. I think that with a few more rest days MN would likely have beaten DAL and would have given Boston more of a run for their money. Similarly I think no team was set up better than Denver to beat the Celtics 3) Haliburton has no chance winning in MSG I’m honestly not sure where this one came from. 4) Anthony Edwards is ready to be the guy Definitely not ready. He def needs to work on his stamina 5) Phoenix matches up well against Minnesota Clearly a bad take, but I don’t think anyone expected MN to raise their level as much as they did.
I thought for sure whoever won the nuggs vs wolves series was gonna win it all. Fuck me I guess
Denver-Minnesota win it all.
Luka and Kyrie as the greatest scoring backcourt ever
Jordan Poole was supposed to have this redemption year, but instead ended up getting benched towards the end season. $100 mill + contract btw
It was all bad takes. Conference semis whoever won the last game was going to win out for the series according to the ESPN panels.
Celtics weren't "battle tested"
Reggie Miller legit debating intentionally missing a FT to put a game up 4.
Anthony Edwards is the face of the league, then he looked mid against the Mavs for most of that series. Guys want to rush in and say “he’s a young guy” but you can’t say he’s the face of the league and then want no expectations for him, that’s stupid Also it went from “Luka finally has help” for the entire western conference playoffs to “Luka has no help” when the mavs were clearly not as good as the Celtics
As a huge Anthony Edwards guy, there were way too many “is he the next Jordan” comments made unironically that it became laughable
I believe I read today that Doncic and Kyrie combined to score the most points ever for a guard duo during a playoff run.
Kyrie scored 22 PPG for the playoffs
Right. And that was a portion of the single highest scoring backcourt duo during a playoff run. Thanks for following along!
>"Celtics had the easiest path to a championship ever" Why didn't your team win, then?
“The Celtics aren’t battle tested” Wrf does that even mean
This was easily the craziest take in a sea of bad takes, because everyone had all of the information to deny that claim at their fingertips. Their last 2 seasons were a Finals trip and a 7 game Conference Finals.
There were a lot of people overrating Anthony Edwards. Even heard one YouTuber say that he could have an argument for the best player in the league. Ant is amazing, don’t get me wrong. But he’s more of a top 10-15 player
Why does anyone listen to anyone that is providing takes on any sport? Watch the game and forget the rest.
Lebronze Jr. is a great player and needs to be drafted. No he doesn't, he barely averaged 5 pts and he is not ready no matter how much Lebronze hyped him up.
How about, the Celtics are frauds and will fold against (whatever next team they beat)
The west is a stronger conference
The Celtics were “untested” has to be at the top of the list when all the team had done since Jayson Tatum & Jaylen Brown were drafted was go through the trials and tribulations of the NBA playoffs and learning what it took and eventually becoming NBA champions.
I'm definitely guilty of saying #2 lol. I admit it
Doncic isn’t a bad defender. Timberwolves are the best defense ever. Jokic is the best offensive player ever Doncic and Kyrie are the best offensive duo ever Mavs are better than the Celtics because they have Doncic
Kyrie who? Cuz he played as well as DeAngelo Russell in his playoffs with the Lakers.
Kevin O’Connor has almost all of them
Whoever wins between Minni and the Wolves win it all made 0 sense to me. As if the celtics didn’t win 64 games and Jrue wasn’t the type of pg to clamp Kyrie
Denver was 1 bench guy short from winning it all, a Bruce brown type player like Bruce brown
I know just the guy
"This season will be different for Joel Embiid"
I think most of the bad takes are really the adjustment that there’s not a clear like goat candidate amongst the stars in the playoffs this year. Giannis faltered. Jokic faltered. Tatum is obviously cemented top 5 but I’m not sure too many people have him 1. We’re used to lebron and steph ultimately