I generally agree, but I’ve been wondering lately, how much of this is the Stevens’ effect? Like, if you switch Jackson and Tatum, does Jackson look like a future superstar?

That is one of the most amazing shot charts I’ve ever seen.

Would you do Kyrie plus some combination of Brown/Tatum and/or draft picks for AD or Kawhi? I’d think long and hard about it.

And Rozier!

I love it.

In my excitement, I failed to consider the Stevens’ effect.

Serious question, should the Celtics look at trading Kyrie? Rozier is not close to Kyrie’s level as a shot maker, but he’s getting better, and he’s a far, far superior defender. With Rozier’s offense improving, Brown and Tatum continuing to develop, and Hayward coming back next year, do they still need Kyrie’s…

I don’t get the hate. The game was on a weekday evening. He probably came straight from the office and said, screw it, I’m not going home to change into a t-shirt just because a bunch of deadspinners are going to lampoon me for wearing a jersey over a collared shirt. I applaud his IDGAF-itude.

Based on the first two games of this series, you’ll need to add Kevon Looney to that list.

You make some good points, but even if GS played perfect defense, I’d expect AD to get to the FT line a handful of times, if for no other reason than he’s a superstar. For him to have 0 FT was pretty surprising.

I did see a couple of those plays in the 4th quarter.

Nope.

I’m not following your logic. I think the refs called the games tighter for NO than they did for GS. I base this on (i) the number of FT’s (GS took about 20 more in both games) and (ii) the number of shots NO took inside the paint (NO was attacking the paint). I don’t know if the refs were acting…

Really? I read some stat that NO took something like 54 shots in the paint. I’m not sure how to narrow this shot chart down, but it sure looks like NO took significantly more shots in the paint (which implies they were more aggressive), but I guess a lot of those could have been floaters.

It’s still crazy that NO only shot 11 and 9 FT’s in games 1 and 2, respectively.

No. But I think it is very unusual for one team to shoot 20 more FTA.

I have no idea if it is accurate, but according to my 30 second google search, for the year GS averaged 20.6 FTA per game while their opponents averaged 21.8 FTA per game. NO averaged 20.7 FTA per game, while their opponents shot 20.5 FTA per game. Games 1 and 2 would seem to be outliers for both teams.

The Warriors are obviously great. When they are hitting on all cylinders, they are virtually a perfect team. But I can’t help but feel like New Orleans got hosed by the refs in the first two games. Although I didn’t get to watch most of the games, the FT disparity seems to speak for itself. In game 1, NO shot 11 FT…

I’ve only caught a little bit of the first two games, but the FT disparity is pretty jarring. Only 9 team FT’s for New Orleans and 0 FT for Davis last night. Only 11 team FT in game 1. Meanwhile, Golden State shot 32 and 27 FT’s in games 1 and 2. Is Golden State really playing that cleanly on defense?

It looked to me like Busta gave up on the point, not because he thought the ball was out, but because he hit a weak return that he assumed Dimotrov would put away easily.