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NON-JAZZ NBA PLAYOFF thread

Are you talking about Conley? If so, c'mon man. I enjoy your posts. Always have. But to say that Conley is ever more than our 3rd best player in any scenario is freaking insulting to Don and Rudy.

Conley had a couple good games last year vs Denver but didn't come through when we needed him over that 3 game losing stretch.

Conley had a few good games vs Memphis this year. When we closed out Memphis, we didn't need him that last game when he supposedly re-aggravated his hammy. And of course he was absent in the Clippers series even when he did play that one game.

Conley disappointed us all because what matters is what you do in the playoffs. For $70 million over two years, 2 first rounders, Crowder, Grayson and Korver, he simply let us down.
I thought latin jazz simply said that against memphis in the playoffs this year it could be argued that conley was our best player. I think that's fair. He was amazing against Memphis. He was definitely our best shooter iirc

22 points and 11 assists in game 1.
20 and 15 in game 2
27 and 8 in game 3
11 and 7 in game 4
He was 3-4 from the field and 1-1 from 3 and a +14 in his 11 minutes of game 5.
He averaged 17 points and 9 assists (those numbers were brought down due to his injury only allowing him to play 11 minutes in game 5) on 47% from the field, 55% FROM THREE!, and 100% from the line.
He also averaged less than 2 turnovers per game.
Jazz were awesome against the grizzlies. I think that gets forgotten by a lot of people.
When we were healthy in round 1 we scored 141, 121, 120, and 129 points in 4 straight wins. We win by 12, 10, 11, and 16.
I know the narrative right now is that we need perimeter defenders (and that's true). However, when we were healthy our offense was so good we might have been able to simply out score all of our opponents.

Guys, imagine if that Mike conley was healthy throughout these playoffs. We would probably be in the finals or game 7 of the western conference finals right now.

****ing hamstring.



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Well, I think we both see bastkeball with different glasses. Both Don and Conley took turns in defending Murray after Royce was burned all series long. Both did a great job. Conley didn't shoot well in game 7 but he dished some pretty good assists in the 4Q. I'm always looking at more than scoring. We lost that series because of perimeter defense, which wasn't addressed by the FO this offseason (and they deserve all the blame for it).

Conley has been an all-star caliber player for most of his career, before Rudy or Don. Give him credit when due. After struggling in the first season, he adapted his game nicely this one, finding the sweet spot between playmaking, playing off the ball. He learned how to play with Rudy, get himself free and shoot 3s off the dribble. His playmaking was superb all season long, including the playoffs. I hope he comes back at a discount.
Don't get wrong - we are a better team with Conley than without him. I just can't let him off the hook for not being there when we needed him most. He was supposed to be the missing piece.

Instead, he was just missing.

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Suns simply had more talent than we did. They've got Static(12th pick in 2014) , Cam Johnson(11th pick in 2019) and Cam Payne(14th pick in 2015) off the bench while having Frank the Tank(9th pick in 2015) and Jalen Smith(10th pick in 2020) not even in the rotation. All we've got is a bunch of second rounders/undrafted prospects trying to survive in this league. Guess DL just love these guys which is why he got rid of Uncle Jeff, the 4th pick in 2007 for an undrafted/underwhelming prospect in Rayjon Tucker.

I mean fans here wanted Jabari Parker when he was sitting on the waiver wire and they were right all along cuz he would've been the clear superior choice over Niang.
 
Suns simply had more talent than we did. They've got Static(12th pick in 2014) , Cam Johnson(11th pick in 2019) and Cam Payne(14th pick in 2015) off the bench while having Frank the Tank(9th pick in 2015) and Jalen Smith(10th pick in 2020) not even in the rotation. All we've got is a bunch of second rounders/undrafted prospects trying to survive in this league.
But Donovan would be the best player in the series. They couldn't stop our offense.

We also literally had the best bench player in the league. And I believe the runner up for best bench player in the league. Our bench was fantastic when Conley was healthy.

We averaged 127 points per game against the grizzlies. The grizzlies are known as a good defensive team.

Plus Rudy could be Rudy and when Rudy gets to stay in the paint our defense can be very effective.

I think it would go 7 games if we have a healthy team. I like our chances at home in game 7 with Donovan Mitchell in our side. I would bet on him scoring 50 in that game. If we are healthy it doesn't really matter if we have frank kaminsky and Jalen Smith instead of Brantley and Hughes or whoever since none of those guys would play anyway.

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But Donovan would be the best player in the series. They couldn't stop our offense.

We also literally had the best bench player in the league. And I believe the runner up for best bench player in the league. Our bench was fantastic when Conley was healthy.

We averaged 127 points per game against the grizzlies. The grizzlies are known as a good defensive team.

Plus Rudy could be Rudy and when Rudy gets to stay in the paint our defense can be very effective.

I think it would go 7 games if we have a healthy team. I like our chances at home in game 7 with Donovan Mitchell in our side. I would bet on him scoring 50 in that game. If we are healthy it doesn't really matter if we have frank kaminsky and Jalen Smith instead of Brantley and Hughes or whoever since none of those guys would play anyway.

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Suns didn't have a healthy CP3 and Booker literally had to wear a face mask to be allowed on the court. But the rest of their guys help split the load to make things easier for the stars, while we were literally overworking Donovan/Rudy/Joe/Royce cuz noone else on the bench could take any of the burdens off of their shoulder.

Besides Conley’s hamstring problem, we had Favs and Niang, who were our 7th and 8th man in the rotation, couldn't even stay on the floor against the Clippers, so of course our main guys like Don and Rudy would've gassed themselves and struggled with injury/fitness. That's when you would wish you have that options of Jeff Green, Kaminsky or Jabari Parker being available from the bench.
 
Suns got the big stuff right and they also got most of the small stuff right. Then they stayed healthier than other teams... when CP was out they had Cam to pickup the slack. When Cam Johnson was out they had Craig to pick up minutes.

say Cam Payne has to sit... they have Galloway and Moore available. Not world beaters but solid functional proven NBA players. Say Saric is out... they have Frank... again not a world beater but a guy that can play.

Outside or Ersan we had no one you could look at and trust.

Suns deserve a **** ton of credit... James Jones chief among them. He has a tough, cheap owner and built a winner and filled out the roster beautifully. Also convinced Monty Williams to come there. Through adding CP, Jae, Monty to a young core he helped build a culture there quickly.... with an owner who is kind of a joke tbh. It wasn’t that long ago when Jones was having to show up for Josh Jackson at fan events because he no showed... Booker was a star hunting loser... Ayton was talented but aimless. No asterisk... give Jones his flowers. He did awesome.
 
Suns didn't have a healthy CP3 and Booker literally had to wear a face mask to be allowed on the court. But the rest of their guys help split the load to make things easier for the stars, while we were literally overworking Donovan/Rudy/Joe/Royce cuz noone else on the bench could take any of the burdens off of their shoulder.

Besides Conley’s hamstring problem, we had Favs and Niang, who were our 7th and 8th man in the rotation, couldn't even stay on the floor against the Clippers, so of course our main guys like Don and Rudy would've gassed themselves and struggled with injury/fitness. That's when you would wish you have that options of Jeff Green, Kaminsky or Jabari Parker being available from the bench.
Favors and niang could stay on the floor against the suns though. Our normal offense and normal defense could do what our normal offense and normal defense does against the suns. Just like against Memphis.

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Don't get wrong - we are a better team with Conley than without him. I just can't let him off the hook for not being there when we needed him most. He was supposed to be the missing piece.

Instead, he was just missing.

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It sucks he wasn't available against the Clips. But Conley vs role players/late 1st for a chance at winning a chip is a reasonable trade in my opinion. Had we been deeper, we probably beat LA without Mike and then he is healthy against the Suns.

The problem wasn't his acquisition. Is the dumb moves to fill out the roster and the overall lack of positional flexibility. You had a point about teams scheming against Rudy. We had no counter. We couldn't go small. If we wanted to play big, we needed good perimeter defenders in front of Rudy. The same weaknessess from the previous offseason: that's on the the FO. Had they taken Bane, get Craig or someone else besides Thomas, we would most likely be in the Finals. Also, let's not forget Don played in one leg.
 
Favors and niang could stay on the floor against the suns though. Our normal offense and normal defense could do what our normal offense and normal defense does against the suns. Just like against Memphis.

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Yeah, it's a better matchup. On the other hand, it would have been a midrange nightmare but that's easier to defend and less deadly than the Clips all-out small ball 5 lineup.
 
Yeah, it's a better matchup. On the other hand, it would have been a midrange nightmare but that's easier to defend and less deadly than the Clips all-out small ball 5 lineup.
Agreed. The suns are good. It would be hard to defend their midrange. Hell it would be hard to defend their inside game and 3 point game too. They are really good
But so were we when we were healthy. We were really hard for every team in the league to defend. Even against clippers with no Conley and a banged up Donovan and niang playing worse than he ever played before, we still put up points. We didn't have any 84 point games. Didn't even have any under 100.


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Lol go look it up man. Niang started a number of regular season games as did Sefalosha... So did Jerebko.
And players that some fans don't like will continue to have the occasional start in the future. It's unavoidable.

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Not sure if this was posted, but this is the first time since 1971 that the winner of the title is guaranteed to not have someone with a ring already on a roster. Literally everyone on the team who wins will get their first ring. That's pretty amazing.

Even without the Jazz in it, this is the first FInals I've looked forward to in years. Suns vs Bucks would be epic, Suns vs Hawks would be just so fun to watch.
 
Durant literally joined the team with the best regular season record in the history of the game the very next season after they slaughtered his team in the playoffs and rode their coattails to a championship. So with his unearned rings, who is the better forward, Durant or Malone?

A ring's a ring, when it comes right down to it.

Malone will go down as maybe the best player to never get a ring. Ho-hum. While Durant is a champion finals MVP, nevermind that the dubs would have likely won whether he had been there or not.
A ring doesn't determine if one player is better than another player. With your dumbass logic, Rodman is better than Malone.
So I would have happily taken the ring this year and celebrated it as if we had beaten the bulls and dubs in their primes back to back.
That's because you're an idiot.
 
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