Best thing about Game 3

Will · May 5, 2018

Deuce said: ↑

The Rockets defensive dragnet was impressive. At risk of being a prisoner of the moment, I almost feel that was the best defensive I have ever seen the team play. So connected. So FAST. Arms were everywhere. Everything challenged. Breathtaking, tbh.

I loved the offensive diversity. Sure 3's and dunks. But the CP midrange. PJ's jump hooks. Harden's floaters. THE ENTIRE COURT USED. Sure, keep working the 3's and layups, but having that "diversity" in the back pocket is nice to see.
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Agree with all of this. The midrange, which they're getting better at, and which they'll need since opponents are taking away the 3's and layups. And especially the defense. Am I the only one who's playing back the defensive possessions on my DVR? In this game they were absolutely symphonic.

Rock Block · May 5, 2018

Drogba said: ↑

Is there a specific reason Harden hasn't been turning the ball over this postseason? CP3's actually been way more careless with the ball for some reason.
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He’s not doing near as much on offense as far as taking risks. However he started trying to make those almost impossible passes again late in the 3rd last night......

saleem · May 5, 2018

Will said: ↑

11 of 36 from the arc. Barely 30%. Utah shot 38%. And we win by 20.

We've won games with hot shooting. We've coasted in those games. And we'll need a couple of those games again. But we can't count on them. When we do, and when the shots don't go in, we can lose. We just saw that in Game 2.

To be a great team, a killer team, a championship team, we need to win the games where we shoot badly. We need to play with such defensive energy and focus that we give ourselves a cushion.

That's what we did tonight. We won the battle of turnovers, 8-16. We won the battle of blocks, 7-4. We won the battle of steals, 8-3. We won the battle for free throws, allowing them 5 fewer attempts and 7 fewer makes.

11 of 36 from the arc, and we held a 25+ lead into the fourth, before we subbed in our garbage guys. Imagine we're playing the Warriors. The Jazz shot 11-29. Say the Warriors shoot 14-29. That takes 9 points off our margin. Say they earn 6 more free throws than the Jazz did, and make all but 1. That takes another 5 off our margin. Say they commit 3 fewer turnovers and avoid 2 buckets off those turnovers. That's another 4 or 5 points off our margin. Say they get 3 more steals than the Jazz did, and score off 2 of them. Call that another 5 points.

We still win. With all those Warriors-level bonuses conceded, and us shooting like we shot tonight, we still win that game, if we play this kind of defense and build this kind of cushion.

We can beat the Warriors playing like this. We can win 4 games out of 7. We might need hot shooting in a couple of them. But if we play like this, even when we don't shoot well, we can earn 2 more.
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I do agree defense, rebounding and keeping our turnovers to a relatively low level is the key to success against GS. The one real advantage that they have over our guys is depth. We really can't afford to give Harden and CP3 any rest against them. We don't have a backup PG and Ryan is just not good enough at the 4, to give Tucker a breather. A younger Nene and a younger Joe Johnson would have made us the favorites against GS. I hope we can win Game 4, and finish out the series in Houston.

Will · May 23, 2018

Will said: ↑

To be a great team, a killer team, a championship team, we need to win the games where we shoot badly. We need to play with such defensive energy and focus that we give ourselves a cushion.
... We can beat the Warriors playing like this. We can win 4 games out of 7. We might need hot shooting in a couple of them. But if we play like this, even when we don't shoot well, we can earn 2 more.
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So far in this series, we've won 1 hot shooting game (#2) and 1 defensive focus game (#4). We're halfway there.

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