Hawks v. Bucks. Nate v. Bud. Trae v. Giannis. ECF! #WeMove KnuckIfYouBuck

[benhillboy]

Jrue (awful shooting for 40 minutes), Giannis (more turnovers than assists, pathetic FT shooting), and Middleton (.408 shooting, nearly a turnover for each assist) had an average 104 offensive rating against a mediocre defensive team last series.  That certainly won’t cut it against us they might be ripe to get smashed out here.

[Dejay]

Of all folks, I'm going to paraphrase Skip Bayless before the Sixers-Hawks series began...

'If they get the first one, ole boy. And don't let them get Cam Reddish back...'

If Dre and Bogdanovic were both healthy, the Hawks would've flattened the Sixers in six. But they're not, so...

Oh what the hell. Hawks just find a way, like they did last night. I haven't given a game-by-game series prediction (nor watched a live playoff game yet) and will keep from doing so here. 

'Don't stop....believing....'

[JeffS17]

1 hour ago, RandomFan said:

 

NBA and the media spent too much time doubling down and riding Luka all year they are now scrambling for narratives and having to catch up on who Trae is and has been -- an elite point guard.  A point guard who makes ALL of his teammates better, has unwavering confidence, super competitive, never gives up, never has poor body language on the court, doesn't make excuses, just balls out night after night.  Anyone who has watched this Hawks playoff run and watched Trae dismantle every team's defense knows the NBA awards are a joke.  I actually predicted we'd have 0 all-NBA and 0 all-stars this year in our prediction thread because the disrespect this franchise and its' players get is perpetual.  There is nothing that will make me happier than beating the Bucks and regular season star Bud.

[aali34]

 

Don't think Bud can connect with his locker room like this. 

[RandomFan]

LOL! This is from a Sixers fan that went into the Bucks forum to dickride them: 

Hey bucks fans. Depressed and distraught Sixers fan here. BOL against this painfully annoying, dramatic, and media jerkoff sensation hawks team. Your anger and amount of violent thoughts towards players named Huerter, Young, Collins, and Gallinari will grow 100 fold. Be prepared to watch Trae young throw himself into giannis holiday and Middleton for 48 minutes getting bailed out by refs and the Trae young *** guzzling announcers saying how amazing he is at “drawing fouls” even tho it is legit not basketball. Be prepared to watch Trae hit floaters over a sagging Lopez in the paint and you screaming at ur tv bloody murder. This Atlanta team will send you on a roller coaster of emotions and pain and suffering. Best of luck and be warned from a suffering Sixers fan to not let your well being hinge upon a basketball team’s success. Peace and love from Philly

It's like this guy never watched Embiid or something 

[AUhawksfan]

9 minutes ago, aali34 said:

 

Don't think Bud can connect with his locker room like this. 

Or LP for that matter.  Goes to show you that when you respect your players and go to war with them, rather than blame them they'll fight like hell for you.

[AUhawksfan]

The success of this series for me will be how many times I see this face:

[benhillboy]

18 minutes ago, aali34 said:

 

Don't think Bud can connect with his locker room like this. 

That wasn’t enough curses coach gimme some more lol.

The chemistry on this team man.  Exceptional.

[benhillboy]

3 minutes ago, AUhawksfan said:

The success of this series for me will be how many times I see this face:

Or when he looks at Darvin who has a look of half bewilderment, half disgust on his face.

[hylndr11]

Ok hold up guys, let's get some objective analysis here, we can cherry pick any stat.and say why well win , but for real there's points where it was 4 on 5 with Simmons he wouldn't do shit anything nothing he quit , we won't get that with bucks

[RandomFan]

Capela waking up throwing punches this morning. 

 

[hawkman]

1 minute ago, RandomFan said:

Capela waking up throwing punches this morning. 

 

The 2nd Round wasn't his finest hour but he will make up for it in the ECF. Embiid is the toughest matchup he'll face in the East. 

[marco102]

1 minute ago, hawkman said:

The 2nd Round wasn't his finest hour but he will make up for it in the ECF. Embiid is the toughest matchup he'll face in the East. 

In the second half of the last 4 games Capela played excellent defense on Embiid and he played decent last night too catching those lobs. He still missed those bunnies though.

[cam1218]

30 minutes ago, marco102 said:

In the second half of the last 4 games Capela played excellent defense on Embiid and he played decent last night too catching those lobs. He still missed those bunnies though.

Some folks talk about Embiid being tired late, but I think CC played better defense late in the game knowing his foul situation. He wasn’t putting his body on Embiid early and I think it had to do with staying out of early foul trouble. The refs seemed to let both teams play through contact later in games this series. Just a guess, but smart on his part if true. 

[nathan2331]

51 minutes ago, hylndr11 said:

Ok hold up guys, let's get some objective analysis here, we can cherry pick any stat.and say why well win , but for real there's points where it was 4 on 5 with Simmons he wouldn't do shit anything nothing he quit , we won't get that with bucks

Well with Giannis, we have the personnel to contain his drives to the rim all game long. Miami laid out a strategy last year building a wall, I expect us to try and emulate it. So long as we don't allow the Bucks shooters to go off, the games will be competitive. Our biggest issue again will be that we don't have Hunter and Reddish healthy to put on Giannis, but if the help is there on defense, we can avoid him demolishing us.

On offense for us we just have to avoid turnovers and make our shots. Health is a factor but when we're playing well, we can score with anybody. We just need to take care of the ball to limit other Bucks' transition offense.

[HawkingAwesome]

1 hour ago, hylndr11 said:

Ok hold up guys, let's get some objective analysis here, we can cherry pick any stat.and say why well win , but for real there's points where it was 4 on 5 with Simmons he wouldn't do shit anything nothing he quit , we won't get that with bucks

They haven't quit YET

[hylndr11]

They being very quiet on cam only thing we're getting mike.conti showing him warming up 

[JeffS17]

23 minutes ago, cam1218 said:

Some folks talk about Embiid being tired late, but I think CC played better defense late in the game knowing his foul situation. He wasn’t putting his body on Embiid early and I think it had to do with staying out of early foul trouble. The refs seemed to let both teams play through contact later in games this series. Just a guess, but smart on his part if true. 

This is a really good point, and I also don't like a lot of the Capela slander I've seen around, some even on here.  Capela had the toughest matchups of anyone on the team.  I expect him to look much better when he's not playing an MVP level player, evne though I thought he played pretty solid in most of the Philly series.  Capela is a solid starting center and he plays good team defense, and he's probably on the highest value contract we have (excluding rookie deals).  Bucks will be a shift in focus for sure though bc Lopez is going to be dragging him to the perimeter much more than Embiid did -- I think he will have a good series.

[aali34]

1 minute ago, JeffS17 said:

This is a really good point, and I also don't like a lot of the Capela slander I've seen around, some even on here.  Capela had the toughest matchups of anyone on the team.  I expect him to look much better when he's not playing an MVP level player, evne though I thought he played pretty solid in most of the Philly series.  Capela is a solid starting center and he plays good team defense, and he's probably on the highest value contract we have (excluding rookie deals).  Bucks will be a shift in focus for sure though bc Lopez is going to be dragging him to the perimeter much more than Embiid did -- I think he will have a good series.

I put JC on Lopez and leave Giannis for Capela. Embiid is a tougher cover since he's a perimeter threat. Clint can sag further off of Giannis and the Bucks haven't looked to exploit Lopez's size against other teams so far in the playoffs.

[JeffS17]

5 minutes ago, aali34 said:

I put JC on Lopez and leave Giannis for Capela. Embiid is a tougher cover since he's a perimeter threat. Clint can sag further off of Giannis and the Bucks haven't looked to exploit Lopez's size against other teams so far in the playoffs.

Good to know, haven't caught many of their games.  Guess I didn't give it that much thought but those assignments make a lot more sense.  I think this series comes down to our guards making shots.  Bogi has been scary cold and Trae hasn't shot great the entire playoffs.  Holiday and Middleton are very good defenders (of course Philly boasted about their perimeter defenders as well).