Built Ford Tough

4.

This has been some really bad basketball. I like defensive ball, but this is just ugly. No flow, terrible execution, unforced turnovers and bricks left and right.

For all the good New York did in that quarter, and there was a lot of it, they are only up by 4 at the half. I know it is only 4 points, but I think it would've made a big difference for their psyche if they headed into halftime with an 8 point lead. The first 5 minutes of the 3rd quarter are going to be huge for them, in my opinion.

Really impressed by the Knicks rotations on defense so far. The minute James or Wade look to turn the corner off a screen, end up in a dead spot on the floor or pick up their dribble, the Knicks are sending a second, sometimes third defender at them and forcing them into poor decisions or turnovers. The only problem is that their offense is startin to become stagnant and turning the ball over, which has enabled the Heat to get run outs and get back into the game.

What do you figure the chances of Houston keeping both Dragic and Lowry?

Yeah, my bad. I didn't notice you deleted your post until I just came back in this thread. I think I quoted you just before you deleted it, haha. Anyways, the Knicks need to get into their offensive sets quicker. They are walking the ball up the court and not getting into anything until there is less than 10 seconds on the shot clock. You aren't going to be able to score on the Heat defense like that. I'm not saying get into a track meet with the Heat because that is a recipe for disaster as well, but you can't allow them to get set every single defensive possession. You won't be able to beat them playing that way.

He flopped a bit but that was very close to being a charge on Melo. He lowered his shoulder and there was legitimate contact with the shoulder on the back down. That wasn't a case of him making it appear like there was contact when there wasn't. That was a good no call. It was closer to an offensive foul than anything else. I'm sure if it was called a charge people would be up in arms about it, though. And it looked like it hit Melo's left hand last.

I think you may be confusing Burks with somebody else because I don't think I've ever heard anybody describe him as havin a solid jumpshot. He had an eFG% of just 34% on jump shots this season. What Burks does really well is slash and get to the line. He had an eFG% of nearly 60% on shots in the paint and drew a foul on 15% of his possessions. A major reason why he was a late lottery pick last season is because he had no jumpshot. If he did, I have no doubt in my mind he would've been a top 8 pick because he has almost every other attribute you want in a shooting guard, aside from his poor jumper.

Updated to be fully accurate after the NBA's deadline to declare. I also added International prospects and re-organized the players into alphabetical order.

I was going to post this in the college basketball offseason thread, but I figure it deserved its own thread since it is pretty big news as one of the best non-conference rivalries is coming to an end. http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/7886942/indiana-hoosiers-kentucky-wildcats-series-ending-venue-disagreement Kind of pissed about this. The IU/UK matchup next year would likely be one of the best non-conference games of the college season and the game they played back in December last season was without a doubt the best college game of the year. What really sucks about this is that both teams are finally back on top of the NCAA. For a while there it wasn't really that intriguing of a matchup because Indiana was going through a rebuilding of their program and before that Kentucky went through a dry spell. Now that both teams are finally back at their best and are poised to deliver some of the best games of the college season the series will come to an end? Garbage.

Former NBA player, Tar Heel and ESPN analyst Hubert Davis will be an assistain coach for UNC next season.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I would be perfectly fine with the camera being glued to Holtby's mom the entire game. Her reactions to everything are awesome.

What a brutal giveaway to Ovechkin. So lucky that hit post and went out and not post and in.

After the Warriors decided to go into full blown tank mode, trading away Monta Ellis and starting a bunch of D-League scrubs or 2nd round picks, Thompson got a lot of burn as the focal point of the Warriors offense. His month by month (ignoring December's 4 games) production in his rookie season was: January: 7.7 ppg, 1.3 rpg, 1.4 apg on 44.8 FG%, 43.8 3PT% in 17.8 mpg February: 8.1 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 0.9 apg on 48.8 FG%, 48.5 3PT% in 16.2 mpg March: 16.4 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 2.7 apg on 42.1 FG%, 41.5 3PT% in 29.8 mpg April: 18.6 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 2.8 apg on 45.9 FG%, 38.4 3PT% in 33.7 mpg So as you can see he started out the year as what many people expected him to be, which was a reliable shooter from distance. He was efficiently knocking down his open jumpers but doing very little in terms of creating for himself or for others. However, once they decided to deal Ellis and increase his role with the team, he proved to be much more effective than many people thought he would be. He was no longer just parking outside the three point line waiting for kickouts. Instead, he was given the ball and asked to create for himself. You can see that it took him a little while to adjust as evidence by his fairly substantial drop in FG%. When April came along he seemed to really get comfortable as a go to offensive player. Obviously his percentages weren't as good as they were when he was strictly a catch and shoot guy, but he put up impressive percentages to go along with his 18.6 points a night and upped his rebounding. What is most impressive about his numbers is that he managed to increase his scoring output and efficiency despite playing with next to no talent beside him, which would allow defenses to focus more attention on him. So with his rookie season finished and us seeing how well he developed as it went on, what exactly to you think the future holds for Thompson? It is clear that he has earned the starting shooting guard spot heading into next season. With (hopefully) a healthy Curry, Lee and Bogut there won't be as much pressure on him, but he has shown to be more than a catch and shoot player. What do you think his potential as a player is?

Ridiculous flip shot by Parker. You really can't ask Hayward to play better defense on that possession, but Parker still manages to score. I guess you can hope Hayward would be able to keep him out of the paint, but other than that is was as good of defense as you could hope for on Parker.

This isn't even fair. San Antonio are absolutely demolishing the Jazz.

Yeah, this was just a rumor and nothing official. That isn't to say that there is no chance of Kirilenko signing with Brooklyn in the future, but there is no truth to him going to the Nets as of right now.

Has there ever been a non 1-8 or 2-7 series that people cared less about than this series? I'm honestly drawing a blank.

The award is such a joke (not in reference to Chandler because he fully deserves it). Serge Ibaka finishing such a close second is absurd. Sure, the guy gets a lot of impressive blocks, but he really is an average defender in all other areas. Out of all the players in the top 10 in voting (Chandler, Ibaka, Howard, James, Garnett, Allen, Iguodala, Marion, Deng, Smith), the only player I'd be ok with Ibaka being over is Josh Smith. I'm just waiting for the day that Javale McGee or DeAndre Jordan win a DPOY because they average 4 blocks a game. The simple fact that Kevin Garnett only has 1 DPOY and Duncan has 0 really proves that, though. I should know better than to expect sanity when it comes to these awards. At least they got the winner right. A sign of progress? I can only hope.

I wonder if this series will finally open people's eyes and make them realize that the Spurs are an absolute joy to watch offensively. Parker in particular is amazing. His decision making and tempo control is top notch and has improved tremendously over the years. It really is a shame that people still talk about them as if they are the early 2000's Spurs.

I still can't believe the Jays got Johnson for Hill. I love that guy. Oh yeah, Lawrie isn't bad either.

Was posted on another message board and, well, it is ugly: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wizards/wizards-john-wall-says-he-was-kind-of-the-same-in-his-second-season/2012/04/29/gIQAoB2SqT_story_1.html That is absolutely brutal. The scary thing is that I think we call all agree he is a fairly effective player already. He certainly hasn't lived up to the hype so far, but he is still a threat out there. If he ever is able to develop a jumper, it really is scary how good he can be. He managed to average 16 points a game despite the fact that he can barely hit a shot outside of layups and dunks.

Clearly, Casey sees the same things many of us have witnessed over the past 10 months. I’ve tended to waver between comparing him to Noah and Tyson Chandler, but with the potential for more offensive polish than both of them. I don’t think Valanciunas has Noah’s ball-handling or passing skills yet, and he’s definitely not the defensive force that Chandler is, but the comparisons are far from a reach. He also talked about when he expects Valanciunas to take over as the starting center. http://blogs.thescore.com/raptorblog/2012/05/01/dwane-casey-on-jonas-valanciunas-at-the-worst-were-getting-joakim-noah/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thescore%2Fraptorblog+%28RaptorBlog%29 I can just tell that fans are going to quickly turn on Valanciunas when he doesn't come in and post 14/10/2 in his rookie season. Ever since the season ended, the Raptors brass has been on a media storm pimping up Valanciunas and basically making him out to be the team's saviour. With that said, I have mentioned Valanciunas and Noah as similar players as well. I just think that saying Valanciunas' worst case scenario is going to make fairweather fans hype him up and develop unrealistic expectations for him, at least early on in his career. I'd honestly be happy if his prime is a slightly more gifted offensively Noah. I really don't see how you can say that his worst case scenario is Noah.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/basketball/nba/05/01/gregg.popovich.coach.of.year.ap/index.html#ixzz1teS0PASL Well deserved. I can understand if somebody had Thibs ahead of him considering all of the injuries he had to deal with, but I fully agree with Pop winning it as he was my choice.

This Thunder team seem destined to win this series. It seems like all the bounces go their way. Durant's game winner yesterday bounces in, Dirk's shot right there bounces out. Every difficult shot they throw up seems to either go in or they get a put back on, while Dallas' rims out. Dallas' 3's go in and out, OKC's go in, out and back in. I honestly can't say that they've been the better team than Dallas in this series but they just seem to get all the bounces at the most opportune times.