I'm a Westbrook fan but his handle nor shot are in Irving's class. Keep hearing about defense but Curry's stinks more. By skill set I was talking offensively.

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How so?

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I don't know why you think Kyrie is good defensively. He's not. He's really bad. But yes, I agree that he has a more complete overall game than Westbrook. Obviously, I disagree that he has a better overall skill set than Steph.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

The whole "best all around/best skill set of any guard in the NBA" seems almost prohibitively subjective, but I'd probably take Chris Paul or Klay Thompson in that regard. They are very good at pretty much every facet of the game.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

The "face of the NBA" is part of the problem. One of the problems with the NBA relates to marketing. Curry has had an exceptional 2 yr regular season run, but in the 3 biggest series of his career he hasn't been the best player in any of the series. That's a pretty sizable sample.

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I don't think he is good probably average, but better than Curry. Curry never guards his position. That speaks volumes about his defense. Also Curry didn't have wide open looks all night. He was challenged on a number of those shots.

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You gotta clarify these stipulations man. The more I think about it, I still think Westbrook brings more to the table offensively with rebounding, passing, toughness, top end speed, strength, and finishing tough drives than Irving does right now. Kyrie isn't fast, but he has more of a smooth change of direction quickness. I'll also give you the jumpshot and handle, but that's about it.

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Cmon man, of course he had wide open looks tonight. Especially in the 4th quarter. Mostly in transition. Just agree on some basic shit like this that everyone saw.

Again, Curry doesn't guard the best opposing guard because of strategy, not because he's a bitch. That sounds like a 7 year olds argument. Klay Thompson is one of the best defensive guards in the league. Steph is clearly not. It makes no sense for Kerr to keep Steph on Kyrie the whole game.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

LTG/Brick= Match

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Irving can finish with either hand. He can shoot from deep and he has a deadly midrange game too. Westbrook has a nice mid range but his offense can be erratic at times. Westbrook has become a solid point but I think LeBron James wants to be a point, which takes away from Irving. Irving is taking the Thompson challenge and has still dropped 30 in each game since the switch. His shooting percentage has also been over 50 with Thompson on him. Thompson gave Westbrook problems once the switch was made.

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what a fun game, i generally dont like players who dont give a shit about defense, but even I could appreciate the great offensive game kyrie had.

I keep hearing how Irving has such terrible defense yet Blatt had no problem with him guarding Curry on one leg. Lue also has no problem placing him on Curry either. I'm sure they strategize also.

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irving lost his man ball watching a couple of times i noticed tonight. is this a real debate about his defense?

JR Smith isn't Klay Thompson defensively. GS is a top 5 defensive team in the league. Cleveland isn't close.

What evidence can you find, outside of the eye test, that Kyrie is anything but a lousy defender? Because my eye test tells me he doesn't play any defense, advanced stats seem to support that, and most others besides you that I hear discuss Kyrie's defense discuss in a negative light. I'm genuinely curious.

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

This is why your strategy argument holds no water. The last time they placed Curry on Irving he ran off 16 in one quarter. He can't guard him at all.

As far as Irving goes, Curry isn't breaking him down off the dribble and he is shooting badly. That's good enough for me. Irving isn't good but I don't think he is as bad as guys on here have been saying.

They have YouTube videos up which demonstrate how Curry has been on skates. You keep talking as if Irving isn't in Curry's league. Not even a consideration. This series demonstrates that he is. This isn't an outlier. He is capable of having these sorts of games. Last 3 games 30, 35, 41,. That's with Thompson guarding him too. That's big time.

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Irving can be erratic as well, and yes Westbrook can get out of control still at this stage in his career. Kyrie has never been a distributing point guard all the way back to the first time I saw him play as a junior in high school on ESPN. He just scores, and he's really fucking good at it.
I thought your Thompson/Westbrook statement was bullshit so I went and checked the game logs for the WCF...
Westbrook's stats for series:
26.7ppg
11.2apg
8.4rpg
3.7spg
He had his worst game when it mattered most in game 7 with 19 points on 7-21 shooting, but he had 28 and 31 points the 2 games prior. So, what are you talking about with Klay on Russ? The only person that stops Russ is Russ.

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I noticed you left off his 36% shooting percentage after Thompson began guarding him.

Westbrook also wasn't a distributing point but he became one in the past 2 yrs. Irving is a good passer.

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Westbrook shot above 40% only twice in the series, but still averaged 26 for the WCF. Maybe Thompson bothered him, but he def didn't stop him. KD is the one who lost his composure in that series, and shit the bed when mattered most.

Idk man, I'd still take Westbrook over Irving right now. Just my preference for the second best guard in the league behind Curry.

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Scary thing for the Cavs going forward. Lebron/Kyrie had 82 points. The rest of the team had 30...

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Kevin Love. Not a detractor of his but he is going to have to give them something. They won't gave another performance like that in this series. Shouldn't be expected to either. He is playing like a bench rotation guy. It's not even about scoring though that would be good. He isn't having an impact in any facet of the game. He is looking like a right handed version of Ed Neely right about now.

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I'm a Westbrook guy too. Probably more impactful overall but offensively speaking, Kyrie Irving has game. I also watched him in high school and thought he was the truth then. One of those ESPN games.

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It may be fair to ask if Curry is a product of the system that he plays in, alas Nash I'm Phoenix. Curry was a good player before but not all world until Kerr arrived and they went from traditional pick and roll to more of an open offense with a lot of cutting. Draemond Green with his versatility also helps a lot. He was a 7th or 8th man when Jackson coached.

If this continues over the next 2 games and Cleveland pulls it out which I doubt they will, a lot of people may be changing their opinions also. Irving showed up this series and really wasn't much doubt in my mind that he would.

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perhaps benching him for Jefferson shattered what little confidence he had left

Yeah. If he is not scoring impact the game in other ways. Its not that long ago that he was considered one of the premier rebounders in the NBA. Whatever happened to his Wes Unseld like outlet pass? Haven't seen it in a minute. They gave him low post touches early and he looked terrible and I think they just said the hell with that.

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He's a fraud. I told everyone that when he was in Minnesota.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

If Green gets a flagrant is he gone for game 7? ...if so, I'd use Deladova to harass and hack the shit out of him,,verbally abuse him and stand over him if given a chance.

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Kevin Love could go to Golden State next year and be awesome. He's just not a fit with the Cavs and specifically LeBron. Everyone dumping on him now will act so surprised when he's somewhere else next season and good to great again.

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Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

By the way, fuck Kerr and GS's pathetic attempt at Hack-a-Shaq against Tristan Thompson. An "all-time" great team shouldn't need to go bush league like that. I'm glad Thompson made a few, which seemed to stop it.

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Love didn't want to play

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

That's been his motto since December 2014.

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