Nah CB. Philly is set nicely going forward. The majority of people currently attempting to move the goal post didn't even have Philly to be in the position they are in now. Didn't have Embiid being good either. Had Towns better and now they are arguing about Jokic. They have wrong at every turn and their only saving grace is that they may be bounced in the 2nd round. None of them have yet to admit that they were wrong (though we know that are reknowned for doing so).

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i have to side more with vegan on this one...yea it was a 1-4 matchup but you really expected Boston to get their ass kicked ? They were only 4 because they underachieved in the first place. They let Pat Connaughton kick their ass

nobody had Embiid being good except for you ?

how will their outlook be once Butler and Harris leave?

Its still not the worst letdown in history. Denver popped an 8 seed before. The Lakers got beat 4-1 by Detroit. This probably was a pickem series. It was a silly, inane statement to make.

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It's certainly not a major upset in the context of the playoffs but it definitely is compared to expectations at the start of the regular season. Personally though the face of the failure for me is Ainge, who in trying to win now and build for the future simultaneously may have failed at both.

Can you provide evidence of guys proclaiming his greatness from the time the discussion began?

They will keep 1 and possibly both. The Fultz trade will come back to haunt them however. That was the worse move that Brand has made thus far. You can't give him away for a guy that you don't deem good enough to make the rotation and a late round draft pick. Might as well have kept him

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i don't care enough about your gotcha games to put any effort into that, i just find it hard to believe. Personally i thought he'd be great with the caveat of his injuries, and i would wager that's probably how most felt.

Forgive me, but what does Kyrie have to do with Philly? He was traded from Cleveland to Boston.

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Sherman remarked, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" Grant looked up. "Yes," he replied, followed by a puff. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."

Doubting for the sake of doubting is a waste of time. Its revisionist history. If there were I don't recall and guys tried to make it about injuries once it became obvious he was a stud. Guys were proclaiming Towns to be better and now they have pivoted to Jokic. You can wager all you want but it doesn't change that.

Guys on here change the story to fit ever evolving narratives all the time. Again its a waste of time unless you can prove what you claim.

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cool. you win. enjoy the victory

Guys are holding him to standards that they never hold guys I.e Butler and others too. He didn't get it done. Might not be the guy to get it done either. Boston has far greater issues than Kyrie Irving. YOu wouldn't know it by simply listening to the chorus of doubters however.

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Already have. I'm a $100 up on that one.

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Still not following. But have a good day.

Well as you said, they haven’t been good all season so yeah I didn’t think they had much of a chance.

You really think using roster draft position is a non ridiculous way to analyze talent?

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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

well, i think all he's saying is that overall Boston has more talent than Milwaukee does. Which I agree with. Giannis is better than anyone on Boston, sure, but after that the Celtics are far deeper . And yes they hadn't been great overall all season, but had showed flashes of what they could be- so I think it was just a case of "turning it on for the playoffs" . Obviously they didn't, but if Boston had won the series would you have been shocked ?

Yeah I would’ve been really surprised, idk about shocked but that’s arguing semantics.

I guess we just disagree. Imo the talent is not comparable. Giannis is so much better than anyone on the Celtics and he’s surrounded by talented guys.

_________________
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 would somewhat compare it to how people felt about OKC- they hadn't lived up to their potential during the season but many thought they could turn it on for the playoffs since they had the talent

and I won't cum in your mouth......moving on to 6 years of "The Process" they have been one and done Reddick, Harris and Butler gone 3 starters replaced by ? Embiid health will always be a question and Ben Simmons has shown that he disappears in playoff time. PS JIMMY BUTLER NEVER PLAYED PAST THE 1st ROUND OF THE PLAYOFFS

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Exactly. Boston was the most talented team in the east by far until Philly closed the gap bh adding Butler and Harris.



Boston's biggest issue by far is Kyrie Irving. He isn't qualified to be the alpha. He's holding all the other players back and holding the team back from real success in the playoffs.



I don't blame Ainge here. He's got well regarded young players playing meaningful minutes and theyre mostly still cheap. His only problem was acquiring Irving to be the alpha when he's simply not qualified.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Those people aren’t familiar with Russ’s playoff work

_________________
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

It's wild to me that you think that's true. The most talented team by far in the conference couldn't win 50 games and couldn't win more than a game against the top seeded team? I don't buy that shit for a second. You're basing that statement on erroneous evaluations from last summer regarding each team, not reality.

_________________
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

Yeah, but Boston has a little bit of history of OVER performing in the playoffs.

Kyrie Irving is the only all star player on their team. Some of the guys i.e Rozier, Smart, and possibly Brown are vastly overrated. Kyrie may not ever be the best player on a championship team but that doesn't make him a problem. These guys didn't distinguish themselves either and Stephens has to be questioned also.

Too many guys calling their own number and why in the hell is a terrible 3 point shooter like Smart allowed to simply Jack shots at will.

If Hayward can't get back to who he used to be it's a moot point anyway

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i'd say shooting 38% overall and 31% from 3 is a problem

I don't know why you think it's "wild". Check out 538 here:https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2019-nba-predictions/
Their prognostications had Boston as the second best team in the east with a 26 percent chance of making the finals. 5th best team overall. They had the bucks at 47 wins.

Other publications like the NYT had like 3/6 writers pegging Boston in for the finals. You'll find similar projections from serious people ALL OVER the web. So what exactly is crazy about saying it was massive disappointment that they lost in the second round without even putting up a fight? Like bagels said the entire season was a waste and it all falls on the shoulders of the player who forced his way into being the alpha even though he doesn't have the talent and mental makeup to be that player. He should have stuck to staying in LBJ's shadow. He had more success there.

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

You just said what I said in a lot more words. Like I said, the idea Boston is more talented is based on false projections from last summer, not reality. Not sure how anyone who watched this series can claim they still think Boston is more talented, or even in the same ballpark as Milwaukee talent wise. The gap is wide and heavily bent in Milwaukee's favor.

_________________
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

So why was there only 1 All Star?

Staying in Lebron's shadow (which you fallaciously used to argue would always guarantee a playoff spot) wouldn't have gotten him in the playoffs this year. It also would have left him bankrupt in Cleveland this year

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Well, when you have a deep team obv some players are going to suffer stat wise

We all listened to you Butler isn't a top 30 player....you have Kyrie as a top 10 maybe 5 ? He rejoins a team that made the finals last year and look like dog poo.Butler YOU have as the 3rd banana and Kyrie was to be the man in Boston when the 76ers lose you'll blame Butler and Redick.....when Butler carried them to a victory you of course said Embiid had the biggest shot of the evening

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.