I’ll prob eat crow on this in 6 months, but I have trouble believing the Lakers will make it past the 2nd round.

Maybe we will both eat crow, but I agree with you anyway. Last year they were a play-in team that lost in the first round. I’m really not sure they are better than last year’s Lakers. They did gain Westbrook, but I don’t think he helps that much when the big three are healthy. And does his offense make up for their lack of defense when they only have a big two? I don’t see why they won’t be a play-in team this year too.

Pretty crazy east standings now. But we should remember that Cleveland was the best team in the league the first 5 games of last season or something. So much basketball left. But you have to feel pretty good about where the Knicks are right now. And Julius has not been all that good yet.

I will say one thing — Chicago had 2 very good defenders and 3 bad defenders on the floor. Caruso/Ball are probably a top 10 set of defenders at point of attack in the league, and Ball did a really admirable job basically going 1-on-1 with Julius in the post. Caruso is really good on defense period. And yet we constantly went at those two without even trying to get the other 3 (especially Derozan) involved. We didn’t try to get a switch – ie. run a Julius/RJ inverted PNR. I’d much rather have Julius posting against Derozan or LaVine than Ball, regardless of the size difference.

It’s fine to have Julius go against a perceived mismatch, but why not pick a better mismatch? Lebron has made an entire career of those — because it works when you need a big bucket.

They did go to the Julius/Evan DHO but he just missed the 3.

Brian Cronin: the

Yeah but it’s less about the record and more about how they’ve played. If they are completely healthy towards the end of the season and playoffs then yeah it may be overblown, but right now they’re pretty bad on both ends of the floor

Of the sports where they play at least 80 games, is there any sport that freaks out about early results more than the NBA? The Lakers being 2-3 is seen as this huge deal when that’s not even close to being a worrisome record five games in.

Do you some cheese with that whine, Trae? Learn to adapt. The new rule change is good for the game, period.

when you guys finish season 5 of moonlighting in 2031 and you’re permitted to start catching up on basketball reruns you are going to be dolefully confused about how the box score could have led you so astray on this lovely evening of melton