first Wemby, and now Pop

Save your thoughts & prayers. Both of them will miraculously recover as soon as the season is over and the Spurs have secured the high draft pick that cements their next dynasty.

In that sense, I don’t really think the game tomorrow is all that important. If we win, it will feel about as meaningful as Orlando’s win against us, where you can chalk it up to emotion rather than anything lasting. Sort of like when we beat Milwaukee and Boston late in the season last year after getting whupped by them several times.

In fact, at the end of the day, nothing matters any more but playoff performance at full health. Again, this is what I said back in October. The regular season means nothing other than playoff position, and we have already blown that by virtually cementing that we will play the best team in the league, one that is clearly superior to us, in the second round. Anyone who thinks that we are sort of close to as good as the Celts is delusional. That is true, no matter what happens tomorrow. As to Cleveland, I don’t really give a shit about them unless we go on a losing streak and finish 4th. The odds of seeing them in the EC finals are pretty slim.

As to who is to be held responsible, it is squarely on the shoulders of Leon. He’s the one who engineered this team. Firing Thibs would not make any positive difference. Unless you count winning fewer regular season games, unmasking the reality that there is a serious personnel problem that needs to be addressed.

The only way around this path is to shock the world in the playoffs, which is not impossible, just against the odds, and we’re not talking 51-49 here. Maybe 80-20?

* just noticed that

but Hunter’s become without question a positive OBPM guy; he’s at almost 2 with Cleveland.

He’s been in Cleveland for 96 minutes.

Remember when the East was supposed to be a Knicks, Sixers, Celtics battle

The defenses we have underperformed against are really just Boston and Cleveland.

Correct.

I’m not suggesting the league is gonna start shutting down our offense. Just that those two teams have a plan and the personnel to stop our offense consistently.

We’re good on offense, but we’re not great. If we were great we could counter their strategies effectively. And if we’re not great, is it worth the defensive trade off?

Have we traded too much defense in the pursuit of improving our offense?

Been thinking about this since the beginning of the season, i’m leaning towards yes but i’d like to see how it goes with Mitch in the rotation to have a final answer.