NBA 2025-26 Season Thread: THE NY KNICKS ARE CHAMPIONS! BING BONG!

Seems like Warriors are going to play zone and just give up open 3's. Which means Rockets will just miss all their 3's (especially VanVleet) and Warriors will stay in the game.

This game is ridiculous. The Rockets aren't great at all, and I guess that I expect the Warriors to win the series if Butler is able to go by at least game 4. But if Butler misses multiple games, the Warriors are probably cooked. The Warriors are awful without Curry or Jimmy on the floor,

Was the play where Butler broke his ass, dirty?

No pun intended.

My friend said 100% dirty.

If Jalen Green can unlock his offensive game going forward, these Rockets may not need to trade for someone — and can continue to build internally.

Was hard to see but it kinda looked like Draymond pushed Amen into him, but also like Amen kinda exaggerated it?

Well, I dont think the intent was dirty. But it was reckless, and when you are always playing reckless people tend to get hurt.

Amen undercut Butler horribly, but it wasn't intentional. He sort of lost his balance and fell into Jimmy's legs.

Well, they can trade VanVleet for a PG who doesn't go 1-10 from 3 in high leverage games.

I’ve watched like two rockets games this year so ymmv, but he ain’t it. His shot looks busted AF and he’s just not great at finishing.

He’s like a Cam Thomas / Caris LaVert guy long term, imo.

He's arguably better than either of those guys, but on the other hand, he has been more or less the same player for the last four years. In terms of efficiency, I don't think he has another gear to unlock.

Yea maybe he’s a bit better, I just have him in that “I can average 20 on meh efficiency, and have a night once in a while where I look like an All Star but ultimately can’t be a #1 option and don’t really do anything else great” category.

Agreed.

You guys are seriously underrating Jalen Green.

He wasn't a great friend to Draymond Green right now.

Penguins don’t need money anyway.

Nothing in this world sums up the draymond green experience as a dubs fan like the last 30 seconds

Good: draws a flagrant
Bad: 1/2 from the line
Bad: inexplicably shoots a three cuz reasons
Bad: takes a T
Salt in wounds: **** you draymond chants

I am not sure I would go so far as to call it great basketball, but for 2 games into Round 1 there have been quite a few entertaining, "feisty" games so far.

Silver sent a memo to the players:

**** this friend ****. Let’s fight.

Never a doubt!

Those Houston boys COMPETE in the paint. No country for old men.

Curry described Butler after game 1 as a "legitimate ballhandler," and I think that's a significant point. The Rockets have elite perimeter defenders, which makes them better able to blitz Curry than some other teams are. Last night, Curry turned the ball over several times trying to split double teams with the dribble. And when he successfully split the double team or successfully passed out of the double team on the perimeter, the ball invariably ended up in the hands of players who were only modest offensive threats. It wasn't a total disaster. Guys like Post got a lot of open looks. But it wasn't ideal.

The solution in game 1 was to let Jimmy initiate the offense while Curry played off the ball. You can't blitz Jimmy because if he beats the blitz off the dribble, he probably is going to finish at the rim, and if he passes out of the double team, you are in the unenviable spot of being OOP on defense with Curry running around off the ball.

Perimeter defense also was terrible with Jimmy and Podz out. The is no way Jalen Green gets off 18 3s with those guys on the floor.

Jan 28:

Both Thompsons are dirty AF and have been doing this **** all year.

It's some crazy results-oriented thinking to think that play from Amen was dirty

Is anyone surprised that the 3 western conference first round series (excluding OKC vs Memphis) are 1-1 after 2 games?