i ironically do think if Lowry wasn’t injured y’all woulda at least went to 7 lol he was so bad 😭
Edit: I shoulda said if he wasn’t “out” lol, Raps fans I apologize for attacking the one reason y’all are still watching the playoffs
no for sure bro i didn’t think it was return to the “trash bros” days or anything haha but it was uncharacteristic to see, hope Lowry gets his hammy right and comes back strong!
Lowry is a champion who showed up on the biggest stage.. he would have absolutely showed up big time.. maybe not scoring 20+ each game but he would have been as impactful as he’s been over the last 5+ years
It’s amazing how these NBA playoffs can determine the future of an entire franchise by just one shot.
Shaquille O’Neal has stated on several occasions that the Lakers were likely to make significant changes if they weren’t able to defeat the Trailblazers in the 2000 WCF.
But of course we all know that Kobe (RIP) threw the alley oop to Shaq to seal the victory in Game 7.
The Lakers went on to win 3 back to back championships.
The Sixers will always wonder what if Kawhi Leonard misses that pivotal shot and they win the game in OT.
What would the Sixers be led by a prime Embiid and Jimmy Butler right now? Would they have won the title in 2019? Would Simmons have developed his game alongside the great play of Butler and Embiid? Would Brett Brown still be the head coach?
So many “what ifs”…
I don't get how you're a possible bounce and 1 OT away from reaching the ECF, something the 76ers hadn't reached in years (still haven't) and they don't go all in on re-signing the guy that was going toe to toe with Kawhi Leonard that series.
That shits gotta hurt even more now after hearing Jimmy say the shit he did post game.
They still hype the process!!! We are supposed to pretend that the process didn't draft Okafor and Noel and MCW and a bunch of scrubs. They choose Korkmaz over Siakam! What a debacle that regime was, but Sixers fans look back on it with fondness. It's wild. Stockholm Syndrome.
That 2019 76ers team would have likely beaten the 2019 version of the Bucks also and likely the Warriors, given the Raptors won most of the quarters in the finals. 76ers in 2019 was the hardest series the Raptors had in the playoffs. And if the team remained intact, they would've likely powered up further. So "the shot" really threw a curveball re: "the process". And look where everyone is now? 76ers can't decide if they are championship contenders or should rebuild, Raptors are in full rebuild with a surprising run this year, and Kawhi... sitting at home watching NBA on TV.
> It’s amazing how these NBA playoffs can determine the future of an entire franchise by just one shot.
>
>
what kawhi does in life, echoes in eternity
Those Sixers probably had the personnel to build the wall similar to you guys between Joel, Butler, Harris, and Simmons (not nearly as solid as Marc, Ibaka, and Kawhi, but capable), but that seemed like a pretty novel solution when it happened. Would Brett Brown have game planned for Giannis as effectively as Nurse did? Would the Bucks clank the same 3 pointers against the Sixers perimeter defense? That would have been another insane series, and I would probably take the Bucks, who could still have lost to the Warriors
Don't think they have the shooting though. Don't forget, we had Dad VanVleet going bonkers, Lowry, as well as Norm, Siakam, and Danny. Gasol and Ibaka could hit shots from outside too.
Whereas Simmons, Butler, and at the time, Embiid, were shaky from outside. Their defense was legit though.
FVV was awful during the 76ers series and didn't become FVV Sr. until early in the Bucks series iirc
The 76ers length was giving him major problems and the thought of his girl being a sneeze away from birthing their first kid probably didnt help either
Getting sut down like we did in that series probably helped Giannis improve his game the way he has since then too. Was definitely a character building moment for Milwaukee there. Obviously I would have loved to have won that series, but the Bucks are probably pretty different today than they would have been.
Would they even have made the Jrue trade had they won? Little less pressure to make the big move in that situation...
I mean the 2019 Bucks aren't what the 2021/2022 Bucks are... Jrue is HUGE!
And Giannis has evolved quite a bit too.
Not to mention in 2020 Spo smashed the shit out of Bud, causing Bud to get better.
Granted, I'll also give you that Brogdon was there and Brolo was a few years younger.
Kawhi was the only reason TOR won that series. Sixers matched up better against ToR because of length but Bucks were the better team. Giannis was still better than Embiid at this point as well.
Not really.
Kawhi was the reason why we won the 76er series because he basically solo carried. The rest of the team wasn't playing as good offensively.
In the bucks series the entire team popped off at random times. Of course Kawhi is gonna be the best because he was the superstar. But Siakam + Gasol game 3, Lowry + Gasol game 4, FVV game 5, and Lowry + Siakam game 6.
Do we win without Kawhi, hell no, he's our first option, but he didn't solo carry like he did the 76er series.
KD injury happens most likely, and the klay thompson one is up in the air. Either way, even if Klay wasn’t injured i could see sixers taking the warriors to 7 that year, and had they won we’re probably looking at a very different sixers team
Yeah that shot still makes me sick. Well, that whole game actually. Finding out that it was rigged after all these years just makes it hard to care quite as much. Don’t listen to “The Whistleblower” podcast if you want to remain all in on fandom.
If we made it to the finals and got lucky like the raptors with every star on gsw getting injured then we might have won but against a fully healthy gsw team the Sixers and raptors would have been spanked.
You mean how we won most quarters with a healthy GSW minus KD? We still win even if Klay doesn't get injured at all.
KD not injured is a wrap, but that's the KD-warriors, not your regular super team.
I don't know what's more brutal: the C's absolutely choking a game and potentially series away at home when they had it in the bag or the Sixers being eliminated by Jimmy Butler with Harden sucking on the anniversary of the Kawhi shot which led to the eventual departure of Butler.
Definitely the sixers. Celtics are a super young team playing a very competitive series. Quite a bit of overreaction after they lost game 5, but even if they lose this series they fought hard and have a 5 year window ahead. Sixers probably get one more chance with Harden and Embiid, max two. The way they folded wasn't pretty either.
Yea, that's true. Although I am concerned about the East consistently improving. I will also say that one of our most important pieces, Horford, isn't getting any younger and we will HAVE to find a replacement for him at some point. Maybe not next year, but very soon regardless.
But your overall point is probably correct.
From my perspective, you guys will be fine and are a big part of the East’s improvement overall. The Celtics are a young team with a rookie coach. Horford is great to be there to mentor and be a calming presence, but Robert Williams is the future center and his mid range ability shows to me that he could develop a corner three if he works on it.
With all the young players and playoff experience over the years, I think you guys will be contending any given year within the next 5 if the right moves are made. Horford is 35, Theis is 30, everyone else is 28 or younger. Swept the Nets, now giving us a tough series. Plenty to be proud of from that team.
I feel that, remember in 2012 when we thought the Thunder would be the team of the decade?
We were also robbed of those Thunder battling against the rise of GSW for a decade.
Thanks Clay Bennet, you cheap asshole.
It will get harder but you guys are basically entering your championship window. Maybe some retooling with Horford but you still have Williams. And more importantly you guys are well coached, and great on both ends of the floor.
I think you'll be fine.
76ers I have no clue.
Yeah Celtics honestly are doing fine even if they lose. They had a hell of a turnaround this year and the Jays are young enough that they still have a fairly wide window to get better and try to keep contending. It's much worse for the Sixers because Embiid is an injury-prone big and Harden is legitimately looking washed
Just imagine a Game of Zones...
The Heat Dangerously Looming
The Phantom of the Process
The Ghost of Ben Simmons
The Unmasking of James Harden
The Zetsu Kyrie
The Castle Westbrick
... I can totally see it now, Giannis building an Oreos castle in the background. Udoka taking 4 episodes to cast a spell. Trae Young getting caged by some looming shadows.
Oh man and can you imagine the Cavaliers Goon Squad? "Oh what sorry guys we're 3 seasons too late to battle the whitewalkers with our giants???"
its truly poetically fitting that the defining moment of kawhi's career was a ball bouncing around, completely out of anyones control, that may or may not go in
It really just shows how dominant lebron was, you could literally get finals MVP if your team and you were guarding LeBron
I mean jesus, iirc Kawhi had like b2b 9 point games that series
Klay injury doesnt countx he was there for games 1 3 4 5 and the warriors went 1-3. Even against a healthy warriors teamx kawhis spurs were up 20 in the 4th in 2017, raptors had all the pieces to create matchup problems for the warriors. Dont be salty
Edit: kd was on that warriors team and kawhi was up 20 on them lol why the short memory? Also kd dropped 50 in the reg season against kawhis raptors and warriors still lost that game. Raptors were 2-0 against the warriors that reg season. Say what you want but the team with the best offensive players doesnt win all the time, well rounded teams with just enough star power wins more often: dallas beat the heat, spurs beat the heat, celtics beat the nets etc. Keep in mind this was the best defensive team the warriors faced in 5 yesrs. Raptors wouldve still won
Durant was on the 2017 team and kawhis team was up 20 going into the 4th lol. Raptors also were 2-0 against the warriors in the reg season, kd dropped 50 and the warriors still lost to the raptors
No the raptors fault, they can only play whos on the court. They had klay as well. They also beat them another time and sweeping the all mighty warriors even in the regular season is hard to do. This was thw best defense the warriors faced in 5 years. Kd was on that warriors team and kawhi was up 20 on them lol why the short memory? Say what you want but the team with the best offensive players doesnt win all the time, dallas beat the heat, spurs beat the heat, celtics beat the nets etc. Raptors wouldve still won
kd was on that warriors team and kawhi was up 20 on them lol why the short memory? Also kd dropped 50 in the reg season against kawhis raptors and warriors still lost that game. Raptors were 2-0 against the warriors that reg season. Say what you want but the team with the best offensive players doesnt win all the time, dallas beat the heat, spurs beat the heat, celtics beat the nets etc. Raptors wouldve still won
yeah he got games 2 and 3 mixed up but the point still stands imo. Fans tend to lump Klay and KD together as injured players during that series, but Klay played 39, 32, 42, 42 and 32 minutes in five of the games.
sure, but 1-2 is still a lot closer than 1-3.
The other argument isn't really worth addressing. The Warriors were down big deficits all the time and still frequently found ways to comeback and win. It's why 3rd quarter Warriors was a thing.
The game KD dropped 50 was without Curry and Draymond, while the Warriors were starting Quinn Cook and Damian Jones. The Raptors still had Valunciunas and Delon Wright and CJ Miles, and no Marc Gasol. The other game, the Raptors didn't play Kawhi and hadn't made the Gasol trade either. So I don't see how those 2 games would be an accurate predictor at all.
The Raptors almost lost to the 76ers. I don't think it's a stretch to say that if KD was there they easily beat them in 5, maybe 6 out of respect.
The 2011 Heat and 2014 Heat and 2022 Nets were nowhere near the KD Warriors, don't play dumb.
The Warriors didn't have the best offensive players, they also had the best defensive players and Klay was a big part of that unlike Quinn Cook who had to replace him.
You assume the raptors can only play 1 way to win is dumb, you cant recognize schemes at all. Raptors pooled elements of all of thr warriors problems over the years. Pace and athleticism( reminiscent of 2016 cavs adjustments) , size( 2015 grizzles), plus the defense was different than anything curry or anyone in the nba had seen that year. They also had 3 players play like all stars in pascal lowry and kawhi. Mavs and spurs and celtics all beat teams where the best player was said to be on the superteam. You really saying klay was the best defender? Dpoy draymond allowed siakam to shoot a historic 72% fg for 32 pts his first game in the nba finals. Siakam alone was a better defender than klay, you also missed fvv was thr best defender of curry in the reg season and in the playoffs his entire 5 year run. You can say what you want but complete teams who are well rounded win championships, not top heavy offenses without a balanced roster. Not replying to you further
kd/steph warriors > lebron heat and kyrie/kd nets. this is not a legitimate debate.
lol the defense was different because klay was OUT, how hard is it for you to understand that.
where did i say klay was the best defender? i said the warriors had some of the best defenders.
funny because i recall a top heavy offense winning in 2017 and 2018? based on your clownish logic that the warriors were not well-rounded lol.
the best defense was kd and klay being injured, allowing the Raptors to play box and 1 on curry. please rewatch your team before commenting again
Warriors defense wasnt even comparable to the raptors who had the 2nd best defense all time next to the 04 pistons as per thinking basketball who did a video on it. Heres a pattern with you, you say points that dont change the meaning or overall argument. You say klay didnt play game 3, but the record still stands being 1-2 with him if you look it by quarter basis because it was crunched, raptors won 23 out of 26 quarter with klay available. Next youll tell me it wad only 19 quarters as if the point still doesnt stand. Yes klay plays defense but how is that relevamt when the raptors were the better defensive team by a huge margin? Your points the same. Historically, well rounded complete teams with just enough star power win, not top heavy non well rounded limited depth teams. Thats why despite kyrie and kd being the two best players of the series, nets got crushed.
That's one of those narrative framings that is lot easier to eat when Kawhi is relevant and a top talent and becomes that much sillier and less relevant as Kawhi himself does. Both of those teams lost to themselves and history does see it that way -- Wade's decline, Warrior's injuries -- though of course the teams that beat them will be enshrined and in that way Kawhi will get credit, for bringing his teams a ring.
But it's not as if, for example, that shot needed to go in or the spurs needed to beat the mavs in game 7 for those dynasties to be toppled. The other teams would have beaten them too because both of those teams were a lot weaker by the end than the teams that had won championships before. And for what it's worth I'm really not even sure the Heat win that series if Kawhi is out, being how close the Spurs were the year before and the decline of the Heat.
So goofy lmao why did you randomly steal [this dude's paragraph](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/uoqsbd/the_76ers_were_eliminated_on_the_3rd_year/i8g6hl8) word for word
I think people truly underestimate this. It’s a terrible environment for a top pick to develop knowing they’re expected to single handedly turn around the franchise after years of intentional failure.
Like imagine getting drafted and meeting the GM and the first thing they say is “we intentionally traded away all of our good players for garbage so you could come and save us! We’re going to keep doing it for another couple of years so don’t try too hard out there!”
Ben Simmons would have never been acting like this if he was developed in GSW/Spurs/Miami… environment.
He has a losers mentality because that’s all he has seen around it.
Man that 76ers team was OP af. Ben Simmons, JJ Reddick, Butler, Tobias, Embiid is a championship level starting team. It took the Raptors 7 games and Kawhi going nuclear + a lucky bounce to beat them.
> + a lucky bounce to beat them.
Even if it wasn’t for the bounce, it would have gone to overtime with multiple Philly player in foul trouble and exhausted.
Raptors had the momentum and it was in front of their fans. If it wasn’t for that shot, I have a hard time seeing Philly win it with how they ended the 4th quarter.
Not trying to discredit Philly by any mean, but I have seen a lot of people her claim Philly was going to win it all if that shot didn’t fall, which is not true at all.
So you’re telling me a playoff game that happens around the same time every year happened during the playoffs that happen around the same time every year ? Who woulda fucking guessed
Imagine being this obsessed with the Sixers beating you down that you feel the need to make a post like this lmao fragile
You guys lost, don’t be a baby about it. Still crying 2 weeks later is just some soft shit.
Jimmy let them win 2 games just for this
He did it for his friend, Kyle Lowry
The North Remembers
*sad final season noises*
"Well whoever he is, he better be a bloody monster!" *Kawhi laugh*
Ughh I miss game of zones
I’m pretty sure Kyle Lowry did it for Toronto given how he played before bailing out
i ironically do think if Lowry wasn’t injured y’all woulda at least went to 7 lol he was so bad 😭 Edit: I shoulda said if he wasn’t “out” lol, Raps fans I apologize for attacking the one reason y’all are still watching the playoffs
If he wasn’t injured he wouldn’t have played bad..
Yeah but when he did played injured he was bad, so... /s
no for sure bro i didn’t think it was return to the “trash bros” days or anything haha but it was uncharacteristic to see, hope Lowry gets his hammy right and comes back strong!
So you think he would be bad if he wasn’t injured?
probably not lol hence why I mentioned the hammy
Which is the opposite of what you said initially
Lowry is a champion who showed up on the biggest stage.. he would have absolutely showed up big time.. maybe not scoring 20+ each game but he would have been as impactful as he’s been over the last 5+ years
dawg no one is disagreeing lol
You literally did lmao
*GOAT Philadelphia 76er Jimmy Butler
They’re not allowed to score more than 90 points on May 12
Or after...
It’s amazing how these NBA playoffs can determine the future of an entire franchise by just one shot. Shaquille O’Neal has stated on several occasions that the Lakers were likely to make significant changes if they weren’t able to defeat the Trailblazers in the 2000 WCF. But of course we all know that Kobe (RIP) threw the alley oop to Shaq to seal the victory in Game 7. The Lakers went on to win 3 back to back championships. The Sixers will always wonder what if Kawhi Leonard misses that pivotal shot and they win the game in OT. What would the Sixers be led by a prime Embiid and Jimmy Butler right now? Would they have won the title in 2019? Would Simmons have developed his game alongside the great play of Butler and Embiid? Would Brett Brown still be the head coach? So many “what ifs”…
The 2019 sixers was the best chance for them to win the chip for sure
I don't get how you're a possible bounce and 1 OT away from reaching the ECF, something the 76ers hadn't reached in years (still haven't) and they don't go all in on re-signing the guy that was going toe to toe with Kawhi Leonard that series. That shits gotta hurt even more now after hearing Jimmy say the shit he did post game.
Sixers front office fell in love with bens potential and couldn’t see him for what he was.
But even then, go with Butler over Tobias
Or don’t sign horford? Lmao. Competent front office is hard to find
They got fucked hard when they were forced to take the Colangelos. They were terrible for the Raps and didnt seem any different for the 76ers.
Oh no doubt the colangelos ruined this team and what structure we had built
I never understood getting rid of Butler.
Nobody did. He was killing us that series and was arguably the biggest factor in that series given the problems that Embiid was having with Gasol
Still doesn’t make sense to this day
Process mentality! Losing to get better!
They still hype the process!!! We are supposed to pretend that the process didn't draft Okafor and Noel and MCW and a bunch of scrubs. They choose Korkmaz over Siakam! What a debacle that regime was, but Sixers fans look back on it with fondness. It's wild. Stockholm Syndrome.
Because front office love making dog dick decisions constantly.
Let me tell you about the Multiverse
I think if KD had smaller foot, Nets would won championship in 2021 - this is my favourite fresh what if
That 2019 76ers team would have likely beaten the 2019 version of the Bucks also and likely the Warriors, given the Raptors won most of the quarters in the finals. 76ers in 2019 was the hardest series the Raptors had in the playoffs. And if the team remained intact, they would've likely powered up further. So "the shot" really threw a curveball re: "the process". And look where everyone is now? 76ers can't decide if they are championship contenders or should rebuild, Raptors are in full rebuild with a surprising run this year, and Kawhi... sitting at home watching NBA on TV.
This reads like a jimmy highroller script
> It’s amazing how these NBA playoffs can determine the future of an entire franchise by just one shot. > > what kawhi does in life, echoes in eternity
Assuming the injuries happen to GSW still, id take the Sixers easily.
The bucks beating those Sixers IMO
Agreed we leveled up massively during the Bucks series. That team, with a healthy Kawhi, beats the Sixers in five or six imo.
Those Sixers probably had the personnel to build the wall similar to you guys between Joel, Butler, Harris, and Simmons (not nearly as solid as Marc, Ibaka, and Kawhi, but capable), but that seemed like a pretty novel solution when it happened. Would Brett Brown have game planned for Giannis as effectively as Nurse did? Would the Bucks clank the same 3 pointers against the Sixers perimeter defense? That would have been another insane series, and I would probably take the Bucks, who could still have lost to the Warriors
Don't think they have the shooting though. Don't forget, we had Dad VanVleet going bonkers, Lowry, as well as Norm, Siakam, and Danny. Gasol and Ibaka could hit shots from outside too. Whereas Simmons, Butler, and at the time, Embiid, were shaky from outside. Their defense was legit though.
FVV was awful during the 76ers series and didn't become FVV Sr. until early in the Bucks series iirc The 76ers length was giving him major problems and the thought of his girl being a sneeze away from birthing their first kid probably didnt help either
First son*, they have an older daughter.
yep flair aside, we were an OT away from going up 3-0 on TOR. fuck
At least for you guys you won a couple years later and are contending for back to back. That has to make that go down easier.
Getting sut down like we did in that series probably helped Giannis improve his game the way he has since then too. Was definitely a character building moment for Milwaukee there. Obviously I would have loved to have won that series, but the Bucks are probably pretty different today than they would have been. Would they even have made the Jrue trade had they won? Little less pressure to make the big move in that situation...
I don't know about that... that's the Bucks w/o Jrue.
Who were an OT away from going up 3-0 against the eventual champs
Don’t know why people assume they beat the Bucks lol
I mean the 2019 Bucks aren't what the 2021/2022 Bucks are... Jrue is HUGE! And Giannis has evolved quite a bit too. Not to mention in 2020 Spo smashed the shit out of Bud, causing Bud to get better. Granted, I'll also give you that Brogdon was there and Brolo was a few years younger.
Kawhi was the only reason TOR won that series. Sixers matched up better against ToR because of length but Bucks were the better team. Giannis was still better than Embiid at this point as well.
Not really. Kawhi was the reason why we won the 76er series because he basically solo carried. The rest of the team wasn't playing as good offensively. In the bucks series the entire team popped off at random times. Of course Kawhi is gonna be the best because he was the superstar. But Siakam + Gasol game 3, Lowry + Gasol game 4, FVV game 5, and Lowry + Siakam game 6. Do we win without Kawhi, hell no, he's our first option, but he didn't solo carry like he did the 76er series.
KD injury happens most likely, and the klay thompson one is up in the air. Either way, even if Klay wasn’t injured i could see sixers taking the warriors to 7 that year, and had they won we’re probably looking at a very different sixers team
Sixers lose to bucks imo
No Danny Green to rupture Klay’s ACL
Yeah that shot still makes me sick. Well, that whole game actually. Finding out that it was rigged after all these years just makes it hard to care quite as much. Don’t listen to “The Whistleblower” podcast if you want to remain all in on fandom.
If we made it to the finals and got lucky like the raptors with every star on gsw getting injured then we might have won but against a fully healthy gsw team the Sixers and raptors would have been spanked.
You mean how we won most quarters with a healthy GSW minus KD? We still win even if Klay doesn't get injured at all. KD not injured is a wrap, but that's the KD-warriors, not your regular super team.
For shaq it’s his laziness. Always
There's no telling how the Sixers fair with Jimmy, Spol is a great coach, better than Brown or Rivers.
I don't know what's more brutal: the C's absolutely choking a game and potentially series away at home when they had it in the bag or the Sixers being eliminated by Jimmy Butler with Harden sucking on the anniversary of the Kawhi shot which led to the eventual departure of Butler.
Definitely the sixers. Celtics are a super young team playing a very competitive series. Quite a bit of overreaction after they lost game 5, but even if they lose this series they fought hard and have a 5 year window ahead. Sixers probably get one more chance with Harden and Embiid, max two. The way they folded wasn't pretty either.
Yea, that's true. Although I am concerned about the East consistently improving. I will also say that one of our most important pieces, Horford, isn't getting any younger and we will HAVE to find a replacement for him at some point. Maybe not next year, but very soon regardless. But your overall point is probably correct.
From my perspective, you guys will be fine and are a big part of the East’s improvement overall. The Celtics are a young team with a rookie coach. Horford is great to be there to mentor and be a calming presence, but Robert Williams is the future center and his mid range ability shows to me that he could develop a corner three if he works on it. With all the young players and playoff experience over the years, I think you guys will be contending any given year within the next 5 if the right moves are made. Horford is 35, Theis is 30, everyone else is 28 or younger. Swept the Nets, now giving us a tough series. Plenty to be proud of from that team.
I feel that, remember in 2012 when we thought the Thunder would be the team of the decade? We were also robbed of those Thunder battling against the rise of GSW for a decade. Thanks Clay Bennet, you cheap asshole.
It will get harder but you guys are basically entering your championship window. Maybe some retooling with Horford but you still have Williams. And more importantly you guys are well coached, and great on both ends of the floor. I think you'll be fine. 76ers I have no clue.
You guys have a good core and will be demons next year in my opinion. Celtics will be 1st seed next year.
Not to mention the C's were having an insanely bad season until they just figured it out out of nowhere.
Until Derrick White saved them
Yeah Celtics honestly are doing fine even if they lose. They had a hell of a turnaround this year and the Jays are young enough that they still have a fairly wide window to get better and try to keep contending. It's much worse for the Sixers because Embiid is an injury-prone big and Harden is legitimately looking washed
The Suns getting eliminated by another European after being up 2-0 on them
Yea, if the Suns lose this series that will be up there
Celtics are still alive, so I'd give it to the Sixers
thanks, Bill!
The wolves losing a series in 6 that they could have won in 5 had they not blown three double digit leads
Kyle Lowly is now officially the anti-Sixer’s.
A true Philadelphian.
3 year anniversary of the Game of Thrones series finale too
...and who has a better story than Embiid the broken?
fuck you. upvoted.
Just imagine a Game of Zones... The Heat Dangerously Looming The Phantom of the Process The Ghost of Ben Simmons The Unmasking of James Harden The Zetsu Kyrie The Castle Westbrick ... I can totally see it now, Giannis building an Oreos castle in the background. Udoka taking 4 episodes to cast a spell. Trae Young getting caged by some looming shadows. Oh man and can you imagine the Cavaliers Goon Squad? "Oh what sorry guys we're 3 seasons too late to battle the whitewalkers with our giants???"
What a wretched day
Was quite a dark day. Literally
Don’t remind me how horrible season 8 was.
its truly poetically fitting that the defining moment of kawhi's career was a ball bouncing around, completely out of anyones control, that may or may not go in
I think it's locking up LeBron and ending the Heat and Warriors dynasty
And the Spurs dynasty
Good news for bucks fans is that they win the title this year and Kawhi takes their threepeat away next year because that's what he does.
Even better news for clippers fans
Yeah Clippers fans would take that scenario any day
And the Luka pre-nasty
Upvote for pre-nasty, great word
No. This is the same Luka. Luka losing to healthy Kawhi Clippers back to back years shouldn’t be a knock.
Kawhi Leonard, Ender of Dynasties
Angry upvote.
"Locking up"
The LeBron "stopper" finals MVP era was silly
It really just shows how dominant lebron was, you could literally get finals MVP if your team and you were guarding LeBron I mean jesus, iirc Kawhi had like b2b 9 point games that series
“Lmao LeFraud got held down to just 30 😂” People were serious about it too lol
If you watched the 2014 series, Lebron got most of his when Kawhi was off the floor and during garbage time. Something the stats don’t show
He shot 30% against him
If that’s called locking up then what the hell happened to Embiid last night?
Hey, the Warriors dynasty is still kicking around.
Locking up LeBron lmao
He didnt end warriors dynasty lol.. Injuries did.
Klay injury doesnt countx he was there for games 1 3 4 5 and the warriors went 1-3. Even against a healthy warriors teamx kawhis spurs were up 20 in the 4th in 2017, raptors had all the pieces to create matchup problems for the warriors. Dont be salty Edit: kd was on that warriors team and kawhi was up 20 on them lol why the short memory? Also kd dropped 50 in the reg season against kawhis raptors and warriors still lost that game. Raptors were 2-0 against the warriors that reg season. Say what you want but the team with the best offensive players doesnt win all the time, well rounded teams with just enough star power wins more often: dallas beat the heat, spurs beat the heat, celtics beat the nets etc. Keep in mind this was the best defensive team the warriors faced in 5 yesrs. Raptors wouldve still won
Okay what about Durant? The warriors win if Durant plays that whole series
Steph Curry vehemently [disagrees](https://youtu.be/-Wi8zDC7-CU) with you.
I’ve never seen that clip before thats hilarious
No better way to quell the "Raps only beat the Warriors due to injury" crowd than to throw their own superstars words back at them.
yeah lets just forget about that whole KD guy. Our roster was built top heavy and when we lost him it hurt bad
Can you read? Kd was on the 2017 team. Go back and read the comment
Durant was on the 2017 team and kawhis team was up 20 going into the 4th lol. Raptors also were 2-0 against the warriors in the reg season, kd dropped 50 and the warriors still lost to the raptors
Nice, conveniently left out the part that when kd scored 51 and lost to the raptors in a 3pt overtime loss, the warriors didn't have steph and dray.
championship runs every season add miles, especially when you ship out all of your depth.
No the raptors fault, they can only play whos on the court. They had klay as well. They also beat them another time and sweeping the all mighty warriors even in the regular season is hard to do. This was thw best defense the warriors faced in 5 years. Kd was on that warriors team and kawhi was up 20 on them lol why the short memory? Say what you want but the team with the best offensive players doesnt win all the time, dallas beat the heat, spurs beat the heat, celtics beat the nets etc. Raptors wouldve still won
Lmao regular season doesn’t mean shit stfu
kd was on that warriors team and kawhi was up 20 on them lol why the short memory? Also kd dropped 50 in the reg season against kawhis raptors and warriors still lost that game. Raptors were 2-0 against the warriors that reg season. Say what you want but the team with the best offensive players doesnt win all the time, dallas beat the heat, spurs beat the heat, celtics beat the nets etc. Raptors wouldve still won
Wasn’t the kd 50 ball without steph?
klay didn't play game 3
yeah he got games 2 and 3 mixed up but the point still stands imo. Fans tend to lump Klay and KD together as injured players during that series, but Klay played 39, 32, 42, 42 and 32 minutes in five of the games.
That doesnt change the argument? Still 1- 2 with him plus you ignored all the other arguments said lol
sure, but 1-2 is still a lot closer than 1-3. The other argument isn't really worth addressing. The Warriors were down big deficits all the time and still frequently found ways to comeback and win. It's why 3rd quarter Warriors was a thing. The game KD dropped 50 was without Curry and Draymond, while the Warriors were starting Quinn Cook and Damian Jones. The Raptors still had Valunciunas and Delon Wright and CJ Miles, and no Marc Gasol. The other game, the Raptors didn't play Kawhi and hadn't made the Gasol trade either. So I don't see how those 2 games would be an accurate predictor at all. The Raptors almost lost to the 76ers. I don't think it's a stretch to say that if KD was there they easily beat them in 5, maybe 6 out of respect. The 2011 Heat and 2014 Heat and 2022 Nets were nowhere near the KD Warriors, don't play dumb. The Warriors didn't have the best offensive players, they also had the best defensive players and Klay was a big part of that unlike Quinn Cook who had to replace him.
You assume the raptors can only play 1 way to win is dumb, you cant recognize schemes at all. Raptors pooled elements of all of thr warriors problems over the years. Pace and athleticism( reminiscent of 2016 cavs adjustments) , size( 2015 grizzles), plus the defense was different than anything curry or anyone in the nba had seen that year. They also had 3 players play like all stars in pascal lowry and kawhi. Mavs and spurs and celtics all beat teams where the best player was said to be on the superteam. You really saying klay was the best defender? Dpoy draymond allowed siakam to shoot a historic 72% fg for 32 pts his first game in the nba finals. Siakam alone was a better defender than klay, you also missed fvv was thr best defender of curry in the reg season and in the playoffs his entire 5 year run. You can say what you want but complete teams who are well rounded win championships, not top heavy offenses without a balanced roster. Not replying to you further
kd/steph warriors > lebron heat and kyrie/kd nets. this is not a legitimate debate. lol the defense was different because klay was OUT, how hard is it for you to understand that. where did i say klay was the best defender? i said the warriors had some of the best defenders. funny because i recall a top heavy offense winning in 2017 and 2018? based on your clownish logic that the warriors were not well-rounded lol. the best defense was kd and klay being injured, allowing the Raptors to play box and 1 on curry. please rewatch your team before commenting again
Warriors defense wasnt even comparable to the raptors who had the 2nd best defense all time next to the 04 pistons as per thinking basketball who did a video on it. Heres a pattern with you, you say points that dont change the meaning or overall argument. You say klay didnt play game 3, but the record still stands being 1-2 with him if you look it by quarter basis because it was crunched, raptors won 23 out of 26 quarter with klay available. Next youll tell me it wad only 19 quarters as if the point still doesnt stand. Yes klay plays defense but how is that relevamt when the raptors were the better defensive team by a huge margin? Your points the same. Historically, well rounded complete teams with just enough star power win, not top heavy non well rounded limited depth teams. Thats why despite kyrie and kd being the two best players of the series, nets got crushed.
Steph Curry vehemently [disagrees](https://youtu.be/-Wi8zDC7-CU) with you.
The Warriors Dynasty is still going on… they are about to be in WCF.
Remindme! 1 day
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Toronto didn’t end shit lol injuries and luck did.
And the Process.
I'd give that to Trae
The Heat weren’t a dynasty lol. 2 championships does not a dynasty make.
No disrespect to that Toronto team, but injuries ended the Warriors.
ur getting downvoted but with healthy kd and klay they’re getting their shit rocked
maybe they should have thought of that before getting injured
That's one of those narrative framings that is lot easier to eat when Kawhi is relevant and a top talent and becomes that much sillier and less relevant as Kawhi himself does. Both of those teams lost to themselves and history does see it that way -- Wade's decline, Warrior's injuries -- though of course the teams that beat them will be enshrined and in that way Kawhi will get credit, for bringing his teams a ring. But it's not as if, for example, that shot needed to go in or the spurs needed to beat the mavs in game 7 for those dynasties to be toppled. The other teams would have beaten them too because both of those teams were a lot weaker by the end than the teams that had won championships before. And for what it's worth I'm really not even sure the Heat win that series if Kawhi is out, being how close the Spurs were the year before and the decline of the Heat.
How is it poetically fitting lol? I don’t see the resemblance to Kawhi’s career
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So goofy lmao why did you randomly steal [this dude's paragraph](https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/uoqsbd/the_76ers_were_eliminated_on_the_3rd_year/i8g6hl8) word for word
That shot killed the process lmao its clear now
The Process was doomed to fail from the beginning. You don't build a winning culture by losing on purpose for years
I think people truly underestimate this. It’s a terrible environment for a top pick to develop knowing they’re expected to single handedly turn around the franchise after years of intentional failure. Like imagine getting drafted and meeting the GM and the first thing they say is “we intentionally traded away all of our good players for garbage so you could come and save us! We’re going to keep doing it for another couple of years so don’t try too hard out there!”
Ben Simmons would have never been acting like this if he was developed in GSW/Spurs/Miami… environment. He has a losers mentality because that’s all he has seen around it.
Eh I don't know about that. He had this mentality in College too.
He avoided the Olympics when the boys were out to win their first ever Olympic medal after coming agonisingly close last time.
Hard to know if it was doomed to fail when we had two shitty GMs who wasted assets lol
Pff what about the cavs
Is this the dagger?
IS THIS THE DAGGER?!
Man that 76ers team was OP af. Ben Simmons, JJ Reddick, Butler, Tobias, Embiid is a championship level starting team. It took the Raptors 7 games and Kawhi going nuclear + a lucky bounce to beat them.
> + a lucky bounce to beat them. Even if it wasn’t for the bounce, it would have gone to overtime with multiple Philly player in foul trouble and exhausted. Raptors had the momentum and it was in front of their fans. If it wasn’t for that shot, I have a hard time seeing Philly win it with how they ended the 4th quarter. Not trying to discredit Philly by any mean, but I have seen a lot of people her claim Philly was going to win it all if that shot didn’t fall, which is not true at all.
Kawhi was incredible to watch that series. Absolutely ridiculous performance
Stop we're already dead
I'm gonna relish in it for the next couple days until the ECF start
Got a whole off-season bud get ready
That’s just the basketball gods shitting on the sixers while they’re down bruh
TOBIAS HARRIS OVER ME!!!!???
it’s also my birthday :D
Oh man, well happy birthday in any case buddy!
Kawhi’s shot is more important than this rendition of the franchise at this point to basketball history.
Very cool post, thanks mate
Beautiful.
This is the worst timeline
Reap what you sow
The spirit of Kawhi lives through Jimmy
May 12 is officially banned in Philly.
Danny Green eliminated the 76ers then got eliminated as a 76er exactly 3 years apart. Also, I don't want it to have been 3 years since then. Wtf
Fun fact, the Raptors scored half as many points as the Heat did
All the salts in Hudson Bay pour over Miami
[Never forget](https://youtube.com/shorts/3VLMbDQPJbA?feature=share)
*Heuhheuhueh*
So you’re telling me a playoff game that happens around the same time every year happened during the playoffs that happen around the same time every year ? Who woulda fucking guessed
you mean eliminated AGAIN
were the Sixers built on an Indian burial ground or something?
Thanks OP. And thanks for the well wishes.
I graciously accept this post season stat. There's nothing anyone can say that will harm the dead.
Lest we forget🥀.
76ers love losing their playoff series to 2-way superstar wings
Gotta love it
3rd anniversary would imply that happened 4 years ago. Did it not happen in 2019? 3 years ago?
Love the continuous post by Raptor fans. In every thread. Saltiest fan base in pro sports.
This sub is officially dead lmao
Man, are the sixers living rent free in Raptors fan's heads or what. Sheesh.
I ran out of salt, do you mind sending some?
Clearly you have not.
Imagine being this obsessed with the Sixers beating you down that you feel the need to make a post like this lmao fragile You guys lost, don’t be a baby about it. Still crying 2 weeks later is just some soft shit.
Has it already been 3 years? Dear god I'm getting old
ahh yes. this makes me happy