The nerds give their predictions for the Central Division, breaking down why Damian Lillard & Giannis Antetokoumpo make the Milwaukee Bucks NBA title favorites, the Cleveland Cavaliers and Chicago Bulls are stuck in the same place as last year, but Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers are poised to take a leap.
0:00 Why Bucks are title favorites
13:27 Expectations for Cavs
26:24 Why Pacers will take a leap
38:20 Time for Bulls to blow it up?
48:33 How Pistons can improve
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3 Comments
The issue with this channel is they never talk about the Reinsdorfs unfortunately blowing it up makes sense but the bulls owners don’t care they only want to make money and sell tickets
Pathetic to talk about the bulls being bad team all because people want them to blow it up, which is just selfish because everyone wants our best players. 50 wins & the 23/24 NBA champions!
Celtics > Bucks. yall are stuck on star power but at least youre somewhat aware of it. Cs are an esp bad match up for the bucks. let me break down the match ups on each side of the ball.
Bucks on offense:
– dwite n jrue can both cover dame in iso
– jaylen n jayson and both lock khris
– porzingus has the length to bother lopez at the rim or 3pt line
– giannis will still be by far their biggest advantage creator. most notably by screening for dame. horford has done a great job on him but hes a yr older so we'll see how he holds up. i dont think porzingus can handle giannis but can provide some support in help depending on who hes guarding. i think you'll see them try jaylen which hasnt gone well historically but he's gotten stronger and could help by adding versatility guarding the pnr.
– the freak time pnr is going to be tough to stop but i think cs have enough to slow it down – i noticed you talked abt how they could destroy every coverage except the drop. celtics are perfectly built to play drop w two elite poa defenders and two relatively mobile bigs. they can prob get a way w guarding it 2v2 a lot of the time. horford n zinger are mobile enough to get to the level for the split second it takes for jrue n white to get over the screen and recover. what zinger lacks in mobility he makes up for in length. and if jaylen can hold up ok in iso until they can send the right double, they could possibly switch it w jrue and jaylen. we saw smart give giannis some probs away from the basket jrue could do the same. and if giannis tries to take em to the post scram him out.
– who runs the offense when dame sits? middleton? payne? they'll prob struggle in those minutes.
Bucks on defense:
– jrue and white have a mismatch v either dame or pat
– bucks have no hope to slow jaylen n jayson at poa. best chance is prob portis but you sacrifice shooting with him and he cant rly guard them boys anyway
– so thats 3-4 mismatches on the floor for the celtics in the starting lineup
– lopez n gainnis are elite defenders but idk if they can plug all those holes. even when they do can help theyre leaving a shooter everytime. every1 of bos top 6 can knock it down at volume too.
so the calculation is which is bigger – the gap between the celtics and the bucks offense or the impact of celtics defense on the bucks? idk that there will be an offensive advantage for the bucks esp considering the bucks dont have ways to guard cs best players. theres a chance the celtics offense is better. i think Cs will def be able to hold bucks offense below its normal efficiency. while both teams have depth issues celtics are much better equipped to stagger their guys to prevent bench units from falling off. celtics have 4 allstar level players all w two-way impact, 5 if you include dwhite. bucks have 3 all stars, 4 if you include lopez but only 1 of them has real two-way impact. boston can mix n match match guys w 2nd unit bc they have more guys and their guys are more positionless and have more versatile skillset.
yall said bucks addressed their biggest prob which is true w dame. but they didnt address their hole at wing defense. if you dont think that was a big prob for them go look at what jimmy did to them last yr. that prob only got worse.yall said celtics didnt address their issues and thats unfair. their biggest issue is crunch time execution. adding prozingus def helps with half court offensive execution. he's a mismatch killer and efficient scorer in the post. so they did address it w zinger but the jays are young and improving so the degree to which they addressed that prob depends on internal growth which we dont have full insight on. but considering their both not yet in their prime i think improvement is likely. so ultimately its a bet on the jays taking a step but they have more support than ever so maybe they only need to improve marginally now. dame and giannis both have have big holes in their games. c's have jrure and coach lee who are intimately familiar w the bucks weakness historically its a bad match up for the bucks. C's are 2-1 all time v bucks and the loss was the yr kyire quit, poisoned the team and went to bk in the offszn. the same dynamic still exists. dame and giannis both have have big holes in their games. c's have jrure and coach lee who are intimately familiar w the bucks weakness. i got the Cs