I’ve only seen them play each other like twice, but both times I remember screaming at my TV that Jokic was getting eaten by Embiid and they should switch to trying to have Gordon guard Embiid and send help if he gets deep. Just seemed like Jokic was always a half step too slow for Embiid and they’d be better off asking Jokic to be a help defender.

Embiid is better at guarding Jokic than Jokic is Embiid (at least that seems clear in their limited matchups), but I don’t think either is great at it. I think Embiid could be but he’s always kinda worn down on the offensive end.

I mean I don’t think anyone in their right mind today would say they feel better about the Kings than the Warriors in a playoff series. And the Clippers are just an idea of a good team. They’ll be an amazing option in 2K every year with injuries turned off and then Kawhi and PG will ultimately miss a ton of time and this team will go nowhere.

Everyone dumps all the blame solely on Kyrie for those disappointing teams. I get that it’s fun to dunk on Kyrie and he played like shit in that Bucks series. But the reality is the Celtics’ highest-paid player was completely useless most of the time, and probably detrimental to the development of a lot of other guys (because he played a lot of mins/took shots away from other guys). Gordon Hayward was a much bigger reason those teams fizzled than Kyrie was.

He was a max contract player who put up 9/4/2 on 54% TS and bad defense in the playoffs. He took minutes away from better players like Rozier and Morris. Even if Kyrie had absolutely balled out, that team was still going nowhere. You can’t win in the NBA when your max contract player is that terrible.