im glad you mentioned harden in an offensive light...imagine if he could play d!

Whats going on with the cavs....talented team playing like none of them want to be there. Ego clash?

Thomas missed a good chunk of the season and isn't meshing with Bron Bron at all (big shock, they both want to start every play with the ball). Then there's the looming free agency of Bron Bron hanging over the team.

I really hope they continue to shit the bed right into the playoffs.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Oh right, it’s almost the end of January and you are discussing the NBA. Leafs eliminated already?

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Proud member of the MSF (Maple Syrup Mafia)

Leafs are 15 points up and in the playoffs at this point.

They are playing like it too (read: way overconfident)

Anyway, they will be in the playoffs. Most likely facing Boston.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Will the Stanley Cup parade route go all the way to Whitby?

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Remember - It's important to be comfortable in your own skin... because it turns out society frowns on wearing other people's

It's going to be epic. I will start in Burlington and go all the way to the 'shwa.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

He could, he just chooses not to.

The shame of it is his teams will never win when it really matters because he's not a complete player, and unless you're the Warriors and can just outshoot everyone with 3 AS options you're not winning without at least decent team defense. Harden is fantastic offensively but his selfishness and inability to prioritize the defensive end means i'll never ever consider his teams to be a real contender.

For the first time this season I think the Cavs are actually in a little bit of trouble. I'm a Celtics fan and at no point did I think the Cavs weren't at worst the equal of every other Eastern conf team and the likely (50+%) Finals rep...now I'm seriously questioning that. Toronto is legit, Boston is legit, and the Cavs haven't found any rhythm and now are without Love for up to two months.

I don't think I'd pick against Lebron, still, but that team is in a little trouble.

Eh, statistically, the Rockets even out-shoot the Warriors lately, and they've added more perimeter D to try and cover for Harden's weakness on that end. That, and adding CP3 means they have little or no drop-off when rotating through the 2nd unit, unlike when Kerr subs in McCaw or Livingston for Curry. As a Warriors fan (after the Blazers, but realistically the best they can hope for is the 2nd round if they can avoid GSW or HOU in the 1st), I'm hoping their overall balance will still keep the Rockets at bay, but I'm more worried about them than everyone else combined.

As for the East... I still think even w/ the loss of Hayward, BOS remains the pick. TOR is good-ish, but they've still done nothing but fold whenever it really counts, whereas post-2016 Kyrie is now a card-carrying member of the Clutch Club and Stevens is easily the best bench chessmaster in a series outside of maybe Pop. Cavs remind me now of the 2011 Lakers, coming off 3 straight Finals and back-to-back titles with essentially still the same nucleus (Kobe-Pau-Bynum-Fisher-Odom, Coach Phil), but were showing signs of internal rot ~ which then came completely unraveled when they were swept out the door in a series of increasingly embarrassing blowouts by the Mavs in Round 2 of the playoffs. That's about as far as I can see LeBron carrying them again this year (maaaybe the ECF), but as good as he is he can't do it alone for 48 minutes over 6-7 straight games. I watched the last hyped matchup w/ GS, as well as 4 of last year's 5 Finals games, and the pattern has become pretty familiar: LBJ is the best player on the court and propels his whole team for 30-35 minutes or so, but A) they lose too much ground whenever he sits and then have to play catch-up, and B) he still doesn't sit enough so that he's simply not the same player late in the 4th if the game is still close.

We may not be elite NBA athletes, but the aging curve is still plenty familiar to those of us who've gone through it ~ you can perform at just as high a level as ever on a limited basis, maybe even higher based on advanced experience over max athleticism, but you just can't sustain it as regularly or bounce back as quickly when it calls for repeated max efforts. It's painfully obvious LeBron has reached that point; his efficiency and rate-based stats are as good or better than ever, but he's no longer superhuman. If ever he needed Kyrie, this is when he really should be off-loading more of the burden of carrying the team, but obviously the internal pyschology of that transition is harder than it looks, especially without a coach of Pop's stature to guide handing off the baton.