Highlights – Pace and Space

Breakfast Special: Pack It In, Boys, Kevin Durant’s Finals MVP

June 6, 2018June 7, 2018 - by Fox Doucette

Not since D-Day in 1944 has a group of people defending their turf been so thoroughly shot to pieces on the sixth of June as the Cleveland Cavaliers got at the hands of the Golden State Warriors in a 110-102 second-half comeback Wednesday night. Dub Nation is just one win away from sending your columnist into hibernation for the next four months (this is a lie; there will be Pacers talk and free agency talk and draft talk. The hiatus won’t start until early July, and the previews will be back like they always are starting shortly after Labor Day.) …

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Breakfast Special: Steph Gonna Steph On LeBron

June 4, 2018June 4, 2018 - by Fox Doucette

Well, Golden State is up 2-0 on Cleveland. Again. And after Game 4 in Cleveland, the Warriors will probably be up 3-1 in the series. Again. After all, in a five-game series, the losing team wins Game 3. And the Warriors will win the series in five. Again. Game 2 featured Stephen Curry breaking the Finals record for three-pointers by shooting 9-of-17 from out there, Contrast the Jordan era… 3-POINTERSStephen Curry tonight: 9/17 Bulls entire 1991 Finals: 5/21 — Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) June 4, 2018 Oh, the times, they are a-changin’. And in case you don’t want to be arsed …

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Breakfast Special: JR Smith is the WOAT.

June 1, 2018 - by Fox Doucette

J.R. Smith is the Worst of All Time. LeBron James scored 51 points, grabbed eight rebounds, dished eight assists, and put up one of the greatest NBA Finals performance in the history of the sport. He singlehandedly pushed the Cleveland Cavaliers to a point where they could steal a game from the Golden State Warriors on the road. Then the Warriors got overtime because George Hill choked at the free throw line and Smith dribbled the clock out because he thought the Cavs had won the game. And Tyronn Lue stood on the sidelines and watched rather than call timeout …

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Breakfast Special: The Rockets Die by the Sword

May 29, 2018 - by Fox Doucette

The Houston Rockets lived by the three-point shot all season long, putting up three-point attempt rates so high that in plenty of games, they shot more threes than twos. Trouble was, their shooting went cold on them at exactly the wrong time, and they ended up losing Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals to the Golden State Warriors, 101-92. It wasn’t just that their shooting went cold. It’s that it went from pretty good, as they made six of their first 14 shots from long range (42.9 percent) to utterly putrid, as they then missed 27 three-pointers in a …

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Breakfast Special: LeBron James is the GOAT. Discussion Over.

May 28, 2018May 28, 2018 - by Fox Doucette

Michael Jordan‘s run as the Greatest of All Time began on June 14, 1998, when he hit The Last Shot against the Utah Jazz, retired, and officially got past the “no player can be evaluated for his place in history until he is no longer playing the game” rule of historical comparison (we do not talk about the Jordan-era Wizards. They are a figment of the NBA Dark Ages.) And calling Jordan the GOAT was not something to be taken lightly; after all, the previous nine years had seen Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reign in that capacity, and to be better than …

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Breakfast Special: Is Stephen Curry a Choke Artist?

May 25, 2018May 25, 2018 - by Fox Doucette

Six times in the ultimate clutch situation, Stephen Curry has had a shot in the last 24 seconds of a playoff game that would have given Golden State the lead. All six times, he’s missed. That was Stephen Curry's 6th shot to take the lead in the last 0:24 of a playoff game He's missed all 6 pic.twitter.com/Hm8xTGp2f4 — Basketball Reference (@bball_ref) May 25, 2018 Chris Paul is injured, a busted hamstring likely keeping him either out or in extremely limited minutes in two games the Warriors must win in order to survive and advance to their fourth straight NBA …

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Breakfast Special: Semi Ojeleye Beats LeBron James By Himself

May 24, 2018 - by Fox Doucette

We have just seen a new low in the coaching career of Tyronn Lue, and possibly the moment that ensures that Lue never again coaches in the NBA after he is fired upon the departure of LeBron James from Cleveland following the Cavaliers’ defeat in the Eastern Conference Finals. Specifically, Lue’s failure to put Kyle Korver into Game 5, a game Cleveland lost 96-83 to the Boston Celtics. Lue’s reason: He was waiting for the Celtics to put Semi Ojeleye, Korver’s “matchup”, to check into the game. No, really. Ty Lue says that the Celtics "threw us (the Cavs) for …

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Breakfast Special: Andre Iguodala’s Veteran Leadership

May 23, 2018May 23, 2018 - by Fox Doucette

You know we don’t go in much for eye test here at Pace and Space, and we especially don’t go in much for fuzzy “intangible” narratives that don’t have hard numbers to back them up. But how do you explain the Warriors’ repeated lapses of concentration when they had the chance to put the Rockets away both early and late? After all, the team led 12-0 almost before the Rockets got their warmups off. They led 82-70 in the fourth quarter. And in both cases, the Rockets erased the double-digit lead; in the latter case, they made Stephen Curry and …

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Breakfast Special: The Warriors-Cavaliers Inevitability

May 22, 2018 - by Fox Doucette

There are two ways you can interpret the Cleveland Cavaliers’ completing their defense of their home court in Games 3 and 4, including Monday’s 111-102 win to draw the series level at two games apiece. Either the Celtics, who have been outstanding at home but utterly putrid on the road in these playoffs (they are now just 1-6 away from Boston in the postseason while they’re 9-0 at home), are headed toward a seven-game series win in which the home team wins all seven games, and therefore there is no reason to panic or even to find anything we’ve seen …

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Breakfast Special: The Conference Finals Have Been Terrible

May 21, 2018May 21, 2018 - by Fox Doucette

Over the weekend, our reward as fans for patiently awaiting the return of the NBA conference finals was…two anticlimactic blowouts, one that kept the narrative alive for two titans of the East trading blows as they defend their home floors, the other a reinforcement of the idea that Mike D’Antoni is the Marty Schottenheimer of basketball coaches and Daryl Morey, like Billy Beane in baseball, has a secret system that doesn’t work in the playoffs. Beginning in the East, Saturday featured Cleveland just plain kicking the crap out of Boston 116-86. The game got out of hand almost from the …