We’ve got one Eastern Conference playoff game tonight. Enjoy.
New York Knicks @ Indiana Pacers – 5:00 PM PT / 8:00 PM ET
- Pacers lead the series 2-1.
NBA Playoffs Open Thread – Tuesday, May 27
Hali's playoff run rolls on.
By Tony Xypteras | 39 Comments | May 27, 2025
May 23, 2025; New York, New York, USA; Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton (0) shoots against the New York Knicks in the third quarter during game two of the eastern conference finals for the 2025 NBA Playoffs at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Wendell Cruz-Imagn Images
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Tough loss in game 3, but Indy still holds the Away Court Advantage.
I want the Pacer to roll the Knicks tonight just so I can imagine Stephen A. Smith completely losing his shit.
One quarter to go and the Pacers are dominating.
Brunson is so good on offense but terrible on defense. Saw a stat that he’s last of all players on defensive rating in the playoffs.
KAT is one of the best players that I would not want on my team. Spend all your time trying to get him to bust his ass and he still only shows up half the time, if you’re lucky.
The UniBrow is another cut from a similar cloth.
Zach LaVine’d
Speaking of which, the Knicks gave up 5 firsts and a pick swap for Bridges who is non existent most of the time.
Somehow Luka was only worth one first rd pick.
The NBA is strange.
They need to run plays for him. OG as well. Some of the problem is that Brunson is a ball hog. He’s a great finisher and an incredible foul farmer, but the offensive movement picks up when he’s off the floor.
This. He’s averaging just a hair over 5 assists per game while his usage is an eye popping 37% in this series. That’s not going to cut it. Compare that to Hali who is at a cool 26% usage while averaging 11 assists. I blame Thibs for that. It’s sort of a “give it to Brunson and see what he can do” approach to an offense. I saw some 1-4 flat sets that reminded me of Tyreke’s rookie year. It’s just a “get out os his way” offense.
I can’t stand watching Brunson. He just bullies his way to his spots while committing what should be offensive fouls every possession. Just ugly basketball.
MJ to Kobie/AI to Harden/Westbrook to Brunson
Hali should be a King.
He’d be asking out.
Create your identity and he wouldn’t ask out. That should be the priority as an organization. Identity, identity, identity and then we can actually become relevant and not just a flash like the 96 kings.
This series is for the silver medal. Okc will take apart both of these teams smothering them with their defense. Dort will smother Halliburton and Brunson and neutralize both of them and neither the Pacers or Knicks have enough weapons to compete. There are at least 4 teams from the west maybe 6 that would beat both Indiana and New York.
My prediction was OKC in 5 over Minnesota and I’ll say a sweep over Indiana in the finals.
Yeah…..barring some miracle comebacks for Minny and New York, it’s gonna be a Thunder-Pacers finals this year.
Haliburton 32, 12 and 15 with 0 turnovers.
It is really sad. I remember telling someone right after the trade that Hali was a Celtics type player, a winner, that we were going to see him in the Eastern Conference finals often. Twice already.
I’m happy for him. He would have never seen success here.
Happy for his success and the fact that he’s not a part of Vivek’s shitshow. Hoping Keegs and Keon find their way out too, ‘cuz I like those guys.
I have to say, I have the same hope
Yup. Never would have happened here. Lest we forget, while here Hali was playing with Fox, Barnes, Buddy, Holmes, Metu, Damian Jones, Harkless, and Bagley. That roster was going nowhere fast.
Dumb trade. All we do is give away winning players for losing players.
That’s the type of trade I’m expecting this offseason.
Funny how the players aren’t winning players until they leave here, and how winning players stop being winning players when they get here.
After a couple decades of this, I’m starting to think it isn’t the players.
It starts at the top and shit rolls downhill. Nero ran Rome for just 14 years. The Maloofs reign was for 14 years as well. We are currently in season 12 of Emperor Vivek.
We traded for DDR, Lavine and Domas, none of these three players were winning players prior to becoming Kings.
DDR and Lavine didn’t work together for years in Chicago yet MM put these two together.
Myles Turner and Domas didn’t work together for years in Indy, so me thinks Turner might end up becoming a King this offseason, based on Kangz logic.
Depends how you define “winning player”, I guess.
DeRozan has been to the playoffs a lot, including multiple runs into the late rounds, and has been a multiple time All Star. Sabonis has had less success in the playoffs but was still on multiple winning teams and made multiple All Star appearances before joining the Kings.
Are we just counting titles? Because in that case, most players aren’t winning players.
Yeah, to say they are not “winning players” is a bit much. Individually they are all very good basketball players, but together they just don’t mesh. To boot, Hali and Fox weren’t winning players here either nor was Hield, but has Buddy now a winning player since he want on a playoff run with the Warriors?
Whatever one’s opinion is of LaVine, the fact is, he’s been on shitty teams…sort of like Mitch Richmond.
It was interesting to see how Indiana kept attacking Brunson on defense. As good as he is offensively, they identified him as the weak link on D and attacked him ruthlessly.
That will be harder to do against OKC, assuming the Pacers don’t fumble away the lead.
It seems that in today’s NBA, it is difficult to be a contender if you have key players that you need to hide on D.
At the same time, it is probably also very hard to play a guy that is no serious threat on offense. That makes the progress of Dort as a 3-point shooter so valuable for OKC.
For as good as Brunson is on O, seems like he’s giving that much up on D.
From a The Ringer article:
In these playoffs, Brunson ranks first in offensive estimated plus-minus and literally dead last in defensive estimated plus-minus (147th out of 147 players).
Would a package of Garland and Allen for Domas work for both teams?
How about Sabonis for Claxton and Johnson and 3 firsts. Sabonis is the only King that can garner draft picks. Monk and DDR can’t do that. Claxton is a very good defensive center and doesn’t have to score 20 a night. You have Johnson, Murray and LaVine to do that. Get Tre Jones in FA. Starters: Jones, LaVine Johnson, Murray and Claxton. Ellis is my candidate for 6th. man of the year.You still have Monk and DDR who are still tradeable. Those 3 draft picks would be a great addition.
PS If you want you could add Carter to the Sabonis trade. I would do that.
I think you are severely overestimating Domas’ value. Two good players and three firsts for Domas? Not happening.
Domas has 3 more years at $43-$49 mill left on his contract, I don’t see a lot of teams lining up for that.
Some Kings fans have overestimated the value of the team’s players for years. If the players had the value the fans thought they had, the team wouldn’t be that bad.
As an aside, I think it will be harder to get future draft picks in trades with the current CBA. Teams aren’t going to take on veteran salary in exchange for picks as often, unless it is a short contract.
Garland and Allen for Domas
I don’t see why CLE would do this. Now if Mobley was able to consistently shoot the 3, the fit might be there on O, otherwise CLE would have the same problem we have in not having the right big next to Domas. Defensively sure Mobley would be great at masking Domas’ deficiencies on D, but the O would be an issue. I still think the best Domas fit is SAS, although I doubt they have interest.
Watching these last 4 teams play makes me realize just how far the Kings have to go to even sniff this kind of success. In reality there are only 2 players on the roster that would fit these kind of teams: Keegan and Keon. And honestly, they don’t start on any of these 4 teams. Do you think LaVine would get meaningful minutes on these teams, because I don’t. It’s not that he’s not talented, it’s that he doesn’t fit with this kind of winning basketball. Perry even admitted that.
The Kings are built so ass backwards that it’s almost comical.
Can extend that to the final 8. Boston, Cleveland, Denver and GSW.
Kind of what I was getting at with the KAT comment above. Very few players on those eight teams that I wouldn’t want on my team.
Guys like Draymond, KAT, Brunson aren’t exactly what you want but they are good enough at what they do that you work with it if you can. Attitude, motor, defensive liabilities.
DDR, LaVine, Monk just aren’t good enough to start for a team at that level. They could fill the spark off the bench role, but that’s about it.
Domas plays the right way, but costs too much for what he gives. Needs to shoot more so his defender can’t sag which would open up passing lanes and actually elevate him to Joker-lite. As he is now he’s more Hartenstein, Allen, Horford expensive. Even then not sure Denver’s title wasn’t a bit of a Beam Team one-off. Not a lot of champions come with a 16th ranked defense rating.
I would extend to the final 8 as well. As much as I like Keon, I doubt he sees the floor in either of the conference finals. Watching Anunoby and Siakam, I realized they never would have agreed to come here, and Siakam said he’d never resign. Rumors of a possible trade for them may have just been a propaganda ploy by the front office. My guess is that there are few, if any, quality veterans that would agree to a trade to Sacramento, especially after this year’s catastrophe.
I’ll be shocked if the Kings win more than 30-33 games next season.
On point. Like I’ve said recently, it’s staggering the amount of depth the final four have. An impressive job by those FO’s in accumulating talent. It puts into perspective what a terrible job Denver has done creating depth around their core. Joker should be pissed.
As for us, we’re light year’s away.
Just some thoughts..
So they say mistakes aren’t mistakes as long we we learn from them.. as many mistakes as our team has made.. you would think we would be the smartest front office by now.. when we look back thru the years.. we can find plenty of times we’ve made bad moves.. maybe scouting needs help? Maybe valuing and developing young talent needs to be a priority.. we have seen other teams go from zero to hero in less than half the time.. the thunder have the blueprint.. why not try to do what has been shown to work for most teams? But then when we do uncover a gem like Hali.. instead of growing with that, we ship him off for quick returns.. so if we look back and ask ourselves if that was a good trade.. it’s asking if 1 or 2 playoff runs was worth shipping off the face of the league right now? Is a short sighted success worth giving away the golden boy? A young player who will continue to haunt you into the future? Maybe hindsight is 20/20, but most of us knew Hali had/has it.. players want to play with him.. me thinks front office favors vets over younger players.. but it’s the younger players that are hungry, it’s the younger players who will get better and improve their worth, and it’s younger players you need to be able to take on bloated contracts that gift you more picks.. and it’s the younger players that buy into the concept of playing as a team, and playing hard.. these older guys are more concerned about preserving their bodies..
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