@Tempest Part of that problem is it's also a staffer often doing it. Just look at Elsa/Onyx over on BNW/DoJ.
Compound that with people stretching themselves too thin and not really doing more with those characters than playing them once or twice a month, and it sets a bad example. Minor characters being marginally active is one thing, but major characters doing it is especially bad for any place.
The game Curry had in San Antonio a couple nights ago after taking what the defense was trying to give him in Oakland last week makes me feel a lot better about things. I believe the Warriors are good enough, top to bottom, to take care of the Spurs in a series, but so much of it hinges on how well Curry plays. When he's settling for difficult 3-pointers, it isn't good overall. When he cuts to the basket, he's still so good at finishing shots for a smaller player, it opens up more opportunities for others.
The Warriors didn't shoot well in their two games in San Antonio, but the Spurs shot even worse. The games in Oakland were more fast-paced in comparison, and both teams shot better.
Note the Warriors still have not beaten the Spurs in their place, in the regular season, when Duncan actually played.
(Not that he's been very effective against them this year)
@Monogram said:
I haven't touched this in a while. I heard the first robot DLC isn't really worth the 10 bucks in cost. Haven't had a reason to go back recently. So I guess my question right now is if there's any mods on XB1 that we were told were going to be on there.
Most of what I've seen people say is it was a pretty fun bit of DLC. They like the variety of things you can make robots out of, and the story tied to it was short but good along with having a pretty solid final dungeon for it. I generally agree with that.
I don't know if $10 as a standalone price is worth it, no, but as part of the season pass? Especially if you bought it before the price went up? Absolutely worth it.
@Admiral This...was very strongly written:
https://satyrosphilbrucato.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/good-riddance-you-brutalizing-hag/
Loved this game when it came out a decade ago, and I played the Wii version that was mirrored from the original left-handed design because they changed it to match up better with the Wiimote in the right hand.
After seeing someone talking about how to do screenshots with the Wii U (press the home button and it holds an image of the last thing that was on the screen) and uploading them to Miiverse, someone else explained how to do it through Imgur. It's basically the same way, just opening the internet browser instead, but the screenshots are larger. 1080p compared to the old 480p for the originals is also nice.
I saved about two dozen that do a nice job of showing off the upgraded textures and all. It's been fun playing this all over again, and there are a few improvements to the general gameplay convenience as well with what the gamepad allows you to do that a controller doesn't.
A gallery:
The Zora Armor still rocks, too.
@Ganymede said:
Right. My money is on Golden State, despite the Spurs' superior stats, because they can score boatloads very fast. The Spurs are a system-team, and if they get down early and you can keep them down, it's hard for them to score 10+ in a minute.
When you have Stephen Curry, pretty much anything is possible. What's scary now is more often than not, it feels like the impossible happens.
@Arkandel said:
@Ganymede Here's a question for you (all).
Would an elimination format such as FIBA's and NCAA be worth it, as it adds to the excitement ('anything can happen in one game') but takes away from the measure of a better team?
Maybe add a third possibility for a point differential over two games (home court advantage=you play second) if you want.
Noooope. In a full-length series, the best team should come out on top. Once in a while you'll get a major upset (8th Warriors over 1st Mavericks in 6 about a decade ago now, but that was also a bad matchup for Dallas), but normally the best team will get through even with a hiccup or two. The advantage to taking care of business quickly can mean a few extra days of rest while next round's opponent is in a grind, though that also has the chance of breaking your own rhythm if you have too many days away from game action.
But, no. With the money on the line, the endorsements, the length of the season and all that, I don't think you'll ever see a one-and-done format or anything that has some sort of points-based advantage. It's going to get decided on the court.
I don't even really like the one-game wild card play-in thing with MLB, but they're determined to have more teams in the mix for the postseason and unless you start the season earlier or chop off a week or two of the regular season to avoid routinely going into November with the World Series, the one-game wild card, best-of-5 division series, best-of-7 championship series and World Series format isn't terrible.
What gets to be difficult is when one team has an ace or two they can line up to pitch twice each in a long series, while the opponent may have had to use their ace over the final weekend (or in the wild card game) just to get to the division series. But, that's the way it goes. Even then, sending Kershaw or Price or whoever else out there isn't a guarantee of an automatic win.
When you have a wild card situation, those teams do kind of have to be kept at some sort of disadvantage compared to the division winners, so their path is going to be tougher with less margin for error. In sports where you have no wild card and it's strictly seedings, that's different.
@Ganymede Won't argue that. Hard to bet against Pop figuring something out. It'd be the series everybody wants to see.
The Warriors haven't been quite as consistent defensively this season, but they've got up for the games they really needed to overall. Some of their lapses have come against lesser teams, but they're 13-0 against the Top 4 in each conference (Top 3 in the West, excluding them).
San Antonio is 5-6 in the same situation, though they meet the Warriors three more times in the regular season, with both in San Antonio coming as the second of back-to-backs for the Warriors (situations the Warriors ARE 14-1 in, I believe).
Against playoff teams as of right now, the Warriors are 13-0 against the East and 13-2 against the West, or 26-2 overall. San Antonio is 8-3 against the East and 11-4 against the West, or 19-7 overall.
San Antonio has two losses to teams not currently in a playoff spot (New Orleans and Washington). Golden State has three (Milwaukee, Detroit, and Denver).
All of these losses, for both teams, have come on the road. Both are still perfect at home. We're seeing two historically great years from a pair of teams in the same conference, and they probably couldn't be more different in the process.
We can't even guess for sure what sort of thing we may see yet when it comes to nights off for some people late in the season. If San Antonio stays this close, it'll be tough to "toss" a game by sitting Curry and/or Thompson, and if the Warriors have a legit shot at breaking 72-10 I think they're going to go for it even though the title is the ultimate goal.
To note, the top 5 teams in defensive efficiency as of right now (points allowed per 100 possessions):
1 - SAS - 95.7
2 - ATL - 99.5
3 - IND - 99.7
4 - BOS - 99.9
5 - GSW - 100.0
Last season, GSW was #1 at 98.2.
These are from whatever the Hollinger stat is on ESPN:
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/defensiveEff
Basketball Reference has their own ratings that lead to different numbers but similar rankings overall, both this year and last:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2016_ratings.html
So, it's not just a matter of the Warriors outscoring everybody in shooting battles. Now, if that's the direction the game goes, they are much better equipped than the Spurs to do that, but they can and do dominate through defense as well.
Last night's performance:
This one has more than just the 3-pointers:
@Ganymede I'm going to be "that guy."
The loss to Milwaukee was on the second night of a back-to-back, finishing a 7-game roadtrip, after winning a tough overtime game in Boston the night before. For that to be their first loss after 24 straight wins is remarkable. Milwaukee also has some length they struggled with, as the rematch in Oakland shortly after that was also close most of the way.
The loss to the Mavericks was without Curry and they looked terrible. The next game, also without Curry, Thompson stepped up and they beat the Rockets.
The Nuggets and Pistons games were stinkers. So was the Blazers game, but they did draw closer at halftime before having a truly awful third quarter with 13 turnovers as Portland did everything right all night long. That was one of those "what can you do?" nights.
They've had letdowns in a few cases and struggled mightily in other games they came back to win, which is more a testament to how hard it truly is to win so many games at this level. Sometimes they lose focus and intensity and pay for it, but when they turn it back on they're a nightmare to deal with.
So far tonight, OKC is meeting and exceeding their intensity.
@Arkandel In Wilt's case, he did start out with the original Philadelphia Warriors and went west with the franchise.
They definitely got a lot of attention for "The City" look in the 70s, but that fit the 70s.
@Arkandel said:
@Wolfs I dislike shooting teams a lot. I dislike GSW a lot, they have stupid jerseys.
... But I haven't seen a team this good and dominant at least since the 2000-2001 Lakers. They are even better than some of the great Spurs teams.
Man, I wish they'd go back to a sort of Run TMC era jersey. That was simple, classy, and sleek. I know they tried to go with some modern version of the old "City" front by incorporating the new side of the Bay Bridge, but you should have seen how much the basic Copperplate font was mocked by some Warriors fans when it was revealed.
Have a look through some of their old styles and info to go with it:
@Warma-Sheen That would have been the shot against Bryon Russell of the Jazz.
Yep, it gets shown as one of the greatest moments, LOL.
As for the respect thing, sure, they DO get a ton of it from a lot of people. It's just the naysayers and some apparently bitter, envious ex-players that are getting a lot of unnecessary attention lately.
Last year I went to a game as a visiting fan and after the Warriors won, I overheard a few home fans saying OKC would beat GS in the first round (turns out the Warriors were "lucky" the Thunder didn't make it in at all). There's a lot to be said for winning that title in your first try in the Finals, though the Warriors did have a couple years in the postseason prior to going all the way. It's taken their confidence to all new levels.
I will say I've occasionally looked in on ClutchFans and there are a number of Rockets fans there oohing and aahing over Curry and how the Warriors play, and a lot of them have turned on James Harden as part of it given the whole "Swag Champs" thing and how Harden hasn't done much to back up his self-promotion as the should-have-been MVP last year.
A comparison between Curry and Jordan is made these days by referencing how Jordan and his teams seemed to do the winning thing with anger pushing them. In Curry's case, he plays with joy out there but he is a straight up assassin when it matters most. I've come to be more surprised when he DOESN'T pull a win out of his hat than when he does.
Nobody needs to be universally loved as a team, even as a player, and I sure don't expect that. I know what jealousy leads some people to say. All I look for is that people respect the same way they'd want the respect if it was their team/player doing this.
@ThatGuyThere That may be true, but I definitely am unwilling to accept an argument centered around "The Warriors only won because they took advantage of the existing screening rules."
I've already heard enough about how they were lucky not to face the Clippers or Spurs last year when they were already assured of not facing at least one of them well before the Clippers blew it against Houston. I've already heard enough about how they were fortunate to get the Cavs without Irving and Love. People say the NBA is weak now.
All they've done is beaten the Clippers 6 of the last 7 times in the regular season. All they did was destroy a full Cavs squad in Cleveland. Everything put in front of them so far, they've handled. That's the mark of a great team. Whether they end up a historic dynasty or a team that had a great couple years remains to be seen, but seeing ex-players coming out to say "This isn't anything special" or "My team would have beaten them" is pretty damned sad.
All this, and the Spurs are only a few games behind them for the best record. The Warriors made quite a statement in their first meeting, though.