Paulius
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Couple of thingsbosoxlover12 said:The main lineups are very close, yes. The backcourt is pretty damn even Westbrook is slightly better than Kyrie but both are extremely talented, and the same goes towards PG13 and Hayward. Even though he doesnt start, the comparison is Roberson and Smart, and I would say Marcus is sizably better than Roberson (both awful shooters, but Marcus is a slightly better defender, equal rebounder, and a significantly better passer and distributor)
Patterson is a better shooter than Morris is, but Morris is the better scorer and the better on-ball defender. Patterson has the off-ball defensive edge. Close to a wash too.
The problem with Horford and Adams is that theyre completely different. Adams goal is to box out and get rebounds to finish at the rim. Horfords is to space the floor for his teammates, and he might be one of the best in the league at it. Hes a Top 3 passing center, and is one of the better screeners and 3pt shooting bigs out there. Defensively Adams is better than Al, but that gap is about as significant as the overal gap of George and Hayward almost insignificant. Overall the starting lines is damn equal.
The problem with OKC is they have way too many one-way players. Outside of Westbrook, George, PP, and Adams, nobody on that team provides two-way value. Abrines and McDermott are not good defensively, and Kanter is almost a net negative for how poor he is on defense. Roberson is useless on offense outside of being a rebounder. Felton has been garbage for years now and Grant is the definition of an average basketball player.
Meanwhile Boston has Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum, Terry Rozier, and Aron Baynes, all who offer offensive and defensive value (Baynes on the edge of that, however). You can run various personnel and not be pidgeonholed into a strategy because of whos on the court. OKC is forced into an iso heavy offense (which if you havent learned from me over the past months, i hate iso only offense), and it creates extreme inefficiency. Boston can run several different lineups, plugging in different pieces in many spots and it allows unpredictability while not faltering.
OKC wont be bad, but you know with 100% certainty theyre just gonna try to run the iso based offense they ran in 2015-16 except George isnt KD so it wont work as well. Theyll be a 4 seed, maybe a 3 if one of SA or HOU takes a step back from last year. While it may take some time to gel, Boston got better this year and it will show in the later portion of the year
Andre is a better defender than Smart. Longer, can guard 3s better. All nba second team defender for a reason so dont underrate him here
Jaylen will be starting, so hes not part of the bench
You say celtics can run various lineups but have you really thought how many different line ups okc can run?
Russ/abrines/andre/pg/adams
Russ/andre/dougie/pg/adams
Russ/andre/dougie/pg/adams
Russ/abrines/pg/grant/adams
This okc team can matchup well with every team and imo matches up the best with the warriors. Their defense would eat you guys up man. Andre on Kyrie, PG on Hayward and RIP
And we'll see how theyll run the offense. Russ isnt dumb, he has to prove the haters that he can make it work. At times itll prolly be 'your turn my turn' type of shit, but we'll see some nice basketball from them
Also think Grant will be better than an average nba player. Already a nice defender who can almost switch on all positions, finishes well and occassionally hits the three. Hes only getting better man and he did well in the playoffs.
And Felton is obviously not some goat but he will help so much just by being a veteran presence on the floor with those younger shooters. Its the little things
Anyway, i dont think its just this easy to say who is better at this point, they're pretty even and playing in the east will help but we'll see.