Kyle K. Mustard

@SpinDavies Headbutting and flopping ain't a "taste of their own medicine," it's just bush league bench player stuff

Max Strus gets a Flagrant 1 for his headbutt on Scottie Barnes. He's playing as aggressive as ever defensively, picking up full and swiping down to try to give Toronto a taste of its own medicine defensively.

@NateDuncanNBA That has never been a flagrant in the history of NBA playoff ball and to say it should be is nonsense

Don't think this will be a flagrant. Usually these wrap ups are only flagrants if they're up near the head area or the player is airborne and it's a dangerous play. Now, I think it SHOULD be a flagrant in an ideal world because it's not a basketball play, but hasn't usually been

@william_lou Darko needs to spend some energy on this for once, he does not work the refs at all but it's time

12-1 free throws in favor of cleveland in the first quarter

@MarcJSpears Who cares?

Cavs forward Evan Mobley stated clearly that he didn’t believe the key late turnover was off of him and added there was no deliberation with a referee over it.

@pescami @NateDuncanNBA We get the hometown booth crew in Canada and they were all over it!

Replay from 5 seconds/ 7 years ago. Bounce pt 2. How can the announcers not mention it?!?

@joey_doubleyou Scottie just has to keep the ball

heart is palpitating. darko gotta call timeout there and draw something up man that was brutal

@william_lou Darko should be fired for even thinking it's Mamu time right now

MAMU SHOOT THE DAMN BALL

@JosephCasciaro Absolute disgrace, it's fine Darko keeps his cool but there's a time and a place and he needs to be getting in the refs ears

This whistle is something

@WorldWideWob Maybe you haven't seen Scottie Barnes play?

CMB might actually be this team’s most important player considering his defensive versatility, athleticism on the glass, and this team’s lack of front court depth.

@joey_doubleyou Sit him down before it's too late, this is coaching malpractice

it’s one thing for ingram to be missing shots but he has murdered the raptors’ flow on way too many possessions today. if he can’t do shit against merrill or harden & is still gonna monopolize the ball he simply needs to sit

@asantetalks @william_lou Absolutely, ball in Scotties hands with space and shooters, that's the way forward

@MustardKyle @william_lou Add playing with guys who can finish plays. It opens up the space for him. Can’t double because he will make the right pass to a guy who will score. So that leaves space for Barnes to go deep into the paint or get a comfortable middy/short jumper if the D sags.

No matter what happens in this series, I just want this version of Scottie Barnes going forward. He can score like this and should hunt it as much as possible.

@OrenWeisfeld @Swarlayzers Nope, you're looking at the regular season the wrong way. He got in the way of Scottie's offensive growth all year by his ball stopping and heliocentric BS. Even if it got them 3 extra wins this year, it's bad for the long term. Can't have him do it again.

@Swarlayzers I'm not ready to go that far, even tho that was as destructive as a quarter as ive seen. The needed him so much in the regular season to open up the offense. But i think he needs new shoes

RJ and Scottie are a solid pair to build with, BI needs to be gone

@NateDuncanNBA Well Jamison can make 3s, play D and move the ball 🤷

@libaanstar1 They need him right on the goddamn bench what are you talking about

They just need something from Brandon Ingram in this fourth quarter.

@JustEsBaraheni @JLew1050 It's been absolute garbage and unacceptable, not "out of whack"

Brandon Ingram is now 5/20 with 6 turnovers and 7 fouls in his last 6 quarters of basketball. He has been bothered by the Cavs physicality on offense. Full stop. But the non-negotiable stuff (defense, rebounding, turnovers) is also all out of whack.

@JLew1050 Are you watching the game? Calling for BI right now is lunacy.

Very winnable game, down 7 with 12 minutes to go. This is what the Raptors got Brandon Ingram for. This is why he's here. Been a rough 3 quarters for him. If he can flush it and finish strong, they've got a real chance at stealing a win here. Gut check time.

@KrownCity @iamrahstradamus No doubt, that series was TOUGH. But doesn't mean we should let these hot take fly-in podcasters keep reducing entire careers to clickbait tweets. It's lame. Raps fans know all about DD, good and bad. But if you 10th all time on the scoring list, your ticket's punched to the HOF.

@MustardKyle @iamrahstradamus Getting swept by the Wizards in 2015 was pretty ugly, but I guess you can argue that was Lowry’s fault getting cooked by Wall, more than Derozan.

As nerdy as dude might sound, he’s dead right about Derozan. He’s store brand Kobe with none of the defense or clutch gene. Dude was a perennial postseason choker in Toronto to the point where the Raptors were benching him in postseason games (see Game 2 of the Pacers series in the first round in 2016).

@samfolkk Weirdest part about all this is that the eye test would seem to support that he can bully his way to the rim almost at will, he just... doesn't want to do it? Seems like he wants to show a "complete" game on O, like Giannis trying to prove he was a 3-pt shooter.

Easy to notice changes: taking way more pull up 2’s, but dropped from 47% to 37% on them Huge bump in pick n roll volume and can’t score out of them .738ppp (but can playmake), less cutting + fewer iso’s (not as much mismatch hunting)