Locker room talk: rolling basketball thread

[Leo]

game 2 predictions? will the Celtics inconsistency and occasional sloppiness catch up with them? will the warriors' finals veterans step up and play four solid quarters? will Klay Thompson show up?

a consequential game...will it turn into a best of 5 series, or will the Celtics take a commanding 2-0 lead back to Boston?

 

[linebaugh]

little concerning for the warriors that its close and the celts havent played well so far

 

[linebaugh]

wouldnt be surprised if the warriors blitz them off the floor in the 3rd

 

[Leo]

so many turnovers for the Celtics. horford and Williams pretty invisible so far.

on the other hand, green is really lucky he's not booted, that was definitely a T.

 

[linebaugh]

if its the playoffs and you already have one tech you are allowed to bring a gun on to the floor actually

 

[Leo]

not sure any fourth quarter rally is going to be enough to pull this one out.

 

[Leo]

Celts played one good quarter, one decent half. you're not going to win finals games like that. so many turnovers.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

BTW Padraig you a Bulls fan? Think things look good for them next year?

no and no

ofc I rooted for them growing up in the halcyon MJ days, I was exactly the right age (pre-teen, tween)

then I didn't pay attention to sports for many years and since I've returned to them as an adult I don't really have a specific team in that sense

I do root for teams sometimes but it's attached to the players rather than the franchise, i.e. I'm more of a Luka fan than a Mavs fan per se

I came back to basketball toward the end of freedarko (if you know, you know) and that was a big influence on me afa as a post-fandom mindset

my favorite team ever, for the record, is the late 00s Baron Davis/S Jax/J Rich/etc Warriors

the Bulls have not been neither fun nor great - the two criteria for watchability - since the late 90s. they were good for awhile - mid-00s thru early teens, i.e. Luol Deng et al thru the first couple years of DRose (i.e., pre-injury) - but not a serious contender, and the entire era was smothered in the gray miasma of Scott Skiles and Thibodeau, who are possibly the dreariest b2b coaching duo in NBA history

they're basically trapped where the last time they were good - i.e. a 4-5 seed not good enough to threaten the real contenders - only they've traded defense - Thibs calling card ofc - for offense. they overachieved to begin this year then got crushed by injuries, but even if healthy it's hard to see them really challenging the Bucks/Cs/Heat tier, especially as it's essentially impossible to see DeRozan getting any better after having a Julius Randle-style fluke career best season at age 32.

this year was a success as proof to concept to potentially entice a superstar free agent, but ofc getting that superstar (and idk their cap situation or whatever) is always the rub. they also need rim protection, better point of attack defense etc - too many of their guys can really only play one-way, which will work during the regular season against bad teams or tired/indifferent good ones, but murder you in the playoffs.

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

my favorite team ever, for the record, is the late 00s Baron Davis/S Jax/J Rich/etc Warriors

essentially "what if everyone was 6'6-8" and we just ran and shot 3s (before that was kool), didn't really play defense, and infuriated all the old Play the Right Way types with both our play style and attitude". they were more fun than "good", but that late iteration of Nellieball was, along with the 7 Seconds or Less Suns, probably the two big philosophical influences - along with rule changes incentivizing offense, and the massive influence of analytics on shot selection - on the current dominant NBA play style - buzzwords like "positionless basketball", running, 3s, etc. and their 8-1 1rd upset of the Mavs is one of my all-time favorite sports moments. I love Dirk but they embarrassed him in that series (he had to humiliatingly accept the MVP award after getting knocked out of the playoffs, only time that's ever happened) - it's actually, I think, the catalyst that made him grow into his final, championship form - he got tougher afterward, developed that killer mentality, etc to go along with physical attributes and skills

ofc they then got unceremoniously booted in the 2 rd by the Deron Williams/Boozer/Okur/Kirilenko Jazz - a v weird and idiosyncratic but good team in the time-honored Jazz tradition - altho Baron's ALL-TIME posterization of AK-47 (which was definitely an offensive foul, but print the legend, as the saying goes) will still give you shivers 15 years later

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

wouldnt be surprised if the warriors blitz them off the floor in the 3rd

dude I gotta be honest it's the point where I don't understand how it keeps happening

it makes sense in football where teams only see each other once a year

or some fighters need a couple rounds to feel out and get reads on their opponent

even the NBA regular season

but this is the playoffs. every single thing gets drilled down to basically the subatomic level, everyone is 100% wired for trouble, etc.

it's not like you're going back to the locker room at half-time and drawing up some magical, new plan of attack the other team has never seen

and yet somehow, EVERY SINGLE GAME, they keep coming out and annihilating mfers with that 3Q blitz

how are teams not better prepared for this?

how? how? you know they're going to do it. they know you know they're going to do it. they just come out and do it.

I mean there's a reason this core has won 3 titles together

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

and that's what Draymond does

as close as you can get to a modern iteration of Dennis Rodman, in every sense besides the personal style/troubled off-court life

(not the rebounder Rodman was - no surprise, Rodman is the greatest rebounder in NBA history - but a much better passer/facilitator)

and Dennis Rodman was an absolutely crucial and badly underrated component of the Bulls second 3peat

just Rodman, Dray wouldn't be able to elevate a team without great - in this case world-class - scoring

but give him that scoring and he will do every single other thing you need to win, physically, mentally, emotionally

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

the Cs definitely have a physical advantage, esp w/Klay having lost at least half a step from age/injury

but it's not a huge advantage - with a healthy Payton, the Ws legion of perimeter defenders isn't too far off

the Ws basically beat them at their own game, make it ugly and put you through the wringer

definitely "oh you think I'm past it, young fella? well let me school you" vibe

I thought the series would be a dogfight and here we are

 

[padraig (u.s.)]

and gus, all respect, you gotta FOH with that Otto Porter nonsense

this Wiggins, yes, he's been very good. Jordan Poole, yes. Porter's career peaked as a 2nd/3rd banana on the Wizards. the Wizards.

and that was pre-injury. I saw him on the Bulls. he was not good.

none of those 3 guys would inspire confidence as a 2nd option on a supposedly good team - maybe Poole, maybe.

otoh, as a 3rd option Poole is great. similarly Wiggins would be fine as a 3rd option, as a 4th, excellent.

that's the around the edges championship stuff. the core is by far hardest to build, but then if you can get guys who are a bit better than what you're asking of them - and can play both ways, crucially - you're upping your odds.

but Porter, hell no

 

[sus]

Dinwiddie was also on the Wizards and averaged 7 less ppg than OP, I'm just sayin

 

[linebaugh]

dude I gotta be honest it's the point where I don't understand how it keeps happening

it makes sense in football where teams only see each other once a year

or some fighters need a couple rounds to feel out and get reads on their opponent

even the NBA regular season

but this is the playoffs. every single thing gets drilled down to basically the subatomic level, everyone is 100% wired for trouble, etc.

it's not like you're going back to the locker room at half-time and drawing up some magical, new plan of attack the other team has never seen

and yet somehow, EVERY SINGLE GAME, they keep coming out and annihilating mfers with that 3Q blitz

how are teams not better prepared for this?

how? how? you know they're going to do it. they know you know they're going to do it. they just come out and do it.

I mean there's a reason this core has won 3 titles together

no idea. I think part is that defending the warriors takes an extremely focused unified effort and returning from the break teams have to work themselves back into step with the warriors offensive rhythm and just a couple minutes of re calibration can cost you a 15 point deficit

 

[linebaugh]

essentially "what if everyone was 6'6-8" and we just ran and shot 3s (before that was kool), didn't really play defense, and infuriated all the old Play the Right Way types with both our play style and attitude". they were more fun than "good", but that late iteration of Nellieball was, along with the 7 Seconds or Less Suns, probably the two big philosophical influences - along with rule changes incentivizing offense, and the massive influence of analytics on shot selection - on the current dominant NBA play style - buzzwords like "positionless basketball", running, 3s, etc. and their 8-1 1rd upset of the Mavs is one of my all-time favorite sports moments. I love Dirk but they embarrassed him in that series (he had to humiliatingly accept the MVP award after getting knocked out of the playoffs, only time that's ever happened) - it's actually, I think, the catalyst that made him grow into his final, championship form - he got tougher afterward, developed that killer mentality, etc to go along with physical attributes and skills

ofc they then got unceremoniously booted in the 2 rd by the Deron Williams/Boozer/Okur/Kirilenko Jazz - a v weird and idiosyncratic but good team in the time-honored Jazz tradition - altho Baron's ALL-TIME posterization of AK-47 (which was definitely an offensive foul, but print the legend, as the saying goes) will still give you shivers 15 years later

have to come to dirks defense here and say that he was always a mental killer, one of the best crunch time players of all time by pretty much all the metrics and his play off runs surrounding the 07 series, before and after, are insane- 28 points a game on historic efficiency while taking the most difficult shot profile in basketball. one of the few superstars to both increase counting stats and efficiency stats in the playoffs. 07 is rather explained by the fact that he didnt yet know how to take advantage of those 6'7-6'8 defenders and the warriors coach was don nelson the man who practically invented dirk and the mavs in a lab just 2 years prior. that and the mavs supporting cast around him was always weaker compared to his contemporaries, even for the pre super team era. His second option of offense for his entire prime was jason terry who except for '11 disappointed every year in the post season, as do many undersized guards who dont have an elite skill outside of shooting. a little like the suns team this year in that they were a well oiled machine that could put up massive win numbers in the regualr season but didnt have the talent outside of their main guy to overcome the playoff slog

 

[IdleRich]

Guys, sorry to interrupt this specific debate here with some rather general and amateurish questions. But I've been reading a bit about basketball to try and gain some insight into what you guys are talking about, and one thing that seems to come up again and again is comparing different eras, and when they are doing that people talk a lot about rule changes.

There are two specific things that come up a lot here. A lot of people say "Oh Lebron would never have lasted in the 90s cos of hand-checking". I'm not particularly interested in how he would have fared but I would like to know the difference in the rules. I guess that hand-checking was a way of tackling or defending against someone that was quite effective but which is now baned, and that removing it from a defender's arsenal tipped the balance in favour of the attacker to some degree.

The other rule change I see mentioned which I guess acted to tip the balance the other way is that you are now allowed zonal marking. This is something that I can hazard a guess at. In football the two basic systems of defending are man-to-man marking and zonal marking. In the former you would specifically put defender A on attacker X, defender B on Y and C on Z. Of course the game is chaotic and things get switched around all the time but broadly speaking A is responsible for X and would expect to be lined up against him at a corner or whatever and same for B and Y.
Zonal marking by contrast is when you make A responsible for a certain part the pitch and he will defend against whoever comes into it, be it X, Y or Z. And same for B. These are both extreme examples - normally in practice you end up with a mixture - for example if A is on the front post and B is on the back post, but the attackers put X, Y and Z all on the front post then of course B would have to come across and cover them, there is no point in him leaving A overloaded while he defends against no-one. And in general in the course of the game, it's just so chaotic, that apart from possibly at set-pieces you can't be completely rigid in what you do.

Anyway, I'm assuming that zonal defending in basketball is something similar, but I don't understand how there can be a rule about it. How do you really judge that a particular system is being applied at any particular moment? And surely it can't have been the case that if X goes past A, that B can't leave his man and go and tackle X? And am I to understand that before zonal was allowed, then you couldn't have a defender in a kind of "sweeper" role (to borrow a term from football) who might wait at the back under the basket to read the game and then get involved wherever he was needed... or simply wait at the back and be the last man defending the goal, whatever direction the final attack arrived from?

 

[luka]

that is actually an interesting question. seems weird to think of a game where you are almost literally tethered to your opposite number but apparently that's how it was

How the NBA learned to love zone defense

For years, the NBA outlawed zone defense. But it’s become an essential part of teams’ defensive strategy – and, as Stan Van Gundy says, ‘it’s probably made the game better’

www.theguardian.com

 

[linebaugh]

that seems about right rich.

I dont know the awnser exactly but I think zone defenses werent allowed because the skill level was pretty low back then and you could effectively eliminate the offense of most players, even the stars, if you could crowd the paint and it made for a boring product. even as recently as 10 or so years ago it wasnt uncommon to have multiple guys on the court with zero ball skills so I imagine it was much worse in the 80's.

 

[linebaugh]

and I dont know how much this has an effect on the actual nba rules but I think if you were to play a zone defense in a pick up game youd get laughed at and even piss off the other team. man to man coverage is for whatever reason the games 'natural' mode