NBA All-Kobe game 2020 (all-star game discussion)

Cesar Crespo

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That was great. Should make it so it can't end on a FT, though
How would you do that tho? The other problem I can see with this is if it were like a 65-63 game after 3 and it took them like 25 minutes of on court play to score 24 or 26 points.
 

Kliq

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Overall the gimmick worked. However the idea of the Elam ending is that it prevents the end of games from being foul-fests but tonight the last “minute” of the game took about 15 due to fouling.
 

GoDa

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The point is to stop intentional fouling to prolong games - not stop fouls.

I thought that last quarter was great.
 

The Social Chair

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Watching Embiid look off Giannis twice to bully his way to an almost turnover made me very sympathetic to Simmons.
 

Cesar Crespo

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The whole "game can't end on a FT' would just lead to never ending games where teams keep fouling each other. Curious how people would try to work around that.
 

The Social Chair

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Brad Stevens is texting fuck off to Nurse for playing Kemba 43 minutes in the 4th qt when he had Butler and Young on the bench. Still cant believe Butler wasnt out there.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Overall the gimmick worked. However the idea of the Elam ending is that it prevents the end of games from being foul-fests but tonight the last “minute” of the game took about 15 due to fouling.
Both teams were playing G7 defense down the stretch. When this happens there are going to be fouls.

I hate that the game ended on a FT as well but you have certain rules of the game and one of them is that Kyle Lowry isn’t allowed to make tackles better than most of the XFL players today.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Brad Stevens is texting fuck off to Nurse for playing Kemba 43 minutes in the 4th qt when he had Butler and Young on the bench. Still cant believe Butler wasnt out there.
Butler just returned from injury last game. I’d guess he had an agreed upon minutes restriction entering the game.
 

Pablo's TB Lover

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Kemba almost got killed when it was around 150 each also, I flinched after he went for the loose ball and wound up in LeBron's bench. No whistle of course. Limited exposure to potential injury would be nice, but it seems the coaches said the starting 5 are playing out the 4th. At least Tatum got a rest.
 

Soxfan in Fla

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That 4th quarter was fun as hell. I hope they keep doing this format. I thought 24 points was going to be gobbled up quick in an all star game. The red team didn’t even get to 24.
 

lovegtm

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They got players to try in the All-Star game. Never thought I’d live to see the day.

The fact that people even care about the fact it ended on a FT tells you all you need to know about the format.

Massive success—I’d be surprised if we don’t see it in summer league soon and then G League for further testing. If they do that mid-season tourney I have to think they’d use it there also.

Easy tweak I saw on Twitter for the FT ending thing: just have FTs subtract a point from the other team’s score.
 

Kliq

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The best resolution I have seen for the FT thing is that if you commit a defensive foul, you have to play the rest of the possession AND your next offensive possession down a man, like a power play in hockey.

The gimmick worked in that it made the players care which was tremendous. I don't think it really solved any issues with the end of games taking forever.
 

singaporesoxfan

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The best resolution I have seen for the FT thing is that if you commit a defensive foul, you have to play the rest of the possession AND your next offensive possession down a man, like a power play in hockey.

The gimmick worked in that it made the players care which was tremendous. I don't think it really solved any issues with the end of games taking forever.
I didn’t mind the end of the game taking forever because both teams were going hard and were relatively evenly matched. I don’t like intentional foul fests but this was thoroughly enjoyable
 

lovegtm

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The best resolution I have seen for the FT thing is that if you commit a defensive foul, you have to play the rest of the possession AND your next offensive possession down a man, like a power play in hockey.

The gimmick worked in that it made the players care which was tremendous. I don't think it really solved any issues with the end of games taking forever.
The issue isn’t that the end of games takes a long time; it’s that that time is spent fouling, taking timeouts to advance the ball, and shooting FTs. No one has a problem if it takes a bit longer because the leading team gets tight and can’t hit a shot—that’s just good drama.

I’m not clamoring to introduce this format for normal games, but I’d definitely like to see it in summer league to get a more nuanced feel for its strengths and weaknesses.
 

Kliq

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Eh, let us not overreact. It is the NBA, if Kemba was afraid he was going to get hurt he would have just been asked to get taken out and nobody would have said anything. He wanted to be out there, on the floor with the most elite players in the game, in an intense finish to the game. He isn't fragile, and he doesn't appear to be injured coming out of the game, and he will have until Friday to recover. It was a good sign to me that Kemba was on the floor in crunch time last night, look at who he was sharing the court with.
 

TripleOT

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One way to try to not have a FT end the game would be to have the first non-shooting foul in a final possession be a side out, with a new 24 second clock, and if a second non-shooting foul was committed, then a FT can win it.

I loved this format. It would be interesting to see it implemented in the regular season. It makes every single fourth quarter possession important, as well as the ones at the end of the third.

It was probably not a good idea for the blue team to play the final quarter with only one player willing to take an outside shot.
 

The Social Chair

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One way to try to not have a FT end the game would be to have the first non-shooting foul in a final possession be a side out, with a new 24 second clock, and if a second non-shooting foul was committed, then a FT can win it.

I loved this format. It would be interesting to see it implemented in the regular season. It makes every single fourth quarter possession important, as well as the ones at the end of the third.

It was probably not a good idea for the blue team to play the final quarter with only one player willing to take an outside shot.
How about free throws, with under 6 points to go, subtract points from the other team?
 

Kliq

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One way to try to not have a FT end the game would be to have the first non-shooting foul in a final possession be a side out, with a new 24 second clock, and if a second non-shooting foul was committed, then a FT can win it.

I loved this format. It would be interesting to see it implemented in the regular season. It makes every single fourth quarter possession important, as well as the ones at the end of the third.

It was probably not a good idea for the blue team to play the final quarter with only one player willing to take an outside shot.
I think you mean the Red team. A big reason Kemba was out there was due to spacing, with Giannis, Embiid and Siakam on the floor they pretty much had to have Kemba and Lowry out there, especially if Butler couldn't really play. Trae is too much of a defensive liability.

I felt like down the stretch Team Giannis tried too hard to exploit matchups instead of going with a more free-flowing offense. A lot of Embiid/Siakam pounding the ball into the ground and shooting hard post-shots while Team LeBron fouled them (some called, some not).
 

HomeRunBaker

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Gobert rotted on the bench with Embiid and Lowry playing the entire fourth quarter. Goofy coaching.
Weren’t they two of Team G’s most effective players though? Lowry took two key charges and gave them someone to matchup with Kemba while Team B couldn’t contain Embiid offensively in the paint. It wasn’t like there wasn’t a strategy behind it. In the end we are forgetting one important fact......it’s an exhibition game. It was fun even if it ended on a FT off an intentional takedown. Had it ended on an uncontested Davis dunk would that really have changed anything?
 

Dollar

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And if they need 3 and get a 2 plus 1? Nothing works.
Any potential game-winning free throw attempt is replaced by a one-on-one possession with each team choosing their representative and 10 seconds on the shot clock.
 

lovegtm

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Having thought about it, I feel like we're making wayyyy too much out of the "ending on a FT" thing. There was pretty good drama after AD missed the first FT, and some very memorable NBA moments have involved missed FTs (Nick Anderson).

We're losing sight of the fact that they made the All-Star game intense, without it feeling gimmicky. That's crazy. Worrying about the FT thing is like complaining about the mole on a supermodel.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Having thought about it, I feel like we're making wayyyy too much out of the "ending on a FT" thing. There was pretty good drama after AD missed the first FT, and some very memorable NBA moments have involved missed FTs (Nick Anderson).

We're losing sight of the fact that they made the All-Star game intense, without it feeling gimmicky. That's crazy. Worrying about the FT thing is like complaining about the mole on a supermodel.
I had a friend we grew up with. On a Vegas trip in our 20's he managed to engage the 8 of us in a heavy drunken debate in the Stardust Sport & Race Book about how he couldn't ever date Cindy Crawford because of her mole. Nice flashback just now LOL!!
 

Jimbodandy

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Weren’t they two of Team G’s most effective players though? Lowry took two key charges and gave them someone to matchup with Kemba while Team B couldn’t contain Embiid offensively in the paint. It wasn’t like there wasn’t a strategy behind it. In the end we are forgetting one important fact......it’s an exhibition game. It was fun even if it ended on a FT off an intentional takedown. Had it ended on an uncontested Davis dunk would that really have changed anything?
Yeah, I don't care who wins. I thought that Embiid was fine offensively and Lowry good defensely. I just wanted to see more players, particularly when the rim was pretty unprotected during the Blue comeback. I expected to see Gobert for that and someone fresher than Lowry for a bit. Riding anyone besides LBJ and Giannis with a bench of all stars--just found it odd. Kemba seemed to get too much run too.
 

mostman

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I had no issue with it ending on a FT. But I think that’s because the foul was very obviously a foul. What would concern me is a typically bad NBA foul call. In that case, the official is really just deciding the game. Maybe all fouls that could lead to the end of the game get an automatic review?
 

HomeRunBaker

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I had no issue with it ending on a FT. But I think that’s because the foul was very obviously a foul. What would concern me is a typically bad NBA foul call. In that case, the official is really just deciding the game. Maybe all fouls that could lead to the end of the game get an automatic review?
The officials were really letting them play physical in the paint. They would only blow the whistle on obvious fouls or clear blocking fouls when the offensive player had gained a clear advantage prior to contact. They seemed to understand the situation well but like you said you cannot let Lowry's takedown go.
 

lovegtm

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Weren’t they two of Team G’s most effective players though? Lowry took two key charges and gave them someone to matchup with Kemba while Team B couldn’t contain Embiid offensively in the paint. It wasn’t like there wasn’t a strategy behind it. In the end we are forgetting one important fact......it’s an exhibition game. It was fun even if it ended on a FT off an intentional takedown. Had it ended on an uncontested Davis dunk would that really have changed anything?
It’s also pretty hilarious that the guy Nurse rode the hardest to try and win an exhibition game was Kyle Lowry. Of course, that’s exactly what he’s been doing all regular season too.
 

lovegtm

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It’s a weird status quo bias that people are so concerned with an Elam Ending *possibly* ending on FTs when almost all close games now essentially end on FTs in a much, much, much more boring manner.

The Celtics-Clippers game was probably game of the year so far, and it ended with Gordon Hayward shooting a bunch of zero pressure FTs, with the result in 0 doubt.

In the ASG, AD was shooting a FT, where, if he missed, the other team would get the ball with the chance to win on any made basket.
 

InstaFace

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One way to try to not have a FT end the game would be to have the first non-shooting foul in a final possession be a side out, with a new 24 second clock, and if a second non-shooting foul was committed, then a FT can win it.
So if you're guarding a post player who's better than you, and the entry pass comes in for a bucket that could win it, you're going to foul the ever-loving fuck out of him rather than let him back you down or put up a hook to win it. That's going to further incent someone to foul, rather than increase the opportunity for there to be a game-winning basket, because they know they won't get another shot at it if they let it in.

(I agree that I loved the format too, though - we're just talking about tweaks on the periphery)

Look, if teams play it with full strategy, the Elam Ending doesn't eliminate tactical fouling at the end of the game. But it does reduce tactical fouling, which is itself an accomplishment. You'd only tactically foul, really, when the other team has possession and the ability to win the game on that possession. And some of that time, you'd just play defense straight up and hope you could get a stop. You would not follow the current MO, which is of course: if you're within a couple possessions with 30-60 seconds left, foul, hope they miss the FTs, take a timeout, advance the ball, put up a prayer, if you make it keep fouling and do it again. The latter is (imho) far uglier than anything that might result from an Elam Ending. Even though the All-Star game ended on a FT, the ending was anything but ugly, and the decisive foul call happened because Lowry was playing like he'd been possessed by the spirit of Marcus Smart - in short, playing his absolute ass off as he tried to defend Anthony fucking Davis in the post. He failed and lost the game, but there was drama right up to that final whistle (and even beyond that, as AD got super cocky and intentionally missed the first FT, which frankly is more badass than I would have expected out of him).

I don't think there's a way to further persuade a team that's defending on a possession that could lose them the game that they shouldn't tactically foul when they're about to give up a game-winning bucket. If we look to buzzer-beaters, they're almost always outside jumpers and the defense is just hoping that they miss (maybe to go to OT, maybe not). On an earlier possession that could have won it, Lebron took a 35-footer that would have brought the house down, and the shot was contested but not aggressively so. He missed, but those shots are going to be allowed. Where you might see a foul is on interior drives / layup attempts, and post-play entry passes where you might give up a dunk. Basically, on anything high-percentage, especially when you're beaten or have a mismatch. In those situations, if you foul, at least you have a chance that they'll miss. You don't have much of a chance if (say) Giannis gets to the point where he goes up for the dunk from 5 feet out.

Let's be satisfied with the improvement we're seeing, then, and not overly criticize the fact that it's not perfect. If Lebron hits that 35-footer, people are gushing over how awesome the format was. In my view, they should be gushing anyway.
 

benhogan

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The Elam ending was an interesting move and the NBA/players deserve credit for trying it out. Maybe use it in Vegas Summer League?

As far as FTs, the G-league has been experimenting with players only taking 1 FT but counting for 2pts. Not sure if it was mentioned above (I'm not an All-Star game fan in general so didn't peruse thread), but maybe that's an option for those looking to tweak the Elam format a bit more.