Clippers got em right where they want them.
Any word on KL or CP coming back? Those two back would really make this a classic series.
Any word on KL or CP coming back? Those two back would really make this a classic series.
2021 NBA Playoffs Gamethread
- Thread starter JohnnyTheBone
- Start date
Agreed. Great design and execution. Everything had to be perfect, and it was.
And no member of the media will dare ask Lue whether he was doing that intentionally.
Good job by Monty and his staff catching the Clippers shenanigans with the subs and calling them on it.
They had already had a long review before that, how long do you think they needed to come up with a full court heave?
Yup, it turns out that being really bad for really long means you get a lot of bites at the apple, pick-wise. Then once you finally bink a few with Booker, Ayton, have a couple of the late lottery wings develop ok, you add in a few vets and you're good to go.
The Celtics are going to be following nearly this exact blueprint, or trying to.
Oh wow, didn't realize they had run literally exactly that in the same situation before.
4 years ago I think.
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https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/nba/suns/2017/12/26/suns-beat-grizzlies-tyson-chandlers-last-second-dunk/983465001/
“It was kind of crazy,” Dragan Bender said.
The play is designed for the inbounds passer, in this case Bender, to try to throw the ball into the basket, only for center Tyson Chandler to tip it in. The beauty of the play: There’s no goaltending on an inbounds pass.
“It’s a rule that a lot of people don’t know,” Triano said.
Hey, how many times did the Pats run that same 2 point conversion play where Kevin Faulk/Danny Woodhead/Shane Vereen/James White took a direct snap from center after Brady faked receiving the snap? Worked a lot!
Any idea how the tv ratings were? That seems like a terrible way to keep casual fans invested. But I feel the NCAA Tournament has always been very slow at the end of games and that is hugely popular.
If it's causing viewers to tune out, the league needs to fix the system during the offseason. I'd like them to fix it regardless, I hate watching officials stare at screens for minutes on end...put in a 24 second review clock, if it's indecisive after that the original call stands.
Overall these playoffs have been robust.
View: https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1407523269767532553?s=21
Unless I'm reading things incorrectly or they made a rule change, that play would be Basket Interference in a NCAA game. Their thinking is that BI is different from goaltending and with BI it doesn't matter how the ball got over the cylinder, it can't be touched by anyone.
Unless I'm reading things incorrectly or they made a rule change, that play would be Basket Interference in a NCAA game. Their thinking is that BI is different from goaltending and with BI it doesn't matter how the ball got over the cylinder, it can't be touched by anyone.
Really good article by Zach Lowe on Durant's incredible performance in the playoffs. Lowe mentions he is borderline Top 10 all-time for him, and Simmons said he moved him into his top 10, pushing him past Hakeem. I'll go as far as say that I think Durant is better than Kobe.
https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/31688736/nba-playoffs-2021-kevin-durant-jaw-dropping-playoffs-answered-perhaps-season-biggest-question
https://www.espn.com/nba/insider/story/_/id/31688736/nba-playoffs-2021-kevin-durant-jaw-dropping-playoffs-answered-perhaps-season-biggest-question
It generally comes down to how we rank peak vs. the counting/longevity stuff, but I can't remember anyone having a better individual playoff at both ends. He's absurd.
There’s nothing else on (other than hockey) that’s live (or that people watch live)
Different tv environment with DVR and streaming
Don’t run this take by anyone living in California. Lakers fans still have him #2 all time .
I live in Los Angeles. I only whisper it. (And you're wrong: they have him no. 1).
Wrt Kobe vs Durant, the only real arguments for Kobe are based on accolades and championships. Championships are definitely a valid data point for a star player in basketball, as opposed to baseball where individuals can’t singlehandedly carry a team, but even so IMO Durant is clearly a better player than Kobe, and anyone saying otherwise is just saying so because of the wrongheaded idea that Kobe is a top 3 or so player ever (way too many people believe this)
If you're being fair to Kobe in the "peak" comparison, you'd wipe out his rookie season (which equates to Durant's freshman year at Texas) and measure through his first ~ 880 games, which I think would take you through 2009 or so. It's closer at that point (and, of course, Kobe still had some great seasons and one more ring to go), but I think Durant's 880 games is a little better.
Totally fair to include championships in one's reckoning of greatness, but that's also why there's always such spirited debates on these subjects. Was just talking with my son this past week about where Durant fits and where CP3 fits (among point guards). We end up on a tangent of where Stockton and Malone fit at their positions and whether you hold their lack of titles against them. Does Wilt get dinged for a shortage of titles, relative to his greatness? Jerry West (who still has the record for finals lost iirc)? And wrt Malone, how much of his rep is based on accumulation?
Kobe is by far the most polarizing of these figures, as some folks won't have him in top 10 all time at all, and some have him near the top.
Yeah, didn’t think that even a debate. Statistically it’s not that close, so we’re left with Kobe’s dubious “clutchness” in his column. But even by the tired and rather silly “who do you want taking the last shot?” measure … is that even a debate?
I think Steph’s clearly ahead of Kobe, too (trying as best I can to take my obvious bias out of it). Steph crushes him by stats, plus was/is a sui generis game-changer, whereas Kobe was a remarkably good imitation of a better player (who happens to be the GOAT, but still).
Harden v. Kobe seems like more of a debate, since at least you get stats on one side of the ledger and clutchness/ringzz on the other.
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I don't know if I'd bump him past Hakeem. Hakeem was a destructive defensive force during an era when a rim-protecting big was the most valuable role in basketball. Durant can be a very good defensive player when he's engaged but he doesn't have anything close to Hakeem's impact on that end.
I realize this is a tough loss since you’re shitting on the Suns playing without CP3, but there’s nothing wrong with the rule. It is what it is. If you defend it better that doesn’t happen. If the ball goes in without being touched, it’s a turnover. Pretty simple.
I wouldn’t want the league to make a rule change which would lead to fewer opportunities for exciting things to happen, especially when the rule as is isn’t causing any problems.
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Yep. That's a cherry picked stat. I would say that interest in the league is as low as it has been since the post Jordan, pre Lebron years (Spurs 1.0).
It's a complicated argument. I agree that Hakeem was a dominant force at both ends and deserves proper recognition. The game he played was very different than Durant, which in the end makes these kind of arguments fruitless.
Kobe vs Durant is a fairer debate since they are somewhat similar players. Kobe has the RINGZ which allows him to be in a lot of Top 10 arguments, and he had good longevity, but I also think Kobe's first three rings have to come with a bit of an asterisk, since he clearly was not the best player on those teams and shared the floor with the most dominant player in the NBA. It is similar to Kyrie on the Cavs; yes he was a very good player but he doesn't sniff a ring if he wasn't playing with LeBron.
Durant's career will be hard to evaluate given that perhaps his only two rings came when he joined the Warriors. I do think Durant forming superteams has kind of masked the fact that he at some point surpassed LeBron as the best player in the league, so in some ways he is underrated.
I don't know how old you are, but as someone who bore witness to the entirety of Karl Malone's career, I feel that it incumbent upon me (and fellow witnesses) to advise those younger than us that Karl Malone was a great player but Karl Malone had a tendency to come up small when it really mattered and Karl Malone's MVP over Jordan was a joke when it happened.
Also, Karl Malone tended to refer to himself as Karl Malone.
While I not big on trying to rank players all-time, I'm with you. Not to take anything away from KD, who was certainly the best player in the playoffs, Hakeem could do more. Plus, below is a list of teammates with whom Hakeem played more than 20 playoff games. Not exactly a group of guys that strike fear in other teams. And other than Ralph, the other big names (Drexler, Barkley, etc.) came at the tail ends of their careers. The two teams that won B2B were among the least talented NBA champions of all time.
Mario Elie
Kenny Smith
Robert Horry
Sam Cassell
Clyde Drexler
Otis Thorpe
Vernon Maxwell
Rodney McCray
Robert Reid
Jim Petersen
Allen Leavell
Ralph Sampson
Matt Bullard
Mitchell Wiggins
Chucky Brown
Carl Herrera
Charles A. Jones
Lewis Lloyd
Charles Barkley
Steve Harris
Sleepy Floyd
Matt Maloney
Eddie Johnson
Kevin Willis
Pete Chilcutt
Buck Johnson
I don't think there is any real evidence that interest in the NBA is low. It's one of the fastest growing international sports, and domestically it seems to be doing well. People using TV ratings at all are missing the point, yes Cuban is pointing to a cherry picked stat, but so are most people arguing that interest is down, and honestly Cuban's cherry picked stat is more useful than pure ratings. The article that started the conversation has some nice info on measuring audiences. We can't tell for sure, but I would guess NBA interest is the highest it's ever been because of the global growth. If I were investing in an American sports league it would be the NBA
Probably, you;d need to see the rule interpretations to see if they consider an inbound a live ball, might be an exception that isn't clear via rulebook
I agree with your general point (although Hakeem won his titles in years where the league was relatively low in talent compared to other eras, including today) but Clyde Drexler was a very good #2 on the second title team, he averaged 21-7-5, shot the ball well (50% from the floor,36% from three, which was good back then) and was a strong and disruptive defender. He averaged a 22-10-7 in the sweep of Orlando.
The worst supporting cast for a title team in modern history is the 2003 Spurs; that was a 25 win team without Duncan.
. . . who was also gross to Vanessa Bryant. https://www.espn.com/nba/news/story?id=1944994
Yeah, Malone is among my least favorite stars in the NBA firmament for many reasons.
I don't think Kobe vs. Durant is all that close, mainly because Durant's TS% (even after adjusting for era) is so much better than Kobe's. Kobe was probably a better passer/creator, but Durant is so much more efficient as a scorer that I don't think it can make up the difference on offense. And Durant is certainly much more portable/scalable because he can play off-ball in ways Kobe could not.
It’s a good point — Steph and Harden crush Kobe offensively, but Kobe (when motivated) was a way more impactful defender than either. On the other hand: basketball is played 5-on-5; and the fact that guys like Steph and Nash (and Harden to a degree) can be your primary ballhandler allows you to surround them with long defenders, whereas Kobe always needed a little guy like Fisher on the floor with him to take the regular ballhandling duties. In terms of *overall* impact (O + D), the numbers suggest Kobe didn’t rack up wins for his team at quite the level of Steph or Harden, great as he was.
Durant v. Kobe is more apples-to-apples, since both were pure wings who could be really lockdown defenders when motivated. Without getting too into the defensive metrics, I’d take peak Durant defensively over peak Kobe due to his ability to guard the perimeter reasonably well while also defending the rim and handling skilled bigs like AD, Love, Aldridge, et al. And offensively, it’s KD over Kobe all day, imo.
I mean, Zubac could also have legally taken it out of the cylinder — since it’s not a legal bucket even if it goes in — so it’s not like the rule is unfair to the defending team. Indeed, Zubac was a fingertip away from knocking it away. Just a fantastically exciting play…
Kobe and Durant had very different approaches to the game. Both guys were extremely competitive and were ruthless bullies when they had to be (Kobe understood this probably from birth, it took Durant a little while to get there) but Kobe was a very selfish player who wanted to win, but always convinced himself that him taking all the shots was the best way to win. Durant had an understanding that he didn't need to take all the shots to win, and in some ways was too differential in OKC; if he had a bit more Kobe in him he might have wrested more control from Westbrook and won something in OKC. This current incarnation of Durant feels like the best version because he developed that alpha streak and combined it with his unselfish understanding of team success.
Cherry picked stat or not, what is your evidence that league interest is at an all time low? Ratings seem to vacillate based on the teams involved but overall the NBA seems very heathy.
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94-95 weren't that low in talent, other than Jordan being gone. The real drought was more in the 1997-2002ish period. In 1994, Houston beat Portland (who had made the finals in 92), Phoenix (who had made the finals in 93 with Barkley, KJ, Majerle ), Utah (with Malone, Stockton, Hornacek), the Knicks (with Ewing, Starks, Oakley). None of the stars on the teams Houston beat were over 31.
in 1995, Houston beat Utah again, Phoenix again, San Antonio (with Robinson, Rodman, Elliott), and Orlando (with Shaq, Penny, and Horace Grant).
Hakeem's line in those two playoff runs: 30.9 ppg/10.7 rbg/4.4 apg, on .563 TS%, with 3.4 bgp/1.5 spg.
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As Mustapha Mond tells John in Brave New World, “‘But you’ve got to stick to one set of postulates. You can’t play Electro-magnetic Golf according to the rules of Centrifugal Bumble-puppy.’” It’s a bit unfair to employ 2021 notions of analytics to reward current players and devalue former ones who operated in a different paradigm. I’m a Celtics fan, and it makes me feel dirty to defend Kobe Bryant, but any numbers that suggest that his all-around game was less than Steph Curry and James Harden would make me question the usefulness of those metrics for comparing players across eras.
Curry is essentially the reason why the game changed. It's like arguing that Wilt wasn't the all-around player that George Mikan was.
It’s really not like that at all. Mikan changed the game as much as anybody (widened lane, three second call, etc.) even if we don’t remember it because it happened a generation earlier. Kobe just happened to dominate his era in a way that neither Curry nor Harden has, including 15 All-NBA teams (11 1st) compared to their 7 and 12 All-Defensive selections (9 1st) contrasted with their zero collectively.
I give zero credit to pre-analytics era All-defense teams, half of them were like Jeter's gold gloves. Bryant was not an elite defender he had a few good defensive seasons, but overall he was more of a solid defender than All-League.
I mean, they overlapped for seven seasons. It’s not like they’re completely different eras.
Are scoring volume, scoring efficiency, rebound rate, assist rate, and steal rate useless metrics in your view? Because Curry and Harden beat Kobe by those measures almost across the board — especially efficiency, where they completely crush him, even if you adjust for era. Advanced stats that measure on-court impact tell a similar story. And the margin widens a bit when you look at their playoff stats.
Here’s just Steph v. Kobe in the playoffs for their careers:
Curry (in 37.8 mpg)
26.5 pts on .609 true shooting
5.4 reb
6.3 ast
1.6 stl
+8.3 on court
+12.4 net on-off
77-35 record (.688)
Bryant (in 39.3 mpg)
25.6 pts on .541 true shooting
5.1 reb
4.7 ast
1.4 stl
+3.3 on court
+7.6 net on-off
135-85 record (.617)
(I know you said you wouldn’t listen to any numbers that suggest Kobe is less great than Steph … just putting ‘em out there.)