2006 - 2007 NBA Season Discussion Thread

[Assani Fisher]

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Heh, Rocket-Suns box score, Spurs-Grizz box score. Anyone notice a difference? I'm not blaming Pop, but that is kinda sucky for the Memphis fans who get to see like eight good home games a year. By the way, I thought they couldn't just move players on and off the IR that easily without it being retroactive. I mean, Parker, Ginobili, and Duncan played yesterday.

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James White leading the spurs, NBDL > NBA

[/ QUOTE ]went to HS with him for a year...could dunk from the FT line in HS...pretty sick.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzeAcPik4_s

jesus you weren't kidding. how have i not heard of this guy? he makes gerald green look unathletic. that freethrow line two handed double pump might be the hottest dunk i've ever seen.

does this guy have any game?

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In HS, always thought he would be a huge star. Had a pretty unremarkable career in college, first at Florida and then at Cincy. Hes pretty buried on the depth chart now. I only played with ever as a freshman, so I'm not really sure how his game has developed since then.

[kbfc]

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They only played Detroit once after the all star game. The other game was just before the all star stretch, and right after SA had been thumped badly by PHX and Miami.

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My mistake. I remembered that Nets game just prior to it as being a 180 degree turn in the season. I thought it was just after the break.

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Their "absurd" point differential during that stretch includes getting thumped by double digits twice by such noted powers as Milwaukee and Boston (at home no less). As you said, they played a bunch of cupcakes and went on a nice streak. PHX and Dallas have better records and better streaks this year.

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Thu 15 at Milwaukee L 90-101
Sat 17 Boston L 85-91

It's not just that they beat the cupcakes, but they were winning by something like 20 points on average. The Spurs have by FAR the best PD in the league, and that is despite having only the 3rd best record, playing a slow pace, and not bothering to show up for half the season.

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The problem is that SA suffers from the apparent strategic mismatches. They played PHX for 149 minutes this season, and 103 minutes were on their own court, and still they got outscored. Add in three points by switching one game to Phoenix they lose the season series.

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A) I don't think it works quite that way.

B) SA is not the same team as they were up until that Miami game.

[kbfc]

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In the 10 games before the SA game they went 6-4, including getting blown out 3 times which happen to be their only 3 blow outs of the season. Sure they shot an incredible clip and ran Dallas out of the court, but I pretty much expected that since Phoenix needed the game so much more and were at home, and once again I don't base everything off of one game.

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That's cherry picking a bit. 2 of those were the at the very beginning of that sample, 3 weeks earlier, and against a good DET and a 44/15 game from AI on back-to-back nights. Go back 2 more games and you have them blowing out HOU and that crazy 2OT win over DAL.

The other one is the GS game that I've already talked about. In that GS game, the Warriors did have a good shooting night, but they also managed to play some defense. (Baron Davis to the rescue) In the first 3 quarters, PHX scored only 86pts, despite it being one of the fastest paced games in the NBA this year.

You are correct about that Dallas game, though. That is definitely an example of a team just making every jumpshot they take from anywhere on the court, and not particularly representative of anything. Some games are like that. Others are not.

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Parker is the only one that is better. Something overlooked is Mohammed, Horry, and Bowen all had a drastic impact on that series. Two of them won't have that same impact cause of age and the other one is gone. Also, the suns only had 2 players show up that series, that won't happen again as they are a much better team.

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Parker being better is a pretty huge deal.

Also, I don't agree that Bowen is worse. The opposite is true. He's still a lockdown defender, still shoots lights out from his 3pt spots, but he's actually added a little dribble-midrange shot now that he uses quite effectively to keep teams honest defending his 3pt shot.

Finley might not be the Finley of 5 years ago, but he's still a huge upgrade over what the Spurs had 2 years ago in his spot (hint: they didn't have anyone).

Mohammed was very valuable on the defensive end......regardless of who was on offense at the time.....I don't know that I've seen any other player in the league drop that many passes when he's sitting wide-open under the basket.

[DesertCat]

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???
Thu 15 at Milwaukee L 90-101
Sat 17 Boston L 85-91


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Point being if they were playing so well why did they get stomped in the middle of their streak by these two horrible teams, one at home.

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It's not just that they beat the cupcakes, but they were winning by something like 20 points on average. The Spurs have by FAR the best PD in the league, and that is despite having only the 3rd best record, playing a slow pace, and not bothering to show up for half the season.


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That's a good argument, but point differential can also be driven by the quality of your competition. During their streak it seems very weak.

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The problem is that SA suffers from the apparent strategic mismatches. They played PHX for 149 minutes this season, and 103 minutes were on their own court, and still they got outscored. Add in three points by switching one game to Phoenix they lose the season series.

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A) I don't think it works quite that way.


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It does. To beat a team you have to outscore them. Phoenix has done a better job outscoring SA than SA has done to PHX this year.

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B) SA is not the same team as they were up until that Miami game.

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Why? Why isn't it just a stretch of cupcake competition? What happened that suddenly made them better? You keep asserting they've become better but haven't given any evidence other than beating bad teams.

[kbfc]

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Point being if they were playing so well why did they get stomped in the middle of their streak by these two horrible teams, one at home.

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Letdowns happen. Also quirky variance things like this:
MIL vs SA
39-73 53.4% FG
8-18 44.4% 3pt FG (despite Redd going 0/3)
15-18 83.3% FT

SA vs BOS
1-17 5.9% 3pt FG.


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That's a good argument, but point differential can also be driven by the quality of your competition. During their streak it seems very weak.

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So why didn't PHX run up as impressive a PD total? They've had the same opportunities to.

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A) I don't think it works quite that way.

It does. To beat a team you have to outscore them. Phoenix has done a better job outscoring SA than SA has done to PHX this year.


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You don't just tack on 3pts to the final score regardless of what happened in the game. I've already made it clear that I don't consider anything the Spurs did up through the MIA game to be particularly relevant. That unfortunately leaves us with a small, but still interesting sample of 1 game. Luckily, we should get another 6 or 7 games in a few weeks.

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B) SA is not the same team as they were up until that Miami game.

Why? Why isn't it just a stretch of cupcake competition? What happened that suddenly made them better? You keep asserting they've become better but haven't given any evidence other than beating bad teams.

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Well, Pop did give some steaming mad press conference after the MIA game, skewering his team, particularly for its defense, and said that a lot was going to change. I don't know how much any of these media blowups mean, but 2 nights later they blew out the Nets by 25 on the road, and haven't looked back since.

In terms of cupcakiness, here are their games vs playoff teams (or potential in the case of LAC and GS):

Tue 13 at New Jersey W 107-82
Wed 14 at Detroit W 90-81
Tue 20 Denver W 95-80
Mon 26 Toronto W 107-91
Fri 2 Orlando W 98-74
Sat 3 at Houston W 97-74
Mon 5 at LA Clippers W 88-74 (i sat behind the spurs bench at this game. yay.)
Sat 10 New Jersey W 93-77
Tue 13 LA Clippers W 93-84
Fri 23 Detroit W 90-89 (another nice one where they stopped playing in the 4th almost giving it away)
Mon 26 at Golden State W 126-89
Fri 30 Utah W 102-93
Thu 5 Phoenix W 92-85
Sat 7 Golden State W 112-99
Sun 15 at Dallas L 86-91 (let's just say this one was slightly suspect....)

Doing the math in my head, I get something like a +13.5 point differential against just playoff opponents since that date. This includes a game where they lost to Joey Crawford (and oddly, even though the game didn't mean anything, both teams were playing hard). That is simply nuts.

[hmohnphd]

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The problem is that SA suffers from the apparent strategic mismatches. They played PHX for 149 minutes this season, and 103 minutes were on their own court, and still they got outscored. Add in three points by switching one game to Phoenix they lose the season series.

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A) I don't think it works quite that way.


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It does. To beat a team you have to outscore them. Phoenix has done a better job outscoring SA than SA has done to PHX this year.


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WTF are you talking about? You keep on bragging about Phoenix "outscoring" SA over the course of the season series. You don't get a gold star for "outscoring" someone over the course of several games, regardless of the individual game results.

[DesertCat]

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WTF are you talking about? You keep on bragging about Phoenix "outscoring" SA over the course of the season series. You don't get a gold star for "outscoring" someone over the course of several games, regardless of the individual game results.

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Winning a series 2-1 when you had two home games and required overtime to win one of those isn't worth a gold star either. The Suns clearly dominated the Spurs this year and the total stats show that.

[DesertCat]

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So why didn't PHX run up as impressive a PD total? They've had the same opportunities to.



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I don't know the relative strength of their schedules, so I can't answer that question. Phoenix ran up a more impressive record overall though. Phoenix had some tough games with Nash out as well. I think you need to show the relative strength of schedule to justify their point differential. Hanging a bunch of 30 pt victories against bad teams and struggling against good teams can still give you a good point differential.


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Well, Pop did give some steaming mad press conference after the MIA game, skewering his team, particularly for its defense, and said that a lot was going to change. I don't know how much any of these media blowups mean, but 2 nights later they blew out the Nets by 25 on the road, and haven't looked back since.


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This doesn't really explain anything. It's the same team all year. I can clearly point to Nash's injury & Amare's slow start as reasonably costing PHX the best record, and as a good reason why they'll play well in the playoffs.

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In terms of cupcakiness, here are their games vs playoff teams (or potential in the case of LAC and GS):


Thu 1 at Phoenix L 87-103
Fri 9 at Orlando L 104-106
Sun 11 at Miami L 85-100

Tue 13 at New Jersey W 107-82
Wed 14 at Detroit W 90-81
Tue 20 Denver W 95-80
.... etc


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You are arbitrarily cutting off three games when they were the same exact team. And you include a bunch of sub 500 eastern teams that wouldn't be playoff teams except the east sucks.

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Cupcake Games
Tue 13 at New Jersey W 107-82
Tue 20 Denver W 95-80
Mon 26 Toronto W 107-91
Fri 2 Orlando W 98-74
Mon 5 at LA Clippers W 88-74 (i sat behind the spurs bench at this game. yay.)
Sat 10 New Jersey W 93-77
Tue 13 LA Clippers W 93-84
Mon 26 at Golden State W 126-89
Sat 7 Golden State W 112-99



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These are all mediocre teams played on the road, or okay teams played at home. Far from tough games.

[SammyKid11]

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This doesn't really explain anything. It's the same team all year. I can clearly point to Nash's injury & Amare's slow start as reasonably costing PHX the best record,


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And I can clearly point to several players' slow starts and Josh Howard's missing 11 games (along with several other key contributors missing time) as the reasons why Dallas isn't going for wins number 72 and 73 the next two nights. Everybody has reasons they haven't won more games...and that's exactly why all teams don't win more games...because of the reasons why they don't.

But the Mavs already have the ninth-most wins in the history of the NBA, and if they win two more, I believe that number goes to fourth-most ever. Let's not question who the best team of the regular season was. Nothing outweighed anything else to where a team that will win 66, 67, or 68 games "lucked" into the best record because of a slow start by a center or some missed games by an admittedly great point guard.

[Artdogg]

sammykid,

The mavs have been the healthiest team all season

kbfc,

You keep dismissing 70% of the season for the Spurs like they didn't care or something. Well I'm telling you from watching the Suns every night that the second they had that letdown game against the Pistons they looked bored with the reg season, as the 1 seed had finally become out of reach. Then as the Spurs got closer and closer the Suns started playing a little better ball, then like I said the Spurs/Suns game lost a lot of its importance when the Spurs dropped that game to the Pacers. I still can't believe you are putting that much stock into one game. If the Spurs destroy the Suns it's different, if they win in PHX it's different, but none of those things happened.