Two more retarded self-comforting NBA playoff cliches that need to go.

[midnightpulp]

"So and so just had a fluke game, we'll be alright."

Seeing a lot of this excuse upstairs. This has been a well worn platitude fans will often default to any time an unlikely hero emerges for the opposing team or if one of the opposing team's superstars plays well beyond his averages.

What no one ever seems to consider is that championship teams are able to engineer more of these "fluke" games than their opposition. Role players step up and superstars put up legendary performances at a greater frequency than their competition, and that's often what separates the champion from the runner ups.

"We've been to [insert number here] straight finals! We were fatigued and needed rest. That's the only reason you beat us!"

One fanbase likes to use this absurd excuse more than any other, but I'm sure other fanbases would use it as well if their team had the same success as the above fanbase's team.

Such a load of shit. If we're to give this excuse any credence at all we'd have to accept that world class, professional athletes couldn't recover after 4 months of off-season, an 82 game regular season, and not be in optimal shape by spring. The reasons most teams don't make 4, 5, 6 etc straight finals is because their veteran role-players (usually a feature of any championship team) age and see a decline in their production while other contending teams get better. It has nothing to do with being physically and mentally "burnt out." And if a professional basketball player can't handle the emotional and psychological challenge of consecutive finals or championship runs, then he's in the wrong fuckin' business.

[Reck]

I dont agree with the fluke games.

One thing is to step up and another whole different story when your big 3 which aren't known for shooting the ball well (outside of Ibaka) shoot the ball like the hoop is the size of the arena.

11/11 from Ibaka, 7/9 from Perkins and 4/5 from Collison. That shit its all fluke.

That's not stepping up, that's just one of those games.

[Floyd Pacquiao]

yep that was one of the flukiest games I've ever seen

[resistanze]

Yeah, I'd say it's a fluke game if Ibaka went 11/11 and Perkins went 7/19 IN SPITE of good defense. But the Spurs' defense was just plain pitiful. You play like that every game and those two will go off again.

[417]

Ibaka has some offensive talent. I doubt his game is a fluke.

[Reck]

how is it fluke when they are nba players known for their ability to hit the outside shot, and were WIDE ASS open?

put a hand up maybe?

Collison and Perkins are known for their ability to shoot it from outside? lulz

[midnightpulp]

I dont agree with the fluke games.

One thing is to step up and another whole different story when your big 3 which aren't known for shooting the ball well (outside of Ibaka) shoot the ball like the hoop is the size of the arena.

11/11 from Ibaka, 7/9 from Perkins and 4/5 from Collison. That shit its all fluke.

That's not stepping up, that's just one of those games.

Watch any championship run and you'll discover the championship team has more of "one of those games" than their opponents.

For the Spurs (off the top of my head):

Jaren Jackson: Game 3 against the Lakers in '99.

Steve Kerr: Game 6 against Dallas in '03.

Robert Horry: Game 6 against Detroit in '05.

That's what typically differentiates the champion from the contender. The champion has multiple guys that can come out of nowhere and burn you when you least expect it, or a superstar that can consistently exceed expectations.

In this series, Thabo had the "fluke" performance in game 3, Ibaka in game 4, and if the Thunder pulled out game 1, we can say Fisher's "fluke" game was the difference.

So far, outside of Parker in game 3, the Spurs haven't had a "fluke" game from one of their players. And that's my primary worry going forward. That OKC's players will have more of these "fluke" performances than the Spurs, because right now, SA's stars are under-performing and the role-players aren't stepping up beyond the call.

[Floyd Pacquiao]

ibaka had the fluke of all fluke games

[midnightpulp]

how is it fluke when they are nba players known for their ability to hit the outside shot, and were WIDE ASS open?

put a hand up maybe?

Duncan had to concede the outside shot and keep near the lane in the event Ibaka passes it off to a cutting Westbrook or Harden.

[midnightpulp]

collison sure is

Perkins, he didn't hit all of his from outside. He had the one jumper to start the game that was like 1 foot inside the ft line, it wasn't like a 19 footer or something. WIDE OPEN. most of his other shots were from inside, and dunks off durant/harden feeds.

Don't know what realistic changes the Spurs could have made to stop Perkins in that situation. Westbrook and Harden draw so much attention, there's usually a Thunder big open from the backdoor.

This team is simply an offensive juggernaut. The Lakers have one of the best defenses in the league and arguably the best interior defense, and the Thunder still averaged about 100 points against them.

[Latarian Milton]

spurs D was poor like shit last night tbh, those shots were even easier then free throws cuz they could lift their feel off the ground to release the ball at a better height, and they got 2pts from each shot as opposed to one

[midnightpulp]

Your defense was terrible last night, the thunder simply flubbed up numerous opportunities to blow that game wide open. I was pointing them out last night in the chat and everyone in there can vouch that i called it correctly in the 1st quarter, that the spurs would eventually come back to make it a game. The thunder were trying to choke it, not sure what game you were watching.

Most of those jumpers were not only uncontested, but there were major miscommunications on D were the guy shooting the ball didn't even have a man. The nearest spurs defender was 10 feet away on some of those ibaka/collison jumpers. Miscommunications like those are just bad defense.

I'm not talking about the overall defense, just the defense on Perkins. Since the Spurs are a team without a legitimate secondary defensive big/shot blocker, I'm not sure what they could've done differently to keep Perkins from being open underneath the rim or having a mismatch against Diaw inside. If they wanted to stop Perkins underneath, that would mean sagging even more off Ibaka and other OKC shooters.

Diaw and Duncan did fall asleep against Ibaka a couple of times, but the reason why Ibaka was so wide open is because the Spurs were concerned with shutting down penetration than with Ibaka burning them with 18 footers, which any coach would trade off if stops the drive.

Check out this clip at the 11 second and 40 second marks:

M0QneGV4k7A

Westbrook just beat Green and if Splitter doesn't help, Westbrook has a layup.

If Duncan stayed honest on Ibaka, Durant has a dunk. And I think anyone would rather give up the jumper than the dunk.

Ibaka stepped up. Kudos. But if the Spurs freak out and start playing him tight, the Thunder will destroy the Spurs with penetration. You simply can't give the Thunder that kind of spacing when they have speed demons like Westbrook and Harden, and Durant is pretty good on the drive as well.

But I do agree there were few lapses.

[midnightpulp]

So basically you're making excuses for the spurs defense, saying that Ibaka was so open because Splitter and others "had to step up" in order to stop penetration.

Either way, it's bad defense regardless of your reasoning for leaving a guy that wide open. If you can't stop penetration without giving up wide open 17 footers to good shooters then you're not going to get very far. That other spur fan was saying that it was a fluke game, I'm just pointing out why it wasn't a fluke at all. You leave Ibaka and Collison by themselves from 15-18, they're going to knock it down. You allow penetration leading to durant/harden dumping it off to Perkins for the dunk, then he's going to dunk the basketball.

You can count on this 9 times out of 10.

Penetration tends to leave shooters open, especially the opposing shooting big man, since his defender has to leave him to come help.

So what is Splitter supposed to do in that situation? Stay close to Ibaka, who's 18 from the basket, and let Westbrook drive for the uncontested layup?

I'm not suggesting at all the Spurs defense was optimal, there's always room for improvement and some of the close outs on Ibaka could have been quicker, but since the Spurs lack weakside shot-blocking, Ibaka's defender, whether that be Duncan or Splitter, has no choice but to leave him if Westbrook, Harden, or Durant beat their man. With the interior defenders the Spurs have, it's either contain the drive or give up 18 footers to Ibaka.

That's why the Mavs matched up so well last year. Dirk could stay with Ibaka and didn't have to leave him to help on penetration since Chandler was waiting there to challenge. Spurs have Diaw or Bonner in that role :lol

If Ibaka heats up again, I expect Pop to put Diaw on him, so Duncan can patrol the paint as a shotblocker. The only reason I can think of why Pop hasn't done this is because he didn't want to risk Duncan getting into foul trouble.

Spurs are going to pretty much and have to try to outscore OKC. They don't the horses to consistently keep them below 100.

[tesseractive]

So far, outside of Parker in game 3, the Spurs haven't had a "fluke" game from one of their players. And that's my primary worry going forward. That OKC's players will have more of these "fluke" performances than the Spurs, because right now, SA's stars are under-performing and the role-players aren't stepping up beyond the call.
Didn't Kawhi log an 18/10? And Ginobili came up huge early in the series after having a very quiet first two rounds.

I think the "random guy has a huge playoff game" phenomenon is mostly due to the fact that teams scheme to stop certain players, leaving other guys opportunities. The reason champion teams have more of these games is because they prove they can beat you with other guys and force their opponents to try something else. Teams that lose do it because their other players choke when given the chance.

The last two games, the Spurs role players have choked away their opportunities, while the Thunder players have shined. If that continues to be the case, I expect the Spurs will be going fishing real soon now. But the Thunder are also much better at home than on the road. So hopefully some proper home cooking will help the Spurs turn things around.

[DMC]

I've seen several cliches lately that are fallicious. "They just protected home court, like they're supposed to". Eventually someone has to win on the road else the other team wins. Both teams are supposed to win every game, one fails.

"They can't shoot like that in every game" They don't need to. They just need to do it a couple more times, but yes, they can.

"it was fairly called game, FTs were the same for both teams" that doesn't mean it was called correctly (nevermind fairly). One team can be overly aggressive and not pay for it, or one team can be overly passive and get called anyhow. No reason to use total attempts from the line as an indication of proper officiating.

There are others.

[DMC]

So many people think the box score tells the tale of the game. They ignore the fact that teams run certain plays or play certain guys based on foul calls and based on points deficits. You cannot ignore that.

Perkins might be in foul trouble by the 2nd half, but the total fouls might be even. That works against the Thunder but you cannot see it without knowing when it happened.

[midnightpulp]

So then stop penetration if you want to win. I said the spurs played horrible defense, and a big part of that is allowing penetration. Not sure why you're arguing with me there.


I don't think there's a team in existence (maybe aside from Miami) that can keep OKC out of the lane consistently. So the Spurs chose to pack the paint or help off Ibaka to keep Westbrook and Harden from a layup drill. The trade off worked to an extent since those were a combined 6-23, but Ibaka knocked down 6 jumpers.

My argument is basically that I think it's more about the Thunder stepping up than about what the Spurs did wrong. If Ibaka misses 2 jumpers and Durant doesn't go into god mode midway through the 4th, the Spurs would've been in great position to win the game.

The Spurs defense is mediocre (sometimes it's good) because of the lack a second shot blocker, so the Thunder are going to attack the rim with impunity, and because of that, the Spurs have to cheat off Ibaka to challenge. The crux of my argument, again, is that Spurs executed a pretty good defensive gameplan considering their limitations. Ibaka, wide open or not, going 6 for 6 on jumpers 15 feet and out is not a common occurrence for him or any other power forward/center for that matter. They similarly left him open in game 1 and he didn't burn them.



So again basically you are saying that Spurs perimeter defenders are getting beat, and spurs bigs were in scramble mode trying to stop penetration and also cover their men. That sounds like bad defense to me, I'm confused why you're arguing with me when it sounds like you are really agreeing.

The Spurs defense looked worse than it was because how hot Ibaka and Durant were. That's basically my argument. I'll take Westbrook and Harden going 6-23 any day of the week, even if it means giving Ibaka open jumpers. Props to him for seizing the moment, but I guarantee you he won't go 6-6 from 15-18 feet again. And if the Spurs start panicking and respecting him too much, OKC will have their own personal dunk contest.

[midnightpulp]

Ehhhh not gonna respond to all of that because basically you're going in circles. You keep making it seem like the spurs have to either give up wide open 15-18 footers, or they have to give up layups and there's just nothing else that can be done. If the only way you can stop the other team is to pack the paint and leave shooters wide ass open, which is what you ARE saying, then that's bad defense :lol. How could you seriously argue otherwise with a straight face?


The Spurs are actually an above average defensive team. A team with as many weapons as OKC is going to make them look bad at times, especially if you have a guy who's been quiet all series go 11-11. Against them, you have to give something up if you don't want them parading into the lane all game and converting or living at the line.

And packing the paint against penetration oriented teams is a proven and often viable defensive strategy. It's by no means "bad." Less than optimal, certainly, because you're leaving someone open. Mavs packed the paint last year against Miami to keep James and Wade at bay. They shut down the driving lanes, but conceded the open shot.

The Heat shot 38.8% from the field, making just 31 of 80 field goals. But they made 11 of 24 three-pointers for 45.8%.
James made 4 of 5 long-range shots. Reserve guard Mario Chalmers (FSY) converted 3 of 7 and reserve forward Mike Miller (FSY) hit 2 of 4.
"They play a lot of zone," James said of Dallas' 2-3 matchup. "The zone is to pack the paint and keep the drives out of the paint and dare us to shoot."

Dallas conceded the open 3, but took away Miami's primary method of attack. And I wouldn't say Dallas played "shit" defense against Miami. But if Miami got hot and nailed all their jumpers, Dallas's defense would look like shit on the surface, but in reality, it would be more about the other team just being hot than Dallas playing bad defense.



I'd suggest baiting Ibaka into a couple of bad shots early, and then close out hard. Make him miss a few and get out of rhythm, making them think you've changed your defense up then go back to packing the paint. Just close out better this time and give more effort and tenacity.

Sounds good. I agree that was the problem. The close-outs on Ibaka could've been much quicker. But I was happy with the overall gameplan. It just wasn't always executed properly.

[Stalin]

didn't read any of the essays, but it all boils down to, sometimes scrubs get hot in the playoffs at home, so tomorow, okc scrubs wil come down, and sa scrubs will shoot better