Rockets played a role but even the Warriors spurred on the Pringles' Rockets. I remember reading about how Pringles believed chucking up 3's could win a le after being able to sit in with Kerr and watch the Warriors up close during their first le run. He was able to sell that garbage to the Rockets ownership group and they bought it simply because of the Warriors success.
Celtics relying heavily on the 3 is one of the many reasons why they will never win a le. Both Tatum and Brown don't shoot high enough field goal percentage from 3 for it to ultimately work out for them. For example, Klay and Curry both shot above 40 percent from 3 during their le runs. Neither Tatum or Brown can hit that mark.
Last edited by daslicer; 06-13-2023 at 09:08 AM.
The rules were changed in the summer of 2015 to make the 3 pointer easier to shoot. Any attempt to fight thru a screen is an automatic foul call, so everything is now a switch. Big men couldn't handle the perimeter defense, so teams started playing only one, or none.
I remember the quote, how he felt validated. What totally escaped him was that the Warriors were a top 2 defense, in addition to the 2K offense.
Shooting lots of threes was a perfectly sound strategy for those Rockets. It got them to a 3-2 lead in the WCF, a very good result considering no other team took more than one game off the Warriors in a series that year. The Rockets missing 27 in a row in game 7 is not an indictment of the strategy.
Of course it's an indictment. After missing about 20 in a row, you need to figure something else out. Modern NBA: just keep flinging up threes. It's why Boston keeps cratering. Even Warriors at their best knew how to get scores when the deep bombs weren't falling.
I love watching the constant evolution of the NBA. There are always new tricks, strategies, and wrinkles to develop. No one five years ago said, "hey, why don't we try to find a 7' center who passes like Magic Johnson?! That would be cool." It'll be fascinating to see what people devise to try and stop Jokic-- maybe another stab at the twin tower concept, something like Wembanyama + a relatively mobile 7'er... I think people underestimate how tall Michael Porter Jr actually is-- just a hair under 6'11" in shoes, and he's their SF. His shooting mostly disappeared in the finals, but his rebounding numbers ed upwards, and despite not being a great defender, the Heat could rarely isolate him for an advantage because of his huge height advantage over all of their wings.
Exactly... Boston looks like they modeled their game after Harden/Morey Houston teams... GS looks like they modeled their game after the 2014 Spurs..... totally different styles..
Agreed 100 percent. It's a bad strategy because like you said it's going to eventually not work when you need it to work. The Heat falling part in the Finals is the best example of this. They were a terrible 3-point shooting team during the regular season and suddenly became the best 3-point shooting team in the playoffs.
Teams have to find other ways to score when they are in a slump other than just continuing to chuck up 3's. Look at how the Nuggets when their shots weren't falling from 3, they would pound the ball into Jokic for easy buckets which would reignite them. You have to find easy ways to score buckets and the 3 is still the hardest shot to hit in basketball consistently. It's why there was so many terrible 3-point shooting games in these playoffs.
The worst part was seeing how the majority of these teams had no strategy on how to score buckets other than just keep chucking up 3's and hoping they will eventually fall.
A) That was never going to last anyway.
B) The first thing to go when you're playing at al ude is your legs. Kind of important for shooting, especially the 3 ball.
Agreed but Miami also shot terribly at home in the Finals from 3.
Golden State basically merged the game of the Spurs and Heat into one. Ball movement and a lot of 3s while playing small like the Heat did with Bosh at the 5
Why after missing 20 in a row? Why not 15, or 10, or 5?
The Rockets modeled their entire offense around lots of three point shots and it worked really well all season (1st in ORtg) and through the first two rounds of the playoffs (4-1 victories over the Wolves and Jazz). It also got them to a 3-2 lead over the eventual champion Warriors. Why on earth would they go away from it in game 7, even after a horrific slump? If they just refused to shoot threes the Warriors would have picked up on that and just packed the paint.
Bad results do not necessarily imply bad choices.
It's also absurd to call the Rockets' philosophy a failure when they easily had the second most successful season of any team in the league that year and were one game from winning a le given how bad Cleveland was.
And to add, Paul tearing his hamstring at the end of game 5, when they were up 3-2, obviously ended their chance.
But to be fair, Iguodala, though obviously not as important to the Warriors as Paul was to the Rockets, did miss from 4 game on.
think this is the most open the league has been snce about 07.
Denver is obviously ridiculous, theyre guys are tied up, but are they the heat of 2012? Pistons of 04? Lakers of 08-10? i dont see it.
They have the best player in the world and the best point guard in basketball, but theyre not invulnerable.
With teh amoutn of luxury tax jockeying and without how wide open the league is, theres a good shot for a bad team to go to the mid pack, or depending on how they develop, be legit good.
Luka, Curry, Dame, then Murray imo. He’ll likely be top 2 within a year or two, tho. Ja might get his stuff together and be in the convo, as well
Yes, if you're missing fifteen three pointers in a row, you should definitely find other ways to score. Not doing so is a really good way to lose important playoff games, which they did.
Have you seen the play-by-play of the game?
https://www.basketball-reference.com...805280HOU.html
The Rockets' last made 3 before the slump was with 6:43 left in the 2nd quarter, which gave them a 42-28 lead.
With 5:38 left in the 3rd they were ahead 61-55, and at that point had missed 17 threes in a row. They scored 19 points in that time, not good for 13 minutes of game time but not absolutely horrendous, all from inside the arc and the free throw line.
Your post makes it seem like the only shots the Rockets were taking were threes and that they stubbornly refused to stop shooting them even though they had missed a bunch in a row. But not only does that not give a recommendation as to when it's okay to start shooting them again (ever?), it ignores the facts that the Rockets were still attempting shots inside the arc and that they managed to hold on to some of that lead even after missing 17 threes in a row. It's a very shallow knee-jerk take.
Beal traded to the Suns for CP3 + Shamet
I don't like it for either team . . .
I get that the value for the Wizards is shedding Beal's albatross, gaining financial flexibility and turning their own upcoming picks into high ones, but to not get a single decent asset(s) still has to be considered a disappointment.
Beal hasn't looked the same the past few seasons and will now mostly be relegated to a catch-and-shoot role, Booker is now forced to play nominal PG, they need to retain a guard/wing like Okogie to defend PG's (which will lead to more 4-on-5 offense) and they further obliterate their depth, with no obvious Ayton trade to build it out.
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