PATFO going down

[SpursRock20]

Completely disagree with this, tbh... it's not a zero sum game. Your offense can be really good, and still suc b to bad shooting nights or players going through slumps. A solid defense is much less susceptible to such things.

Bingo.

[playblair]

haters ................. blair = defense...........................

[Hoops Czar]

Can't forget that Neal was playing in Pop's system surrounded by some great players, meanwhile Belli was playing with a Rose-less bulls team.

Plus the stats only show so much, they don't show Neal's non existent BB IQ.

You're right, subjectively speaking, stats aren't everything. What's funny is that no matter what stat is thrown out there, the actual numbers indicate that Belinelli and Neal are the same player or Beli comes out a little on the minus side. Yet, for some reason, the same people who say stats aren't everything when Belinelli's name comes up are the first one's to use stats to discredit Neal.

By season's end, Belinelli will have contributed no more wins to the Spurs than Neal did in each of his first two seasons as a Spur.

[Obstructed_View]

You guys are missing the most important stat: Blair's PER is 25.5, leading the team. That means he's the best player on the Mavericks. It also means that Michael Beasley (41.2 PER) is the best player on Miami.

Or maybe, you know, it's four games into the season, Blair is scoring 9.5 points on 8 FGA per game, just like he did when he was a Spur, and he's not playing defense.

[Johnny RIngo]

I'm not disappointed we lost Bliar. He wasn't motivated, couldn't play defense, and never did display a very high bball IQ. My problem is that the Spurs FO replaced him with a D-League quality talent in Ayres. At least Blair could score/rebound against ty smallball teams. Ayres doesn't seems to be good at much of anything.

[SpurSpurSpurs]

2. he's European and Spurs fans assume that any Euro that plays in Pop's system is going to be good

/thread

[jestersmash]

You think you are teaching me anything? Take the '05 NBA Finals, for example, the Spurs allowed less than 87 points per game. That is when the defense was arguably at its peak. Defense is what we prided ourselves on, and was the key reason we won the championship. There is a reason that there is a correlation between great defense and championships in the NBA.

Clearly I am. Bolding "key reason" or writing it in caps or doesn't lend any extra credence to what you're saying. You're just saying that defense wins championships.

For your information, there is a stronger correlation between point differential and winning championships than there is with any arbitrary defensive metric and winning championships, so you're objectively being ignorant here. This is like advanced metrics 101.

Sorry but you're just wrong and if you want to keep wallowing aimlessly in your ignorance be my guest. You seem like the kind of person who's too prideful to admit that you're wrong and learn something new.

[jestersmash]

Completely disagree with this, tbh... it's not a zero sum game. Your offense can be really good, and still suc b to bad shooting nights or players going through slumps. A solid defense is much less susceptible to such things.

And your defense can be really good, and still suc b to "better offense" by players hitting highly contested shots. It goes both ways.

There is an answer to the question: Is offense or defense more susceptible to "bad luck" (slumps on offense or "lucky," highly contested shots by the opposing team). There's an answer to this question, but it's never been quantified so it's highly presumptuous to conclude that a solid defense is "less susceptible."

What we do know is that the correlation coefficients for point differential and winning championships are far stronger than the correlation coefficients for offensive rating and winning championships or defensive rating and winning championships (or insert any individual team offensive or defensive metric that you like).

I mean this is precisely why any "championship predictor" worth looking at uses point differential as a foundation.

Although, it's highly su ious that PlayNando answered in agreement a minute later after you answered tbh It's almost as though you're trying to hide the fact that you're PlayNando!

Nah, jk.

Or am I

[jestersmash]

Here's a really simple hypothetical example to drive the point home. You have two teams, team A and team B.

Team A: Offense: 60 PPG Defense: Allows 59 PPG
Team B: Offense: 10000 PPG Defense: Allows 100 PPG

Team A is superior defensively to team B (you can assume these are pace adjusted stats per 100 possessions if you want). Which team would you rather bet your life on to win a single basketball game?

This is an exaggerated example to illustrate the point that placing sole emphasis on any one facet of the game (offense or defense) is nonsensical. They're both important, and point differential most succinctly quantifies the contribution of both.

[chapnis]

Neal with 23 points...

[Johnny RIngo]

Neal with 23 points...

Green with 17 pts/4 reb/2 asts/2 stls/4 blks

Belli with 4 pts on 1-6 shooting and people wanted him starting over Green

[chapnis]

Green with 17 pts/4 reb/2 asts/2 stls/4 blks

Belli with 4 pts on 1-6 shooting and people wanted him starting over Green

It's only 1 game tho.

[Johnny RIngo]

It's only 1 game tho.

Green has two seasons of solid play for the Spurs backing his case.

Belli has one game against Portland.

[anakha]

It's only 1 game tho.

And people were advocating making major lineup changes based on three games' worth of data. Stupidity goes both ways.

[SpursRock20]

Clearly I am. Bolding "key reason" or writing it in caps or doesn't lend any extra credence to what you're saying. You're just saying that defense wins championships.

For your information, there is a stronger correlation between point differential and winning championships than there is with any arbitrary defensive metric and winning championships, so you're objectively being ignorant here. This is like advanced metrics 101.

Sorry but you're just wrong and if you want to keep wallowing aimlessly in your ignorance be my guest. You seem like the kind of person who's too prideful to admit that you're wrong and learn something new.

You didn't believe that when I said "defense wins championships" that I meant that it is all it takes to win one, did you? Of course a team has to score to win. When I say that defense wins championships, I mean that that is what our championship teams had in common: great defense. Jumping to conclusions and believing that I meant that defense is all it takes to win a championship is ignorant on your part, pal.

Maybe you would like some reasons. Like Elnono already mentioned, it is more easily controlled. Some nights the ball just doesn't fall and players have an off night on the offensive end. Defense is a little different. It is more reliant on the effort of players. If you have an off night on the defensive end, you can attribute that to being tired or not trying hard enough. On the offensive end, however, there are times where no matter how hard you try, you can't find the bottom of the net. One facet of great defensive play that I'd like to mention is that great defense can lead to easy offense mainly via the turnover. Great offense simply doesn't lead to "easy" defense. Perhaps, a made basket gives the defense time to regroup and get ready for the opposing offense to come down the floor, but I don't see how this can dramatically improve a defensive possession.

And I can also point to the recent NBA champions. Over the last 10 years, every NBA champ has been in the top 10 in the NBA in opponent's points per possession. Now, I'm not trying to discount offense whatsoever. It is very important too. If I had to quantify the importance of each in terms of percentages, it would probably be 60%/40%. All I'm saying is that defense is more important in my mind.

[Hoops Czar]

It's only 1 game tho.

I have a feeling this is going to be the theme of the season.

[DesignatedT]

People are still talking about Blair


Stop starting threads about scrubs. Drop it.

[ElNono]

And your defense can be really good, and still suc b to "better offense" by players hitting highly contested shots. It goes both ways.

There is an answer to the question: Is offense or defense more susceptible to "bad luck" (slumps on offense or "lucky," highly contested shots by the opposing team). There's an answer to this question, but it's never been quantified so it's highly presumptuous to conclude that a solid defense is "less susceptible."

What we do know is that the correlation coefficients for point differential and winning championships are far stronger than the correlation coefficients for offensive rating and winning championships or defensive rating and winning championships (or insert any individual team offensive or defensive metric that you like).

I mean this is precisely why any "championship predictor" worth looking at uses point differential as a foundation.

Although, it's highly su ious that PlayNando answered in agreement a minute later after you answered tbh It's almost as though you're trying to hide the fact that you're PlayNando!

Nah, jk.

Or am I

I know what you mean, but what I'm pointing out is that you HAVE TO have a solid defense to begin any kind of contender conversation. The game slows down considerably in the playoffs and since there's a bunch of games against the same opponent, it's not that complicated to take away the 1st, 2nd or 3rd offensive option (if you're a solid defensive team).

There's a lot of rankings that give a much stronger lean to point differential (one of them was the Hollinger ranking on ESPN), but you need to take them with a grain of salt. Teams like the Spurs or even Miami, that either rest players or coast for certain amounts of the season skew such rankings all the time. Last season, for example, OKC and the friggin Clippers had a better point differential than the Spurs.

There's all sort of other stuff that come into play too: matchups, injuries, etc. Fact is, you gotta be at least a top 10 defense to make the Finals. That's been the trend for pretty much the last decade. It doesn't really matter if you're the #1 offense. The Spurs learned about that in 2011-2012...

Not sure why you keep thinking I'm PlayNando, tbh... I only have one alt account with like 4 posts... timvp can confirm...

[weeks]

You didn't believe that when I said "defense wins championships" that I meant that it is all it takes to win one, did you? Of course a team has to score to win. When I say that defense wins championships, I mean that that is what our championship teams had in common: great defense. Jumping to conclusions and believing that I meant that defense is all it takes to win a championship is ignorant on your part, pal.

Maybe you would like some reasons. Like Elnono already mentioned, it is more easily controlled. Some nights the ball just doesn't fall and players have an off night on the offensive end. Defense is a little different. It is more reliant on the effort of players. If you have an off night on the defensive end, you can attribute that to being tired or not trying hard enough. On the offensive end, however, there are times where no matter how hard you try, you can't find the bottom of the net. One facet of great defensive play that I'd like to mention is that great defense can lead to easy offense mainly via the turnover. Great offense simply doesn't lead to "easy" defense. Perhaps, a made basket gives the defense time to regroup and get ready for the opposing offense to come down the floor, but I don't see how this can dramatically improve a defensive possession.

And I can also point to the recent NBA champions. Over the last 10 years, every NBA champ has been in the top 10 in the NBA in opponent's points per possession. Now, I'm not trying to discount offense whatsoever. It is very important too. If I had to quantify the importance of each in terms of percentages, it would probably be 60%/40%. All I'm saying is that defense is more important in my mind.

solid post would read again

[Vash StampedE]

I have to say that OP doesn't watch actual games, just looks at the box score. Very saddening especially if he's account says he's a spurs fan and he doesn't get to watch how basketball should be played.

[TheGreatYacht]

Playoffs started and this thread is still the GOAT

20M cap space.. and you blow it on Hedo, Tiago "Cant finish" Splitter, Jeff Errors, and 14 turnovers in 2 games

[TheGreatYacht]

$10,000,000 to the best screen setter on the team

[superjames1992]

Of course you neglect to mention that Tiago has kept Dirk in check for two games while Dirk has feasted whenever he was matched up with anyone else. Without Tiago, Dirk goes off in both games and we're down 0-2.

[TheGreatYacht]

Of course you neglect to mention that Tiago has kept Dirk in check for two games while Dirk has feasted whenever he was matched up with anyone else. Without Tiago, Dirk goes off in both games and we're down 0-2.

Dirk couldn't hit the ocean game 1. Missed an open layup in the 4th