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You can compete with many different offenses if you get the switching defense down tbh. Shooters are clearly important in the NBA but your offense doesn't need be a bunch of threes jacked up.
Rockets just showed how to choke
You can compete with many different offenses if you get the switching defense down tbh. Shooters are clearly important in the NBA but your offense doesn't need be a bunch of threes jacked up.
Warriors can’t guard size...
Players that can enforce their will on offense and take efficient shots plus be able to handle a switch on D is the key. Boris Diaw type player is good example..
It’s not about chucking 3’s..Crazy enough it was the Rockets offense strategy that got them beat. They couldn’t get to the line or get easy/good looks when needed.
I think we showed the blue print last year. Each time we played them (except once maybe (?) ) we had a 20+ point lead . We played fast, switched everything, and knew when to slow the game down. Timely timeouts, played a lot of guys, etc...
That blueprint involved having one of the few players on the league that's long enough and quick enough to guard Durant on the outside.
And strong enough to defend him if he tries to post up.
Not to mention the attention Leonard demands on offense.
yes, the "blueprint" is to have one of the two best players in the world absolutely elite offensively and defensively
Yup. Durant was a non factor until Kawhi went out.
The Spurs are a long ways away from being able to switch on everything(defensively)....
HOU played 6-7 guys. If you look at SA top 6-7 guys:
Kawhi: DPOY
Danny: All NBA Defense last year
Murray: All NBA Defense this year
LMA: True defensive anchor
Kyle: Grades out tremendous on defense
Then Mills & Rudy.
So if you look at SAS 7 man rotation only two aren’t plus defenders but Rudy has size and Patty plays with energy.
HOU 6-7 man rotation has Hardens defense so SA had what, one more player not great on defense than HOU?
People like op act like it was HOU style of play that did it; SA style was fine and with just some minor tweaking (taking out Mills / TP / Pau with some better defensive players) they are there
mentioning Patty in a thread about winning vs the Showers
Pau Gasol might work in the regular season, but in the playoffs, against teams like the Warriors, he's a easily exploitable.
Did you watch the series?
No son, the rest of the league showed it by not even being close to beating them.
That must suck for you, son. Being wrong most of the time.
In 2016 the Thunder were the ones that had Durant, not the Warriors, tbh. But now that you mention it, that OKC team and this Rockets team shared a lot similarities:
-They both ran a short rotation of 6 players, with a 7th just buying some minutes here and there.
-They both had two perimeter playmakers.
-They both had no weak defensive links.
-They both didn't have many non-shooters (Rockets only Capela and OKC only Adams and Roberson who, by the way, shot 44% from 3 on that series).
-They both played a lot of isos (I don't think this is necessarily part of the blueprint, but maybe it is, who knows).
-And they both went small (outside of a few minutes where Kanter and Adams shared the floor, OKC went with lineups of just one big, since Ibaka played pretty much as a wing, and even with no bigs, playing Ibaka as the center like Houston played Tucker as center).
Add to that how the Cavs beat them in the finals that year (again: 2 perimeter playmakers, many isos, lots of three pts threats, going small, etc.) and yeah, it's pretty easy to see that the blueprint is there. I don't know why so many people are having problems accepting this fact.
Last edited by DAF86; 05-29-2018 at 03:31 PM.
There is no blueprint, tbh. Durbeta simply choked in a few games.
So not only you have major defensive weak links, but you also have non-shooting guys like Murray and Anderson, and another one who, although capable, doesn't shoot it much (Aldridge).
Nothing anyone who knows their stuff hasn't realized for a while. Where I differ from the conventional take is, I don't believe that a cadre of traditional 3 and D wings is the way to go, especially considering the Spurs lack of anything resembling a lead play maker.
4 of the Warriors 5 best players (minus Curry) are their 3 and D players. Outside of Thompson, they're not thought of that way, because Green and Iguodala are below average from 3 and are more all around types, but they provide that too.
You don't need so called stoppers, you need as much non physical liability/exploitable players who can dribble, pass and shoot as possible (think Gay, Evans, etc.). A bunch of specialists aren't going to get it done.
- Of course rotations are short, this is the playoffs
- I'm not sure I'd call 2016 Durant a playmaker, at least not nearly on the level of Westbrook, Harden, and Paul
- Harden is a huge defensive liability
- Roberson shot 32.4% from three in those playoffs, the 44% was a fluke. He shot 31.1% during the regular season which is a career high for him. Of the 2016 Thunder's top 7 in the playoffs, 3 were non-shooters: Adams, Kanter, Roberson
- Agree on the isos. It certainly helps to have good iso players at the end of close games: a low-percentage shot is still better than risking a turnover
- Looking at the 2016 Thunder/Warriors series:
I picked out the non-blowouts to reduce garbage time effects, but even games 2-4 followed this pattern. Adams and Kanter combined took up almost all 48 minutes at center each game, so there wasn't much "Ibaka at the 5" going on. Ironically, of those four games the Thunder went biggest in game 1; it was also the only game of those four that they won.
Player Gm 1 Gm 5 Gm 6 Gm 7 Avg Ibaka 36 40 36 43 39.75 Adams 37 31 28 26 30.5 Kanter 18 6 11 9 11
I think this "blueprint" is all in your mind. You just look at characteristics of teams that did or almost did beat the Warriors and find the similarities while ignoring the differences. And this Rockets/Warriors series was far closer to being Warriors in 5 or 6 than the Rockets winning at all.
Agreed. Re last nite's game, after the layup to finish the first half, when's the next time the Rockets took it to the rim? Against a team with no shot-blockers?
Shot selection matters, ffs.
Huh? SA was a better defensive team than HOU was this year my man. SA’s top 7 compare extraordinarily well vs HOU top 7 when it comes to defense.
If you take out Harden’s bad defense and Mills, SA’s top 6 defenders are much, much better than HOU’s top 6 defenders.
Is the shooting an issue? Sure, but how great were HOU shooters when they shot like 39% from the field for the entire series? At least SA would have Kawhi/LMA that can score inside if 3’s stop falling. The point is SA’s defense THIS YEAR was better than HOU’s.
SA went “big” vs GS and had some success in the regular season. It also looked promising in the playoffs before Kawhi got hurt although we never will know.
HOU was built well; it’s just not the only way and SA was already better on defense than HOU even with SA’s “liabilities”. , SA didn’t even have Kawhi and still finished ahead of HOU defensively this year.
Does that mean that replacing Mills/Pau with Ariza/Bell type players is not needed or bad? NO. Just means SA showed somethings themselves and are very close and better than HOU.
The Spurs defense is fools gold and the worst suited to the playoffs of any elite defense. Their sheer size, length, knowhow and IQ masks their deficiencies in most random regular season games against mostly middling teams. In the playoffs, they have 3 massive targets in their rotation that are rendered virtually unplayable vs the elite.
The Warriors, a middling offensive outfit sans Curry, posted an offensive rating .01 better than their regular season mark that mostly featured him.
In '17, regular season to series vs Spurs: Grizzlies were +3.7, Rockets were -6.3 (pre Paul, of course), Warriors were +6.6.
Before you bring up Leonard's absence in a lot of that, you can't have it both ways (citing the elite regular season mark without him).
Yeah.That must suck for you, son. Being wrong most of the time.
I also said you were a humble intellect...
*right cross to the jaw knockout emoticon*
Down goes DAFfy.
You absolutely can have it both ways. Kawhi is a major part of that and even with those Mills/TP/Pau type players SA still held firm over a bigger sample size. Of course it will be exploited when their best defensive player is out. Even with Curry out, Kawhi out was a bigger blow to the defense due to KD having no one that could match him.
Also, like HOU having a 7 man playoff rotation with one massively exploitable player (Harden), SA with a healthy Kawhi is basically in the same boat yet for 2 years in a row (one pre-CP and others one post) SA was better on defense.
That is just a fact.
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