squeezing 2-3 months of team chemistry into a 2-3 weeks of intense playoff basketball in the stacked west...yikes. i hope they remember to chip their brains with supercomputers to process all that information in such little time lol
I completely understand where you're coming from, but I think the guys are figuring it out pretty quickly. High, sharp passing to Dwight works better than low stuff. They seemed to have abandoned the post for Dwight which is smart and he hasn't really missed a step on defense or rebounding. I feel the same way about TJones. Keep it simple with those guys. As long as Trevor and James have their chemistry going and the team stays committed to defense, the rest will fall into place. This will be one great year for us fans.
REBOUNDING, FREE THROWS/OUR RESPONSE TO THE OFFICIATING, 3-POINT ATTEMPTS VOLUME That's what it's going to come down to. 1. Gotta win the rebounding war or at least neutralize the opponent on the glass. We now have a record of 19-19 against teams with winning records this year. When we win or tie them in ORB%/TRB% our record is 12-8 and when we lose the rebounding war our record is 7-11. 2a. We have got to get to the FT line at the same rate we have in the regular season Or 2b. If the officials won't give us the calls we got in the regular season and we are being just as aggressive in the post season going to the rim as we were in the regular season, we have to recognize it, accept it, and ratchet up our aggression on the defensive end...(assuming they aren't going to give our opponents the same calls they aren't giving us) and James has to ratchet up the physicality on his drives to the hoop by plowing defenders under on his way to the rim. If the officials ain't calling contact....take advantage of it. Don't pout and piss and moan. Just smile and get more physical, more nasty. In those same 38 games against winning teams that we have gone 19-19 so far we are 9-4 when our FTr meets or exceeds .300. When we are below .300 FTr, our record is 10-15. So, it's of primary importance to maintain the same aggression we have had during the season, interpret how the officials are officiating the game and play it to our advantage. Last year against Portland, Harden didn't get a lot of calls he got in the regular season. Instead of doing all that b...ching like we did last year we've simply got to go to the other end and take advantage of the non-calls, ratcheting up the pressure and the physicality until the officials either have to start calling the contact or we keep it even defensively. 3. Another point on free throws is we have to make sure we don't get unbalanced too often with our bigs. One of the biggest problems with having Dwight and Smoove out there together is they have both been atrocious at the FT line for us this year. You put them out there together and the opponent can go to it's backup bigs and start hacking Dwight/Smoove. And the other factor is DMo and Terrence are almost as shaky as Dwight/Smoove. They've been better....but not much. Our playoff opponent will know our Achilles heal in this area. They know it's much better for them to foul one of our bigs than to foul James/Ariza, etc. And our playoff opponents (sans Dallas) are LOADED with bigs that have 6 fouls to burn. 4. As far as our 3-point shooting goes, we are who we are as far as accuracy goes. We're not going to knock down 40% or anything close to it. We're volume 3-point shooters, the greatest volume 3-point shooting team in the history of the 3-point shooting era in the NBA. We've got to get our volume of 3-balls up. I didn't take the time to look at the numbers but I'm sure if you look at our 3-point shooting volume in these same 38 games you are going to find that there is a threshold of volume of 3-point shots that significantly skews the win/loss record in our favor. ***There is one small caveat here with this team. That is that both Jason Terry and Pablo Prigioni are outstanding midrange shooters, both well over 50% from 16-23 feet. This could become a factor in a deep playoff run when opponents try to take away our 3-ball attempts and force us to go underneath. Rebound, get to the FT line or ratchet up the physicality, and shoot a ton of 3's. That's our winning formula.
The biggest factor to me is one I'm not sure can be addressed. How does the offense function in crunch time when the opponent focuses on Harden? I cant remember the last team a team with no secondary playmaker won a title. Was it Kobe versus Boston? The rest of the concerns are all definitely on point.
To me, another factor for Playoff Success is controlling the boards. That 4-game WC road trip showed the true importance of rebounding. We were badly out-rebounded against POR (60-40); the next night in Utah, we were again out-rebounded by 20 (57-37; Gobert alone had 22); and then, when we beat LAC, we again were out-rebounded (50-43; Jordan alone had 20). That was, to me at least, why that road trip magnified the REAL reason we needed D12 back; to get those rebounds. D-Mo has deservedly gotten criticized for not having higher rebounding numbers. And rebounding takes on an even BIGGER importance in the Playoffs, because we can't afford to give teams multiple chances to score on that same possession.
Pau was a playmaker during those years. Dwight must step up period. If he's not all-star Dwight, it's a short run.
UPDATE After tonight's game against Toronto we are now 19-20 against teams with a winning record. Rebounding We are now 12-8 when we win the rebounding war and 7-12 when we lose the rebounding war. FT shooting We are now 9-5 when our FTr is over 30% and still 10-15 when we don't. But alas we shot 58% from the line. Take away Harden and the rest of the guys shot 8 for 19 for an abysmal 42%. We lose the rebounding war and then we shoot poorly from the FT line and that's 2 strikes against us beating good teams. By the same token if we win the rebounding war and get to the FT line and knock down our FTs at an acceptable 65-70% clip...we will win a lot more than we lose against the best teams. (Except GS.) ** Granted we were minus 3 of our primary bigs. So losing the rebounding war is understandable.
UPDATE We are now 20-20 against teams with a winning record. Rebounding We are now 13-8 when we win the rebounding war and 7-12 when we lose the rebounding war against teams with a winning record. FT shooting We are now 10-5 when our FTr is over 30% and still 10-15 when we don't against teams with a winning record.
No. 6 = Play swarming defense that we're capable of playing similar to the first month of the season. We were playing great defense to start the season and that's without Smith and Brewer. I think we're capable of taking it to another level on the defensive end.
UPDATE We are now 21-21 against teams with winning records. We are now 14-8 when we win the rebounding war and 7-13 when we lose the rebounding war against teams with winning record. We are 14-9 against teams with winning records when we shoot over 70% from the free throw line. We are 7-12 against teams with winning records when we shoot less than 70% from the line. We are 12-6 against teams with winning records when we shoot 24 or more free throws in the game. We are 9-15 against teams with winning records when we shoot 23 or less free throws in a game. We average 27.3 FTA's in our 21 wins versus teams with a winning record. We average 20.3 FTA's in our 20 losses versus teams with a winning record. In our 21 quality wins versus teams with winning records, our FTr is 0.33. In our 20 losses versus teams with winning records, our FTr is below 0.24. We are 13-5 against teams with winning records when our FTr is 0.275 or higher. We are 8-16 against teams with winning record when our FTr is below 0.275. We are 12-4 against teams with winning records when James Harden shoots 10 or more free throws. We are 9-17 against teams with winning records when James Harden shoots less than 10 free throws. This team starts and stops on the defensive end. If we can't get stops, if we can't get turnovers, if we can't hold the defensive glass then we gonna be losing. It's just that simple. Last night against the Spurs, we: 1. Had nothing defensively at the point of attack (Parker). I think we all knew before the jump ball that JET couldn't stay with him. Once we saw that the Spurs were going to exploit that, McHale should have went with Brewer on Parker. Because we simply have no other defensive answer for quick, penetrating, playmaking, scoring point guards. If we don't thwart the opponent at the top and generate turnovers we're losing. 2. Did not control the glass. This goes without saying. When we get into the playoffs, we're going to be playing the big boys with skills. Spurs didn't even have Splitter in there last night. But Duncan/Baynes/Diaw were too big and too skilled for Dwight/Terrence/Smoove. I'll leave it to you to figure out who was overmatched among those guys. 3. Did not take enough risk and play hard enough defensively. The Spurs only shot 9 free throws themselves. We should have been much more aggressive defensively and forced the whistle to blow so we could get it back on the other end. 4. Were not able to bring in a 4th big because Dorsey simply sux sooo bad. He's a defensive target for possessions because he's such a terrible free throw shooter. ============================================ We've got to get another big or we aren't going anywhere in the playoffs. Dorsey being ineffective forces Terrence into too many mismatch situations against teams that are bigger and more skilled down low.
Good point on 3pt shooting and rebounding, previously I already had these 3 as crucial: FTs, defense and coaching adjustments, but I think rebounding is a good 4th and 3pt shooting a good 5th. I'm not really worried about our shooting and rebounding though, because Ariza, Josh and Harden are shooting well. Only Terry and Brewer are really bad lately. Rebounding is something Dorsey can do + Howard when he gets more minutes will take care of that for our starting unit. After Spurs game, mainly rebounding seems like an issue still.
You'd better be worried about our rebounding in the playoffs. Rebounding is what yields up posessions. We're not a great shooting team. We've got to out-possession the opponent by winning the boards and creating turnovers with our defense. Rebounding differential, turnover differential, free throw rate are the big keys. We're going to shoot a high volume of 3's no matter what happens. Rebounding differential and turnover differential are what add up to possession differential.
UPDATE We are now 21-22 against teams with winning records. We are now 14-8 when we win the rebounding war and 7-14 when we lose the rebounding war against teams with winning record. We are 14-9 against teams with winning records when we shoot over 70% from the free throw line. We are 7-13 against teams with winning records when we shoot less than 70% from the line. We are 12-7 against teams with winning records when we shoot 24 or more free throws in the game. We are 9-15 against teams with winning records when we shoot 23 or less free throws in a game. We average 27.3 FTA's in our 21 wins versus teams with a winning record. We average 21.8 FTA's in our 22 losses versus teams with a winning record. We are 13-6 against teams with winning records when our FTr is 0.275 or higher. We are 8-16 against teams with winning record when our FTr is below 0.275. We are 12-4 against teams with winning records when James Harden shoots 10 or more free throws. We are 9-18 against teams with winning records when James Harden shoots less than 10 free throws. Tonight's game was clearly the start of the torquing of our free throw counts upward while in a losing effort. As I stated earlier in the "Will Poor FT Shooting Be Our Downfall?" thread, if we start losing James' possessions with guys like Dorsey/Smith going to the free throw line, then our offense is going to lose efficiency and it could indeed cost us a playoff series. If we can get Smith and other guys (Dorsey) to shoot FTs at 55% or so then it won't cost us. 55% for Smith tonight wins us the game. Or if James gets 10 free throws we win tonight. Or if we outrebound the Spurs we win tonight. But when we lose the rebounding war, and James doesn't shoot at least 10 free throws, and we shoot below 70% from the free throw line.....most likely we're losing against the contenders.
