The year to year 1st or 2nd best defense is absolutely what made them great. Much more so than their offense, as beautiful as you may have found it to watch. They were allowing 95 points per/100 in their heyday. It is what allowed them to dominate while running less than ideal offenses.
About open looks right? Harden tries it with passing from his iso. Now if it comes from Wall's or team ball movement (like hockey assists), can the current group of guys (like before) drain the open looks. Do they have the shooting touch. *shrugs* I listened to the Wall/Cousin interviews about working hard and affirming team has talent. Talent is relative. It's not just you believing your squad have talent. It's your talent has to be better than the other team's talent in those 48 minutes. Thread is about offense. So don't want to derail, but Harden and his ISO being gone is not going to solve our defense and rebound issues. Defend without fouling...etc Loss to LAL was the nails to the coffin. It's less about the result of the loss than the way we lost. Doubt ball movement alone is going to plug the many holes. I know folks are kind of prepping for the 'tanking', rebuild era. It might not be just losses, we could be handed consecutive blowouts even by NBA's worst teams.
It's funny how fans would wish their own team's suckiness to prove their point. Harden haters used to wish Rockets' ISO ball to suck to prove their point. Now the Harden lovers are wishing the Rockets don't recover from the loss of Harden to prove their point. I know Harden lovers will say that they don't wish the Rockets to suck and that it's just going to be a fact. But be honest, deep down you are rooting for the Nets to win and hope the Rockets will be bad for about 5 years to show that we REALLY needed Harden.
Their offenses would only be considered less than Ideal if you apply today’s offensive paradigm to them, which is: score as many points as you can, as fast as you can. Basketball was different 15 years ago. Pace was a lot slower and defenses were better. This resulted in less offensive output, which is why today’s metrics show them as less than ideal. But the Spurs offense in those years was the ideal offense. Ask anyone over the age of 30.
I was born in the mid 80s. 99 : 11th offense / 1st defense 03 : 7th offense / 3rd defense 05 : 9th offense / 1st defense 07 : 5th offense / 1st defense Even compared to their peers of the time they weren’t offensive juggernauts. They were DEFENSIVE juggernauts.
You should be more specific about your targets because your generalizations are full of ****. Even NOW, I am not advocating for the Rockets to tank. I hate watching my favorite team lose on purpose. That is a loser mentality that I cannot stomach.
They were defensive juggernauts, and they ran the ideal offense for that style of play. Does that mean the modern Spurs are better offensively just because they have a higher ORTG? No way!! If the two teams were in a vacuum and each was asked to run spread offense at break neck speed and spam threes, then the modern Spurs higher ORTG would mean they were better offensively.
Defense is part of offense, vice versa, in a sport like basketball (and soccer). The pace they played at was their pace and it fed into how they played and their system got the most out of everyone. At the end of the day, the way they were coached (along with Kerr) has won a lot of championships so I'm not sure people should be writing it off. Of course you need talent to win with ANY style but it's clear a motion offense can win you championships if you do have the talent. That shouldn't even be debatable so it's all a moot point. Coaches should use what's best for their team at the end of the day and all the supporters of an ISO-heavy offense...well that works if you have Harven or a guard who can do that, not so much if you don't.
Nobody's wishing this to happen. But that's what happens with penny pinching franchises hoping to tank their way to relevance. It's 4-5 season climb, if you're lucky. Btw it's literally no fun to have the Rockets future prospects hinging on 34 year old Kevin Durants left knee. Like you mock "well you all are just Brooklyn fans due to ego' but the ****ing franchise made us Brooklyn fans by investing it's future there.
So telling the TRUTH is hurting your feelings???? Should I say the election was stolen too because all the f'ing snowflakes in here cant handle reality?
I agree. If all someone does when comparing two teams from different eras is throw out an ORTG, it completely disregards style of play (including pace, defense, and how the game is officiated differently in different eras.)
Offense is more Defense than Defense is offense. In soccer at least, it's not like a stop could get you out on a counter attack when your players and system are crap. But a good Offense could help you stave off some pressure from getting overrun.
Do you think this current squad (with Dipo) has the talent for a motion offense and be relatively successful this season?
Players being crap is always the determining factor but if you have players that can play off a stop well then maybe you benefit more playing for a counter attack? Spurs defense played into their pace, they didn't score as many points because they just were never in a hurry, and maybe that also played into their defense as it allowed players to rest and not be running up and down the court all the time like the Classic MDA Suns offense did. I think playing that fast style where you launch threes can make it harder to defend, especially if you are missing those shots.
No because Wood is so terrible in the paint it probably won't matter. I do think the offense will look better though not because Harden is worse than Dipo, of course not...but because guys will have to trust the system in order to get good shots. But this team is a longshot at getting even an 8th seed I think. Too many holes. I don't think they'll be bottoms in the league, just a decent team you don't want to sleep on...like the Hornets or Kings. Wall should benefit from not having Harden around because he can do nothing off ball.
i mean the spurs 2013-14 "beautiful game" offense was 7th in the league. 2 years ago the spurs were 7th in the league. whatever was happening in the league, the spurs were 7th best at offensive efficiency (not points). now i think their ultimate peak form of offense was better than 7th when they were shredding miami, but that same beautiful offense damn near lost to the 8th seed in the first round so the truth is probably somewhere in between. honestly, it was there 2012 offense that seemed most amazing to me. they won their last 10 games of the regular season and first 10 of the playoffs and reached a moment in the 3rd quarter of that 20th game that seemed like the most perfect offense i had ever seen sa they were just annihilating okc. then they promptly lost 4 games in a row to iso-ball extraordinaires in durant, westbrook, and harden, so who knows what it meant.