True dat! OH GOD HOW I HATE THAT A-HOLE AND THE LOOK HE HAS ON HIS FACE AFTER EVERY SINGLE FOUL CALL!!!! If I could I would rip out my intestines and choke all the Spers players with it!
the hacking strategy did not help them win. it was worth a try, but they didnt really gain that much out of it. the mavs won the game by triple-teaming duncan and forcing the young, inexperienced perimeter players into making perimeter shots. None of them wanted to shoot the ball. the spurs did not take this game seriously enough, and they let the mavs stick around. one more thing. why do the refs keep giving van exel 3 free throws for shots where he's a clear foot inside the arc? guess van exel just deserves that kinda respect from the officials.
Amen. Simple, but the best rebuttal. And as for it not affecting the game, it seems these head games *do* work against the Spurs.
This could backfire against the Pistons, they might get the board and pass it to the one good scorer on their team.
Let's see. Spurs Lead big. Hack-a-Bowen disrupts the Spurs flow. Spurs recover - lead BIGGER. That's a genius strategy, One that only works for a few minutes disrupting the flow of the game - which is far more important to your team than your opponent, and after the strategy, the team rebuilds its lead even larger . . . Fantastic. The Mavs won because they actually played halfway decent defense down the stretch, the Spurs went ICE cold as their role players choked it hard core, and the Mavs went RED hot nailing everything they hoisted up there, as both teams sometimes do. Hack-A-Bowen had nothing to do with the Mavs winning or losing. Just a silly little interlude that gets far more notice than it deserves.
Say what you want, but when Sa went on those runs against La, Jackson should have did something similar to that. When the lakers were within 2 points and sa had the ball, they should have did it also. By the way, didn't Dallas win the game?
Well since this is such a brilliant strategy why doesn't Dallas just foul Bowen from the opening tip. Why even allow SA to attempt a field goal. Fire the defense coach, get a coach to teach the players how to foul. Better still why don' we just have a 48 minute foul shooting competition. Whichever team can make the most free throws in 48 minutes wins.
i would almost be willing to wager that not one of you would complain if nellie was coaching the rockets and had employed a similar strategy. he has 3 big men out, one foul prone idiot, and two small forwards having to play power forward and center. its a miracle they even won. the bottom line is he has his team 2 wins away from the nba finals.
thank you, axechange. If you hate this bit of strategy that is completely within the rules, then I suppose you have to hate baseball managers who slow the game to a crawl as they warm up and bring in relief pitchers who face just one batter so that the probability of getting an out (lefty versus lefty, etc) goes up by 0.000173%. You must have really hated the pre-shot clock high-school and college games where teams would go into a complete four-corners stall for 10 minutes at a time. I honestly wish there was more strategy in modern basketball, not less.
The interesting thing is, both times (game 1 and game 5) the Mavs used the hack-a-Bowen tactic, they won, overcoming big leads by the Spurs. And both times, the tactic didn't really cut the lead at the time it was employed. But both times, the Spurs were whittled away in the second half. We might never know whether the wins were because of the tactic or not. But it's clear that the tactic was more a psychological mind game then a statistical strategy. JohnnyBalze, they can't use it for 48 mins. There is rule about fouling out.
I think after watching Rudy for all these years that it is refreshing to see ANY strategy employed. At least Nelson is trying something rather then just sitting back and going....keep trying the same thing guys, your head is bound to break through that brick wall any day now. DD
This is possibly the most ridiculous thread that I have ever seen. Calling a coach a disgrace and a p***y because he fouls one of the worst free throw shooters in the league in an attempt to stop a run. BTW, the strategy worked because the run was halted, momentum for the Spurs was lost and the Mavs went on a little run of their own to close the gap. What happened after that was irrelevant because the goal for that strategy was attained. A-train, where are your threads getting pissed off and calling coaches a p***y for the hack a shaq strategy or for intentionally slowing down the game by walking the ball up the court and using all of the 24 second clock in an attempt to keep the score close to a team with superior talent? Have you never called on someone to lay a body or a hard foul on someone driving to the basket ?Same damn thing, it's illegal but you do what you have to do to stop a player from coming into the paint. The fact that makes this thread so ridiculous is that any coach that does not try everything possible to win a play-off game should be fired and not allowed to coach competitive sports on any level. And now here you are getting pissed because a coach tried something a little different in an attempt to win a game.
The problem is not the fouling in itself, it's the fouling in the first friggin quarter. How about playing some defense, trying to make some stops, trying to go on a run. If the game is close in the fourth quarter fine foul, i have no problem with that. However when you start fouling in the first quarter before you've even given your team a chance to make some stops and go on their own run is disgraceful. Nobody on the Spurs team is unstopable including Duncan. Learn to play some damn defense. I would still find it disgusting even if the Rockets did it. I would hope we have coaches that are capable of coming up with defensive schemes good enough to stop a team without fouling, and players capable of executing them. If not we're in big trouble.
What is your definition of "playing defense"? Mine is: "Doing whatever you can within the rules to prevent the opponent from scoring." If the hack tactic accomplishes that (which I'm not claiming), I'd say it's good defense. Your argument is kind of like Francis' whining about the Mavs playing zone because they couldn't play man-on-man defense.
