Boy, I said it is a logical flaw. To prove a logical flaw, I (or you) don't need to use real data. I'm speechless. As I said, if you don't believe it, ask any professor in any university. Clearly, there is a huge logical flaw in the following statemant: "Usually the better/best defensive teams have won championships, therefore defense wins championships, defense is more important than offense". Let me try another way. Assume that there are two factors (A and B) to determine a result. If factor A is the dominant facter, it really doesn't matter how important factor B is, factor A is always more important than factor B. For example, we all know heart and ears are very important for any person, I can say heart is more important than ears, but you can't say ears are more important than heart. Similarly in basketball, you can't say defense is more important than offense. Maybe they are equally important, but it is another story. .
That example doesn't tell us anything. There's no reason to believe that offense or defense is a "dominant factor" in basketball. It's just a poor analogy. In fact, based on winning%, the evidence shows they are equally important in the regular season over time. Which is what one would expect, if one was thinking logically. The question is whether that holds true in the playoffs as well. That we've seen consistently strong defensive teams rather than offense teams over the last 15 years in the Finals suggest that defense has been more important of late. But it's not proof. If you go back even further, say 30 years, I think the evidence shows that offense and defense tends to balance out in importance. Ultimately, "defense wins championships" is true, but only partially so. Teams that win championships tend to be pretty good on both ends.
Again, I said there is a logical flaw in that statement, and I'm 99.99% sure. As for offense or defense which is a dominant factor. As I said, I used to think they are equally important. But now, I believe offense is the dominant factor. So far, I can only say I'm 70% sure. I may be totally wrong. Didn't I start a thread for this topic? You knew it. It is kind of difficult to prove it. And I did try my best to prove it in that thread. Also I said, offensively, sky is the limit. Defensively, great defense can't stop great offense. If you say "defense wins championships", why not "defense and offense wins championships"? Or why not "offense wins championships"? .
I can think of at least one example where defense did stop a great offense--the Pistons beat down of the Kobe/Shaq/Malon/Payton Lakers. Why do people say "Defense wins championships"? Because that's the standard wisdom among sports writers, coaches, announcers, etc.
durvasa, let me add something here. The rules of NBA/basketball give offense an edge, also. Defensively, you can't block a falling ball and you can't block a ball in the cylinder of the basket. There are many disadvantages on the defense side. .
On an individual play, you can play perfect defense, do everything right, and the guy still make the shot. On this play, perfect offense > perfect defense. The hard part is to do that consistently. Solid defense makes it tough for offenses, although some of the times the guy is just going to make the shot. Tougher defense makes the guy miss that shot more often, and thats where the line "defense wins championships" comes from.
How to separate "defense" and "offense"? standard wisdom doesn't mean truth. Remenber, people used to think The Earth is square. .
Another reason is because defense is all hustle and playing hard, you can always bring it every night if the players want to. Offense on the other hand will be less consistant because everyone will have ups and downs, even players like MJ. You can not always count on great offense to win games, that's why the suns and mavs have not won a championship yet. The last truely great offense to win the championship was the showtime lakers, but they also had very good defense to go along with great offense.
lol!!!!!!!! That wasn't great D. Matter of fact LA held DET under their season average. The problem was the most selfish display in basketball history, a young selfish SG who took 35% of the teams shots at 33% anad refused to pass to a guy who was shooting over 60%. That's what the problem was. If it was all D assistant coach wouldn't be out of a job right now would he?
There are average to below average offensive teams that have won championships in recent years (such as the Pistons). There are NO average to below average defensive teams that have won championships in recent years. In fact, I am pretty sure there aren't even any below after defensive teams that made it to the FINALS, let alone won it all. I could be wrong about the latter, though. I think the Nets, for one, *might* have been a statistically below-average defensive team.
Let me say it again, in the basketball games, it is very difficult to separate "defense" and "offense". How to separate them is a big big question. And as I said earlier, if the "offense" is the dominant factor, all those facts are useless. .
The Pistons that season were ranked 18th in the league in offense and 2nd in the league in defense. They played amazing team defense and had good individual defenders, anchored defensively by Defensive Player of the Year Ben Wallace (my how the mighty have fallen ) I don't know how you can argue that they were not known as a great defensive team and a decent offensive team. Still arguing the same points as you were a month ago, I see
Said shooting guard shot 33% because the Pistons played a tough, grinding defense that held opposing teams to much less than their season averages. In fact, how many sports writers complained that the Pistons played boring basketball?
Even logically speaking, there is absolutely no reason that either end of the ball should be anymore important than the other. You need to be able to do both well to win it all. The reason for my belief that it's a bigger step towards winning to play defense is that, typically, it is easier to score than to stop someone from scoring. That is why most of the best offensive teams in the NBA are just fast-breaking teams. They falsely inflate their offensive statistics by running up the court as fast as possible and flinging up the first shot they can get. It's easy to get a lot of points that way, and maybe even easy to get a lot of good shots that way. But there's a reason those teams never get it done. That's an example of how it's easier to revamp your team to score. On the other hand, it is harder to revamp your team to play defense. Usually once you do, though, the results are pretty good. For whatever reason, though, the Rockets are one of the VERY few teams that haven't yet seen those results after years of playing great D. Probably partly because we just haven't had a good enough offense to match our defense, and probably partly because how ridiculously tough the west is. ... With all that said, I have no idea why my point is because this all seems a little off topic. I guess the point is that it's not worth making a significant defensive sacrifice to get a slight offensive improvement?
There are some difference between defensive/offensive rank and actual defense/offense. Also, Haven't I proven that there is a huge logical flaw in your logic? My post#169 and #84 in the following thread: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=141252&page=9 .
Defense is what you play when you don't have the ball. Offense is what you play when you do have the ball. So far as the accepted wisdom goes, I'll stick with it until presented with a compelling argument that seems to invalidate it. I haven't seen anything yet that comes close.
Good lord, how many times have you brought up that thread? Clearly, nobody is convinced by posts #169 and #84.
This is why we lost to the Jazz. -Boozer was a matchup nightmare on the defensive end. No one could guard him. Hayes was too short considering Boozer's high jump-shot release and Yao was too slow. -Deron Williams destroyed Rafer on the offensive end. Rafer was too small to guard him and Deron was backing him down and shooting and killing him on screens and he was too fast for Luther to guard well -Yao couldn't guard Okur at the three point line -Rafer was missing open shots -Luther couldn't hit any shots -We had no bench -Gricek decided to make some big shots for the first time in his career -AK47 decided to break out of his season-long funk and made some great plays at great times for the Jazz -The front like of Okur, Boozer and AK47 clogged the lane so we couldn't drive the ball to the hoop -Sloan made great adjustments with their deeper bench -Harpring was too strong for Shane or Tmac to guard in the post and he hit some big shots -Once again, Carlos Boozer was on FIRE all series.
