One more thing: The saying “Offense wins games but Defense wins championships,” was proven quite emphatically during NBA Finals when the Detroit Pistons topped the heavily favored Los Angeles Lakers in five games. Detroit held the Lakers to 81.8 points per game (almost 17 points below its regular season average) on 41.6 percent shooting, including 24.7 percent from three-point range, during it’s run to the NBA title. http://www.nba.com/hawks/news/woodson_defense_040708.html
I don't remember JVG ever really even trying to put Hayes on Boozer for any significant amount of time. He wanted to keep Yao down there so that we would always have him in the paint on defense. It's a shame he didn't at least experiment, though, because in the regular season, Hayes has done a pretty solid job of at least keeping Boozer in check.
It's not that difficult to show it. If offense is the "dominant factor", which you keep arguing, then you can support that by showing there is a much higher correlation over a period of several seasons between team offense (per possession) and winning% compared to team defense (per possession) and winning%. This is a very simple test. Data available at dougstats.com or basketball-reference.com. You'll find out two things. First, there is almost no correlation between offense and defense (so, you can in fact separate them). Just because you're good at offense, doesn't mean you're good at defense, and vice versa. Second, you'll find that there is almost no difference between how offense correlates to winning and how defense correlates to winning, which means neither is a dominant factor.
Just because it is easier to score than get a stop, that doesn't mean that teams that are better at scoring relative to the rest of the league have more of an edge compared to teams that are better at getting stops relative to the rest of the league. If that is the conclusion you are drawing, then that is a logical flaw.
My god, went back to ground zero! Let me say this way: if offense is the dominant factor, all the facts you provided are useless. To prove defense is more important than offense, you must prove that defense is the dominant factor. I did start a thread (you knew it) to prove offense is the dominant factor, and so far, I can say I'm 70% right. My question is, how can you to prove defense is the dominant factor? .
It is not that easy. I want to use your own words/ideas, please correct me if I'm wrong. The big problem is how to separate offense and defense. Don't you think your offense is correlated to your opponent's defense? When you score 2 points, you can say it is because you played a good offense, but also, you can say it is because your opponent played a bad defense. How to separate them? I did spend a whole thread to try to prove offense is the dominant factor, but it is still not very sure. .
That was his main problem. As a matter of fact, he didn't even give Mutombo a shot in the series. He just let the guy rot on the bench. I'm glad he lost his job because he was a moron.
Who cares, that argument is stupid, fact is, defense nor offense alone will win a freaking basketball game and a blind man can see that.
This logic doesnt make sense. Cant it be said the other way around as well. You could play really great defense but if the guy makes an amazing shot they still score two points. And the argument that Offense is more dominant then Defense also doesnt apply when you look at recent NBA champions. The Spurs are not known for their offense, the Cavs who were also in the finals were a defensive team. The Pistons were a defensive team. And no true offensive team (Suns, Warriors) have won anything recently.
blackbird, I am not getting into this argument with you again. Let these other guys do it for me. I started that thread to see if Tracy McGrady played as poorly offensively as people were saying. That was the point. To see how he played that game. You were the one that started the whole offense vs. defense crap with your odd logic that no one seems to agree with so far. EDIT: it might have been a different thread and I might be confusing you with someone else. regardless, I am not debating with you again. It goes nowhere
Because I inferred the obvious? I'm surprised you didn't proclaim another 99.9% 'logical flaw' and refer me to the nearest professor.
Good. Actually, it is one of the reasons why I said it is very difficult to separate offense and defense. How to separate offense and defense? It is not that easy. I did try to prove it by a whole thread, but so far, I'm only 70% sure that offense is the dominant factor. Now, I know where is the problem. It is a very very difficult question, you guys think it is so easy. .
That is an issue for a single game. But over the course of a season, as the strength of schedule for each team starts to converge (similar opponents faced), you can of course separate out who are the good offensive teams and who are the good defensive teams. So, how do you measure a team's offense? The most useful way is simply points scored per possession. Likewise, a team's defense is measured by points allowed per possession. This is what is called "offensive efficiency" and "defensive efficiency", respectively. And it turns out, as one would expect, that one isn't any more important to winning than the other ... at least in the regular season. This is merely a matter of logic. A team's record is going to be directly related to how much they score minus how much they allow. And, since offensive efficiency and defensive efficiency are basically uncorrelated, it follows that each contribute to winning equally.
Your own offensive efficiency and your own defensive efficiency are uncorrelated. But Your own offensive efficiency and your opponent's defensive efficiency are directly correlated, your own defensive efficiency and your opponent's offensive efficiency are directly correlated. You still can't separate them perfectly. You are a stats guy, it is not too difficult for you to understand it. .
I call it the Dungyball effect. Play solid defense and have a good inside game and you can instantly compete for a .500(sometimes over, sometimes under) record. The better you get at each the higher you can go, but without an offense that can score points when it has to, you can only go so far with solid inside play and solid defense. Yes its a football to basketball analogy, but you look at the improved play of bad teams becoming competitive teams in both sports. It USUALLY starts with defense. Hornets, Blazers, Celtics, etc.
Of course your offense is determined by how good your opponent's defense is. Over a large sample of games, as you start to play a distribution of good and bad defensive teams, it will become apparent how good your offense really is. And likewise for defense. You're getting stuck on this issue that your offense is determine by your opponent's defense. The right way to look at it is that your offense is determined by how many points you score against some baseline opponent. That is, if every team faced the same opponent, then you can rank them by offense and defense based on points scored/allowed per possession. This should be obvious. Now, because over an entire season every team plays roughly a similar schedule, you again can rank the teams offense and defense, since on average they are playing the same opponents. That should have been clear already, but hopefully you understand it this time. If you are really interested in this topic, you should read Basketball On Paper. Using offensive and defensive efficiency to measure a team's offense and defensive is pretty firmly established and accepted by guys who know far more about basketball than you or I and have thought long and hard about this. It's accept by stats people and coaches alike. You're really not going to get anywhere trying to figure out which one is the "dominant factor" if you don't accept that to start with.
You agreed it is an issue for a singe game. How can you overcome it by a large sample of games? Lets say, A plays against B for just one game, there is an issue. If A plays against B for 10000 games, there is no issue? You just put yourself in a circle. .
Maybe you missed the part where I said ballhog Bryant took 35% of the teams shots in a selfish display not to pass the ball to his teammates, especially Shaq. Not only that, but again DET was held below their season average. Boy you're fighting a battle not worth fighting. This topic blows to be honest with you.
