"All I wanted to do was get layups. That's all I was really searching for."

Ok.

So before the 3 pt line, games were generally significantly higher scoring.

What does one attribute that to given that no shot could offer more than 2pts on any one possession?

 

I don't understand why people act like the stretch four and spreading the floor to open the lane is something new. RudyT did that with Robert Horry back in 1995. The only difference back then was it to open it up for Dream instead of opening up for driving lanes. I guess Spoelstra wasn't watching and there weren't thousands of bloggers writing about it so it didn't count.

 

the games being much faster-paced is a large reason for that. the game pretty much continuously slowed down from the early 60's until the late 90's and early 2000's. only the last couple of years have really started to see a surge in pace.

having said that, offenses were more efficient than now for much of the 80's even though almost no one took 3's. just from the eyeball test, i would say that was for 2 main reasons:

1) almost everyone back then seemed to have a money mid-range jumper in a way that the average player today does not. even big guys seemed to.

2) outside of the occasional flagrant foul, basically no one played defense and even if they did, it was largely one on one defense which isn't going to be effective against the stars no matter how good the individual defender is. team defense largely consisted of one guy going very obviously going over to double team and leaving a guy open for a jumper in a way no half-decent defense today would, in part because there are simply better schemes and effort on D and in part because zones allow for easier double teams.

combine 1) with 2) and you get efficient offense. today, the length and athleticism of players pretty much requires teams to go all the way out to the 3 point line to spread the court sufficiently, in the same way that practically everybody in football needs a spread passing attack to score on the more athletic players of today. 3 pointers are basically a necessity for good offense. all those money mid-range shooters would have had to learn to shoot 3's by this point because it would simply be too easy to guard a team only shooting 2's.

 

A lot more fg and ft attempts prior to the 3. D'Antoni was borrowing from the up and down basketball of the 70's when he came up with his offense. Get the ball up the court, don't let the defense set, get spacing, and try to get easy buckets as a result.

 

no doubt rudy should get credit. and not only that, it was a mid-season change, much like the heat doing it. but still, when it is kind of a one-off that doesn't start a trend, it just doesn't get noticed that much. the main other team to do it and win until more recently was the lakers, who just so happened to also do it with robert horry. and even as popular as the lakers are, no one gives them credit either, although i supposed it's hard to call anything with shaq "small ball". the fact robert horry was a stretch 4 before basically anyone else was is a big reason he has 7 rings, because he could fit perfectly with a hakeem/shaq/duncan in a time when 3's were becoming popular.


another thing related to stretch 4's that rudy did was emphasize the 3. it was becoming bigger but we took it to a new level. i also was looking the other day and noticed that for almost all of rudy's tenure, the rockets were one of the league leaders in not fouling people. both are big things in analytics. i don't know if rudy was crunching numbers somewhere, but he was focusing on analytics things before people put a name to it.

 

They changed the rules to work against big men
So
This was in the post NO POST PLAYING era

Rocket River

 

Back in the day
They would come down and basically take the first open shot
seems like teams now trying to get the 'right person' the open shot

Rocket River

 

what's weird is you would think faster basketball would lead to more efficient offenses because the defense wouldn't be set or because you'd almost have to have cherrypickers to play that fast and would have numbers all the time on offense.

and yet offense in the 70's was very inefficient. and in the 60's it was faster-paced and even more inefficient. they don't exactly show a lot of games from back then, but it seems like people just ran up and down the court and flung up the first horrible shot they could find when you'd think there would have been layups galore with so few defenders back on defense.

 

Durant would be rich man's Shane Battier, barring that give me Luol Deng.

 

Back in the day, the 4's stretched the court by virtue of being able to do this little thing called SHOOTING. Fundamentals are lost in the game and now people act like a "stretch 4" is a specialist because most 4's in the league are ham-handed idiots who thunder dunked on less mature kids throughout AAU basketball.

 

about 5 years too late on this
Most now are chucking bricks from the 3 pt line
almost none are mixing it up on the block

Rocket River

 

Hence the "most are ham handed idiots" part? Just because the 4's shoot them doesn't mean they have the fundamentals to make them....

 

Durant is way more than a rich man's Shane Battier. Durant can dribble and bring up the ball down the court. That part was virtually non existent in Battier's game.

 

Terrence Jones would agree about dunking on idiots and chucking while not being able to hit a thing. The PF spot as well as the C spot is becoming a joke. I hate these glorified PFs shooting threes or centers who can only dunk like DJ.

 

Durant would also flail and fall as if he's ice skating. At least Battier knows his limits.

 

George Karl implemented a stretch 4/5 long before Rudy brought in Big Shot Bob. Sam Perkins stretched the floor, so did Charles Barkley. This was not Rudy's invention, he's just the first to make it work during a championship run.

 

if only KJ could hit a 3....

 

This is what frustrates me about hiring D'Antoni over a defensive coach. It's easier to implement offense than it is defense and discipline. Here you have a defensive coach in Spo overhauling the offense overnight. D'Antoni was an assistant last year, he should still be an assistant. Manufacturing pace is an asset, but alone that trait isn't enough to warrant so much value that you grant that person full autonomy.

 

So D'antoni's offense shot 3s to open up the lane for layups...but Morey-ball dictates you should drive to free up shooters for 3s. Did I get that right? Can someone enlighten me, I know threes, free throws, and layups are all the best shots in basketball, but in that order?