When you make this argument, it's clear you don't understand the meaning of that phrase. Noone said you can still win with defense if you score 0 points. That would be dumb. People say "Defense wins championships" because it is one constant element you can bring to the table every night. You offense might come and go. No matter how talented you are. MJ, Duncan ... there will be nights when the shots just don't drop. On those nights, if you have the defense, it allows you to stay in the game long enough until you offense come around. Take the Rockets. How many games have you seen our disappearing offense, yet, we have always been competitive, because we have been able to keep the opponents from going off. That is what it means. It's not that dumb!
This makes no sense. If you, as an offensive player, can randomly have hot and cold nights, than it has to follow the same is true for defense....because that means someone is guarding you who is either doing a "good job" or "bad job" keeping you in check. besides just this logical check, it is also certainly true that sometimes you really just aren't as good a defender as you are on other days, even with comprable effort. The saying "Defense Wins Championships" literraly means, as Max is arguing, that in the grand scheme of things, defense tends to be more important than offense. I tend to disagree with the philosophy, in general, but only to the extent that balance seems to be key to me, just not necessarily equal balance - depends on the players, team, coach, competition during any given year, etc. Going further, defense seems to require more and/or better execution and teamwork, by its nature, so players and teams who understand defensive execution, usually also understand offensive execution and by their nature have good degrees of balance - even the Piston teams. (the 89-90 team had no one averaging over 20, but 4 people over 15, 6 people over 10 and 10 players over 7 ppg. Even for the late 90's, averaging almost 107 ppg as a team meant you were pretty decent on offense). Usually the more our offense dissapears, the more we lose.
No, I'm saying people exaggerate the phrase. Bad offensive teams or stagnant offensive teams rarely win anything in any sport. There are occasional exceptions, but it is rare. Teams like San Antonio are not just average on offense, they are good. Point totals are irrelevant in my opinion because style and tempo of a game affect that. What matters is how hard players are working to get points. The Rockets labor like crazy to get baskets. Thats why their offense is bad. The Spurs run smooth offensive sets that get players easy high percentage shots. So does Detroit. So does Utah, etc.
Defense can stop opponent offense and can creat the offense of yourself. That is how the champoins OUTSCORED others and won championships.
No it isn't. Most championship teams use good defense to keep the other team from scoring a lot, and then run skilled offensive sets that get them high percentage shots and allow them to score more than they give up. They don't just stop the other team and then cross their fingers and hope they can outscore them.
The reason why this is true is this: Good defense has always beat good offense. (Maybe not in a particular game, but in every series that I've ever seen.) Great defense beats a great offense. And bad offense beats bad defense.
It's clearly not this cut and dry. It also depends on how good your own offense is. Sincerely, 06/07 Houston Rockets
wait, what?? no. look...let's look at the Bad Boys teams that won rings. they didn't have tons of fast breaks off TO's. they weren't a team that scored much at all, frankly. their defense shut down the opponents...and they needed less offense because of it. they won despite the fact their high point man averaged less than 20 ppg. and they weren't a fluke...they were back-to-back.
of the 4 teams left in the playoffs, SA included, only one cracked the top 13 in points scored...and that's Utah at 6. i know you're now going to tell me how points scored really isn't indicative of how good an offense is. and i'll follow up by saying that's ridiculous and i don't buy it..because the object of the offense is to score points to begin with.
Offense Efficiency of the Final 4: Jazz #3 Spurs #4 Pistons #6 Cavs #19 Oops! Looks like there are 3 top offense team in the final 4.
i said points scored. not offensive efficiency. yeah, i know...it's more telling to make up stats than just look at the points scored by teams over the exact same number of games to determine how effective those teams are at scoring points.
I disagree. When I play BB, there are many times, my shots disappear, no matter what I do, I can not throw the ball into the ocean ! (another dumb phrase, one might say! ) But I can still play defense, I can move my feet, be active, alert, hustle and my defense will be there every time. Of course, but if we play good defense, the less time we lose.
Max, The Bad Boys weren't offensive juggernauts, but they were effective. team scoring per game averaged: 87-88 = 109.2 (Lost NBA Finals) 88-89 = 106.6 (won it all) 89-90 = 104.3 (Won it all) 90-91 = 100.1 (Lost East Conf. Finals) In all 4 years they were never worse than 12th (out of 23-27 teams) in points per 100 possesions. see: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DET/1989.html if you look at their four factor ratings, which is decent analysis, their defensive ratings were always very very strong (better than their offense), but their offensive ratings tended to be really good, too. In 90/91 they were the second best FG% defensive team in the league and the best defensive rebounding team in the league. This is better from a defensive standpoint than they were in 87/88 or 88/89, and very very comparable to 89/90. In truth all years were good defensively, but I'm saying you could easily argue that their best year defensively relative to the rest of the league was 1990 and 1991. Of the 4 years I list, this also happens to be their WORST offensive year (fewest PPG, 12th out of 27 teams in points per 100 possesions, 19th best FG% shooting team, middle of the pack from the line). They were still a decent offensive team (good offensive rebounding, few turnovers), but they had deteriorated in that department. Of the 4 years listed, this happens to be their worst result in the post-season. Their defense was better. Their offense was worse. Didn't go past 90/91, but now looking at 91/92, the Pistons continue to remain really pretty strong on defense (best FG% defending team, top 7 in defensive rebounds), but their offense continues to slide even more and they lose in the first round. Anyways, the Pistons seem to be your fallback team. I don't have many vivid memories of their games back then, but I do have some. And the analysis is telling me that they were really a top tier offensive team, too. The 03/04 Pistons may make a better case. The real question is, are the REALLY any teams out there that have been as good defensively as the Rockets last year while simultaneously being as bad as they were offensively. And how did they perform. The 03/04 Pistons seem to have done the best, being one of the best defensive teams that year while turning the ball over a fair amount and shooting only 20th best in the league. However, the compensated for that by being the 9th best offensive rebounding team. I give JVG all the credit in the world for being a defensive mastermind. But his complete inability to ever competently coach offense has been and will be his downfall. It's about balance. It depends on the year, the players, the team, the coach, the rest of the league, the competition, the GM, etc. as to what balance for any given team will result in the most wins, and how far that balance will take them in the playoffs. Maybe JVG found the balance that took us as far as we're going to go. But shrot of making wholesale changes, you have to find out if another approach makes more sense for this team.
Same here. And sometimes, my defense is worth crap, but for some reason I'm 11-16 behind the 3 point line. And sometimes I suck on both ends of the court, and sometimes I'm a NBA scout or two away from signing my 10 day contract....
so your saying that the pace a team plays has no baring on how poorly their offense may appear? I would say team FG% would be a much more telling stat...
Max, Points scored is not a good indicator of how effective an offense is. A team that runs and guns is going to score more points, but it also may not be as efficient at scoring them as a team that scores by using set plays that are consistently effective. The point isn't to score 105 points or something, it's to be able to score efficiently instead of laboring to score them. San Antonio doesn't score as much as Phoenix. It's not because they aren't a good offensive team though, it's because they don't play that style. The Rockets were a good defensive team, but were BAD offensively. They struggled mightily to get shots and took a lot of contested buckets that were low percentage. Now, some of this was the talent on the team, but a lot of it was also schemes.
they weren't. not in the sense of the context of the game they played in (coming out of the 80's)....and not in the sense of relative to the teams they played. the detroit pistons won championships with defense. i remember them very well. i loved those teams. they won because they could shut teams down. and it was ugly. and people lamented the loss of the 80's style of basketball. and they called it "ugly." honestly, if you're stats tell you that the pistons were a really good offensive team that also played good defense...then your stats are lying to you.
oh well. they're not my stats. and they are relative to other teams. and the above sentence in no way represents anything I said in my post. i'm not saying that they didn't win with defense. but i am saying they were good offensive teams. in 1988-89 they were the 6th best shooting team, 7th best offensive rebounding team and 7th best free throw shooting team in the league. They were 8th in regards to points per 100 possesions. Obviously the relied on their defense. But their offense was pretty good. it's clear as day. and, it seems pretty clear, their offense played a important role in how far they got in the playoffs. just because they played a slow, tough, physical, grind em out game doesn't mean they weren't offensivel effect. they were. why are you ignoring these facts? maybe basketball-reference.com is lying to us all?
I don't think anyone is argueing that the Rockets were a good offensive team. The main dispute is whether that is because of the coaches "system" or because Shane Battier was our 3rd best player. As I have said before, our role players missed WIDE OPEN shots in the playoffs. Shots they had been hitting all year. Blaming that on the coach is a stretch. To think they would hit the wide open shots just because they got open via a motion offense rather than a pass out of a double team is also a stretch.
first, stats can absolutely be deceptive. what's the old saying...lies, damn lies and statistics? here's the thing...if you watched that team you'd know how they won. it was clear. to suggest that they won because they were a good offensive team is silly. seriously. daly was every bit the defensive workhorse that JVG is. those guys were sold out for their system...they out-hustled teams and they flat out shut guys down. to that point, no one had seen a team play defense that well. or at least not in many years. they were identified by their defense. it was their signature.
