Who suggessted that? They won because they were a great defensive team with an effective offense. When that offense lost some of its effectiveness, despite their defense remaining strong, they didn't win. Some stats can be deceptive, but where you place relative to other teams in your league on a FG% or rebound metric seems pretty clear to me. Again, you'd be better off defending the 2003-2004 Pistons than the Bad Boys. Your projecting a style of play onto the team that is accurate, but not the whole picture.
No one says defense with no offense wins championships. Of course you need at least an average offense to have a good chance. The quality of your offense usually revolves around the quality of your roster. Some how I don't think Phil Jackson was a worse coach this year than the years he won titles any more than I think Adelman went from a good coach in Portland to a bad coach in GS and then back to a good coach again in Sacramento.
Yes, I know all about the Piston runs. They're still an anomaly. You have one champion (albeit 2 different examples) that was predominantly known for their defense since about 1980. I don't know if I'd try to emulate that. You could replace Jordan with another good defender and not see a significant dropoff in that team's defense. However, that team wouldn't come close to a title because you could NEVER replace what he did offensively. The main reason for their success was Michael Jordan's offense. I don't see how that's even up for debate. He's as close to it as anyone else playing today. He makes people think Tony Parker is a great player.
even with MJ's great offense...they didn't win until/unless they started playing real defense. he put up great numbers in the 95 playoffs...they were swept by orlando. he put up great numbers against the pistons...they lost. i'll agree to disagree with you on duncan. i think he's very, very good. but not unstoppable force. you don't know if you'd try to emulate it? if you don't have an MJ or other superstar type player, you're forced to emulate it. the pistons this year don't have the option of relying on a superstar to save them.
I think Gundy's teams, at least with the Rockets, while great at defense, are no where close to being the type of lockdown teams like the Pistons (old and new), Bulls (old), or Spurs (last decade). While great at stopping fast breaks, his teams always rely on shutting down lanes while giving up the open shots in half court. We couldnt do crap against teams like the Suns (who SA promptly shut down) and Mavs cause they can shoot lights out from the perimeter as well. We tried to defend the perimeter against the Jazz, only to open <b>all </b> lanes for cutters, and givin up a zillion layins........ We look like world beaters when a team is missing outside jumpers, but guess what? You run into a team that can do a lil of both, and we lose every time. Cause you know we're definitely not outscoring them. While Gundy teams with the Rockets have been good to great defensively, no way do we even come close to the teams mentioned earlier. You can so tell by just watching the Spurs, who not only shut down the lanes, but rotate back to the perimeter with the best of them.... To top it all off, check out the final score of game 1 vs. the Jazz.......both teams score over 100, and guess what? SA still wins........SA is extremely talented in both ends.......Rockets lose games like this. How many times did we blow 4th quarter leads when a team got hot all of a sudden, and we couldnt hit the broad side of a barn?
Offense is proactive and defense passive in nature. They are equally important and interrelated in many ways. Games are won on both ends of a court, not just one. Balance is the key.
