Fire Bzdelik (and MDA) - Small Ball Video Analysis

I’m off the opinion that the GSW are just better than us and it will take a near perfectly executed series to beat them.

I see the main factor being our bench underperformed. This was supposed to be a Warriors team hampered by depth but their bench outplayed ours overall.

All these what if adjustments are just mental masterbation.

 

This. They have a counter to any schematic adjustment because our their personnel.

Draymond Green is probably their second most important player (behind Curry) and has unfathomably basketball intelligence. Oh and guess what.... Iggy can play at an elite level for a series.

 

agreed. i said this from the beginning. mid-season acquisitions don't translate directly to the playoffs. we wasted too much of the season, and no matter how great we were leading up to the end of regular season, we weren't going to have enough to take them down.

 

I agree overall. However injuries and a slow start/suspensions played a role so I don’t view it as “wasting” necessarily.

I think the Rockets are still the second of third best team in the league.

I think Capela had a terrible series due to a terrible matchup but let’s not understate his importance to the overall picture. However, he should be traded if deemed appropriate.

 

I've generally believed this, but honestly, at this point, I'm not 100% sold anymore. Unless you are being specific to the Rockets. Because absolutely, the Rockets can't play a different overall scheme. I am curious though if a team like the Bucks would defend them differently?

 

My defensive gameplay would’ve been putting Nene out there for at least a 2 quarters and a half, and pre-switching him at-will. Keep the switching scheme but pre-switch him.

What gets lost is Nene even held his own defensively in isolation. Far better than Capela.

I’m praying D’Antoni is fired or I can no longer follow this team.

 

Who else has defended them as well as we have? They never blew us out once.

 

You pre switch with them and their offense would take advantage of it.

 

The problem was more not doubling Klay every second he got the ball not Curry when either or both got hot.

 

I'm not sure. Do we have DRtg numbers for the series. It's always hard to ferret out pace. Obviously the series they lost to Cleveland, lol though that was pre-KD. I'm just saying I'm not sure at the moment.

 

Switching is pretty much the only way you get them otherwise they take advantage. But I’m ready to eat crow depending on what the Bucks do.

 

Yes. It will be funny if the Bucks don't get there, but I'm very interested to see what they do. 1st in DRtg this year and Bud was a MASTERMIND at defending schemes that were team specific.

 

Actually I also wanna say that keep in mind, Bud has a lot of talent on is team and that its definitely more about the talent they have on the floor than schemes.

 

Capela was NOT better in last year's playoffs on switches. They torched him. The difference was we had Ariza and PJ in tandem to counter and sit Capela. And we had Luc for much of the regular season further masking Capela's lack of switch ability. Go through the possessions last year and you'll see the Warriors were ultra efficient when they got Capela in a switch.

This is not anything new. We never replaced the skill sets of Ariza and Luc defensively. We then PAID Capela. And then the multiple teams took our switching scheme to task.

 

I'd like to see Morey go completely all in with analytics and basically hire a coach straight out of his lab. It doesn't even need to be a name we've ever heard of, and it's probably for the best. I want a coach that 100% trusts the math, the net ratings, +/-, efficiency stats, etc. You can hire an assistant that can focus on motivating the teammates and drawing plays.

Just basic math would've told MDA to play Rivers way more and Capela way less, yet he did the opposite in Game 6. A numbers oriented coach can outcoach Kerr.

 

Razor thing margins my man, it wasnt just coaching, we also just suck at defensive rebounding and it did us in.

Yea I know, but I feel like our offense didnt take advantage of that pre switching as they could have. GS would def take advangtage of our pre switching imo, they would have had so many cuts to the basket. Their offense was made to destroy stuff like that. Though tbh, I would have at least liked to have tried it.

We played Capela and Nene more because we were getting crushed on the boards during small ball. Rebounding, rebounding rebounding

 

You say its the coaching strategy but we had no way to stop them because we didnt have the personnel. Our defense was always teh problem this season, not the offense. But the fact remains that we were kept in these games because of our switch defense and our offense.

Just look at what they are doing to Portland right now.

90 points with 8:33 sec left in the 4th.