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Kawhi Leonard's defensive real plus minus (xRAPM) is 0.76. There are only a handful of small forwards logging the kinds of minutes Leonard is with a better defensive xRAPM. Kyle Anderson's xRAPM is 3.4 playing 14 minutes a game. Simmons at 17 minutes a game and 1.27 xRAPM. They function as SAS's backup small forwards. This reflects SAS's defense getting "better" with Leonard on the bench.
if you take a microscope to the best defensive metrics out there you should conclude Leonard is at minimum an above average defender.
Coaches have several 15 minute-a-game guys at their disposal and will only use them under certain specific conditions favourable to that player. Coaches will throw their starters into any fire at any time. Hence you see all kinds of these 15 minute-a-game guys with amazing performance metrics that will never scale to full time play. Orlando's former GM learned this lesson the hard way.
anyhow, it'll be interesting to see how good Kyle Anderson's defense really is when he gets more playing time.
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Wtf is wrong with the raps.
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On April 16 2017 23:13 Xeris wrote: Wtf is wrong with the raps. they've lost a lot of game 1s
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the Derozan/Lowry era Raptors teams have never been good offensively in the playoffs. They survived last year's playoffs with very good defense.
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On April 17 2017 00:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote: the Derozan/Lowry era Raptors teams have never been good offensively in the playoffs. They survived last year's playoffs with very good defense. They were specially bad in ISO defense yesterday. Their one on one defense was not up to par.
Of course, Milwaukee also has the best player on the floor. A lot of people aren't giving enough credit to the advantage that is in the playoffs.
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Not sure why but really loved seeing Adams take out Beverly on that screen 8D
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Westbrook could have made his season so much better...if he just took half as many threes.
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I flew all the way to Houston for that shit...
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The Raps will still win. They're just no good at game ones.
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Lowry's excuse this year is that he is fighting flu like symptoms. Last year it was his elbow; 2 years ago his shoulder. He dragged his feet on getting his wrist fixed this year.
http://www.sportsnet.ca/basketball/nba/kyle-lowry-casey-unsure-fix-point-guards-playoff-blues/
great article by this employee of the media outlet owned by the company that owns the Raptors.
after all the crap that went down this year its now pretty clear Lowry and Casey are feuding behind closed doors.
Lowry has the flu? i don't know if he does, i can say people are getting sick of his excuses.
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On April 17 2017 11:58 Jerubaal wrote: Westbrook could have made his season so much better...if he just took half as many threes.
I think they are like below 40% winning when he's over 10 threes :-/
On April 16 2017 09:44 Jerubaal wrote: It goes back to my earlier question: can you be worse than zero at defense? He's one of the best offensively but one of the worst defenders.
I dont think anyone is in love with Westbrook or going ermagerd trip dubs! But I think a) we find his season more unique and b) some people just dont like Harden's style of play no matter how we'll he does it.
I don't think there is a "0" in the NBA on defense. Certainly you would think its hard to be worse than 4v5, but sometimes in pickup that is exactly the case (you falsely think a guy is guarded because someone is near him, but he really isn't). The problem with IT3 isn't that his defense is bad, a lot of PGs have really bad defense. Tony Parker is pretty bad at defense. The problem is when you have a IT3/Parker you need to have 3 or 4 really good defenders on the floor (a difficult task for any team), of those, both wings and at least one big need to be offensive threats. Unless you got a bunch of dude's on rookie contracts, such a team is going to look like Cleveland++ in payoll.
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if anyone is ambitious enough to grind through these #s http://www.82games.com/1617/1617BOS2.HTM
what they'll find is that every Boston player has a better defensive rating without Isaiah Thomas on the floor.
i watched Cleveland many games early in the year. I saw them in person twice early in the year. Deandre Liggins impressed the hell out of me.. impressed in that he looked like he could be an average or maybe slightly above average NBA player. I noted that in the regular season thread. Didn't pay much attention to it.. was just speaking off the cuff really... forgot all about it.
Turns out Cleveland's best 5 man squad this year BY FAR was : Irving, LBJ, Love, Thompson, *Liggins*
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On April 17 2017 11:58 Jerubaal wrote: Westbrook could have made his season so much better...if he just took half as many threes. He is literally their only 3-point threat out there. And he isn't that great of a 3-point shooter either.
The thing is if he is feeling the 3 and the defense have to play him just that much closer, it opens up the half-court a little more for them (since they don't have shooters anyways or that they can play in the playoffs anyways). So I think he is hoping to find it sometimes as a "jump-start or last hope" kinda thing, but when he can't then they look worse, but they were already in trouble anyways. This also applies to that "stat" that clutz said about his win-% when shooting >10 3's.
In the regular season, they could avoid those things more as the #1 transition team in the league, but in the playoffs, transition-offense goes down so it will get harder. That, and even if they want to speed up the pace, Houston(most 3-pters and the #1 half-court offense in the league) is not a good opponent to try that on.
I've been over the MVP debate since I last posted about it (over a week ago) b/c it's just a circlejerk among the 4 top candidates tbh (as they are all worthy). But something missed here is that if you were design a team for Westbrook to succeed in, it would have to look a lot like Houston's does...
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On April 18 2017 02:38 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2017 11:58 Jerubaal wrote: Westbrook could have made his season so much better...if he just took half as many threes. I think they are like below 40% winning when he's over 10 threes :-/ Show nested quote +On April 16 2017 09:44 Jerubaal wrote: It goes back to my earlier question: can you be worse than zero at defense? He's one of the best offensively but one of the worst defenders.
I dont think anyone is in love with Westbrook or going ermagerd trip dubs! But I think a) we find his season more unique and b) some people just dont like Harden's style of play no matter how we'll he does it. I don't think there is a "0" in the NBA on defense. Certainly you would think its hard to be worse than 4v5, but sometimes in pickup that is exactly the case (you falsely think a guy is guarded because someone is near him, but he really isn't). The problem with IT3 isn't that his defense is bad, a lot of PGs have really bad defense. Tony Parker is pretty bad at defense. The problem is when you have a IT3/Parker you need to have 3 or 4 really good defenders on the floor (a difficult task for any team), of those, both wings and at least one big need to be offensive threats. Unless you got a bunch of dude's on rookie contracts, such a team is going to look like Cleveland++ in payoll.
Zero is the wrong phrase, I guess. Is there a floor to how bad you can be at defense that you just don't care anymore. Is IT hurting his team much more than Parker or Harden? Of course, as you say, it depends on their supporting cast.
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Well, it also depends on salary, and your position. Parker has never been on a max deal, also the Spurs are an aberration. Harden, by virtue of being much bigger gets to play with Beverly, who guards the other team's PG, and on most teams the Rockets will be facing the 2 or 3 will not be a great scorer (so Harden can be put on either, and he usually won't be put into a Pick-and-Roll). Its all about positional scarcity. You compare IT3 + Bradley vs. Harden + Beverly, they make about the same, but I'd take the 2nd combo today, but going forward IT3+Bradley are going to be making max deals or close to max deals, while Beverly, or a Delly, etc will always be relatively affordable.
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On April 18 2017 02:38 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2017 11:58 Jerubaal wrote: Westbrook could have made his season so much better...if he just took half as many threes. I think they are like below 40% winning when he's over 10 threes :-/
That may also be because he jacks up a lot of 3s to try to get his team back in a game that they are already going to lose
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Kevin Love has 25 points on 7 FGA ;o
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You may have forgotten that he is, in fact, one of the best offensive players in the league.
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