drza wrote:tsherkin wrote: A lot of very detailed, interesting info
Alright, I'm ready to respond to your monster post. Let me start by saying that there was a lot of killer info in there, and I appreciated the detailed step through. Let me also say that I've enjoyed your overall tone as an informed skeptic in this thread, using strong support to back up your position on both sides. In your posts in general you've been quick to point out Garnett's defense, his playmaking ability, the weakness of his teammates and the strength of his competition.
But. (You knew there was a "but" coming)
In this, a response to me claiming that Garnett has an argument for best postseason performer of his generation due to his overall effect on games, your reply was to stipulate the other factors above (defense, playmaking, weak team/strong opponent) as givens so that you could really key in on how KG performed as a scorer. This would be a reasonable thing to do if you were then going to re-introduce the other factors before making your overall conclusions, but you never really did. I mean, at some points you verbally acknowledge that his defense and rebounding must have been "
THAT AWESOME" to compensate for what you see as offensive weakness, but the overall tone and outcome measures of your post are in general negative to the concept of KG being possibly the best. You even use the example games to attempt to build the case that KG was coming up short in these elimination games, primarily due to scoring. That's a fair thing to do...again, if you go back and add the context and other elements of the game before making your conclusions. I don't think you do, though. I think you make your conclusions based on the scoring, then add a disclaimer about the other circumstances afterwards that softens the criticisms but doesn't truly evaluate the game as a whole.
On the whole, in zooming in so far on KG's scoring output/efficiency I think you sometimes find yourself missing the forest for the trees. So let me add some perspective to a few of the games that you classified as stinkers for KG, many of the most egregious ones in fact, and see if it's really reasonable to characterize those games as evidence of Garnett-failure.
99 versus the eventual-champion Spurs...
Then here's the killer. Game 4 was a 7-point loss and he shot 6/20 FG and 8/12 at the line. Realistically, he left 7-9 points on the board from what he'd have posted just making 45% FG and around 80% FT, very normal numbers for him. This is a single-game, single-series performance at the beginning of his All-NBA era (and he's far from alone in having poor performances), but as we start to watch him coming up short in key moments and close games like that, it begins to detract from the overall picture you're painting of the "most dominant postseason performer from 99-08" kind of thing, right? That right there is a game that kind of mirrors Dirk against the Warriors.
OK. Here's the first elimination game that you characterize as a failure. If all I had to go by was your description, I'd think that KG just stunk in this game. I mean wow, he shot terrible and left points on the board in a winnable game. Yeah, that stings...oh, but hold on for a second. Let's take a step back and look at the game as a whole:
Garnett - 20 points, 40% TS, 16 rebounds, 6 asts, 2 stls, 1 TO
Duncan - 16 points, 42% TS, 8 rebounds, 0 asts, 0 stls, 3 blks, 1 TO
Garnett KILLED Duncan in their head-to-head this game. Yeah, Garnett's shooting was off and it'd be great if he could have hit more. But he was facing the consensus best PF of all-time who was also backed up by a still almost prime David Robinson, if KG happened to get by Duncan. KG's running mate at center on that team, the man to help him face off against Duncan and Robinson, was DEAN GARRETT!!!!
The only reason that this game was remotely winnable for the Wolves was that KG erased Duncan, dominated the glass, set the table for his teammates with a (team-high) 6 assists-to-1-TO ratio, and clamped the paint (Duncan and Robinson shot a combined 10-for-28 from the field).
You'd be hard pressed to convince me (or, I'd think anyone really) that Garnett had a poor game in that closeout. He flat out out-played the consensus GOAT at his position head-to-head, and gave his team a serious shot to win against a much better opponent. I mean yeah, it'd be nice if KG could have thrown a dominant scoring game on top of that. But at that point such a hypothetical performance is no longer vying for "best of his generation"...it's inching more towards "best in history".
2000, against Portland:
Opens up with a 6/20 performance, no FTAs. 12/10/11 triple-double, but the triple-double belies his overall performance. With 26.2% usage and him shooting 30% FG without any FTAs, that's a rough, rough performance. And it was a 3-point loss. The not-Garnett Wolves shot 53% FG. Meantime, Sheed played well: didn't shoot much, but was 6/10 for 15 points (3/3 FT).
I reply to this one purely because you later mention this game (as well as the above Spurs G4) as one of three "major stinkers" in the 8 games of this and the Spurs series. So again, let's look at it. The Blazers frontline featured Rasheed Wallace, Scottie Pippen, and Sabonis as starters with Brian Grant as the main big off the bench. Much like the Duncan/Robinson frontline, we're again speaking of one of the best defensive frontcourts of the era...and they were focused entirely on KG. Now, it's more than fair to mention that KG was terrible shooting in this game. However, you mention KG's 11 assists and the non-Garnett Wolves shooting 53% FG as though those are two isolated events, when in reality the other Wolves starters shot so well specifically BECAUSE Garnett was drawing the Blazers defense and getting the rest of his team easy looks. Also, the Blazers as a team were under their averages in both points scored and FG%, suggesting that somebody on the Wolves must have really been putting in work on defense.
The Wolves lost a tight 3-point game on the road against a much better team, where the opponent was so keyed on KG that he was able to get the rest of his team playing to max efficiency on offense while simultaneously playing lock defense at the other end to keep them in it. Now obviously you can (and did) read this as KG coming up short because of the scoring...to me, this reads that Garnett was the dominant player in this game and did everything he could to give his team a shot to win and they just didn't have enough.
Said a different way...if KG played this EXACT same game and the Blazers played this EXACT same game, but KG was out there with 2002 Steve Nash, Michael Finley and Nick Van Exel instead of Brandon, Wally Z and Anthony Peeler, I think they win this game easily. On the flip side, if the rest of the Wolves were exactly as good but you replaced KG in that game with Tim Duncan, the Wolves still very likely lose (Duncan's 3 games against the Blazers in 2000 were 2 scoring stinkers and 1 scoring explosion, with almost no presence on the boards). So I'm saying that Garnett in this game, even with his shot completely off, was still having at least as much positive impact on the game as we'd have expected from his contemporary superstars. That's a success, not a stinker.
2000, against Portland:
Game 4. Elimination game #2 in this series and KG goes for a 5/20. 1/2 3P, 6/6 FT. 17 points on 37.5% TS. 10 boards, 9 assists, 3 turnovers. But WOW was he ever bad shooting that night, and that's his second major stinker in the series and his third over two consecutive postseason matchups (e.g. his 3rd in 8 games).
Copy and paste the analysis from game 1. Again, KG's shot was in the toilet. Again, he was setting up his teammates right and left, playing dominant defense (Blazers scored 85 points with an ORtg of 101.2...WELL below their season averages of 97.5 points on 107.9 ORtg), and giving his team a legitimate chance against a much stronger opponent. And mind you, I've now re-examined each of the three games that you characterize as "major stinkers" and...well, I've said my piece. If you would still call those games stinkers OVERALL (with scoring and everything else also included) then we'd have to agree to disagree.
2001 vs SAS:
Game 2. Welcome to Crapsville, population, YOU. 5/13 FG, but 8/8 FT gives him a 54.5% TS. 12 boards, 2 assists, 2 turnovers, 112 ORTG. Another rough shooting night for him, though, and he played only 32 minutes because of some foul trouble, but mainly because it was garbage time after 3. The Wolves shot something stupid like a tenth of a percent off of their franchise-worst in the playoffs and they committed 20 turnovers. It was embarrassing. KG was part of a team-wide failure that game. This is, I believe, the year after Sealy was killed and right around Joe Smith time.
OK, really, I'm not going to spend a lot of words here. Let me just post 4 stat lines from this game:
Garnett - 18 points, 54.5% TS, 12 reb, 2 ast, 1 blk, 2 TO
Duncan - 18 points, 45.5% TS, 11 rebs, 4 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk, 1 TO
Rest-of-Wolves-Starters-Combined: 15 pts, 25.7% TS, 11 rebounds, 4 ast, 2 stl, 1 blk, 8 TOs
David Robinson by himself: 16 points, 69% TS, 11 rebounds, 3 asts, 3 stls, 2 blks, 2 TOs
Was Garnett in the population of Crapsville? Was he part of a team-wide failure? Or did Garnett again play Duncan to at-worst a standstill, and his team COMPLETELY let him down? I leave it to the reader to decide.
2001 vs SAS:
Game 4, elimination game. 6/13 shooting, 19/15/5, 2 turnovers, 5 fouls, 7/8 FT for 57.5% TS but they were crushed, a 13-point loss. Duncan shot terribly (8/23) and D-Rob had 4 fouls by the 3rd. Wolves were down 8 after 3, but down only 1 at halftime.
Another elimination game, part of the theme you were trying to develop of Garnett failing personally in big games. You mention Duncan's shooting and D-Rob's foul trouble, but don't really elaborate. So, slightly wider angle lens:
Garnett - 19 points, 57.5% TS, 15 reb, 5 ast, 1 stl, 3 blk, 2 TOs
Duncan - 24 points, 42.4% TS, 16 reb, 4 ast, 0 stl, 2 blk, 2 TOs
At worst Garnett plays Duncan to a standstill, and if scoring efficiency is as important as is generally held around here you'd say that Garnett pretty dramatically outplayed Duncan in this elimination game. His team just wasn't good enough to take advantage. Which I'd contend was a known coming in, but that when isolating the scoring from everything else it's easy to lose sight of that.
Conclusion: I have to stop here. I've spend my entire morning work session on this, and have to leave now as I'm late for a meeting. But I think my point should be pretty clear by now. I went through the first three series that you did, focusing on the exact games that you say were the worst that KG had to offer. Those were some of the worst shooting games of KG's postseason career...and in those games KG consistently outplayed Duncan head-to-head, displayed outstanding playmaking ability that clearly lifted his team's offense, defensively dominated against two of the best frontlines of the era, and in all five cases kept his much less talented team competitive against much stronger competition. I repeat my contention from above, but expanded now for all five games: if you replace KG with either 99 - 01 Duncan or 02 - 04 Dirk, the Wolves still go 0 - 5 in those games (at BEST they squeak out 1 or 2 if Dirk/Duncan go nuts). But if you give KG (playing at the EXACT same level as he did in those 5 games) either the 99 - 01 Spurs cast or the 02 - 04 Mavs cast, they at the worst go 3 - 2 and have a legit shot at 5 - 0. The focus on the scoring efficiency obscured that the other things he was doing was at a brilliant level, which is ultimately reflected in the postseason +/- stats for the entire next decade.
. As I recall I really enjoyed that whole exchange, and there were several huge posts on each side. Here's the one that responds to the one you posted earlier, and I'm very curious as to your underlined quote above that KG was hurting his team badly in light of my response.
that was sick.
