lessthanjake wrote:Jadoogar wrote:man that was a crazy strategy at the end. Why did OKC try to foul so quickly in the backcourt? atleast let him dribble into the front court and bleed some more time off the clock.
The problem with waiting to foul is twofold:
First, if you try to foul too late, there’s a really significant chance that you end up actually fouling someone in the act of shooting a three. That is the biggest possible disaster and teams want to avoid that at all costs.
Second, you don’t always have control over when you can foul. If you wait too long to foul, the offensive player can get a head of steam and get some separation from defenders to create an open three—which is what fouling is supposed to try to avoid.
I don’t think the issue here really is not waiting to foul. The bigger issue was deciding to foul in the first place when Jokic was on the bench and not otherwise able to get in. It might generally be preferable to foul when up by three, but I don’t think it’s preferable to do so when the other team’s superstar is not on the court. That significantly reduces the chance that the other team will actually be able to make a three if you don’t foul, which should probably change the calculus regarding whether to foul. I think OKC simply defaulted to their normal approach in this situation, without making an audible based on the context of Jokic not being on the court.
it's even worse than that, because the Nuggets without Jokic usually can't generate any good looks and he was the only one that made a 3 (two of them) late in the game, so he was missing as a playmaker and a shooter
Mark D said "this is what we do" so yeah, they def defaulted to that but it was horrible, omg. Jokic was on the damn bench lol, no timeouts and 8-9 secs remaining. the most bewildering part is that OKC is the last team that should resort to this tactic as they are an historically great defense, this is what they do lol - they get stops, they make it tough with their length, defensive acumen, switchability etc. it would make more sense for a team like the Nuggets who are bad defensively and not very mobile to elect to foul in this situation but the Thunder are the last team that should be doing that
in all the commotion and obvious glaring mistakes in how they executed their tactic, it's worth mentioning that Jokic had 5 fouls and him and the other starters were basically playing the entire second half. OKC is at home, what's the worse that could happen, that Denver hits some miracle 3 and they go to overtime? with Jokic gassed and can't defend with 5 fouls? I mean, that's not a very scary scenario and that's like the worst case scenario
it was truly awful, idk how i can keep taking Mark D seriously after this when he doubled down after the game with all the "this is what we do". implying that he would do the same again, in the future
fouling is ok btw, when there's a few second left and no timeouts, you can even miss a FT on purpose etc. but 13.9, fouling on the catch 80 ft. away from the basket is just uneqivacly dumb
