chefo wrote:If you're not going to read, then why bother to comment? You don't have to answer-- I can tell by your posts.
I'm assuming you meant to say "you don't have an answer". I've had an answer throughout this entire thread, and it's always gone back to the same point, which continues to be debunked. And since you're making the mistake of calling me out on it, I'll throw you a bone and answer every part of what I'm sure will be another hilariously bad take.
chefo wrote:I couldn't care less about the bench of the Dubs--why? Because back in the day, the main stars played 40+ minutes a game, unlike the time-managed players of today. Kerr was the only mid-minutes rotational player under 6'6 on the Bulls. Old man Livinsgton was going to have to go against guys his size or bigger. To bring him up when the Bulls had Toni who was 6'11 in shoes and could play 1-4 on O and 1-3 on D waiting on the bench... yeah, I don't think the Bulls cared much about a 6'6 PG with shot knees trying to post up any of their regulars.
You should, and you want to know why? Because that very same 6'6 PG with shot knees was a legitimate matchup problem for teams who were better equipped to defend him with their bench. You're talking about the main stars playing 40 minutes back in the day. Buddy, in a matchup like this, they aren't going to be playing 40 minutes per game. You think 96 Jordan would be able to handle running all around the floor chasing Curry and/or Thompson everywhere? He'd be lucky to make it to the fourth quarter of a game 5 in that series.
The bench unit matters, in every single series regardless of whether or not you think it does. It mattered for the Bulls (one of the reasons why they were so dominant in the first place). And in regards to the bench, Golden State wins. So already they are at a disadvantage.
chefo wrote:As for Kerr being unable to shoot as well--only shows lack of understanding of how he got his shots. He wasn't prancing around doing crossovers and then launching. He got his looks when MJ and Pip got double or triple teamed. One or two passes later and he had an open shot as often as not. It mattered little who was defending him because that guy was either the help, or the rotating help. That jacking up of contested 3's is a fairly new thing. People hunted for the best shot and the Bulls usually got it.
And you thinking this would happen demonstrates your complete lack of knowledge regarding how the Warriors played. You think the Warriors are going to double and/or triple team 96 Michael Jordan? Do you understand how good 2017 Kevin Durant was defensively? He was receiving all team defense consideration (but ultimately didn't make the cut). We all know how great of a defender Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala were. Why on earth would they need to double team them? Odds are, they would do single coverage on Jordan and Pippen and let them do their thing, and rely on the pace they play at and the kind of offense they played (which involved a lot of off ball movement which always fatigued opposing teams). Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen are all time great defenders. But they don't have unlimited stamina. They are going to struggle to maintain that kind of defense over and over again all game long. And this, by the way, is another reason as to why bench matters.
chefo wrote:As for guys not comparing to Curry, Klay and Durant--Durant, sure; he's a special kind of beast. Klay, not so much. There have been a lot of Klay's in the history of the NBA, including ones the Bulls faced. Steph--maybe, but as great a shooter as he is, he is uniquely benefitting from the defense being prohibited from getting real physical with both ball handlers AND shooters, neither of which were the case in the mid-to-late 90s.
At this point, I need to start making a list of the unbelievably bad takes we've had in this thread. And you wonder why I'm choosing not to even read the full posts in some of these. If I didn't promise to read your entire post, I would have stopped reading right here.
There have been a lot of Klay's in the history of the NBA?
Name ONE, and I repeat, ONE PLAYER that Jordan faced who did anything CLOSE to this. Until you do, don't ever tell me there have been a lot of Klay's in the history of the NBA. There has never been a player like him. Absolute nonsense at the highest level.
chefo wrote:Also, you're doing Tim Hardway and his Miami sidekicks quite a disservice because you either never watched them, or you're dissing them just because they happened to get steamrolled by the Bulls.
In what **** way do Tim Hardaway's (Hardaway, NOT Hardway. Don't accuse me of never having watched him if you can't even spell his name right) teammates compare to Curry's in Golden State? Again, if I didn't promise to address your full post, this is another point that I would have stopped reading.
chefo wrote:In his Heat prime, Tim was a 20/10 point guard with great handles who liked to launch 6-7 3's per game. Rex shot 6 3's a game at 37%; Sasha shot over 4 3's per game at 44%. Walt Williams shot 4.5 3's a game at 46%. Just in case you're counting, that's over 20 3's per game at near 40% shooting (ahem, the Dubs shot 38% as a team). How did these sharpshooters do against the Bulls? They couldn't get a shot up because the Bulls did not double Zo and played hyper-aggressive man-to-man D on the outside.
Yeah, now explain something to me: what kind of athletes were those guys? Did they have unguardable physical advantages like Kevin Durant? Did they have the incredible off ball movement instincts and catch and shoot abilities that Klay Thompson had? Did anyone of them, let alone Tim, have the handles, shooting ability or god forbid range that Curry did?
If you answered no to all of this, then your entire point immediately falls apart. The Heat were a very good shooting team, but they were guardable. The Warriors style of play, as well as their personal, are an entirely different beast from the Heat, and by the way were not guardable.
Oh and by the way, they won 67 games and only lost once in the entire playoffs that season. What was the Heat's record again?
chefo wrote:That same team + old Majerly won 61 games the next year, which is more games than the 18 Dubs, BTW.
We are not talking about the 18 Warriors. We are talking about the 17 Warriors, who won 67 games, in a much tougher conference btw. Amazing that you conveniently ignored that because it hurts your argument. And before you claim that was their peak, the previous team without Durant won 73 games (THAT's who we should be comparing the 96 Bulls with btw). The 17 Warriors could have very easily won more than that if they cared as much about winning in the regular season as they did the previous year.
Oh and before we go on, it also needs to be pointed out that even if ANY of this were valid (and none of it is), the Warriors are still a much better defensive team than the Heat were, so just stop already.
chefo wrote:You seem to refuse to accept that launching a 3 with a very athletic and dialed-in 6'6-6'8 guy that has a 7 foot wingspan in your shorts is not the easiest thing the world
When have I ever denied that?
chefo wrote:especially if they know you're hunting for that shot. Durant can maybe pull it off every once in a while, but it's not that easy.
Is this your half assed attempt at trying to explain why that guys harder to guard than Durant? Buddy, it's still not even close.
chefo wrote:I'd never take ANY team that's solely perimeter focused over the 96 Bulls because I watched them completely demolish/destroy so many players and teams just by preventing them from getting into their O, when they turned up the intensity in the playoffs. Magic in 91, Porter, GP, young prodigy Toni in the Olympics, Hardway, Jackson, Harper, Blaylock, even prime Penny.
The laughably bad takes continue. You are now trying to claim that the Warriors were solely perimeter focused. That is simply not the case. In fact, they became a lot more focused on attacking the paint after realizing that one of the reasons why they lost in 2016 is because despite the three point shot simply not being there on numerous occasions, they still kept going for it. They put more focus and effort into attacking the paint, especially because they knew they had the talent capable of doing so against any team. They realized the value and benefit of having a more balanced offense that wasn't so predictable and adjusted based on the circumstances at hand.
At this point I'm starting to wonder if you even watched the Dubs play. I know a decent amount of you didn't.
chefo wrote:These guys didn't turn their back at the rim at halfcourt or earlier because they enjoyed chatting up the fans in the front rows. You either never saw the Bulls turn up the heat on ball-handlers half/full court, or you have selective amnesia. MJ and Scottie were not just stellar 1-on-1 defenders--they were arguably the best full-court-pressure tandem (especially when on the court with Harper, Toni and Rodman) in the history of the NBA. That Bulls team was the best high-pressure D on ball-handlers AND shooters EVER. Better than the Riley Knicks, better than the Riley Heat, better than the champion Pistons with Billups, Prince and Lindsey Hunter.
Okay? Good for them. Now explain to me how many Stephen Curry's they played against and we can consider this a valid point.
Oh what's that? The closest they ever came was Allen Iverson?
Let me see how that went.
Ah I see. Well in that case... yeah have fun dealing with that.
chefo wrote:Of course people who were born post 2000 were still in daycare the last time anybody even tried playing D like that for a small portion of the game. Steph Curry, as great as he is, got harassed into a poor series by Matthew effin' Dellavedova the previous year, who's like a homeless-man version of any of the Bulls' 3 main ball-hawks.
No he didn't. Delly had one game that he was able to successfully defend Curry. And that was in game 2. After that, it was back to business for Curry, who finished the series averaging 26 PPG on 44% shooting from the field and 39% shooting from 3. That is not a poor series. That's a very good shooting series.
Oh and by the way, you want to know why Delly's effective defense worked so well on Curry? Because he was one of the only people in the entire NBA who had the energy and hustle to constantly keep up with Curry for the entirety of a game. But guess what happened? Delly played so many minutes that he got tired out and by game 4 he was so burnt out and exhausted that he had to go to the hospital after the game due to dehydration. No one denies the athleticism of Michael Jordan or how great of a defender he was. But this is 96 Jordan we are talking about. And you just got done saying he would be averaging 40 minutes per game in that series. Now how do you think Jordan, at that age, would do in that situation? Keep in mind Delly didn't play much in game 1. Jordan would be near death by game 3.
I know you want to sit here and pretend that Delly was some homeless beaner, but in reality he was one of the best one on one defenders at the PG position. He had the defensive footwork and hustle to keep up with just about anyone at that end, along with near endless amounts of energy.
Watch this entire video and try to downplay what Delly was capable of doing at that end.
chefo wrote:I remember all the complaints at the time that he was too rough with Steph. Can you imagine MJ, Pip and Harper hounding him for 90 feet every time down the floor for 40 minutes a night instead? Yeah, sure, he'd be just as efficient as going against Kyrie who's never fought over a screen in his life and is a bottom tier defender in a league that's bad at guarding anybody outside by design.
No, I can't imagine that actually, because there is no way any of them would be able to keep up that level of defense and intensity against a team like the Warriors with the pace they play at and the age the Bulls were at. You continue to ignore this fact and it's hurting your argument.
chefo wrote:Bottom line is, in their 96 playoff run, the Bulls completely shut down 3 teams that shot as well from 3 that year (38%) as the Dubs in 17
No, they didn't. Again, another hilariously bad take.
They shut down teams that shot well from a SHORTENED three point line. None of those teams, and I mean NONE OF THEM, were anywhere close to being as good from a legitimate three point line as the 17 Warriors were. There are only a couple in the history of the league who were, if there even are any. The fact that you are trying to argue that they even deserve to be in the same conversation with them, let alone are as good as them, is a demonstration of what kind of knowledge you have on the matter: completely non existent and unable to factor in context and logic.
chefo wrote:the Sonics who were just a tad worse. Volume, down. %, down near 10% from these teams' baselines. They swept a 60-win Magic team with prime Shaq and Penny + shooters, and beat a 64-win, 2nd best D team in the Sonics that had prime Glove and prime Kemp + shooters. They beat the 2nd, 4th and 6th best defense and the 2nd and 3rd best offense.
The 1996 Seattle Supersonics are just a tad worse than the 2017 Golden State Warriors.
This is the kind of person I am talking to everyone. I am not even going to bother explaining what is wrong with this.
chefo wrote:Who did the Dubs beat in 17 in comparison?
The .5 Blazers that were one of the worst D's in the league? The 51-win Jazz sans their starting PG and second leading scorer? The Spurs without their only star and MVP-level player in Kawhi? The 21st ranked D on an underachieving, 51-win Cavs team?
That's the best argument you've been able to come up with so far and it's still a laughably bad take. First off, that 51 win Cavaliers team had major, and I mean MAJOR personal issues throughout the first half of the season and didn't become a truly stacked offensive juggernaut (who would give the 96 Bulls a LOT of problems) until later in the season. Second, every single team the Bulls faced and beat in the playoffs that year would struggle to even make the playoffs this year, because the style of play in todays game would have been insanely difficult for those teams to adjust to. You aren't going to win this argument using the comparison game.
chefo wrote:Objectively, apart from having to face LeBron and his matadors in the finals, that playoff run was about as much of a cake-walk as any ever.
It was a cake walk because they were significantly better than every team they went up against.
Which just about sums up every playoff run the Bulls went on during the Jordan era. You're going to have to do better than that.
chefo wrote:Again, I really like watching the Dubs, they play the best Euro ball of any team ever, but they are mostly a function of the modern-day rules that were put in place to make life easier for shooters and ball handlers. Kudos to Kerr for putting a system that exploited that to the absolute fullest.
Which is exactly why the Bulls wouldn't be able to beat the Warriors. You just literally spelled out why your argument does not and cannot work. How someone manages to be that bad at this is beyond me.
chefo wrote:But, that's the final destination of the long process from the late 80s when the league started fishing for guards and wings to promote, including MJ (the infamous 'Pat Ewing doesn't sell shoes'). Enjoy watching them, but if you shut down, or even slow down Steph, Durant's not beating the 96 Bulls going after Pip, Harper, MJ, Rodman and Toni by himself, no matter how talented he is. Just too much athleticism, too much quickness, too much length, too many active hands and waaaay too much basketball IQ on that Bulls team, to go with MJ's maniacal drive to crush anybody and everybody.
If that's a bad take--at least it's from an eye-witness who watched both. You can disagree as much as you want.
It is a bad take. Your entire post is a bad take. Everything you've just stated is either wrong, ignores context, or demonstrates on your end a complete lack of understanding of how basketball works.
You can't look at what happened in one year, say "the Bulls were able to shut down a team that shot a lot of three pointers on good percentages" and think that because of this, they'd be able to do the same to the Warriors. That's not how basketball works. That has never been how it works. There is a reason why certain teams struggle against others. Matchups matter. And it doesn't come down to personal. It comes down to how they play.
The style of play that the Warriors enforced in 2017 is something the Bulls would struggle massively with. No one on the Miami Heat, or any of the other teams that the Chicago Bulls played against, had the skill, defensive versatility, or offensive talent that the Warriors had. There is no team like the 2017 Warriors in the history of the game. It's why you can't just take another random three point shooting team and say "see? They were a great three point shooting team and the Bulls were able to beat them". The 2017 Boston Celtics were a great three point shooting team (far better than the Miami Heat team you just got done ejaculating over, before you point out the percentages, again, shortened three point line), and the Cavaliers massacred them. Talent matters. How teams play matters. The people who are choosing the Bulls here are not only refusing to factor in these aspects (or just don't know how), they are outright ignoring what kind of team the 96 Bulls were and why it would be a hilariously bad matchup for them.
To the four people who and 1'd that post thinking it was something worth upvoting, learn how the sport of basketball works. Your knowledge is severely lacking.
