homecourtloss wrote:Djoker wrote:homecourtloss wrote:
Eh, they didn’t run into some unbeatable juggernaut. The Jazz defense crushed a regular season 114+ ORtg Bulls team. Jordan wasn’t killing them (-.2% rTS aided by a generous whistle on touch perimeter fouls including non-shooting ones, +.1% reFG, +6 on court over 6 games, Bulls total of of +8 over 6 games). Even with some calls that went against them, the 1997 series was highly winnable for the Jazz but neither Karl Malone nor John Stockton raised their respective games enough to take it. Kudos to the Bulls’ defense for stopping a great offense, but that was an entirely winnable series with good enough play from the rest of the Jazz to take it.
1998 Bulls were even further removed from a “GOAT” type team—Jordan was -.8% rTS (aided by an even more generous whistle), -3.2% reFG. That Bulls’ team was a few FTs and/or defensive rebounds away from losing game 7 vs. the Pacers (or Kukoc not saving them).
It's hard to take this post seriously.
If the 1997 Bulls were not an unbeatable juggernaut I don't think any team in history fits that description. That team won 69 games with a +10.7 SRS. In games in which Rodman played, they were 48-7 (72-win pace) with a roughly +11.2 SRS. They likely weren't much if any worse than the 1996 team which for many people is the GOAT team.
The 1998 Bulls were weaker. I would call them borderline GOAT tier but they too were a very very strong team. They won 62 games with a +7.24 SRS. But Pippen missed almost half the season. In the games Pippen played, they were 36-8 (67-win pace) with a roughly +9 SRS. There's only 14 teams in league history with an SRS above that mark.
And yes Jordan did kill them. In 1997 he had 13 turnovers and in 1998 he had 10 turnovers for the entire series, and in both he had a very high offensive load. The historically low turnover rates have to be taken into account when factoring in his offensive efficiency. By Ben Taylor's cTOV% he's around 5% for both series which is astonishingly low.
1997 was a great team albeit in a watered down league, but they weren’t in any way overwhelmingly better than the Jazz who had many chances with even slightly better play to win it despite sone terrible calls against them. +.2% rTS% (with a bunch of touch perimeter foul calls) and +.1% reFG vs. a good but not great defense (with good but not great perimeter defenders), and having rORtg of basically zero (+.6), +6 on court doesn’t count as “killing” to me (maybe for you). Turnovers were low but what did it lead to? A +0 rORtg.
Jazz very well could have won and it wasn’t an unbeatable juggernaut or peak jordan performance stopping them
Series aggregates don't tell the whole story.
Jordan was massive in the four Bulls wins averaging 36.5/8.8/6.5 on 55.7 %TS (+2.3 rTS) with 2.3 topg. He was definitely killing the Jazz... To argue otherwise is weird honestly.
And besides maybe you should pull up the ON Court OFF Court numbers because the Bulls were much better than +0.6 rORtg with Jordan on the floor. You always use series ON-OFF to support your argument so why not here.
Of course Chicago wasn't overwhelmingly better than the Jazz. After all Utah was a 64-win +8 SRS team. Historically that's a strong championship caliber team and their net rating was stable in the playoffs as well.