players whose playoffs struggles are overstated or understated?

[LukaTheGOAT]

Chris Paul is obviously overstated. Of course he’s had bad moments like most players. But he usually gets better in the post season

Chris Paul in 2008 was up 2-0 vs a worse SAS team and after that proceeded to lose 4-1 and in the last 3 games averaged 20-12 on 43/25/63 splits or a 48 TS (-6)

but this was the first of his many disappointing failures

Chris Paul vs the Denver nuggets in 09 had one of the worst series I’ve ever seen for an all-time player in his prime.

He somehow got outplayed by Playoff Melo and Billups as well.

He averaged 17/10 on 50 TS (-4%).

During that season he averaged 23/11 on 60 TS (+6) a -10 drop off

In the last two games of that Denver series, Chris Paul averaged 8-8-4 on 30-25-33 splits.

In one of the biggest blowouts ever a game in which his team went down by 58 points!

Chris Paul had 4-6 and had more turnovers than he did points (6) and had a TS of 28.6 (-25%) and was a -58

In 2011 vs LA he was very good.. until the game 7 when they needed him most.

As Prior to the game 7 Chris Paul averaged 24.4/11.6/6.4 on 56/47/79 splits (68 TS, +14)

just to have a measly 10/11 (53 TS) in a blowout loss.

Cp3 vs the SAS in 2012 got swept and averaged 9.3-8.7-3.3 on 35 TS (-18) in the first 3 games which were all blowouts, right after he did 20/9/4 that RS on 58 TS (+6).

In the final game, he was amazing and they only lost by 3, but what if he played like that the whole series??

Chris Paul vs the grizzlies in 2013 would blow another 2-0 lead and actually got swept after going up 2-0.

But he was statistically good this series as he averaged 23-6 on 53/31/89 splits (63 TS, +10%).

But if he’s this great playoff performer why can’t he hold series leads?

Then there’s 2014 where after one of his best PS performances ever in G1 vs the thunder.

He averaged 21-12 on 45/29/75 splits or a 53 TS (-1 rTS) and lost the next 4/5 games.

And we all know about the infamous game 5 with a chance to go up 3-2 he had two turnovers in the final 17 seconds up 4.

And had 17/5/5 (TOs) shot 6/16 for the field for a 46.7 TS (-8) in 40 mins of gameplay.

Then there’s the classic 3-1 blown lead when after he came back his team lost 3/5 and he was outplayed by Corey Brewer and Josh smith.

The team was up by 19 with 2:16 left to go in the third and were down 119-104 (34 point swing) before Cp3 hit a garbage time 3 to save his stats.

In the G7 he was massively outplayed by perennial choker James Harden who had 31/8/7 on 55 TS (+2) with no all-star or all NBA player alongside him while Cp3 had all-stars Blake and DJ and he only had 26/10 on +2 efficiency.

Then In 2016 Chris paul would go up 2-0 again vs the blazers and proceeded to lose this series.

And while he was hurt. His team had already lost two straight games while he played healthy and history shows that he was bound to lose this series given he was up 2-0.

In 2017 Cp3 had one of his best series ever (27-10-5 on 63 TS, +7 efficiency), but proceeded to blow a 2-1 lead (lost 3/4 after Gobert came back) and in the game 7 had a measly 13 points and 9 assists on 6/19 shooting for 33 TS (-23).

These blown leads are starting to rack up..

In 2018 Chris paul had a pretty good but not great playoff run next to James Harden. Some up and downs but pretty consistent for what it’s worth!

But his injuries did creep up on him again when he went up 3-2. Not his fault at all and should receive no blame but only glory!

2019 is where it gets really iffy!! In 2019 vs the warriors Chris paul had looked like a role player as in the first 5 games he wasn’t even a top 2 scorer on his own team.

Nor was he a top 5 player on the court (KD Harden Curry Gordon and Dray> CP3)

In a pivotal game 5

With a chance to go up, 3-2 this series Chris paul had an amazing 11/6/6 on 3/14 shooting (33 TS, -24%) in 38 mins!

And in a fourth-quarter where KD didn’t play he was outscored by Harden, Gordon, Capela, Shumpert, Curry, and Dray and scored 0 FGs!

In the 4th of game 6 with no KD and up 7 with 11 minutes left, Cp3 would have 4 points for the rest of the game and was outscored by 14 points in those 11 mins.

As he was heavily outplayed by perennial choker James Harden who had 12 points in those mins.

And as for 2020, not only was he outplayed by perennial choker James Harden H2H for an entire series.

But after 8:22 left in the 4th of G7 he would get outscored by the worst game 7 performer ever and lose the game because he passed the ball to Lugentz Dort instead of shooting it.


And then in 2021 he once again blew another 2-0 series lead this time in the finals while playing god awful in game 4.

I hope what I am about to present doesn't count as advanced stats...but in terms of Inflation Adjusted (adjusted to a 110 league average). Points Per 75 possessions

Chris Paul (15-17)-25.9 pts, rTS% of 7.9%
Magic Johnson (87-89)- 20.2 pts, rTS% of 7.4%
Steve Nash (05-07)- 21.9 pts, rTS% of 8.1%

Isiah Thomas (85-87)-23.9 pts, rTS% of 0.9%

You seem to harp on CP3's bad performances when having a series lead, but overall, even then, his scoring isn't necessarily worse than what Thomas did on average. Furthermore, his overall performance is still well on average better than Thomas. Unless you could present an argument that Thomas himself is dramatically better towards the latter part of a series than CP3's averages, than I don't see how it is crazy to think CP3 is above Thomas. We can pick at CP3's shortcomings, but I feel like CP3 on average more than holds his own in this comparison. Did CP3 get guarded any differently in the latter part of these series, that caused him to perform worse? I just don't particularly buy that CP3 is a dramatically worse player.

[f4p]

i don't see how steph's are overstated considering how loved he still is. he has one playoff run over 25 PER and only 2 over 23 PER.
in their mvp caliber years (2015 and on), he has almost the same playoff stats as james harden and basically the same drop-off from the regular season. yet one gets routinely put in the top 15 all-time and is considered a playoff hero and one is seemingly considered the worst playoff performer ever. either steph's struggles are understated or harden's are overstated because they would look really, really similar if i took the names off the numbers (harden even has the head to head advantage in stats from their 3 series).

speaking of, the answer to this thread is james harden. real GM PC board does not like harden (i've never seen him win a "harden vs player X" poll on here) and still had him #31 all-time. ESPN just ranked the top 75 all-time and had harden at 50! and that's a pretty normal view for casuals (and probably not that weird even here). they seem to just think that you can say "harden hasn't been good in the playoffs" and any ranking is then justified.

outside of whatever happened against san antonio in game 6 (concussion, just quit?), everything else is mostly just people nitpicking and literally only talking about his bad moments. you don't see this with really anybody else.

puts up 28/11/9 (55 FG%), 38/10/9 (62 FG%), 45/9/5 (59 FG%) against the #1 defense golden state in the 2015 WCF, only to still be down 3-1. everyone's takeaway? 12 turnovers in game 5! apparently those amazing games 1/2 were meaningless, but game 5 of a gentleman's sweep, that was the important game.

harden somehow gets more hate for being on the team that came back from 3-1 against the clippers than chris paul does for blowing the 3-1 lead. because josh smith and corey brewer had out of body experiences while harden was on the bench? it's like if they didn't and houston lost, harden would get less hate (23 points on 46 TS% through 3 quarter is hardly an epic bad game).

people somehow still nitpick his 2018 series with the warriors. a team no one thought was beatable, that went 24-3 in its other series in 2017/2018, but was down 3-2 to harden until cp3 got hurt, and we're going to try to knock harden for that series? because a tired rockets team down to basically 6 players missed a bunch of 3's in game 7. and again, if steph and KD are so much better than harden, then how were they losing 3-2 despite having an additional 2 all-star/HOF teammates? seems like it should have been an easy sweep.

2019 against the warriors he has arguably his best series ever, massively outplays steph, is the leading scorer in game 6, including 12 points on 4/5 shooting in the 4th, but oops, a few turnovers in the 4th, guess he is terrible after all.

TL;DR - similar stats to steph, similar RS to PS drop-off as guys like steph/KD/dame, only ever lost one series as a favorite in houston (54 win houston vs 54 win portland, hardly a legendary upset), and yet treated like he shows up to the playoffs every year, averages 20 ppg and loses to the 7th seed.

[70sFan]

I think Isiah Thomas mediocre performances in postseason are forgotten because he won two rings. He had some horrible series throughout his prime but almost nobody blames him for them, cause he won anyway carried by Pistons defense.

[page]

Logged in specifically to see if Joao Saraiva brings up Larry. You never let me down!

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Derozan can do himself some help by showing out this year.

Curry suffers from being the favorite and going to the finals constantly... when that happens fans will ignore the prior 3 rounds no matter how great you were. And his Finals performances are too narrative driven to really give proper credit...

Finals 1: very good. but lebron was better. they gave FMVP to iggy for getting abused by lebron. Curry not enough credit for this

Finals 2: poor showing, outplayed by Kyrie, and losing a series they were up 3-1. ouch.

Finals 3: He was great but KD was better and KD got the shine

Finals 4: He was very good but KD was better and KD got the shine and it was a sweep so less hype

Finals 5: played great, some huge games... but they lost, KD was hurt, Klay was hurt so no one paid attention

Curry also lacks that defining playoff moment. His first win was the only one where he was the undisputed man without KD and lebron stole the show. There is no shot like Kyrie game 7 on currys reel. and i think that hurts him too. there is no like, 45 point game 6 perfromance to force the series to go 7. that hurts him.

Down 3-1 in 2016 WCF and then having 3 superb games is definitely a defining moment, especially when his game 7 was 38-5-8 on superb efficiency.

And Curry was playing injured in 2016 WCF and finals. The injury killed his drive but not his outside shot. But losing the threat of the drive allowed Kyrie to overplay his outside shot.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I think Isiah Thomas mediocre performances in postseason are forgotten because he won two rings. He had some horrible series throughout his prime but almost nobody blames him for them, cause he won anyway carried by Pistons defense.

He was not mediocre in his 1984 playoffs vs the Knicks.
Unfortuately his floor general point guard play peak was his chamionship years but his athletic and spectacular play peak was in his early years while playing with Kelly Tripuka. Young Isiah was a better player in every way than old Isiah except in floor generalship which is not the same thing as passing and getting assists. Isiah got more assists when he was young.

[70sFan]

I think Isiah Thomas mediocre performances in postseason are forgotten because he won two rings. He had some horrible series throughout his prime but almost nobody blames him for them, cause he won anyway carried by Pistons defense.

He was not mediocre in his 1984 playoffs vs the Knicks.
Unfortuately his floor general point guard play peak was his chamionship years but his athletic and spectacular play peak was in his early years while playing with Kelly Tripuka. Young Isiah was a better player in every way than old Isiah except in floor generalship which is not the same thing as passing and getting assists. Isiah got more assists when he was young.

He was mediocre in a lot of other series though. I didn't say he sucked every single time he played in postseason, just that people don't realize how much he struggled in some of the series.

[Stan]

i don't see how steph's are overstated considering how loved he still is. he has one playoff run over 25 PER and only 2 over 23 PER.
in their mvp caliber years (2015 and on), he has almost the same playoff stats as james harden and basically the same drop-off from the regular season. yet one gets routinely put in the top 15 all-time and is considered a playoff hero and one is seemingly considered the worst playoff performer ever. either steph's struggles are understated or harden's are overstated because they would look really, really similar if i took the names off the numbers (harden even has the head to head advantage in stats from their 3 series).

speaking of, the answer to this thread is james harden. real GM PC board does not like harden (i've never seen him win a "harden vs player X" poll on here) and still had him #31 all-time. ESPN just ranked the top 75 all-time and had harden at 50! and that's a pretty normal view for casuals (and probably not that weird even here). they seem to just think that you can say "harden hasn't been good in the playoffs" and any ranking is then justified.

outside of whatever happened against san antonio in game 6 (concussion, just quit?), everything else is mostly just people nitpicking and literally only talking about his bad moments. you don't see this with really anybody else.

puts up 28/11/9 (55 FG%), 38/10/9 (62 FG%), 45/9/5 (59 FG%) against the #1 defense golden state in the 2015 WCF, only to still be down 3-1. everyone's takeaway? 12 turnovers in game 5! apparently those amazing games 1/2 were meaningless, but game 5 of a gentleman's sweep, that was the important game.

harden somehow gets more hate for being on the team that came back from 3-1 against the clippers than chris paul does for blowing the 3-1 lead. because josh smith and corey brewer had out of body experiences while harden was on the bench? it's like if they didn't and houston lost, harden would get less hate (23 points on 46 TS% through 3 quarter is hardly an epic bad game).

people somehow still nitpick his 2018 series with the warriors. a team no one thought was beatable, that went 24-3 in its other series in 2017/2018, but was down 3-2 to harden until cp3 got hurt, and we're going to try to knock harden for that series? because a tired rockets team down to basically 6 players missed a bunch of 3's in game 7. and again, if steph and KD are so much better than harden, then how were they losing 3-2 despite having an additional 2 all-star/HOF teammates? seems like it should have been an easy sweep.

2019 against the warriors he has arguably his best series ever, massively outplays steph, is the leading scorer in game 6, including 12 points on 4/5 shooting in the 4th, but oops, a few turnovers in the 4th, guess he is terrible after all.

TL;DR - similar stats to steph, similar RS to PS drop-off as guys like steph/KD/dame, only ever lost one series as a favorite in houston (54 win houston vs 54 win portland, hardly a legendary upset), and yet treated like he shows up to the playoffs every year, averages 20 ppg and loses to the 7th seed.

I won't speak on the Curry aspect, but Harden 100% deserves the playoff reputation that he's got. You seemed to cherry pick examples in your post, ignoring the bigger picture that Harden has underperformed or been flat out bad on numerous occasions in the playoffs, specifically in the big series and big games.

You could go all the way back to his 6th man days on OKC where he completely stunk up the Finals, or his first 2 years in Houston where his efficiency nosedived in b2b losses in the first round.

You were sure to mention his good performances against Golden State in 2015, but no mention of him scoring 17 points on 3/16 in Game 3 to essentially end the season. And you can gloss it over as much as you'd like, but 14 points on 2/11 with 12 TO's is literally one of the worst performances by a star in NBA history, and he did this with his teams season on the line. He did the same thing 2 years later, playing at home with the Spurs missing both Kawhi and Parker, another historically bad performance of 10 points on 2/11 & 6 TO's in a 40 point destruction at home.

The ironic part about the 2018 WCF is Harden didn't even play that well. In the 3 Houston wins that series Harden averaged 25 points on 24 shots on 48%TS. I'm not gonna blame him for losing that series, but he was far from having some herculean effort to put them in a 3-2 position before CP3's injury.

But in all honesty, 13 years into his career, can you point to one critical game or series where Harden came through with a great performance? Or a single instance of him making a big play in the clutch?

[Owly]

I think Isiah Thomas mediocre performances in postseason are forgotten because he won two rings. He had some horrible series throughout his prime but almost nobody blames him for them, cause he won anyway carried by Pistons defense.

He was not mediocre in his 1984 playoffs vs the Knicks.
Unfortuately his floor general point guard play peak was his chamionship years but his athletic and spectacular play peak was in his early years while playing with Kelly Tripuka. Young Isiah was a better player in every way than old Isiah except in floor generalship which is not the same thing as passing and getting assists. Isiah got more assists when he was young.

He was mediocre in a lot of other series though. I didn't say he sucked every single time he played in postseason, just that people don't realize how much he struggled in some of the series.

So caveats ...

I'm lower than the vast majority on Thomas.
I don't tend to look too closely at playoffs as I weight them less than others (small samples, uneven sample sizes, uneven distribution of samples over career, uneven opposition etc for most NBA history don't see playoffs as fundamentally different.

Just in terms of raise/fall purely numerically career-wise (and he does benefit from not being in the playoffs in his worst years early and late then short runs in other weaker years) I think he's near the top in terms of the raisers.

Does this make it wrong that he had bad or "horrible" series. Well you'd have to look at D and otoh '89 versus Boston he's poor and that extends somewhat to early Chicago series too. I'd have to rewatch, look closely etc at D to see if "horrible" inabsolute terms could be justified (gut, otoh, would be not). He had a hand injury fwiw, though most seem to just take playoff injuries as a legitimate ding (I tend to think it's more noise, but it depends what you are measuring). I guess the "late" [age 30, maybe 29] series are weak.

But, given RS standards (and acknowledging for caveats about favorable circumstances - but also tougher conference [but then sometimes injured opponents] - and difficulty fairly measuring) he seems like one of the top "raisers" in the larger samples.

More than the idea he never had a bad series ... I don't know if I see that said ... I think the Thomas mythology (going from memory) is around (and this is a tangent):
1) Focusing on the raise and ignoring the low baseline. This actually kind of brings it back on topic. If one uses RS as the baseline in assessing players and makes a playoff adjustment that is looking at a rise or fall kind of makes sense thought the absolute standard is still what is most relevant. But in any case the absolute standard is really should be looked at.
2) Ignoring the arguable costs of a leader not maxing as RS player (getting "bored") when building a case on him as a mythic leader.
3) Internal consistency issues e.g wherein only winning matters and two titles boost him but, being among the worst rotation player in a series in those winning years in a series doesn't matter where on a less deep they lose, on team playing at his average standard in the series they lose, whilst glorious spells in losing efforts (vs Knicks, Lakers) get heavy focus.
4) Probably closest to never has a bad series and related to the previous point I've seen arguments along the lines of "hero leaders as superman" "always delivers when you need him" "superclutch" "wills his team to win". Which overlook average standard of play, instances where great play didn't lead to a team win, team wins with poor individual play, high stakes blown plays, Pistons other late game options and typically coming from what I would argue is a general misunderstanding of a team game.
5) Later Pistons identity and his box defensive productivity may mask early defensive issues (based on contemporary reviews, though this is a noisy tool).

[falcolombardi]

i don't see how steph's are overstated considering how loved he still is. he has one playoff run over 25 PER and only 2 over 23 PER.
in their mvp caliber years (2015 and on), he has almost the same playoff stats as james harden and basically the same drop-off from the regular season. yet one gets routinely put in the top 15 all-time and is considered a playoff hero and one is seemingly considered the worst playoff performer ever. either steph's struggles are understated or harden's are overstated because they would look really, really similar if i took the names off the numbers (harden even has the head to head advantage in stats from their 3 series).

speaking of, the answer to this thread is james harden. real GM PC board does not like harden (i've never seen him win a "harden vs player X" poll on here) and still had him #31 all-time. ESPN just ranked the top 75 all-time and had harden at 50! and that's a pretty normal view for casuals (and probably not that weird even here). they seem to just think that you can say "harden hasn't been good in the playoffs" and any ranking is then justified.

outside of whatever happened against san antonio in game 6 (concussion, just quit?), everything else is mostly just people nitpicking and literally only talking about his bad moments. you don't see this with really anybody else.

puts up 28/11/9 (55 FG%), 38/10/9 (62 FG%), 45/9/5 (59 FG%) against the #1 defense golden state in the 2015 WCF, only to still be down 3-1. everyone's takeaway? 12 turnovers in game 5! apparently those amazing games 1/2 were meaningless, but game 5 of a gentleman's sweep, that was the important game.

harden somehow gets more hate for being on the team that came back from 3-1 against the clippers than chris paul does for blowing the 3-1 lead. because josh smith and corey brewer had out of body experiences while harden was on the bench? it's like if they didn't and houston lost, harden would get less hate (23 points on 46 TS% through 3 quarter is hardly an epic bad game).

people somehow still nitpick his 2018 series with the warriors. a team no one thought was beatable, that went 24-3 in its other series in 2017/2018, but was down 3-2 to harden until cp3 got hurt, and we're going to try to knock harden for that series? because a tired rockets team down to basically 6 players missed a bunch of 3's in game 7. and again, if steph and KD are so much better than harden, then how were they losing 3-2 despite having an additional 2 all-star/HOF teammates? seems like it should have been an easy sweep.

2019 against the warriors he has arguably his best series ever, massively outplays steph, is the leading scorer in game 6, including 12 points on 4/5 shooting in the 4th, but oops, a few turnovers in the 4th, guess he is terrible after all.

TL;DR - similar stats to steph, similar RS to PS drop-off as guys like steph/KD/dame, only ever lost one series as a favorite in houston (54 win houston vs 54 win portland, hardly a legendary upset), and yet treated like he shows up to the playoffs every year, averages 20 ppg and loses to the 7th seed.

I won't speak on the Curry aspect, but Harden 100% deserves the playoff reputation that he's got. You seemed to cherry pick examples in your post, ignoring the bigger picture that Harden has underperformed or been flat out bad on numerous occasions in the playoffs, specifically in the big series and big games.

You could go all the way back to his 6th man days on OKC where he completely stunk up the Finals, or his first 2 years in Houston where his efficiency nosedived in b2b losses in the first round.

You were sure to mention his good performances against Golden State in 2015, but no mention of him scoring 17 points on 3/16 in Game 3 to essentially end the season. And you can gloss it over as much as you'd like, but 14 points on 2/11 with 12 TO's is literally one of the worst performances by a star in NBA history, and he did this with his teams season on the line. He did the same thing 2 years later, playing at home with the Spurs missing both Kawhi and Parker, another historically bad performance of 10 points on 2/11 & 6 TO's in a 40 point destruction at home.

The ironic part about the 2018 WCF is Harden didn't even play that well. In the 3 Houston wins that series Harden averaged 25 points on 24 shots on 48%TS. I'm not gonna blame him for losing that series, but he was far from having some herculean effort to put them in a 3-2 position before CP3's injury.

But in all honesty, 13 years into his career, can you point to one critical game or series where Harden came through with a great performance? Or a single instance of him making a big play in the clutch?

2012 vs spurs, he was really good vs lakers in 2020 i think

his block on dort in 20' was fairly clutch

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

The refs set Harden up to fail in the playoff by giving harden bad joke calls against defenders in the regular seaon and then not giving Harden those calls in the playoffs. Harden plays for the foul first and making the shot second. I think Harden prefers getting the refs to make a reall bad call on his defender over making a spectacular shot. Harden looks so happy when the defender is frustrated by stupid foul calls.

[Texas Chuck]

so glad Bad Gatorade pointed out an ugly truth--we mostly decide players have bad series based on nothing more than their scoring efficiency numbers and its just flat silly.


And David Robinson needs a mention as a guy whose playoff struggles are overstated. The overreactions for years around here to that one series versus Houston were so silly.

[sp6r=underrated]

The idea Dirk took a huge leap in 2008 is based on the myth that he was a questionable playoff performer in previous years.

There are 3 series that are brought up from this time period to justify that claim.
2005 WC1 vs HOU
2006 NBA Finals
2007 WC1 vs Warriors

The claim is you could a smaller defender on him then and he had no recourse. And of course the playoffs on/off numbers.

I'd buy the claim if I hadn't watched any of his other series from that time period were that approach resulted in disaster such as him kicking the crap out of Bowen and Marion. If there really was a fatal flaw it didn't manifest itself in this series. Nor does it show up in any of the overall box score stats which show him being an overall strong playoff performer before 2008.


Nor did the solution he came up with manifest itself in the 2011 Finals when he played very similar to 06. That isn't completely true he was a lot less active on the boards in 2011.

As to the on/off numbers. On/Off numbers require a massive sample size to provide value. If you only have a 30-40 games, you're likely just looking at noise. Since on/off numbers with sufficient sample size are very useful for player analysis, a lot of analytically inclined fans who like impact stats and dislike eye test/counting stats are inclined to ignore the sample size problem.

What really happened is the peril of small sample sizes. Dirk was a good playoff performer for the vast majority of his career.

[Fadeaway_J]

The idea Dirk took a huge leap in 2008 is based on the myth that he was a questionable playoff performer in previous years.

There are 3 series that are brought up from this time period to justify that claim.
2005 WC1 vs HOU
2006 NBA Finals
2007 WC1 vs Warriors

The claim is you could a smaller defender on him then and he had no recourse. And of course the playoffs on/off numbers.

I'd buy the claim if I hadn't watched any of his other series from that time period were that approach resulted in disaster such as him kicking the crap out of Bowen and Marion. If there really was a fatal flaw it didn't manifest itself in this series. Nor does it show up in any of the overall box score stats which show him being an overall strong playoff performer before 2008.


Nor did the solution he came up with manifest itself in the 2011 Finals when he played very similar to 06. That isn't completely true he was a lot less active on the boards in 2011.

As to the on/off numbers. On/Off numbers require a massive sample size to provide value. If you only have a 30-40 games, you're likely just looking at noise. Since on/off numbers with sufficient sample size are very useful for player analysis, a lot of analytically inclined fans who like impact stats and dislike eye test/counting stats are inclined to ignore the sample size problem.

What really happened is the peril of small sample sizes. Dirk was a good playoff performer for the vast majority of his career.

I wouldn't say he had "no recourse", more that if you did manage to slow him down, that was likely to be your best chance of doing it. Possibly that notion in itself was skewed by small sample size, but it's how I remember it.

With that said, I also remember him as a consistently strong playoff performer going back to 2002 - that's what made 2007 so shocking to me.