Offense Only - 02/03 Duncan & 03/04 KG vs 19/20 Giannis

[therealbig3]

Yeah, the argument that Duncan led good offenses only when Spurs defense collapsed is made out of nothing.

1999 Spurs: +3.8 offense, -7.3 defense
2002 Spurs: +3.8 offense, -5.6 defense
2005 Spurs: +5.7 offense, -3.1 defense
2006 Spurs: +9.6 offense, +2.6 defense
2007 Spurs: +3.2 offense, -6.0 defense

2006 is the exception and unsuprisingly, it was the season when Duncan dealt with injuries.

I didn't say that. I specifically pointed to 06 as the season where Duncan led a great playoff offense, but it was at the expense of the defense, since Duncan had injuries and wasn't able to play his normal great defense.

With Duncan and Garnett on in the playoffs:

98 Spurs: +0.6
99 Spurs: +2.9
01 Spurs: +1.8
02 Spurs: +6.8
03 Spurs: +3.2
04 Spurs: -1.0
05 Spurs: +5.1
06 Spurs: +11.2
07 Spurs: +3.8
08 Spurs: -0.2

04 Wolves: +1.2
08 Celtics: +5.0

Duncan has a lot more non-1st round playoff runs than KG does, obviously. KG really only has 04 and 08 for when he made it out of the 1st round in his prime. In 08, I think he finally got comparable support to Duncan, and he produced a +5.0 offense. Duncan clearly exceeded that in 02 and 06, with a comparable run in 05. We've discussed how in 06, the defense seemed to be traded off for the offense, since the Mavs specifically scored at will on the Spurs, with Duncan being the main target, constantly being put in PnR/PnP action.

But in general, I'm not a big fan of comparing 2 round runs to conference finals or deeper runs, because the conference finalist (and finalist) tend to be good defensive teams and that can affect how good the playoff offense looks. And in the case of 02 (the other year where Duncan's playoff offense looks clearly superior), they struggled a lot against the Lakers, but destroyed the Sonics in round 1. Their overall playoff offense looks strong, but I doubt that it would have held up against another strong defensive team if they got through to the conference finals. 02 Spurs playoff run was 11 games, 08 Celtics playoff run was 26 games, more than double.

And in all examples, KG never had the coaching of Pop's caliber, which definitely affects team offense. Doc Rivers is clearly an overrated coach, and KG's coaches in Minny were awful.

[70sFan]

Yeah, the argument that Duncan led good offenses only when Spurs defense collapsed is made out of nothing.

1999 Spurs: +3.8 offense, -7.3 defense
2002 Spurs: +3.8 offense, -5.6 defense
2005 Spurs: +5.7 offense, -3.1 defense
2006 Spurs: +9.6 offense, +2.6 defense
2007 Spurs: +3.2 offense, -6.0 defense

2006 is the exception and unsuprisingly, it was the season when Duncan dealt with injuries.

I didn't say that. I specifically pointed to 06 as the season where Duncan led a great playoff offense, but it was at the expense of the defense, since Duncan had injuries and wasn't able to play his normal great defense.

With Duncan and Garnett on in the playoffs:

98 Spurs: +0.6
99 Spurs: +1.9
01 Spurs: +1.8
02 Spurs: +6.8
03 Spurs: +3.2
04 Spurs: -1.0
05 Spurs: +5.1
06 Spurs: +11.2
07 Spurs: +3.8
08 Spurs: -0.2

04 Wolves: +1.2
08 Celtics: +5.0

Duncan has a lot more non-1st round playoff runs than KG does, obviously. KG really only has 04 and 08 for when he made it out of the 1st round in his prime. In 08, I think he finally got comparable support to Duncan, and he produced a +5.0 offense. Duncan clearly exceeded that in 02 and 06, with a comparable run in 05. We've discussed how in 06, the defense seemed to be traded off for the offense, since the Mavs specifically scored at will on the Spurs, with Duncan being the main target, constantly being put in PnR/PnP action.

But in general, I'm not a big fan of comparing 2 round runs to conference finals or deeper runs, because the conference finalist (and finalist) tend to be good defensive teams and that can affect how good the playoff offense looks. And in the case of 02 (the other year where Duncan's playoff offense looks clearly superior), they struggled a lot against the Lakers, but destroyed the Sonics in round 1. Their overall playoff offense looks strong, but I doubt that it would have held up against another strong defensive team if they got through to the conference finals. 02 Spurs playoff run was 11 games, 08 Celtics playoff run was 26 games, more than double.

And in all examples, KG never had the coaching of Pop's caliber, which definitely affects team offense. Doc Rivers is clearly an overrated coach, and KG's coaches in Minny were awful.

Duncan still has better full finals postseason run in 2005 as you can see and he didn't have better supporting cast then. He also fared very well in 2007 and given his supporting cast, 2003 is also impressive.

Also - something is wrong with 1999. Spurs were +3.8 offense in playoffs and they were considerably worse without Duncan on the floor (+4.4 on/off via BasketballReference). How is his offense only +1.9?

[therealbig3]

Yeah, the argument that Duncan led good offenses only when Spurs defense collapsed is made out of nothing.

1999 Spurs: +3.8 offense, -7.3 defense
2002 Spurs: +3.8 offense, -5.6 defense
2005 Spurs: +5.7 offense, -3.1 defense
2006 Spurs: +9.6 offense, +2.6 defense
2007 Spurs: +3.2 offense, -6.0 defense

2006 is the exception and unsuprisingly, it was the season when Duncan dealt with injuries.

I didn't say that. I specifically pointed to 06 as the season where Duncan led a great playoff offense, but it was at the expense of the defense, since Duncan had injuries and wasn't able to play his normal great defense.

With Duncan and Garnett on in the playoffs:

98 Spurs: +0.6
99 Spurs: +1.9
01 Spurs: +1.8
02 Spurs: +6.8
03 Spurs: +3.2
04 Spurs: -1.0
05 Spurs: +5.1
06 Spurs: +11.2
07 Spurs: +3.8
08 Spurs: -0.2

04 Wolves: +1.2
08 Celtics: +5.0

Duncan has a lot more non-1st round playoff runs than KG does, obviously. KG really only has 04 and 08 for when he made it out of the 1st round in his prime. In 08, I think he finally got comparable support to Duncan, and he produced a +5.0 offense. Duncan clearly exceeded that in 02 and 06, with a comparable run in 05. We've discussed how in 06, the defense seemed to be traded off for the offense, since the Mavs specifically scored at will on the Spurs, with Duncan being the main target, constantly being put in PnR/PnP action.

But in general, I'm not a big fan of comparing 2 round runs to conference finals or deeper runs, because the conference finalist (and finalist) tend to be good defensive teams and that can affect how good the playoff offense looks. And in the case of 02 (the other year where Duncan's playoff offense looks clearly superior), they struggled a lot against the Lakers, but destroyed the Sonics in round 1. Their overall playoff offense looks strong, but I doubt that it would have held up against another strong defensive team if they got through to the conference finals. 02 Spurs playoff run was 11 games, 08 Celtics playoff run was 26 games, more than double.

And in all examples, KG never had the coaching of Pop's caliber, which definitely affects team offense. Doc Rivers is clearly an overrated coach, and KG's coaches in Minny were awful.

Duncan still has better full finals postseason run in 2005 as you can see and he didn't have better supporting cast then. He also fared very well in 2007 and given his supporting cast, 2003 is also impressive.

Also - something is wrong with 1999. Spurs were +3.8 offense in playoffs and they were considerably worse without Duncan on the floor (+4.4 on/off via BasketballReference). How is his offense only +1.9?

It's +5.1 vs +5.0. That's essentially the same, and Manu and Parker were definitely comparable to Pierce and Allen.

Should be +2.9, not 1.9, you are correct. Average defense they faced in the PS was 100.1. With Duncan on, their Orating was 103.0. I fixed it in my original post.

[70sFan]

I didn't say that. I specifically pointed to 06 as the season where Duncan led a great playoff offense, but it was at the expense of the defense, since Duncan had injuries and wasn't able to play his normal great defense.

With Duncan and Garnett on in the playoffs:

98 Spurs: +0.6
99 Spurs: +1.9
01 Spurs: +1.8
02 Spurs: +6.8
03 Spurs: +3.2
04 Spurs: -1.0
05 Spurs: +5.1
06 Spurs: +11.2
07 Spurs: +3.8
08 Spurs: -0.2

04 Wolves: +1.2
08 Celtics: +5.0

Duncan has a lot more non-1st round playoff runs than KG does, obviously. KG really only has 04 and 08 for when he made it out of the 1st round in his prime. In 08, I think he finally got comparable support to Duncan, and he produced a +5.0 offense. Duncan clearly exceeded that in 02 and 06, with a comparable run in 05. We've discussed how in 06, the defense seemed to be traded off for the offense, since the Mavs specifically scored at will on the Spurs, with Duncan being the main target, constantly being put in PnR/PnP action.

But in general, I'm not a big fan of comparing 2 round runs to conference finals or deeper runs, because the conference finalist (and finalist) tend to be good defensive teams and that can affect how good the playoff offense looks. And in the case of 02 (the other year where Duncan's playoff offense looks clearly superior), they struggled a lot against the Lakers, but destroyed the Sonics in round 1. Their overall playoff offense looks strong, but I doubt that it would have held up against another strong defensive team if they got through to the conference finals. 02 Spurs playoff run was 11 games, 08 Celtics playoff run was 26 games, more than double.

And in all examples, KG never had the coaching of Pop's caliber, which definitely affects team offense. Doc Rivers is clearly an overrated coach, and KG's coaches in Minny were awful.

Duncan still has better full finals postseason run in 2005 as you can see and he didn't have better supporting cast then. He also fared very well in 2007 and given his supporting cast, 2003 is also impressive.

Also - something is wrong with 1999. Spurs were +3.8 offense in playoffs and they were considerably worse without Duncan on the floor (+4.4 on/off via BasketballReference). How is his offense only +1.9?

It's +5.1 vs +5.0. That's essentially the same, and Manu and Parker were definitely comparable to Pierce and Allen.

Should be +2.9, not 1.9, you are correct. Average defense they faced in the PS was 100.1. With Duncan on, their Orating was 103.0. I fixed it in my original post.

Still something is wrong. Spurs had 103.8 ORtg in playoffs and 103.0 with Duncan on the floor, yet Duncan had clear positive on/off offensive numbers.

[Odinn21]

Here's the results based on the numbers available on NBA.com. (BBRef's on/off pages have many inconsistencies.)
Calcutated on MS Excel while respecting play times.

(playoffs average / the Spurs ORtg / with Duncan on the floor / on-off difference for TD with his playtime / rORtg / rORtg with Duncan on)

1999; 99.4 / 101.1 / 101.7 / +5.8 / +1.7 / +2.3
2001; 103.0 / 100.9 / 103.6 / +17.0 / -2.1 / +0.6
2002; 101.8 / 105.3 / 109.2 / +18.7 / +3.5 / +7.4
2003; 103.3 / 102.2 / 104.0 / +15.3 / -1.1 / +0.7
2004; 97.7 / 101.1 / 99.6 / -9.5 / +3.4 / +1.9
2005; 106.4 / 109.1 / 108.0 / -4.9 / +2.7 / +1.6
2006; 106.8 / 112.0 / 115.0 / +13.1 / +5.2 / +8.2
2007; 103.6 / 106.5 / 107.8 / +5.6 / +2.9 / +4.2

On average; 102.9 / 105.0 / 105.9 / +5.5 / +2.1 / +3.0

Let's compare those numbers to Garnett's 2004 and 2008;
2004; 97.7 / 101.3 / 103.2 / +19.2 / +3.6 / +5.5
2008; 105.8 / 107.7 / 110.1 / +11.5 / +1.9 / +4.3

What do these numbers tell me? Nothing. The people siding with Garnett loves to compare Garnett's results in 2004 and 2008 to Duncan's entire prime. But they fail to recognize that while they don't give the same benefit of the doubt to Duncan.
2004 is a clear outlier in there. And with that ORtg, Duncan's DRtg and overall Rtg difference was positive. It was a season many Garnett fans would love to point out as a weak team. But it was Duncan and the Spurs, so why should they care about actual context when there's a reputation to go on about?

Including 2004 for Duncan would be like including 2001 for Garnett. Here;
2001; 103.0 / 92.7 / 90.5 / -15.1 / -10.3 / -12.5

Both have outlying numbers. Also, these numbers are not individual numbers. Robinson got a higher ORtg number than Duncan in 2001 playoffs, was he the better offensive player because of this?.. In 2003 playoffs Anthony Peeler had a higher ORtg than Garnett. Etc etc.

---

And all these talks still ignore offensive production which I already pointed about Duncan's being the superior performer without a doubt.
Duncan was the better offensive player / centerpiece.

[No-more-rings]

Rondo is not Chris Paul or Steve Nash, but the Celtics offense at least wouldn't have been better in the playoffs without him. Someone had to be a playmaker and an old Pierce or Garnett wasn't up to that challenge. Pierce tried that against the Knicks in that 2013 series and it was disastrous, he averaged 5.3 APG with the exact same amount of turnovers and had a 48 ts%. And Boston had a horrendous 93.8 ORTG in the series. In general they were very defensive minded, and Doc is not really a good offensive coach that's become more and more evident over the years. While their offense ranged from average to bad from 2010-2013, it's not that surprising given KG and Allen's offensive decline and Pierce was like the one guy who could consistently create his own buckets but even in his own prime he led some pretty bad offenses of his own. I sometimes wonder if people underestimate how much KG's offensive abilities declined in those years, i definitely see no reason to think Rondo held him back or something.

[dygaction]

okay? he's still not come near the range of team siutations we've seen kg in. And ultimately passing is more scalable than iso an dkg is undisputably the better passer. So he would be the more scalable.

Because 08 kg was definitely kg's offensive prime

08 KG was definitely still in his offensive prime. By points per 100 it's his 3rd best scoring season under 04 and 05. His top 5 seasons by points per 100 are 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08.

Just because he's a better passer doesn't automatically make him more scalable. That's not how that works. We can look at REAL LIFE (because both guys played a whole career spanning 20 years) and see Duncan is just as scalable as KG if not more scalable because he can thrive in roles KG can't thrive in.

There primes did not last 20 years. useless comment. Peak duncan never maintained his impact on exceptional offences, so REAL LIFE has zip to say about duncan's scalability.

but KG's postseason scalability is significantly lower than his regular season, not sure better than Giannis'

[freethedevil]

08 KG was definitely still in his offensive prime. By points per 100 it's his 3rd best scoring season under 04 and 05. His top 5 seasons by points per 100 are 04, 05, 06, 07, and 08.

Just because he's a better passer doesn't automatically make him more scalable. That's not how that works. We can look at REAL LIFE (because both guys played a whole career spanning 20 years) and see Duncan is just as scalable as KG if not more scalable because he can thrive in roles KG can't thrive in.

There primes did not last 20 years. useless comment. Peak duncan never maintained his impact on exceptional offences, so REAL LIFE has zip to say about duncan's scalability.

but KG's postseason scalability is significantly lower than his regular season, not sure better than Giannis'

wut? How so. You'd be right to say kg is marginally less valuable in the postseason than he was nin the rs, but even then, he was still one of the most impactful postseason playes ever:
https://backpicks.com/2018/06/10/aupm-2-0-the-top-playoff-performers-of-the-databall-era/

A tier above those he's often compared to.

[dygaction]

There primes did not last 20 years. useless comment. Peak duncan never maintained his impact on exceptional offences, so REAL LIFE has zip to say about duncan's scalability.

but KG's postseason scalability is significantly lower than his regular season, not sure better than Giannis'

wut? How so. You'd be right to say kg is marginally less valuable in the postseason than he was nin the rs, but even then, he was still one of the most impactful postseason playes ever:
https://backpicks.com/2018/06/10/aupm-2-0-the-top-playoff-performers-of-the-databall-era/

A tier above those he's often compared to.

KG was most often compared to Dirk and Duncan, as they had the most overlap and were elite at the same PF position. Often times on offense, the other two guys have increased productivity, in terms of shooting percentage, efficiency, and ppg, but KG's postseason often took a dip, together with much less team success.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Jacob Goldstein has just updated PIPM. NBA PIPM 1996-97 to 1999-00 is now not only box-score estimate but a full luck-adjusted on-off version that is used for other play by play era seasons.

The reason why I bring this up, is because now we have an opportunity to look at how Tim Duncan and KG compared offensively in the PS a bit further back now.

Now according to Backpicks Top 40, KG became a MVP level play at the turn of the century.

So searching RS&PS PIPM from 2000-04 provides the following results:

Kevin Garnett is #1 of all players in PIPM at 6.73. (3.64 OPIPM). Duncan is #2 at 6.53 (2.55 OPIPM). Garnett outright has the more impressive on/off offensively and defensively.

HOWEVER, if we do just playoffs:

Duncan becomes #1 in this time frame with a 7.48 PIPM (3.16 OPIPM is 3rd in this time frame). KG falls to #6 with a 3.38 PIPM (1.77 OPIPM is #12). Duncan's offensive rating on/off and overall on/off is much better during this time as well.

Once again, this jives with the idea that Duncan simply was a much better floor-raiser and overall offensive guy come PS time. I can see why people believe KG's came is more portable and I agree (I think you can see this with KG maybe being the better FIBA Olympics player). However, I don't think KG's portability makes up for the massive gap offensively.

[G35]

Duncan proved himself to be very portable and scalable. He played in many different roles throughout his career and he was always effective.

okay? he's still not come near the range of team siutations we've seen kg in. And ultimately passing is more scalable than iso an dkg is undisputably the better passer. So he would be the more scalable.

Celtics offense was always a bit underwhelming for me given their talent on that end.

Because 08 kg was definitely kg's offensive prime

All the team situations KG was in? You mean those amazing offenses in Minnesota? Or those offenses in Boston where he focused more on defense.

Compared to Duncan playing next to DRob in a twin tower, to Duncan being a one man gang on offense and defense in 2003, or Duncan taking a back seat to Tony and Manu in 2005 through 2010. Or Pop completely changing the Spurs into a motion offense in with Duncan setting up at the top of the key and being the hub.

Duncan is similar to Kareem in that even at an advanced age, Duncan was depended on to get a good look against playoff defenses. Kareem went into the post on either side of the block and used his sky hook to devastating effectiveness. Duncan did the same thing but he posted more on the left side of the block and either did his bank shot or took it to the rim.

Neither KG nor Giannis have that in their toolkit.....

[zimpy27]

Jacob Goldstein has just updated PIPM. NBA PIPM 1996-97 to 1999-00 is now not only box-score estimate but a full luck-adjusted on-off version that is used for other play by play era seasons.

The reason why I bring this up, is because now we have an opportunity to look at how Tim Duncan and KG compared offensively in the PS a bit further back now.

Now according to Backpicks Top 40, KG became a MVP level play at the turn of the century.

So searching RS&PS PIPM from 2000-04 provides the following results:

Kevin Garnett is #1 of all players in PIPM at 6.73. (3.64 OPIPM). Duncan is #2 at 6.53 (2.55 OPIPM). Garnett outright has the more impressive on/off offensively and defensively.

HOWEVER, if we do just playoffs:

Duncan becomes #1 in this time frame with a 7.48 PIPM (3.16 OPIPM is 3rd in this time frame). KG falls to #6 with a 3.38 PIPM (1.77 OPIPM is #12). Duncan's offensive rating on/off and overall on/off is much better during this time as well.

Once again, this jives with the idea that Duncan simply was a much better floor-raiser and overall offensive guy come PS time. I can see why people believe KG's came is more portable and I agree (I think you can see this with KG maybe being the better FIBA Olympics player). However, I don't think KG's portability makes up for the massive gap offensively.

It comes down to the fact that TD had a far better offensive game than Garnett and Giannis in the half-court and the half-court is what matters in the playoffs as teams actually get back to defend.