Spoiler:
Overall SRS: My combo-SRS from the regular season and playoffs as discussed in the master thread
Standard Deviations: Standard Deviations of Overall SRS from the league mean.
When I post the roster makeup of the team, I try and do it by playoff minutes. The numbers are age, regular season BPM and Playoff BPM (basketball-reference's BPM is being used here).
So if I say: "C: Vlade Divac (22), +2.3 / +4.3" I mean that Vlade Divac was their center, he was 22, he had a BPM of +2.3 in the regular season and a +4.3 in the playoffs. Yes, BPM misses out on a lot of subtle stuff but I thought it a good quick-hits indicator of the skills of the players.
I also list the playoff players (20+ MPG) in order of OLoad (which is usage that integrates assists) and it has everyone's per game average for minutes, points, rebounds, assists and stocks (steals plus blocks), but all of those (including minutes) are adjusted for pace.
I then cover the three highest players in scoring per 100 (with their true shooting relative to league average) and the three highest players in Assists per 100. I realize that these are arbitrary, but I wanted a quick-hits reference for how these teams' offenses ran.
I then talk about Heliocentrism, Wingmen and Depth. Basically I add up all of the team's VORP (again, basketball-reference) and then figure out what percentage of that VORP comes from the #1 player (Heliocentrism), from the #2 and 3 players combined (Wingmen) and Depth (everyone else). I include the ranking among the top 100 for reference. There are only 82 of these rankings, because 18 teams pre-date BPM/VORP, so I only have 82 to work with. I'm not saying that these are particularly meaningful, I just thought they were cool.
Playoff Offensive Rating: Amount by which your playoff offensive rating exceeds the offensive rating you'd expect given the regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents. If you would be expected to post a 99 given your opponents but you post a 104, that's graded as +5. This way we can compare across eras.
Playoff Defensive Rating is the same as Offensive Rating, just the opposite.
Playoff SRS: Is SRS measured *only* in the playoffs. Overall SRS is a mix of both playoffs and regular season.
Total SRS Increase Through Playoffs: Basically their Overall SRS minus their Regular Season SRS. This is basically how much better a team did in the playoffs than you'd guess, relative to their regular season performance.
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: The average regular season offensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Average Playoff Opponent Defense: The average regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Rankings of any kind are out of my list. So if I say that the '91 Lakers had the 42nd best regular season offense, I don't mean "42nd best of All-Time", I mean "42nd best of my Top 100 Teams of All_Time". Which will be pretty comparable, but I want to be clear about this.
I also walk through the playoffs at each round, covering their opponent their SRS (at that time), how many games the series was, the margin of victory (and a "+" is always in the favor of the discussed team; losing a series by +2.0 means that you outscored the other team by two points a game on average despite losing) and for reference I put in an SRS equivalency (beat a +5 SRS team by 5 points a game, that's an equivalent +10 SRS series).
In writeups, if I ever say a player shot at "-8%" or something, that means "his true shooting was 8% lower than the league average that year". Any time I say "a player shot" and follow it by a percent, I am *always* using true shooting percentage unless otherwise indicated.
I also have a modern comps section for any teams pre-2011. It's basically me weighting each statistical characteristic and feeding each player's stats into the BackPicks database and choosing the best-rated comp from the list. I might list something like this:
PG: 2017 LeBron James (worse rebounding, better passing, way fewer shots)
What I mean is, "This team's point guard was basically 2017 LeBron James, but make his passing better, make his rebounding worse and make him take way fewer shots).
Anyhow. I don't know how clear any of this will be, so please let me know what does and doesn't work from these writeups. And thanks for reading!
Standard Deviations: Standard Deviations of Overall SRS from the league mean.
When I post the roster makeup of the team, I try and do it by playoff minutes. The numbers are age, regular season BPM and Playoff BPM (basketball-reference's BPM is being used here).
So if I say: "C: Vlade Divac (22), +2.3 / +4.3" I mean that Vlade Divac was their center, he was 22, he had a BPM of +2.3 in the regular season and a +4.3 in the playoffs. Yes, BPM misses out on a lot of subtle stuff but I thought it a good quick-hits indicator of the skills of the players.
I also list the playoff players (20+ MPG) in order of OLoad (which is usage that integrates assists) and it has everyone's per game average for minutes, points, rebounds, assists and stocks (steals plus blocks), but all of those (including minutes) are adjusted for pace.
I then cover the three highest players in scoring per 100 (with their true shooting relative to league average) and the three highest players in Assists per 100. I realize that these are arbitrary, but I wanted a quick-hits reference for how these teams' offenses ran.
I then talk about Heliocentrism, Wingmen and Depth. Basically I add up all of the team's VORP (again, basketball-reference) and then figure out what percentage of that VORP comes from the #1 player (Heliocentrism), from the #2 and 3 players combined (Wingmen) and Depth (everyone else). I include the ranking among the top 100 for reference. There are only 82 of these rankings, because 18 teams pre-date BPM/VORP, so I only have 82 to work with. I'm not saying that these are particularly meaningful, I just thought they were cool.
Playoff Offensive Rating: Amount by which your playoff offensive rating exceeds the offensive rating you'd expect given the regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents. If you would be expected to post a 99 given your opponents but you post a 104, that's graded as +5. This way we can compare across eras.
Playoff Defensive Rating is the same as Offensive Rating, just the opposite.
Playoff SRS: Is SRS measured *only* in the playoffs. Overall SRS is a mix of both playoffs and regular season.
Total SRS Increase Through Playoffs: Basically their Overall SRS minus their Regular Season SRS. This is basically how much better a team did in the playoffs than you'd guess, relative to their regular season performance.
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: The average regular season offensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Average Playoff Opponent Defense: The average regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Rankings of any kind are out of my list. So if I say that the '91 Lakers had the 42nd best regular season offense, I don't mean "42nd best of All-Time", I mean "42nd best of my Top 100 Teams of All_Time". Which will be pretty comparable, but I want to be clear about this.
I also walk through the playoffs at each round, covering their opponent their SRS (at that time), how many games the series was, the margin of victory (and a "+" is always in the favor of the discussed team; losing a series by +2.0 means that you outscored the other team by two points a game on average despite losing) and for reference I put in an SRS equivalency (beat a +5 SRS team by 5 points a game, that's an equivalent +10 SRS series).
In writeups, if I ever say a player shot at "-8%" or something, that means "his true shooting was 8% lower than the league average that year". Any time I say "a player shot" and follow it by a percent, I am *always* using true shooting percentage unless otherwise indicated.
I also have a modern comps section for any teams pre-2011. It's basically me weighting each statistical characteristic and feeding each player's stats into the BackPicks database and choosing the best-rated comp from the list. I might list something like this:
PG: 2017 LeBron James (worse rebounding, better passing, way fewer shots)
What I mean is, "This team's point guard was basically 2017 LeBron James, but make his passing better, make his rebounding worse and make him take way fewer shots).
Anyhow. I don't know how clear any of this will be, so please let me know what does and doesn't work from these writeups. And thanks for reading!
#55. The 1964 Boston Celtics
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +8.75, Standard Deviations: +1.70, Won NBA Finals
Regular Season Record: 59-21, Regular Season SRS: +6.93 (48th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: -3.5 (100th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -10.8 (1st)
PG: K.C. Jones, 0.114 / 0.119
SG: Sam Jones, 0.180 / 0.290
SF: John Havlicek, 0.142 / 0.120
PF: Tom Heinsohn, 0.147 / 0.133
C: Bill Russell, 0.238 / 0.199
6th: Tom Sanders, 0.154 / 0.076
Tom Heinsohn (PF, 29): 22 MPPG, 26% OLoad, 13 / 5 / 2 on -2.7%
John Havlicek (SF, 23): 26 MPPG, 26% OLoad, 16 / 4 / 2 on -2.2%
Sam Jones (SG, 30): 25 MPPG, 24% OLoad, 16 / 4 / 2 on +0.6%
K.C. Jones (PG, 31): 24 MPPG, 16% OLoad, 7 / 4 / 4 on -7.4%
Tom Sanders (PF, 25): 24 MPPG, 15% OLoad, 9 / 7 / 1 on -1.0%
Bill Russell (C, 29): 36 MPPG, 15% OLoad, 12 / 20 / 4 on -2.4%
Scoring/100: Sam Jones (23.8 / +0.6%), John Havlicek (23.7 / -2.2%), Tom Heinsohn (23.7 / -2.7%)
Assists/100: K.C. Jones (6.4), Bill Russell (4.1), John Havlicek (3.5)
Playoff Offensive Rating: -6.58 (100th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -16.07 (1st)
Playoff SRS: +10.83 (45th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +1.82 (42nd)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +1.35 (72nd), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -3.05 (28th)
Round 1:
Round 2:
Round 3: Cincinnati Royals (+3.5), won 4-1 by +8.4 points per game (+11.9 SRS eq)
Round 4: San Francisco Warriors (+5.7), won 4-1 by +4.0 points per game (+9.7 SRS eq)
Modern Comps:
PG: 2019 Marcus Smart (but hot garbage on offense)
SG: 2003 Stephen Jackson (a little worse on offense)
SF: 2016 Victor Oladipo
PF: 2011 Rudy Gay (much worse on offense)
C: 2004 Ben Wallace (wildly better on defense)
6th: 2003 Theo Ratliff
Take a long look gals and pals, because the 1964 Boston Celtics are the worst offense on this list and the best defense (both in the regular season and the playoffs). And looking at that roster it’s easy to see why. Bob Cousy’s been replaced with K.C. Jones, and while veteran Cousy wasn’t great, he ran the offense well. K.C. Jones is basically Marcus Smart, if Smart had almost no value on the offensive end (except decent rebounding for a 1). Sam Jones was the only starter to actually shoot above league average, but even then his offensive impact was fairly moderate, but he was a solid defender. Havlicek and 23 year-old Oladipo are neat fits; they’re both hustlers on offense who can’t really score well and both have solid defensive footprints. Sanders/Ratliff is an all-defense big. Heinsohn at this point had waned in rebounding and scoring, and so has a stat profile more like an athletic 3 than a 4. And Russell . . . he wasn’t great on offense, but that defense . . . this may be the best defensive season ever. In terms of BPM, Ben Taylor has Russell’s defense this year comparable to Michael Jordan’s offense in ‘90 and ‘91. In other words, insane. So how does the offense work? Not well. K.C. Jones isn’t a scorer or passer, Havlicek wasn’t a scorer yet, Heinsohn wasn’t a scorer anymore, Russell was a good passer but carried a small offensive load (and inefficiently) . . . Sam Jones being a slightly above average scorer was the bright shining light on this offense.
“Right, right” I hear you say, “we get it, their offense wasn’t good”. You don’t understand - their offense was really, really bad. In 2020 terms, their regular season offense was somewhere around the Hawks/Cavs/Bulls. Which is to say, weaksauce. But their defense? Basically it was about as good as the ‘87 Lakers, ‘91 Bulls, ‘01 Lakers, ‘05 Suns, ‘16 Cavs, ‘17 Cavs and ‘17 Warriors, were on offense in the playoffs. The ‘64 Celtics’ defense was stupidly good. In a way that no defense has ever been since (and is unlikely to ever be). Only one defense in the remotely modern day, the ‘04 Pistons, has even come close.
In 1964 the Celtics were just coming off of their hilarious-sounding fivepeat. Bob Cousy was gone, and Tommy Heinsohn was going, but John Havlicek had been added on. Not content with their championship(s) the Celtics went on to go 59-21 with the best record in the league (by 4 wins) and the highest SRS in the league (by 2.5) with a +6.93. The league had two other real contenders at +4 or higher. Wilt Chamberlain’s San Francisco Warriors and the Cincinnati Royals that Oscar Robertson had transformed. And the Celtics would get to face both teams. In the Conference Finals they faced the Royals, who boasted the best offense in the league (+4.3). Hypothetical pundits might have compared this to an irresistible force and an immovable object, the best offense against the best defense. Of course, that criminally undersells things. The ‘64 Celtics were the best defense *ever* and the ‘64 Royals were, historically speaking, a pretty good (but hardly remarkable) offense. And predictably, the Royals’ offense was completely shut down. Oscar averaged a 28/10/6 on +1.1%, Jack Twyman averaged a 20/8 on +2.9%, and every other starter shot at -9.9% or worse. The Royals as a team shot at (wait for it) -6.3% (compared to the worst offense in the NBA which averaged shooting at -1.3%). The Celtics’ defense made the best shooting team in the league shoot far worse than the worst shooting team in the league. The Royals had a league leading 45.3 eFG% normally; against the Celtics they had an eFG% of 35.2. I don’t know how many ways to say it; the Celtics’ defense outclassed the Royals’ offense by margins that would have inspired memes, had memes existed. Sure the Celtics didn’t shoot great (-5.5%) but they took 8 extra shots a game, and at the intersection of these things the Celtics ran the Royals off the court by 8.4 points per game.
And in the Finals were Wilt’s Warriors, who also boasted a 22 year-old Nate Thurmond. The Warriors’ offense proved a far harder nut to crack. The Warriors as a team shot at -2.4%, which might not sound good (it wasn’t), but it was damned fine against the Celtics and far better than the Royals fared. Wilt averaged a 29/28/2 on +2.4% and both Tom Meschery and Nate Thurmond shot decently (+5% and -2.2% respectively). In terms of volume and efficiency, Wilt’s scoring was no more impressive than Oscar’s; it’s just that Wilt’s teammates fared far better. The Celtics did manage to win the shooting war but not by much; the team shot -0.4% and really only thanks to Sam Jones (21/4/3 on +11.5%). Nevertheless, given that the Celtics always dominated the ball, you may assume that a shooting advantage would give the Celtics a big win (as it did against the Royals). But here’s the fun part: the Celtics couldn’t gain a possession edge on the Warriors. We don’t have turnover data, but we know that the Warriors outrebounded the Celtics by 1.5 a game while being outshot, so the Celtics’ thin margin of shooting superiority was going to be it. As it was, the Celtics won the series by 4 points a game. Definite, but not dominant.
The ‘64 Celtics were really good (at defense, certainly). And they played two strong teams and beat them both. But . . . 1964 wasn’t a very competitive year. Only three of the nine teams were within 2 SRS of zero. There was a -5.91 team and a -6.77 team. And just as much there was a +5.46 team and a +8.76 team. So 44% of the league was 5.4 away from average or more. In 2020 that number was just 37% (though the 5.4 cutoff is clearly cherry-picked). But my point is, it was a less competitive environment, which doesn’t give the Celtics the bonuses they get in other years. Still. Best defense ever. And a sixpeat.
Regular Season Record: 59-21, Regular Season SRS: +6.93 (48th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: -3.5 (100th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -10.8 (1st)
PG: K.C. Jones, 0.114 / 0.119
SG: Sam Jones, 0.180 / 0.290
SF: John Havlicek, 0.142 / 0.120
PF: Tom Heinsohn, 0.147 / 0.133
C: Bill Russell, 0.238 / 0.199
6th: Tom Sanders, 0.154 / 0.076
Tom Heinsohn (PF, 29): 22 MPPG, 26% OLoad, 13 / 5 / 2 on -2.7%
John Havlicek (SF, 23): 26 MPPG, 26% OLoad, 16 / 4 / 2 on -2.2%
Sam Jones (SG, 30): 25 MPPG, 24% OLoad, 16 / 4 / 2 on +0.6%
K.C. Jones (PG, 31): 24 MPPG, 16% OLoad, 7 / 4 / 4 on -7.4%
Tom Sanders (PF, 25): 24 MPPG, 15% OLoad, 9 / 7 / 1 on -1.0%
Bill Russell (C, 29): 36 MPPG, 15% OLoad, 12 / 20 / 4 on -2.4%
Scoring/100: Sam Jones (23.8 / +0.6%), John Havlicek (23.7 / -2.2%), Tom Heinsohn (23.7 / -2.7%)
Assists/100: K.C. Jones (6.4), Bill Russell (4.1), John Havlicek (3.5)
Playoff Offensive Rating: -6.58 (100th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -16.07 (1st)
Playoff SRS: +10.83 (45th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +1.82 (42nd)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +1.35 (72nd), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -3.05 (28th)
Round 1:
Round 2:
Round 3: Cincinnati Royals (+3.5), won 4-1 by +8.4 points per game (+11.9 SRS eq)
Round 4: San Francisco Warriors (+5.7), won 4-1 by +4.0 points per game (+9.7 SRS eq)
Modern Comps:
PG: 2019 Marcus Smart (but hot garbage on offense)
SG: 2003 Stephen Jackson (a little worse on offense)
SF: 2016 Victor Oladipo
PF: 2011 Rudy Gay (much worse on offense)
C: 2004 Ben Wallace (wildly better on defense)
6th: 2003 Theo Ratliff
Take a long look gals and pals, because the 1964 Boston Celtics are the worst offense on this list and the best defense (both in the regular season and the playoffs). And looking at that roster it’s easy to see why. Bob Cousy’s been replaced with K.C. Jones, and while veteran Cousy wasn’t great, he ran the offense well. K.C. Jones is basically Marcus Smart, if Smart had almost no value on the offensive end (except decent rebounding for a 1). Sam Jones was the only starter to actually shoot above league average, but even then his offensive impact was fairly moderate, but he was a solid defender. Havlicek and 23 year-old Oladipo are neat fits; they’re both hustlers on offense who can’t really score well and both have solid defensive footprints. Sanders/Ratliff is an all-defense big. Heinsohn at this point had waned in rebounding and scoring, and so has a stat profile more like an athletic 3 than a 4. And Russell . . . he wasn’t great on offense, but that defense . . . this may be the best defensive season ever. In terms of BPM, Ben Taylor has Russell’s defense this year comparable to Michael Jordan’s offense in ‘90 and ‘91. In other words, insane. So how does the offense work? Not well. K.C. Jones isn’t a scorer or passer, Havlicek wasn’t a scorer yet, Heinsohn wasn’t a scorer anymore, Russell was a good passer but carried a small offensive load (and inefficiently) . . . Sam Jones being a slightly above average scorer was the bright shining light on this offense.
“Right, right” I hear you say, “we get it, their offense wasn’t good”. You don’t understand - their offense was really, really bad. In 2020 terms, their regular season offense was somewhere around the Hawks/Cavs/Bulls. Which is to say, weaksauce. But their defense? Basically it was about as good as the ‘87 Lakers, ‘91 Bulls, ‘01 Lakers, ‘05 Suns, ‘16 Cavs, ‘17 Cavs and ‘17 Warriors, were on offense in the playoffs. The ‘64 Celtics’ defense was stupidly good. In a way that no defense has ever been since (and is unlikely to ever be). Only one defense in the remotely modern day, the ‘04 Pistons, has even come close.
In 1964 the Celtics were just coming off of their hilarious-sounding fivepeat. Bob Cousy was gone, and Tommy Heinsohn was going, but John Havlicek had been added on. Not content with their championship(s) the Celtics went on to go 59-21 with the best record in the league (by 4 wins) and the highest SRS in the league (by 2.5) with a +6.93. The league had two other real contenders at +4 or higher. Wilt Chamberlain’s San Francisco Warriors and the Cincinnati Royals that Oscar Robertson had transformed. And the Celtics would get to face both teams. In the Conference Finals they faced the Royals, who boasted the best offense in the league (+4.3). Hypothetical pundits might have compared this to an irresistible force and an immovable object, the best offense against the best defense. Of course, that criminally undersells things. The ‘64 Celtics were the best defense *ever* and the ‘64 Royals were, historically speaking, a pretty good (but hardly remarkable) offense. And predictably, the Royals’ offense was completely shut down. Oscar averaged a 28/10/6 on +1.1%, Jack Twyman averaged a 20/8 on +2.9%, and every other starter shot at -9.9% or worse. The Royals as a team shot at (wait for it) -6.3% (compared to the worst offense in the NBA which averaged shooting at -1.3%). The Celtics’ defense made the best shooting team in the league shoot far worse than the worst shooting team in the league. The Royals had a league leading 45.3 eFG% normally; against the Celtics they had an eFG% of 35.2. I don’t know how many ways to say it; the Celtics’ defense outclassed the Royals’ offense by margins that would have inspired memes, had memes existed. Sure the Celtics didn’t shoot great (-5.5%) but they took 8 extra shots a game, and at the intersection of these things the Celtics ran the Royals off the court by 8.4 points per game.
And in the Finals were Wilt’s Warriors, who also boasted a 22 year-old Nate Thurmond. The Warriors’ offense proved a far harder nut to crack. The Warriors as a team shot at -2.4%, which might not sound good (it wasn’t), but it was damned fine against the Celtics and far better than the Royals fared. Wilt averaged a 29/28/2 on +2.4% and both Tom Meschery and Nate Thurmond shot decently (+5% and -2.2% respectively). In terms of volume and efficiency, Wilt’s scoring was no more impressive than Oscar’s; it’s just that Wilt’s teammates fared far better. The Celtics did manage to win the shooting war but not by much; the team shot -0.4% and really only thanks to Sam Jones (21/4/3 on +11.5%). Nevertheless, given that the Celtics always dominated the ball, you may assume that a shooting advantage would give the Celtics a big win (as it did against the Royals). But here’s the fun part: the Celtics couldn’t gain a possession edge on the Warriors. We don’t have turnover data, but we know that the Warriors outrebounded the Celtics by 1.5 a game while being outshot, so the Celtics’ thin margin of shooting superiority was going to be it. As it was, the Celtics won the series by 4 points a game. Definite, but not dominant.
The ‘64 Celtics were really good (at defense, certainly). And they played two strong teams and beat them both. But . . . 1964 wasn’t a very competitive year. Only three of the nine teams were within 2 SRS of zero. There was a -5.91 team and a -6.77 team. And just as much there was a +5.46 team and a +8.76 team. So 44% of the league was 5.4 away from average or more. In 2020 that number was just 37% (though the 5.4 cutoff is clearly cherry-picked). But my point is, it was a less competitive environment, which doesn’t give the Celtics the bonuses they get in other years. Still. Best defense ever. And a sixpeat.
#54. The 2008 Boston Celtics
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +8.91, Standard Deviations: +1.66, Won NBA Finals (Preseason 6th)
Regular Season Record: 66-16, Regular Season SRS: +9.30 (11th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +2.7 (63rd), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -8.6 (3rd)
PG: Rajon Rondo, +2.1 / +3.6
SG: Ray Allen, +3.0 / +3.0
SF: Paul Pierce, +4.8 / +3.6
PF: Kevin Garnett, +8.2 / +6.6
C: Kendrick Perkins, +0.5 / +0.6
6th: James Posey, +2.5 / +5.3
Paul Pierce (SF, 30): 40 MPPG, 25.4% OLoad, 22 / 6 / 5 / 2 on +5.9%
Kevin Garnett (PF, 31): 36 MPPG, 24.9% OLoad, 21 / 10 / 4 / 3 on +4.8%
Ray Allen (SG, 32): 40 MPPG, 21.4% OLoad, 19 / 4 / 3 / 1 on +4.4%
Rajon Rondo (PG, 21): 33 MPPG, 20.9% OLoad, 12 / 5 / 6 / 2 on -2.5%
James Posey (SF, 31): 27 MPPG, 13.7% OLoad, 8 / 5 / 2 / 1 on +4.7%
Kendrick Perkins (C, 23): 27 MPPG, 13.0% OLoad, 8 / 7 / 1 / 2 on +9.2%
Scoring/100: Kevin Garnett (30.3 / +4.8%), Paul Pierce (28.8 / +5.9%), Ray Allen (25.6 / +4.4%)
Assists/100: Rajon Rondo (9.0), Paul Pierce (6.7), Kevin Garnett (5.5)
Heliocentrism: 27.9% (62nd of 82 teams) - Garnett
Wingmen: 38.6% (40th) - Pierce & Allen
Depth: 33.5% (27th)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +3.34 (69th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -5.80 (38th)
Playoff SRS: +8.74 (83rd), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: -0.39 (98th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +1.60 (66th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -1.44 (64th)
Playoff Heliocentrism: 28.8% - Garnett
Playoff Wingmen: 37.0% - Pierce & Allen
Playoff Bench: 34.2%
Round 1: Atlanta Hawks (-2.2), won 4-3, by +12.0 points per game (+9.8 SRS eq)
Round 2: Cleveland Cavaliers (+0.6), won 4-3 outscored by 1.1 points per game (-0.5 SRS eq)
Round 3: Detroit Pistons (+6.9), won 4-2, by +1.7 points per game (+8.6 SRS eq)
Round 4: Los Angeles Lakers (+10.1), won 4-2, by +8.4 points per game (+18.5 SRS eq)
Modern Comps:
PG: 2018 James Johnson (better on defense, less spacing)
SG: 2018 Klay Thompson
SF: 2017 Gordon Hayward (much better on defense)
PF: 2013 Tim Duncan (but better at everything)
C: 2018 Ian Mahinmi
6th: 2017 Trevor Ariza
The temptation in the case of any pattern is to try and simplify. So the knee-jerk reaction is to say “Having Kevin Garnett made the ‘08 Celtics an all-time great defense”. And seriously, it is great, it’s the third best regular season defense ever (on this list). But, first off, looking at those 60s Celtics teams should make clear that simplifying doesn’t do you any favors. Respect to Garnett as a defender, but Russell was a wildly more valuable defensive presence (mostly because of era, but that still counts). And his teams were still loaded with stoppers and strong defenders; you can’t get an ATG defense without that. So, sure, you have Garnett. But then you’ve got Perkins, Pierce and Rondo, all of whom are strong defenders. And their bench is deep in outstanding defenders (James Posey, Tony Allen and Eddie House). And only then can you combine for a stratospheric defense.
I think the comps are fairly spot on. Ray Allen / Klay Thompson is a gimme. Perk and Mahinmi are pretty similar. Posey and Ariza are pretty similar. Old Pierce and young Hayward actually have pretty similar offensive footprints, it’s just that Pierce is a better defender. Garnett as better old Duncan (which is a cheaty way of saying young Duncan) is garbage, but what are you going to do? Reasonably high load, good scoring, decent passing, monster defending, decent offensive rebounding but insane defensive rebounding . . . that’s not really a thing in the modern game (Marc Gasol is probably as close as you’re gonna get). And James Johnson as Rondo . . . look. Rondo had decently high usage, had approximately zero range, good passing, a strong defensive footprint and surprisingly good rebounding numbers for a one . . . I’m not really surprised we got a 6’7” guy who plays close to the basket and passes well. Young Rondo is a weird player.
The 2008 Celtics united three players who had all been toiling in frustration. Ray Allen had been on a variety of strong Milwaukee and Seattle teams, but had never had a ton of success in the playoffs. Paul Pierce had been the best player on a long line of struggling Celtics teams. And Kevin Garnett famously played his butt off carrying the awful supporting casts the Timberwolves gave him. So going into 2008 Danny Ainge (the Celtics’ GM) swung for the fences, turning a bunch of firsts and young talent into a deep defensively-oriented roster with Garnett, Pierce and Allen at its core. And it was a weirdly ideal mix of talent. None of those players were load-monsters, they all passed decently (well, except for Allen who was more of a finisher) but you had a situation where any of Garnett, Pierce and Rondo could initiate the offense and set everyone else up. Nobody here was a monster scorer, but the major pieces scored well. And the low-usage players were extremely well integrated. Note how 23 year-old Perk is shooting at +9%, but four years later he’s in a much less diverse less facilitated offense and he shoots around league average on the same load. You know what it actually reminds me of a little? The late 80s Pistons. A mix of high-load players and low-load defensive specialists, built on passing to make their offenses work (since neither team had a dominant scorer) and with outstanding defenses. Except that the ‘08 Celtics (at least in the regular season), were better on both fronts. You know what’s neat? That going into the ‘08 season, the Celtics weren’t given a ton of love. Nobody really seemed to know how those pieces would work together.
Well, they worked together fine. Boston won 66 games, had the best record in the NBA (by 7 games) and the 11th best SRS *ever*. They weren’t a particularly good rebounding team. And while they forced a ton of turnovers, they also struggled with their own turnover issues. But the Celtics shot quite well, and they were really, really hard to score on. In a 30-team league they were 2nd in 2P% allowed and 1st in 3P% allowed. They averaged putting up eFG%s that were 7 points higher than the opposition; that’s a massive margin. They were obviously the best regular season team in the league, but their road to a theoretical championship would not be easy. Their conference contained the perennial challenger Detroit Pistons, and the defending Conference Winner Cleveland Cavaliers. And lurking on the horizon were the Lakers, reborn with the midseason addition of Pau Gasol.
The first series was against the weak Atlanta Hawks. And, in one sense, the Celtics dominated. They generated twice as many steals as the Hawks (Garnett, Posey, Rondo and Davis all posted Steal% of higher than 3) and outshot the Hawks comfortably, winning the series by an average of 12 points a game. But the actual results were a little stranger. At home in that series they won by 23, 19, 25 and 34 points a game. On the road they lost by 9, 5 and 3 points. So at home they were invincible, but they went 0-3, losing by almost six points a game, on the road to a legitimately below average team. So the aggregate was a solid win. But in reality it was not quite so open and shut. For a team that prided itself on mental toughness, it was a curiously careless result.
And these problems would haunt them against the Cavaliers. The Cavs were a 45-37 team with a below average regular season SRS. They’d shuffled their roster hard midseason, but there hadn’t been much evidence to suggest a big improvement. But they did have LeBron James. The Celtics knew that the Cavs’ offense would run through James and that they had to stop him. At that they were successful; James posted a usage of 38% (!!) and was held to only -6% scoring (he also added 6.4 rebounds, 7.6 assists and 2.1 steals a game). But James’ large load enabled his teammates to shoot a non-awful -2.2%. And the Celtics struggled to score, as a team shooting -2.7%. Kevin Garnett (20/11/3 on +3.7%) was the only Celtic starter to shoot above league average. The Cavs also controlled the ball a little better (2 shots a game). The aggregate? The Cavs actually outscored the Celtics by 1.1 points a game. It was another Home/Away problem. At home the Celtics won by 4, 16, 7 and 5 points. Away they lost by 24, 11 and 5 points. I can’t begin to explain it, save that the putative “Best Team in the League” got played to a standstill by a team that, to that point, had been league average (who had beaten the average Wizards in the first round by only 3.3 points a game). Emphatically not a good series for Boston.
In the Conference Finals they faced a strong but not overwhelming foe in Detroit (+6.9). Again, the Celtics struggled, unable to gain a serious shooting edge over the Pistons (the Celtics outshot the competition by only 0.4%). The Celtics shot decently (Garnett had a 23/10/3 on +4.4% and Pierce had a 20/6/4 on +6.7%) but Richard Hamilton scored 22 on +9.8% and the Pistons shot comfortably above league average. The Celtics’ advantage ended up being in rebounding, where Garnett, Rondo and Perkins combined for 7 offensive boards a game. In the end the Celtics won in six by 1.7 points a game but, again, these were performances consistent with a very good team, not with the Top 25 team their regular season had suggested that they were.
And in the NBA Finals were the +10.1 Los Angeles Lakers who had posted three straight series at +10 SRS or higher. And it was here that the ‘08 Celtics would finally deliver on their promise. They weren’t able to stop the Lakers from shooting effectively (-0.3% as a team), but they were able to slow Kobe Bryant, holding him to a 26/5/5 on -3.5% shooting. And the Celtics shot better though not by a ton; they shot +1.9% and 43% from beyond the arc (Ray Allen went 22 of 42 threes on the series). You may look at Kevin Garnett’s shooting line from the series (18 points a game on -11.1% shooting) and think that he played badly. It’s true, he didn’t shoot well. But one of the keys to the Celtics’ victory was ball control (3.5 shots a game) and much of that came from rebounding superiority. Garnett grabbed 13 boards a game (including a 30% DReb%!) and led the Celtics in both steals and blocks. The Celtics didn’t do any one thing way better than the Lakers, but they were better at *everything*, and the result was a six-game victory by 8.4 points per game. Frankly, if you were to look at the highest OSRS performances in an NBA Finals, that’s probably one of the highest ever, a dominant win over a +10 OSRS team.
So what do we make of the ‘08 Celtics? Their offense actually held up in the playoffs decently enough. It was their defense that dropped from ATG level to merely really damned good level. That series against the Lakers was fantastic, but getting taken to 7 by the Hawks was careless and they were frankly outplayed by the Cavs, who had no business doing so. In the end they won a championship (yay!) and they had a fantastic regular season (yay!) but their postseason SRS is one of the lowest on this list. So mid-50s is where they end up, for better or for worse.
Regular Season Record: 66-16, Regular Season SRS: +9.30 (11th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +2.7 (63rd), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -8.6 (3rd)
PG: Rajon Rondo, +2.1 / +3.6
SG: Ray Allen, +3.0 / +3.0
SF: Paul Pierce, +4.8 / +3.6
PF: Kevin Garnett, +8.2 / +6.6
C: Kendrick Perkins, +0.5 / +0.6
6th: James Posey, +2.5 / +5.3
Paul Pierce (SF, 30): 40 MPPG, 25.4% OLoad, 22 / 6 / 5 / 2 on +5.9%
Kevin Garnett (PF, 31): 36 MPPG, 24.9% OLoad, 21 / 10 / 4 / 3 on +4.8%
Ray Allen (SG, 32): 40 MPPG, 21.4% OLoad, 19 / 4 / 3 / 1 on +4.4%
Rajon Rondo (PG, 21): 33 MPPG, 20.9% OLoad, 12 / 5 / 6 / 2 on -2.5%
James Posey (SF, 31): 27 MPPG, 13.7% OLoad, 8 / 5 / 2 / 1 on +4.7%
Kendrick Perkins (C, 23): 27 MPPG, 13.0% OLoad, 8 / 7 / 1 / 2 on +9.2%
Scoring/100: Kevin Garnett (30.3 / +4.8%), Paul Pierce (28.8 / +5.9%), Ray Allen (25.6 / +4.4%)
Assists/100: Rajon Rondo (9.0), Paul Pierce (6.7), Kevin Garnett (5.5)
Heliocentrism: 27.9% (62nd of 82 teams) - Garnett
Wingmen: 38.6% (40th) - Pierce & Allen
Depth: 33.5% (27th)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +3.34 (69th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -5.80 (38th)
Playoff SRS: +8.74 (83rd), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: -0.39 (98th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +1.60 (66th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -1.44 (64th)
Playoff Heliocentrism: 28.8% - Garnett
Playoff Wingmen: 37.0% - Pierce & Allen
Playoff Bench: 34.2%
Round 1: Atlanta Hawks (-2.2), won 4-3, by +12.0 points per game (+9.8 SRS eq)
Round 2: Cleveland Cavaliers (+0.6), won 4-3 outscored by 1.1 points per game (-0.5 SRS eq)
Round 3: Detroit Pistons (+6.9), won 4-2, by +1.7 points per game (+8.6 SRS eq)
Round 4: Los Angeles Lakers (+10.1), won 4-2, by +8.4 points per game (+18.5 SRS eq)
Modern Comps:
PG: 2018 James Johnson (better on defense, less spacing)
SG: 2018 Klay Thompson
SF: 2017 Gordon Hayward (much better on defense)
PF: 2013 Tim Duncan (but better at everything)
C: 2018 Ian Mahinmi
6th: 2017 Trevor Ariza
The temptation in the case of any pattern is to try and simplify. So the knee-jerk reaction is to say “Having Kevin Garnett made the ‘08 Celtics an all-time great defense”. And seriously, it is great, it’s the third best regular season defense ever (on this list). But, first off, looking at those 60s Celtics teams should make clear that simplifying doesn’t do you any favors. Respect to Garnett as a defender, but Russell was a wildly more valuable defensive presence (mostly because of era, but that still counts). And his teams were still loaded with stoppers and strong defenders; you can’t get an ATG defense without that. So, sure, you have Garnett. But then you’ve got Perkins, Pierce and Rondo, all of whom are strong defenders. And their bench is deep in outstanding defenders (James Posey, Tony Allen and Eddie House). And only then can you combine for a stratospheric defense.
I think the comps are fairly spot on. Ray Allen / Klay Thompson is a gimme. Perk and Mahinmi are pretty similar. Posey and Ariza are pretty similar. Old Pierce and young Hayward actually have pretty similar offensive footprints, it’s just that Pierce is a better defender. Garnett as better old Duncan (which is a cheaty way of saying young Duncan) is garbage, but what are you going to do? Reasonably high load, good scoring, decent passing, monster defending, decent offensive rebounding but insane defensive rebounding . . . that’s not really a thing in the modern game (Marc Gasol is probably as close as you’re gonna get). And James Johnson as Rondo . . . look. Rondo had decently high usage, had approximately zero range, good passing, a strong defensive footprint and surprisingly good rebounding numbers for a one . . . I’m not really surprised we got a 6’7” guy who plays close to the basket and passes well. Young Rondo is a weird player.
The 2008 Celtics united three players who had all been toiling in frustration. Ray Allen had been on a variety of strong Milwaukee and Seattle teams, but had never had a ton of success in the playoffs. Paul Pierce had been the best player on a long line of struggling Celtics teams. And Kevin Garnett famously played his butt off carrying the awful supporting casts the Timberwolves gave him. So going into 2008 Danny Ainge (the Celtics’ GM) swung for the fences, turning a bunch of firsts and young talent into a deep defensively-oriented roster with Garnett, Pierce and Allen at its core. And it was a weirdly ideal mix of talent. None of those players were load-monsters, they all passed decently (well, except for Allen who was more of a finisher) but you had a situation where any of Garnett, Pierce and Rondo could initiate the offense and set everyone else up. Nobody here was a monster scorer, but the major pieces scored well. And the low-usage players were extremely well integrated. Note how 23 year-old Perk is shooting at +9%, but four years later he’s in a much less diverse less facilitated offense and he shoots around league average on the same load. You know what it actually reminds me of a little? The late 80s Pistons. A mix of high-load players and low-load defensive specialists, built on passing to make their offenses work (since neither team had a dominant scorer) and with outstanding defenses. Except that the ‘08 Celtics (at least in the regular season), were better on both fronts. You know what’s neat? That going into the ‘08 season, the Celtics weren’t given a ton of love. Nobody really seemed to know how those pieces would work together.
Well, they worked together fine. Boston won 66 games, had the best record in the NBA (by 7 games) and the 11th best SRS *ever*. They weren’t a particularly good rebounding team. And while they forced a ton of turnovers, they also struggled with their own turnover issues. But the Celtics shot quite well, and they were really, really hard to score on. In a 30-team league they were 2nd in 2P% allowed and 1st in 3P% allowed. They averaged putting up eFG%s that were 7 points higher than the opposition; that’s a massive margin. They were obviously the best regular season team in the league, but their road to a theoretical championship would not be easy. Their conference contained the perennial challenger Detroit Pistons, and the defending Conference Winner Cleveland Cavaliers. And lurking on the horizon were the Lakers, reborn with the midseason addition of Pau Gasol.
The first series was against the weak Atlanta Hawks. And, in one sense, the Celtics dominated. They generated twice as many steals as the Hawks (Garnett, Posey, Rondo and Davis all posted Steal% of higher than 3) and outshot the Hawks comfortably, winning the series by an average of 12 points a game. But the actual results were a little stranger. At home in that series they won by 23, 19, 25 and 34 points a game. On the road they lost by 9, 5 and 3 points. So at home they were invincible, but they went 0-3, losing by almost six points a game, on the road to a legitimately below average team. So the aggregate was a solid win. But in reality it was not quite so open and shut. For a team that prided itself on mental toughness, it was a curiously careless result.
And these problems would haunt them against the Cavaliers. The Cavs were a 45-37 team with a below average regular season SRS. They’d shuffled their roster hard midseason, but there hadn’t been much evidence to suggest a big improvement. But they did have LeBron James. The Celtics knew that the Cavs’ offense would run through James and that they had to stop him. At that they were successful; James posted a usage of 38% (!!) and was held to only -6% scoring (he also added 6.4 rebounds, 7.6 assists and 2.1 steals a game). But James’ large load enabled his teammates to shoot a non-awful -2.2%. And the Celtics struggled to score, as a team shooting -2.7%. Kevin Garnett (20/11/3 on +3.7%) was the only Celtic starter to shoot above league average. The Cavs also controlled the ball a little better (2 shots a game). The aggregate? The Cavs actually outscored the Celtics by 1.1 points a game. It was another Home/Away problem. At home the Celtics won by 4, 16, 7 and 5 points. Away they lost by 24, 11 and 5 points. I can’t begin to explain it, save that the putative “Best Team in the League” got played to a standstill by a team that, to that point, had been league average (who had beaten the average Wizards in the first round by only 3.3 points a game). Emphatically not a good series for Boston.
In the Conference Finals they faced a strong but not overwhelming foe in Detroit (+6.9). Again, the Celtics struggled, unable to gain a serious shooting edge over the Pistons (the Celtics outshot the competition by only 0.4%). The Celtics shot decently (Garnett had a 23/10/3 on +4.4% and Pierce had a 20/6/4 on +6.7%) but Richard Hamilton scored 22 on +9.8% and the Pistons shot comfortably above league average. The Celtics’ advantage ended up being in rebounding, where Garnett, Rondo and Perkins combined for 7 offensive boards a game. In the end the Celtics won in six by 1.7 points a game but, again, these were performances consistent with a very good team, not with the Top 25 team their regular season had suggested that they were.
And in the NBA Finals were the +10.1 Los Angeles Lakers who had posted three straight series at +10 SRS or higher. And it was here that the ‘08 Celtics would finally deliver on their promise. They weren’t able to stop the Lakers from shooting effectively (-0.3% as a team), but they were able to slow Kobe Bryant, holding him to a 26/5/5 on -3.5% shooting. And the Celtics shot better though not by a ton; they shot +1.9% and 43% from beyond the arc (Ray Allen went 22 of 42 threes on the series). You may look at Kevin Garnett’s shooting line from the series (18 points a game on -11.1% shooting) and think that he played badly. It’s true, he didn’t shoot well. But one of the keys to the Celtics’ victory was ball control (3.5 shots a game) and much of that came from rebounding superiority. Garnett grabbed 13 boards a game (including a 30% DReb%!) and led the Celtics in both steals and blocks. The Celtics didn’t do any one thing way better than the Lakers, but they were better at *everything*, and the result was a six-game victory by 8.4 points per game. Frankly, if you were to look at the highest OSRS performances in an NBA Finals, that’s probably one of the highest ever, a dominant win over a +10 OSRS team.
So what do we make of the ‘08 Celtics? Their offense actually held up in the playoffs decently enough. It was their defense that dropped from ATG level to merely really damned good level. That series against the Lakers was fantastic, but getting taken to 7 by the Hawks was careless and they were frankly outplayed by the Cavs, who had no business doing so. In the end they won a championship (yay!) and they had a fantastic regular season (yay!) but their postseason SRS is one of the lowest on this list. So mid-50s is where they end up, for better or for worse.
#53. The 2005 Phoenix Suns
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +9.08, Standard Deviations: +2.05, Lost in Conference Finals (Preseason 25th)
Regular Season Record: 62-20, Regular Season SRS: +7.08 (45th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +8.4 (1st), Regular Season Defensive Rating: +1.0 (98th)
PG: Steve Nash, +4.7 / +4.7
SG: Quentin Richardson, +0.5 / +0.1
SF: Joe Johnson, +0.9 / +4.0
PF: Shawn Marion, +4.4 / +2.8
C: Amar’e Stoudemire, +4.4 / +4.4
6th: Jim Jackson, -1.2 / +2.3
Amar’e Stoudemire (C, 22): 38 MPPG, 26.3% OLoad, 29 / 10 / 2 / 3 on +8.8%
Steve Nash (PG, 30): 36 MPPG, 25.9% OLoad, 17 / 4 / 13 / 1 on +7.7%
Shawn Marion (PF, 26): 41 MPPG, 20.1% OLoad, 21 / 12 / 2 / 4 on +2.7%
Joe Johnson (SF, 23): 41 MPPG, 19.0% OLoad, 18 / 5 / 4 / 1 on +2.7%
Quentin Richardson (SG, 24): 38 MPPG, 18.5% OLoad, 16 / 7 / 2 / 2 on -0.7%
Jim Jackson (SF, 34): 26 MPPG, 16.8% OLoad, 16 / 7 / 2 / 2 on +3.9%
Scoring/100: Amar’e Stoudemire (36.0 / +8.8%), Shawn Marion (25.0 / +2.7%), Steve Nash (22.7 / +7.7%)
Assists/100: Steve Nash (16.7), Jim Jackson (4.9), Joe Johnson (4.5)
Heliocentrism: 27.6% (64th of 82 teams) - Marion
Wingmen: 49.2% (4th) - Stoudemire & Nash
Depth: 23.2% (51st)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +16.19 (1st), Playoff Defensive Rating: +5.71 (100th)
Playoff SRS: +10.64 (48th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +2.00 (59th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +1.99 (59th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.09 (8th)
Playoff Heliocentrism: 23.8% - Nash
Playoff Wingmen: 42.9% - Stoudemire & Marion
Playoff Bench: 33.3%
Round 1: Memphis Grizzlies (+2.6), won 4-0, by +11.0 points per game (+13.6 SRS eq)
Round 2: Dallas Mavericks (+6.3), won 4-2, by +6.7 points per game (+13.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: San Antonio Spurs (+9.6), lost 1-4, outscored by 4.2 points per game (+5.4 SRS eq)
Round 4:
Forgive me for not doing comps, but three of the five starters had such bad comps that I decided not to mess with them. This was a weird team. Like, really weird. Let’s talk about it.
Once upon a time there was the 2004 Phoenix Suns. They went 29-53, and midseason fired their coach and hired Mike D’Antoni (who had just as little success). The team was really, really young. Twenty two year-old shooting guard Joe Johnson had fair potential, but consistently shot below league average. Twenty one year-old power forward Amar’e Stoudemire had flashed skill and athleticism, but couldn’t shoot much above league average and couldn’t pass at all. The “veteran” was twenty five year-old small forward Shawn Marion, who was a strange blend of skills and weaknesses: he didn’t shoot particularly well, but rebounded fiercely, didn’t turn the ball over and played defense with uncanny ferocity and intelligence (in other words, he’s the kind of player that’s unremarkable on a losing team and invaluable on a winning team). At center they started the forgettable Jake Voskuhl and at point they ran Stephon Marbury . . . for half the season before trading him. This was a bad team, but young enough to have some upside.
That offseason the Dallas Mavericks decided to let their thirty year-old point guard, Steve Nash, go free agent. Mark Cuban, the owner, had a lot of money tied up in other contracts and was more interested in building around the younger Dirk Nowitzki. Nash tested free agency and Phoenix made him a considerable offer, one which the Mavs declined to match. The Suns also signed solid shooting guard Quentin Richardson in free agency. Did the Suns expect to be good? I don’t know, but the Suns were forecast *25th* in the league, so I can comfortably say that the media fully expected the Suns to be awful again, Nash or no Nash. Mike D’Antoni, who favored up-tempo athletic offenses, moved the fierce Marion to power forward, moved Stoudemire to Center, moved Johnson to small forward and moved Richardson to the 2. This saved them a roster problem (because they didn’t have a remotely serviceable center) and functioned in part because Marion was such an intriguing player, rebounding from the 3 like a 4. So they were small, but their offense had some potential.
I’m slow-peddling it a bit: the 2005 Suns had the best regular season offense on this sheet. Which means, they very easily may have been the best ever. How did that happen? Let’s talk about the transition.
ORating: 101.4 -> 114.5
eFG%: 47.5 -> 53.4
TOV%: 14.3 -> 12.4
OREB: 26.6 -> 27.5
FT/FGA: 20.9 -> 22.2
Umm, what? A 13 point jump in ORating, a 6 point jump in eFG%, turnovers dropping 2% . . . everything got better. Like, way better. Let’s take this to the player level:
Joe Johnson: 21.3 ppx on -2.5% -> 21.6 ppx on +2.7%
Shawn Marion: 24.1 ppx on -0.3% -> 25.0 ppx on +2.7%
Amar’e Stoudemire: 29.0 ppx on +2.0% -> 36.0 ppx on +8.8%
And two pointers assisted
Shawn Marion: 54% -> 68.1%
Amar’e Stoudemire: 45.9% -> 59.7%
So. Joe Johnson sees his relative true shooting jump by five points, Marion by three points and Stoudemire by 6.8 points, which is nuts because he was already scoring a lot. How much of this was Nash? Not all. It was a smaller lineup built on athleticism and spacing, which made things easier for everyone. And the team was really young; we’d expect Johnson and Stoudemire to take steps forward regardless. And Stoudemire had already flashed considerable potential. But this offense jumped from bad to the best ever. That’s obviously not simply going small and having young players. The addition of one of the best three passers *ever* may have had something to do with it. Steve Nash is pretty much everything you’d want from an offensive point guard. He was an insane passer (especially near the rim), shot extremely well (especially from deep) and didn’t turn the ball over too much. Over and over again he’d attack the defense, creating space with picks and off the dribble and wait for any window that he could fit a pass into for points. With the exception of Magic Johnson (and late-career LeBron) there has probably never been a greater offensive engine. People rag on Nash winning the 2005 MVP, and without a doubt, his conventional stats aren’t there. But his addition (plus some roster tweaks) turned Phoenix from a 29-53 joke into a 62-20 monstrosity. Don’t get me wrong; it was an ideal situation. D’Antoni would prove himself an exceptional offensive mind and the roster was young and talented. It’s like . . . it’s like Phoenix’s talented roster was a fertile field. And D’Antoni planted the seeds. It’s a good situation, primed for good things to happen..
But Nash is the one who made it rain.
In the first round the Suns faced the Memphis Grizzlies, the 5th best defense in the league (-3.2 rated). The Suns blew their house down like the Big Bad Wolf, posting an ORating of +18.7, 21.9 freaking points better than the Grizzlies normally allowed. The Suns shot at +8.2% as a team (whaaaaaat!?). Did Memphis still post an ORating of +6.7? Of course! The Suns were a bad defense in the regular season, and the Grizzlies lit them up. And the Suns still won by 11 points a game. Remember, best offense ever.
In the semis they faced Nash’s old team, the Dallas Mavericks (DRating of -2.0), the fourth best team in the league. The Suns’ ORating for the series? +12.8. So the Suns showed up at 14.8 points higher than expected. It was a slightly less cartoony result: the Suns only shot at +4.5% (only!). And once again the Suns defense got pushed around (+6.1). But the Suns still won the series by 6.7 points per game. Two series, two straight 13+ SRS performances. The Suns’ historically great offense was wrecking everyone.
But in the Conference Finals were the 2005 San Antonio Spurs. The other best team in the league. In the regular season, SRS looked like this: Spurs +7.84, Suns +7.08, Mavericks +5.86. After one round OSRS looked like this: Spurs +9.21, Suns +8.75, Heat +7.07. After two rounds OSRS looked like this: Suns +9.92, Spurs +9.63, Heat +7.54. My point is this: the Suns and the Spurs were the two best teams in the NBA by a pretty decent margin. And the Spurs were a brutal defensive team with prime Tim Duncan at its core. They had posted the 8th best regular season defensive rating (-7.3) on this list; they were the opposite of Phoenix in every way.
The Suns lost in five. It wasn’t their offense’s fault; they scored at +7.9 (+15.2 adjusted for opponent). One could argue that the Suns failure to do better than +7.9 against an all-time-great defense shows that their offense wasn’t resilient enough. Then you remember that +7.9 is about as good as they averaged in the regular season *against average defenses*. You know how sometimes I talk about that extra gear great teams have in the playoffs? The Suns’ extra gear was so insane that the 8th best regular season defense ever succeeded in holding them only to the heights of the best regular season offense ever. No joke, what the heck. They did lose by 4.2 points per game, but that’s only because their defense got absolutely trashed by the Spurs.
Something I didn’t cover (because it distracted from the narrative) was Joe Johnson’s injury. He broke a bone in his face against Dallas and missed games 3-6 of that series as well as games 1 and 2 of the Conference Finals. Did this have an effect?
2 Games against Dallas with Joe Johnson: +14.8 SRS (+8.5 per game)
4 Games against Dallas without Joe Johnson: +12.1 SRS (+5.8 per game)
3 Games against San Antonio with Joe Johnson: +6.9 SRS (-2.7 per game)
2 Games against San Antonio without Joe Johnson: +1.6 SRS (-8 per game)
This is a small sample size but I think it’s safe to say the following:
1) Losing Johnson was a big deal, worth a 2.7 swing in one series and a 5.3 point swing in another
2) Having him absolutely would have helped against the Spurs
3) They would still probably still have lost (they still got outscored by 2.7 points per game even with Johnson, which is in the realm of improbable possibility for a series win). But with him the series would definitely have been much closer.
It’s appropriate that we recently covered the ‘64 Celtics, being a team with a bad offense that got worse in the playoffs, but was offset by the fact that they were the best defense ever. The ‘05 Suns are the mirrored version of the ‘64 Celtics. Except instead of playing in a nine-team league with their toughest opponent being +5.73 they played in a 30 team league that put them up against a +9.63 team. Doubters could argue that if the Suns lost definitively to a +9.63 team then they shouldn’t be compared to the champion ‘64 Celtics, but don’t forget, the Suns faced the +6.28 OSRS Mavericks (higher rated than the ‘64 Warriors) and beat them by +6.7 points per game.
Look. I won’t try and persuade you that the Suns were secretly the best team in the league in 2005. The Spurs have that honor, and rightly so. But the Suns were really damned good, and had they not the misfortune of facing a great team in their year, they may well have won a championship, or at least made a Finals (that the West in the aughts was effing brutal did the Nash Suns absolutely zero favors historically). Let’s just remember them for being the best regular season *and* the best playoff offense ever. By a lot (their Playoff ORating is almost three points higher than the second best team).
Regular Season Record: 62-20, Regular Season SRS: +7.08 (45th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +8.4 (1st), Regular Season Defensive Rating: +1.0 (98th)
PG: Steve Nash, +4.7 / +4.7
SG: Quentin Richardson, +0.5 / +0.1
SF: Joe Johnson, +0.9 / +4.0
PF: Shawn Marion, +4.4 / +2.8
C: Amar’e Stoudemire, +4.4 / +4.4
6th: Jim Jackson, -1.2 / +2.3
Amar’e Stoudemire (C, 22): 38 MPPG, 26.3% OLoad, 29 / 10 / 2 / 3 on +8.8%
Steve Nash (PG, 30): 36 MPPG, 25.9% OLoad, 17 / 4 / 13 / 1 on +7.7%
Shawn Marion (PF, 26): 41 MPPG, 20.1% OLoad, 21 / 12 / 2 / 4 on +2.7%
Joe Johnson (SF, 23): 41 MPPG, 19.0% OLoad, 18 / 5 / 4 / 1 on +2.7%
Quentin Richardson (SG, 24): 38 MPPG, 18.5% OLoad, 16 / 7 / 2 / 2 on -0.7%
Jim Jackson (SF, 34): 26 MPPG, 16.8% OLoad, 16 / 7 / 2 / 2 on +3.9%
Scoring/100: Amar’e Stoudemire (36.0 / +8.8%), Shawn Marion (25.0 / +2.7%), Steve Nash (22.7 / +7.7%)
Assists/100: Steve Nash (16.7), Jim Jackson (4.9), Joe Johnson (4.5)
Heliocentrism: 27.6% (64th of 82 teams) - Marion
Wingmen: 49.2% (4th) - Stoudemire & Nash
Depth: 23.2% (51st)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +16.19 (1st), Playoff Defensive Rating: +5.71 (100th)
Playoff SRS: +10.64 (48th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +2.00 (59th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +1.99 (59th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -4.09 (8th)
Playoff Heliocentrism: 23.8% - Nash
Playoff Wingmen: 42.9% - Stoudemire & Marion
Playoff Bench: 33.3%
Round 1: Memphis Grizzlies (+2.6), won 4-0, by +11.0 points per game (+13.6 SRS eq)
Round 2: Dallas Mavericks (+6.3), won 4-2, by +6.7 points per game (+13.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: San Antonio Spurs (+9.6), lost 1-4, outscored by 4.2 points per game (+5.4 SRS eq)
Round 4:
Forgive me for not doing comps, but three of the five starters had such bad comps that I decided not to mess with them. This was a weird team. Like, really weird. Let’s talk about it.
Once upon a time there was the 2004 Phoenix Suns. They went 29-53, and midseason fired their coach and hired Mike D’Antoni (who had just as little success). The team was really, really young. Twenty two year-old shooting guard Joe Johnson had fair potential, but consistently shot below league average. Twenty one year-old power forward Amar’e Stoudemire had flashed skill and athleticism, but couldn’t shoot much above league average and couldn’t pass at all. The “veteran” was twenty five year-old small forward Shawn Marion, who was a strange blend of skills and weaknesses: he didn’t shoot particularly well, but rebounded fiercely, didn’t turn the ball over and played defense with uncanny ferocity and intelligence (in other words, he’s the kind of player that’s unremarkable on a losing team and invaluable on a winning team). At center they started the forgettable Jake Voskuhl and at point they ran Stephon Marbury . . . for half the season before trading him. This was a bad team, but young enough to have some upside.
That offseason the Dallas Mavericks decided to let their thirty year-old point guard, Steve Nash, go free agent. Mark Cuban, the owner, had a lot of money tied up in other contracts and was more interested in building around the younger Dirk Nowitzki. Nash tested free agency and Phoenix made him a considerable offer, one which the Mavs declined to match. The Suns also signed solid shooting guard Quentin Richardson in free agency. Did the Suns expect to be good? I don’t know, but the Suns were forecast *25th* in the league, so I can comfortably say that the media fully expected the Suns to be awful again, Nash or no Nash. Mike D’Antoni, who favored up-tempo athletic offenses, moved the fierce Marion to power forward, moved Stoudemire to Center, moved Johnson to small forward and moved Richardson to the 2. This saved them a roster problem (because they didn’t have a remotely serviceable center) and functioned in part because Marion was such an intriguing player, rebounding from the 3 like a 4. So they were small, but their offense had some potential.
I’m slow-peddling it a bit: the 2005 Suns had the best regular season offense on this sheet. Which means, they very easily may have been the best ever. How did that happen? Let’s talk about the transition.
ORating: 101.4 -> 114.5
eFG%: 47.5 -> 53.4
TOV%: 14.3 -> 12.4
OREB: 26.6 -> 27.5
FT/FGA: 20.9 -> 22.2
Umm, what? A 13 point jump in ORating, a 6 point jump in eFG%, turnovers dropping 2% . . . everything got better. Like, way better. Let’s take this to the player level:
Joe Johnson: 21.3 ppx on -2.5% -> 21.6 ppx on +2.7%
Shawn Marion: 24.1 ppx on -0.3% -> 25.0 ppx on +2.7%
Amar’e Stoudemire: 29.0 ppx on +2.0% -> 36.0 ppx on +8.8%
And two pointers assisted
Shawn Marion: 54% -> 68.1%
Amar’e Stoudemire: 45.9% -> 59.7%
So. Joe Johnson sees his relative true shooting jump by five points, Marion by three points and Stoudemire by 6.8 points, which is nuts because he was already scoring a lot. How much of this was Nash? Not all. It was a smaller lineup built on athleticism and spacing, which made things easier for everyone. And the team was really young; we’d expect Johnson and Stoudemire to take steps forward regardless. And Stoudemire had already flashed considerable potential. But this offense jumped from bad to the best ever. That’s obviously not simply going small and having young players. The addition of one of the best three passers *ever* may have had something to do with it. Steve Nash is pretty much everything you’d want from an offensive point guard. He was an insane passer (especially near the rim), shot extremely well (especially from deep) and didn’t turn the ball over too much. Over and over again he’d attack the defense, creating space with picks and off the dribble and wait for any window that he could fit a pass into for points. With the exception of Magic Johnson (and late-career LeBron) there has probably never been a greater offensive engine. People rag on Nash winning the 2005 MVP, and without a doubt, his conventional stats aren’t there. But his addition (plus some roster tweaks) turned Phoenix from a 29-53 joke into a 62-20 monstrosity. Don’t get me wrong; it was an ideal situation. D’Antoni would prove himself an exceptional offensive mind and the roster was young and talented. It’s like . . . it’s like Phoenix’s talented roster was a fertile field. And D’Antoni planted the seeds. It’s a good situation, primed for good things to happen..
But Nash is the one who made it rain.
In the first round the Suns faced the Memphis Grizzlies, the 5th best defense in the league (-3.2 rated). The Suns blew their house down like the Big Bad Wolf, posting an ORating of +18.7, 21.9 freaking points better than the Grizzlies normally allowed. The Suns shot at +8.2% as a team (whaaaaaat!?). Did Memphis still post an ORating of +6.7? Of course! The Suns were a bad defense in the regular season, and the Grizzlies lit them up. And the Suns still won by 11 points a game. Remember, best offense ever.
In the semis they faced Nash’s old team, the Dallas Mavericks (DRating of -2.0), the fourth best team in the league. The Suns’ ORating for the series? +12.8. So the Suns showed up at 14.8 points higher than expected. It was a slightly less cartoony result: the Suns only shot at +4.5% (only!). And once again the Suns defense got pushed around (+6.1). But the Suns still won the series by 6.7 points per game. Two series, two straight 13+ SRS performances. The Suns’ historically great offense was wrecking everyone.
But in the Conference Finals were the 2005 San Antonio Spurs. The other best team in the league. In the regular season, SRS looked like this: Spurs +7.84, Suns +7.08, Mavericks +5.86. After one round OSRS looked like this: Spurs +9.21, Suns +8.75, Heat +7.07. After two rounds OSRS looked like this: Suns +9.92, Spurs +9.63, Heat +7.54. My point is this: the Suns and the Spurs were the two best teams in the NBA by a pretty decent margin. And the Spurs were a brutal defensive team with prime Tim Duncan at its core. They had posted the 8th best regular season defensive rating (-7.3) on this list; they were the opposite of Phoenix in every way.
The Suns lost in five. It wasn’t their offense’s fault; they scored at +7.9 (+15.2 adjusted for opponent). One could argue that the Suns failure to do better than +7.9 against an all-time-great defense shows that their offense wasn’t resilient enough. Then you remember that +7.9 is about as good as they averaged in the regular season *against average defenses*. You know how sometimes I talk about that extra gear great teams have in the playoffs? The Suns’ extra gear was so insane that the 8th best regular season defense ever succeeded in holding them only to the heights of the best regular season offense ever. No joke, what the heck. They did lose by 4.2 points per game, but that’s only because their defense got absolutely trashed by the Spurs.
Something I didn’t cover (because it distracted from the narrative) was Joe Johnson’s injury. He broke a bone in his face against Dallas and missed games 3-6 of that series as well as games 1 and 2 of the Conference Finals. Did this have an effect?
2 Games against Dallas with Joe Johnson: +14.8 SRS (+8.5 per game)
4 Games against Dallas without Joe Johnson: +12.1 SRS (+5.8 per game)
3 Games against San Antonio with Joe Johnson: +6.9 SRS (-2.7 per game)
2 Games against San Antonio without Joe Johnson: +1.6 SRS (-8 per game)
This is a small sample size but I think it’s safe to say the following:
1) Losing Johnson was a big deal, worth a 2.7 swing in one series and a 5.3 point swing in another
2) Having him absolutely would have helped against the Spurs
3) They would still probably still have lost (they still got outscored by 2.7 points per game even with Johnson, which is in the realm of improbable possibility for a series win). But with him the series would definitely have been much closer.
It’s appropriate that we recently covered the ‘64 Celtics, being a team with a bad offense that got worse in the playoffs, but was offset by the fact that they were the best defense ever. The ‘05 Suns are the mirrored version of the ‘64 Celtics. Except instead of playing in a nine-team league with their toughest opponent being +5.73 they played in a 30 team league that put them up against a +9.63 team. Doubters could argue that if the Suns lost definitively to a +9.63 team then they shouldn’t be compared to the champion ‘64 Celtics, but don’t forget, the Suns faced the +6.28 OSRS Mavericks (higher rated than the ‘64 Warriors) and beat them by +6.7 points per game.
Look. I won’t try and persuade you that the Suns were secretly the best team in the league in 2005. The Spurs have that honor, and rightly so. But the Suns were really damned good, and had they not the misfortune of facing a great team in their year, they may well have won a championship, or at least made a Finals (that the West in the aughts was effing brutal did the Nash Suns absolutely zero favors historically). Let’s just remember them for being the best regular season *and* the best playoff offense ever. By a lot (their Playoff ORating is almost three points higher than the second best team).
#52. The 2010 Los Angeles Lakers
Spoiler:
Overall SRS: +8.70, Standard Deviations: +1.74, Won NBA Finals (Preseason 1st)
Regular Season Record: 57-25, Regular Season SRS: +4.78 (86th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +1.2 (85th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -3.9 (44th)
PG: Derek Fisher, -1.7 / -0.7
SG: Kobe Bryant, +4.1 / +7.0
SF: Metta World Peace, +0.5 / -0.3
PF: Lamar Odom, +2.5 / +0.6
C: Pau Gasol, +4.9 / +5.9
6th: Andrew Bynum, +1.5 / +0.1
Kobe Bryant (SG, 31): 42 MPPG, 32.1% OLoad, 29 / 6 / 5 / 2 on +0.2%
Pau Gasol (C, 29): 40 MPPG, 21.2% OLoad, 20 / 12 / 4 / 3 on +5.0%
Andrew Bynum (C, 22): 33 MPPG, 19.2% OLoad, 16 / 9 / 1 / 2 on +6.5%
Lamar Odom (PF, 30): 34 MPPG, 17.7% OLoad, 12 / 11 / 4 / 2 on -1.0%
Metta World Peace (SF, 30): 37 MPPG, 16.9% OLoad, 12 / 5 / 3 / 2 on -2.9%
Derek Fisher (PG, 35): 29 MPPG, 14.9% OLoad, 8 / 2 / 3 / 1 on -4.4%
Scoring/100: Kobe Bryant (35.9 / +0.2%), Pau Gasol (25.6 / +5.0%), Andrew Bynum (25.6 / +6.5%)
Assists/100: Kobe Bryant (6.7), Lamar Odom (5.3), Pau Gasol (4.7)
Heliocentrism: 28.2% (59th of 82 teams) - Kobe
Wingmen: 45.5% (11th) - Gasol & Odom
Depth: 26.3% (40th)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +6.91 (31st), Playoff Defensive Rating: -1.76 (88th)
Playoff SRS: +10.70 (46th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +3.92 (25th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.76 (33rd), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -1.71 (58th)
Playoff Heliocentrism: 41.1% - Kobe
Playoff Wingmen: 43.1% - Gasol & Odom
Playoff Bench: 15.8%
Round 1: Oklahoma City Thunder (+3.6), won 4-2, by +1.7 points per game (+5.3 SRS eq)
Round 2: Utah Jazz (+5.3), won 4-0, by +7.3 points per game (+12.6 SRS eq)
Round 3: Phoenix Suns (+8.8), won 4-2 by +4.2 points per game (+13.0 SRS eq)
Round 4: Boston Celtics (+8.5), won 4-3 by +3.5 points per game (+12.0 SRS eq)
Modern Comparisons:
PG: 2018 Cory Joseph (but a little bit better at everything)
SG: 2018 DeMar DeRozan
SF: 2014 Jimmy Butler
PF: 2019 Larry Nance (but a little bit better at everything)
C: 2015 Tim Duncan
6th: 2016 Derrick Favors
You may argue that these comps undersell the 2010 Lakers, but remember, the comps are regular season-driven. And these are fairly on point as far as that goes. Derrick Fisher wasn’t particularly good (playoffs or not). And ‘10 Kobe in the regular season was basically a decent defender with massive volume, quality distribution, low turnovers and low efficiency. That’s DeMar DeRozan to a T. Metta World Peace as ‘14 Jimmy Butler is pretty fair, given that young Butler was an athletic high-effort player who didn’t have a lot more going on. Odom wasn’t much of a scorer, but he rebounded a ton, passed very well and played good defense. And the comparison between ‘10 Pau and 38 year-old Duncan is surprisingly apt. Both were still good rebounders, both were good defenders, neither used a ton of possessions. And it’s not like the whole roster got better in the playoffs; Fisher got less bad, Pau got better and Kobe got *way* better.
2010 Kobe (RS): 32.3% usage, 54.5 TS%, 7.7 TRB%, 23.8 AST%, +4.1 BPM
2010 Kobe (PS): 33.3% Usage, 56.7 TS%, 8.7 TRB%, 26.0 AST%, +7.0 BPM
And this was against playoff defenses. Impressive.
In 2008 the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol. And that transformed them from a decent first-round team into a championship contender. They fought through the playoffs before coming up short against the ‘08 Celtics. In 2009 they put it altogether and ripped through the playoffs like crap through a goose. In 2010 they were looking to repeat. It wasn’t clear how long their window would remain open. The Lakers’ best players were all 29 or older, their supporting players were older and aging, and their young players weren’t developing as well as could be wished (minus Andrew Bynum, whose career was derailed for other reasons). In the regular season the ‘10 Lakers certainly didn’t play to their potential but did well enough to get the one seed. The West was looking deep in good teams (six teams in the +3 to +5.5 range) but the East was where the top teams lurked (the Cavs and Magic both had +6 seasons or better, and the Celtics were always a threat).
In the first round the Lakers drew the extremely young Thunder who were full of promise. And there was reason for alarm: the Thunder outrebounded and out ball-controlled the Lakers (both areas that the Lakers had excelled at in the regular season). And the Thunder’s length threw the Lakers’ shooters off: Kobe averaged a 24/4/4 on -3.6%. But the Lakers’ bigs shot well and Kevin Durant struggled (-4.4%) and those things were enough to give the Lakers a 1.7 point a game win. It was a really weak showing and a little alarming; the Lakers had no shot at a championship if they couldn’t do better.
So they did.
In the second round they faced a very good Jazz team (+5.3) led by Deron Williams with Carlos Boozer and Paul Millsap. This time the Lakers rose to the occasion and torched the Jazz in four by 7.3 points per game. Kobe averaged a 32/4/6 on +6.8% and Pau averaged a 24/15/3 on +13.6%. It was a dominant win, the exact opposite of the win over the Thunder. But in the next round they’d face the Phoenix Suns (+8.8), fresh off finally dispatching their nemesis the San Antonio Spurs.
The Lakers won Game 1 by 21 points (Kobe with a 40/5/5 on +16.4%) and Game 2 by 12 (Lamar Odom with a 17/11/4 on +18% with 3 steals). Phoenix took Game 3 at home by 9 (Kobe had a 36/9/11 on +11.1% with 5 turnovers) and Game 4 by 9 again (Kobe had a 38/7/10 on +25.7%, but the Suns outshot the Lakers and dominated the boards). Game 5 went down to the wire. The Lakers led by 8 going into the fourth, but the Suns surged back, tying it up with a Jason Richardson three with 3.5 seconds to go in the game. The Lakers called a timeout, inbounded, at 2.5 seconds Kobe airballed a three but Metta World Peace got the rebound and made a layup with 0.8 seconds to go to win the game. Kobe had put up a 30/11/9 on -1.3% but may have been outplayed by Nash with a 29/3/11 on +10.7% shooting. Having won at home the Lakers went back to Phoenix for Game 6. Nash again played amazingly (21/5/9 on +30.9%) but the Lakers dominated the ball, with Kobe posting a 37/6/2 on +7.7% with 2 steals and Metta World Peace having a 25/4/2 on +19.8% with 3 steals. The Lakers won Game 6 by eight points and advanced to the NBA Finals. When all was said and done the Lakers had outshot the Suns (barely) and had posted better rebounding and lower turnovers (by a little). The Lakers’ defense had been bent brutally (giving up a +12 offensive rating) but had pulled it out by scoring at an even higher rate. And Kobe had posted an exceptional series, averaging a 34/7/8 with +9.4% scoring (obviously there’s an asterisk because it was against such a weak defense . . . but it still counts).
So the Lakers advanced to face the 2010 Boston Celtics. The last time the two had met the Celtics had prevailed, and Kobe had struggled. Game 1 in Los Angeles was all Lakers, as Kobe had a 30/7/6 on +2.5% and Metta World Peace posted a 15/4/1 on +14.6% shooting and 2 steals. The Lakers won by 13. Game 2 was less ideal; Ray Allen shot at +22.3%, Kobe was held to -5.1% and the Celtics prevailed by 9 (Pau put up a 25/8/3 on +16.2% with 6 blocks in the loss). The Lakers took Game 3 in Boston by 7 as Kobe put up a 29/7/4 on -8.3% but with 2 steals, 3 blocks and only 1 turnover. In Game 4 the Celtics evened it up, dominating the ball and getting an extra 12 shots for their trouble, winning by 7 (Kobe shot well but turned it over 7 times). Evened up, the series went back to LA.
The Lakers dominated the ball (13 extra shots) but the Celtics’ defense absolutely stuffed the Lakers’ shooting. Kobe had a sensational 38/5/4 on +7.1% but every other Laker starter shot at -7% or worse. The Celtics won by 6, and the Lakers went back to Los Angeles for the final two games, one win from elimination. And in Game 6 the Lakers played their nuts off. Kobe posted a strong 26/11/3 on +5.6% with 4 steals and Pau had a 17/13/9 on -3.2% with 3 blocks, but the real victory was on defense. The Celtics posted a ORating of 77.1 (so that’s about 30 points per 100 below league average) and shot *as a team* at -16.6%. Pierce shot at -7.9%, Rondo shot at -22.8% and Garnett at -11.4%. The Lakers desperately needed a win and played some of the best defense in Finals history to do it. I know the Celtics weren’t a great offense, but a -30 rOR is stupidly bad. And it wasn’t even shots not falling; the Celtics couldn’t get to the line, they shot only 5 of 23 from three but they also shot 23 of 61 from two. A rating that low isn’t one side; the Celtics had to both choke hard *and* the Lakers had to play amazing defense. And both happened. It was the second lowest ORating a team in the Finals had ever been held to (worst was the ‘98 Jazz in Game 3 at 58.8). The Lakers stomped the Celtics by 22 points and sent the series back to LA for Game 7, the momentum (if you believe in that sort of thing) very much shifted.
Game 7 was the perfect encapsulation of the series, a tight defensive struggle. Kobe struggled on a 23/15/2 on -16.7% with 4 turnovers, but Pau Gasol added a 19/18/4 on -10.6% (I did say it was a defensive struggle). Going into the fourth the Celtics held a four point lead. The rebounding in the fourth quarter was even (33% for Lakers, 30% for Celtics), the turnovers were close (3 for Celtics, 2 for Lakers) and the shooting was close (Celtics 17 points on 18 FGA, Lakers with 14 points on 16 FGA). Yet the Lakers surged back and won the fourth quarter by eight points, winning the game (and the championship). The difference? Free throws. The Celtics got to the line 6 times in the quarter, the Lakers got to the line 21 times (compared to 16 times in the other three quarters). Many saw that result as a clear attempt by the refs to skew the game toward the Lakers. Many simply saw a game where the Celtics ran out of gas and the Lakers pushed harder toward the end. Is there any precedent for a FTA skew like this?
Game 2, 2008 Finals: The Celtics take 28 more free throws and win by 6 (4th quarter normal) to take a 2-0 lead
Game 5, 2006 Finals: The Heat take 24 more free throws and win by 1 in overtime (but Heat shot three less between the 4th quarter and OT), Heat take 3-2 lead
Game 4, 2002 Finals: The Lakers take 21 more free throws and win by 6, ending the series
Game 2, 1999 Finals: The Spurs take 23 more free throws and win by 13, going up 2-0 (Spurs 13 more in the 4th)
Game 3, 1993 Finals: The Suns take 22 more free throws and win by 8, going to 1-3
Game 3, 1988 Finals: The Lakers take 22 more free throws and win by 13, going to 2-1
Game 7, 1984 Finals: The Celtics take 23 more free throws and win by 9, winning the series
We don’t have fourth quarter numbers for the 1993 Finals or earlier. The only one of these that seems comparable is Game 7 of the ‘84 series, where the Celtics got to the line 51 times. So I certainly don’t feel comfortable calling foul (heh) either way here, but it’s pretty clear that a swing like this, especially in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the NBA Finals is really unusual. Let’s simply say that the Lakers explicitly won the championship because they got to the line so much in the 4th. And as for whether or not it was deserved, I’ll let someone else do the legwork on that.
Either way, the Lakers had won the series, and had won by an average of 3.5 points per game. Their first series of the playoffs was weak, but their last three series were all really good, strong wins against strong competition. Three straight +12 SRS eq series is very impressive. But you’ll note that, at this point, we’re only in the low 50s and we’re already starting to see teams that are really impressive and went on some really good runs. There are a *lot* of really good teams out there.
And as for the Lakers . . . they’d remain the favorites in the West for the next three years, but their time as a dynasty had passed, as they discovered quite roughly in 2011.
Regular Season Record: 57-25, Regular Season SRS: +4.78 (86th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +1.2 (85th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -3.9 (44th)
PG: Derek Fisher, -1.7 / -0.7
SG: Kobe Bryant, +4.1 / +7.0
SF: Metta World Peace, +0.5 / -0.3
PF: Lamar Odom, +2.5 / +0.6
C: Pau Gasol, +4.9 / +5.9
6th: Andrew Bynum, +1.5 / +0.1
Kobe Bryant (SG, 31): 42 MPPG, 32.1% OLoad, 29 / 6 / 5 / 2 on +0.2%
Pau Gasol (C, 29): 40 MPPG, 21.2% OLoad, 20 / 12 / 4 / 3 on +5.0%
Andrew Bynum (C, 22): 33 MPPG, 19.2% OLoad, 16 / 9 / 1 / 2 on +6.5%
Lamar Odom (PF, 30): 34 MPPG, 17.7% OLoad, 12 / 11 / 4 / 2 on -1.0%
Metta World Peace (SF, 30): 37 MPPG, 16.9% OLoad, 12 / 5 / 3 / 2 on -2.9%
Derek Fisher (PG, 35): 29 MPPG, 14.9% OLoad, 8 / 2 / 3 / 1 on -4.4%
Scoring/100: Kobe Bryant (35.9 / +0.2%), Pau Gasol (25.6 / +5.0%), Andrew Bynum (25.6 / +6.5%)
Assists/100: Kobe Bryant (6.7), Lamar Odom (5.3), Pau Gasol (4.7)
Heliocentrism: 28.2% (59th of 82 teams) - Kobe
Wingmen: 45.5% (11th) - Gasol & Odom
Depth: 26.3% (40th)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +6.91 (31st), Playoff Defensive Rating: -1.76 (88th)
Playoff SRS: +10.70 (46th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +3.92 (25th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.76 (33rd), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -1.71 (58th)
Playoff Heliocentrism: 41.1% - Kobe
Playoff Wingmen: 43.1% - Gasol & Odom
Playoff Bench: 15.8%
Round 1: Oklahoma City Thunder (+3.6), won 4-2, by +1.7 points per game (+5.3 SRS eq)
Round 2: Utah Jazz (+5.3), won 4-0, by +7.3 points per game (+12.6 SRS eq)
Round 3: Phoenix Suns (+8.8), won 4-2 by +4.2 points per game (+13.0 SRS eq)
Round 4: Boston Celtics (+8.5), won 4-3 by +3.5 points per game (+12.0 SRS eq)
Modern Comparisons:
PG: 2018 Cory Joseph (but a little bit better at everything)
SG: 2018 DeMar DeRozan
SF: 2014 Jimmy Butler
PF: 2019 Larry Nance (but a little bit better at everything)
C: 2015 Tim Duncan
6th: 2016 Derrick Favors
You may argue that these comps undersell the 2010 Lakers, but remember, the comps are regular season-driven. And these are fairly on point as far as that goes. Derrick Fisher wasn’t particularly good (playoffs or not). And ‘10 Kobe in the regular season was basically a decent defender with massive volume, quality distribution, low turnovers and low efficiency. That’s DeMar DeRozan to a T. Metta World Peace as ‘14 Jimmy Butler is pretty fair, given that young Butler was an athletic high-effort player who didn’t have a lot more going on. Odom wasn’t much of a scorer, but he rebounded a ton, passed very well and played good defense. And the comparison between ‘10 Pau and 38 year-old Duncan is surprisingly apt. Both were still good rebounders, both were good defenders, neither used a ton of possessions. And it’s not like the whole roster got better in the playoffs; Fisher got less bad, Pau got better and Kobe got *way* better.
2010 Kobe (RS): 32.3% usage, 54.5 TS%, 7.7 TRB%, 23.8 AST%, +4.1 BPM
2010 Kobe (PS): 33.3% Usage, 56.7 TS%, 8.7 TRB%, 26.0 AST%, +7.0 BPM
And this was against playoff defenses. Impressive.
In 2008 the Lakers acquired Pau Gasol. And that transformed them from a decent first-round team into a championship contender. They fought through the playoffs before coming up short against the ‘08 Celtics. In 2009 they put it altogether and ripped through the playoffs like crap through a goose. In 2010 they were looking to repeat. It wasn’t clear how long their window would remain open. The Lakers’ best players were all 29 or older, their supporting players were older and aging, and their young players weren’t developing as well as could be wished (minus Andrew Bynum, whose career was derailed for other reasons). In the regular season the ‘10 Lakers certainly didn’t play to their potential but did well enough to get the one seed. The West was looking deep in good teams (six teams in the +3 to +5.5 range) but the East was where the top teams lurked (the Cavs and Magic both had +6 seasons or better, and the Celtics were always a threat).
In the first round the Lakers drew the extremely young Thunder who were full of promise. And there was reason for alarm: the Thunder outrebounded and out ball-controlled the Lakers (both areas that the Lakers had excelled at in the regular season). And the Thunder’s length threw the Lakers’ shooters off: Kobe averaged a 24/4/4 on -3.6%. But the Lakers’ bigs shot well and Kevin Durant struggled (-4.4%) and those things were enough to give the Lakers a 1.7 point a game win. It was a really weak showing and a little alarming; the Lakers had no shot at a championship if they couldn’t do better.
So they did.
In the second round they faced a very good Jazz team (+5.3) led by Deron Williams with Carlos Boozer and Paul Millsap. This time the Lakers rose to the occasion and torched the Jazz in four by 7.3 points per game. Kobe averaged a 32/4/6 on +6.8% and Pau averaged a 24/15/3 on +13.6%. It was a dominant win, the exact opposite of the win over the Thunder. But in the next round they’d face the Phoenix Suns (+8.8), fresh off finally dispatching their nemesis the San Antonio Spurs.
The Lakers won Game 1 by 21 points (Kobe with a 40/5/5 on +16.4%) and Game 2 by 12 (Lamar Odom with a 17/11/4 on +18% with 3 steals). Phoenix took Game 3 at home by 9 (Kobe had a 36/9/11 on +11.1% with 5 turnovers) and Game 4 by 9 again (Kobe had a 38/7/10 on +25.7%, but the Suns outshot the Lakers and dominated the boards). Game 5 went down to the wire. The Lakers led by 8 going into the fourth, but the Suns surged back, tying it up with a Jason Richardson three with 3.5 seconds to go in the game. The Lakers called a timeout, inbounded, at 2.5 seconds Kobe airballed a three but Metta World Peace got the rebound and made a layup with 0.8 seconds to go to win the game. Kobe had put up a 30/11/9 on -1.3% but may have been outplayed by Nash with a 29/3/11 on +10.7% shooting. Having won at home the Lakers went back to Phoenix for Game 6. Nash again played amazingly (21/5/9 on +30.9%) but the Lakers dominated the ball, with Kobe posting a 37/6/2 on +7.7% with 2 steals and Metta World Peace having a 25/4/2 on +19.8% with 3 steals. The Lakers won Game 6 by eight points and advanced to the NBA Finals. When all was said and done the Lakers had outshot the Suns (barely) and had posted better rebounding and lower turnovers (by a little). The Lakers’ defense had been bent brutally (giving up a +12 offensive rating) but had pulled it out by scoring at an even higher rate. And Kobe had posted an exceptional series, averaging a 34/7/8 with +9.4% scoring (obviously there’s an asterisk because it was against such a weak defense . . . but it still counts).
So the Lakers advanced to face the 2010 Boston Celtics. The last time the two had met the Celtics had prevailed, and Kobe had struggled. Game 1 in Los Angeles was all Lakers, as Kobe had a 30/7/6 on +2.5% and Metta World Peace posted a 15/4/1 on +14.6% shooting and 2 steals. The Lakers won by 13. Game 2 was less ideal; Ray Allen shot at +22.3%, Kobe was held to -5.1% and the Celtics prevailed by 9 (Pau put up a 25/8/3 on +16.2% with 6 blocks in the loss). The Lakers took Game 3 in Boston by 7 as Kobe put up a 29/7/4 on -8.3% but with 2 steals, 3 blocks and only 1 turnover. In Game 4 the Celtics evened it up, dominating the ball and getting an extra 12 shots for their trouble, winning by 7 (Kobe shot well but turned it over 7 times). Evened up, the series went back to LA.
The Lakers dominated the ball (13 extra shots) but the Celtics’ defense absolutely stuffed the Lakers’ shooting. Kobe had a sensational 38/5/4 on +7.1% but every other Laker starter shot at -7% or worse. The Celtics won by 6, and the Lakers went back to Los Angeles for the final two games, one win from elimination. And in Game 6 the Lakers played their nuts off. Kobe posted a strong 26/11/3 on +5.6% with 4 steals and Pau had a 17/13/9 on -3.2% with 3 blocks, but the real victory was on defense. The Celtics posted a ORating of 77.1 (so that’s about 30 points per 100 below league average) and shot *as a team* at -16.6%. Pierce shot at -7.9%, Rondo shot at -22.8% and Garnett at -11.4%. The Lakers desperately needed a win and played some of the best defense in Finals history to do it. I know the Celtics weren’t a great offense, but a -30 rOR is stupidly bad. And it wasn’t even shots not falling; the Celtics couldn’t get to the line, they shot only 5 of 23 from three but they also shot 23 of 61 from two. A rating that low isn’t one side; the Celtics had to both choke hard *and* the Lakers had to play amazing defense. And both happened. It was the second lowest ORating a team in the Finals had ever been held to (worst was the ‘98 Jazz in Game 3 at 58.8). The Lakers stomped the Celtics by 22 points and sent the series back to LA for Game 7, the momentum (if you believe in that sort of thing) very much shifted.
Game 7 was the perfect encapsulation of the series, a tight defensive struggle. Kobe struggled on a 23/15/2 on -16.7% with 4 turnovers, but Pau Gasol added a 19/18/4 on -10.6% (I did say it was a defensive struggle). Going into the fourth the Celtics held a four point lead. The rebounding in the fourth quarter was even (33% for Lakers, 30% for Celtics), the turnovers were close (3 for Celtics, 2 for Lakers) and the shooting was close (Celtics 17 points on 18 FGA, Lakers with 14 points on 16 FGA). Yet the Lakers surged back and won the fourth quarter by eight points, winning the game (and the championship). The difference? Free throws. The Celtics got to the line 6 times in the quarter, the Lakers got to the line 21 times (compared to 16 times in the other three quarters). Many saw that result as a clear attempt by the refs to skew the game toward the Lakers. Many simply saw a game where the Celtics ran out of gas and the Lakers pushed harder toward the end. Is there any precedent for a FTA skew like this?
Game 2, 2008 Finals: The Celtics take 28 more free throws and win by 6 (4th quarter normal) to take a 2-0 lead
Game 5, 2006 Finals: The Heat take 24 more free throws and win by 1 in overtime (but Heat shot three less between the 4th quarter and OT), Heat take 3-2 lead
Game 4, 2002 Finals: The Lakers take 21 more free throws and win by 6, ending the series
Game 2, 1999 Finals: The Spurs take 23 more free throws and win by 13, going up 2-0 (Spurs 13 more in the 4th)
Game 3, 1993 Finals: The Suns take 22 more free throws and win by 8, going to 1-3
Game 3, 1988 Finals: The Lakers take 22 more free throws and win by 13, going to 2-1
Game 7, 1984 Finals: The Celtics take 23 more free throws and win by 9, winning the series
We don’t have fourth quarter numbers for the 1993 Finals or earlier. The only one of these that seems comparable is Game 7 of the ‘84 series, where the Celtics got to the line 51 times. So I certainly don’t feel comfortable calling foul (heh) either way here, but it’s pretty clear that a swing like this, especially in the fourth quarter of Game 7 of the NBA Finals is really unusual. Let’s simply say that the Lakers explicitly won the championship because they got to the line so much in the 4th. And as for whether or not it was deserved, I’ll let someone else do the legwork on that.
Either way, the Lakers had won the series, and had won by an average of 3.5 points per game. Their first series of the playoffs was weak, but their last three series were all really good, strong wins against strong competition. Three straight +12 SRS eq series is very impressive. But you’ll note that, at this point, we’re only in the low 50s and we’re already starting to see teams that are really impressive and went on some really good runs. There are a *lot* of really good teams out there.
And as for the Lakers . . . they’d remain the favorites in the West for the next three years, but their time as a dynasty had passed, as they discovered quite roughly in 2011.
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