2023 ECF Miami with Greatest Shooting Luck in NBA History

[steefP2]

Hypothetical: You defend a certain player poorly for his first two and three shots and he makes them all. He then gains confidence and rhythm with his shot, starts taking more contested, difficult shots and keeps making them. Is that still attributed to luck? What if your entire defensive scheme and effort are very poor to start games/series that not only one player goes off early but at least three scrubs do. Then you try to tighten up coverage but at that point "they can't seem to miss." Is that still luck?

Research shows that making a shot does not contribute to making subsequent shots unless you are shooting from an identical spot.

Somewhat related but there was a SLOAN conference presentation that did show the “hot hand” exists to some degree

[BK_2020]

Hypothetical: You defend a certain player poorly for his first two and three shots and he makes them all. He then gains confidence and rhythm with his shot, starts taking more contested, difficult shots and keeps making them. Is that still attributed to luck? What if your entire defensive scheme and effort are very poor to start games/series that not only one player goes off early but at least three scrubs do. Then you try to tighten up coverage but at that point "they can't seem to miss." Is that still luck?

Research shows that making a shot does not contribute to making subsequent shots unless you are shooting from an identical spot.

Somewhat related but there was a SLOAN conference presentation that did show the “hot hand” exists to some degree

Yeah but that's talking about 1-2% improvement, not 58% from open threes.

[165bows]

PS McHale led the league in TS added in 1986, with Bird third. It's like if Jokic had a scoring buddy that was way more efficient at scoring than he was.

Isaiah Thomas first in 2017.

Charles Barkley was an absolute beast, might have been underrating him. Wonder if there is a powerhouse PF who can shoot that would dominate today, like a Zion that wasn't a mess but with shooting. Maybe see that upcoming with Flagg, Boozer et al.

[Hal14]

Sour grapes

Sounds like something a Heat fan would say.

[Bar Fight]

Sour grapes

Sour grapes

[BostonCouchGM]

can't complain about luck when we were the beneficiary of luck when we faced nothing but tanking teams or teams with major injuries for almost the complete second half of last season straight through the playoffs which enabled us to make the Finals. No team has ever been more lucky than the 2022 Celtics. And even in these playoffs we enjoyed our own luck regarding 3 pt shooting in the first round when we shot 41% from three versus the Hawks which was up from our 38% during the season. Then in the next series, the Sixers, who shot 39% from three in the regular season, shot only 33% while we shot above our regular season rate at 39%.

What accounted for the Heat's bad 3 pt shooting % in 2022/23 was that 40% shooter Robinson had an awful season shooting only 33%. But he was lights out for almost the entire playoffs reverting to his norm. His bad shooting season, considering his attempts, made it seem like the Heat were a much worse shooting team than they really were. And since our overrated defenders (White, Smart, Jaylen) were getting cooked off the dribble, guys like Robinson, Strus, Vincent, etc were left wide open and as we've seen with White, Horford, Jaylen, Grant and almost anyone who is left wide open on our team because of Tatum, it's so much easier to make them.

It's much ado about nothing at the end of the day. We still could have and likely would have won the series if not for the Tatum injury despite the unlucky 3 pt shooting.

[Gurton Buster]

That’s some **** ain’t it?

They had like a historically bad shooting % in the finals too of course.

Really frustrating because we were probably the team best equipped to handle Denver.
But of course the finals would've come down to who's luckier on open threes anyway.

Same banana in the bubble. We were both the better team, but really choked it all away playing **** scared, and getting punked by Butler and role players. I really thought Tatum’s game and mindset would have matured already. He clearly has the best skills/talent in the game. Better than Jokic and Giannis, but those guys have a different mentality and consistency. Especially Jokic. We won’t get over the hump unless Tatum take that next step. The will and mentality to dominate and win at all cost.

Man get outta here Tatum carried us in the Miami series we were on the verge of the greatest comeback in sports history until Tatum snapped his ankle 15 seconds into game 7. Let’s not rewrite history here.

[Bar Fight]

Watch on YouTube

[dans1230]

Really frustrating because we were probably the team best equipped to handle Denver.
But of course the finals would've come down to who's luckier on open threes anyway.

Same banana in the bubble. We were both the better team, but really choked it all away playing **** scared, and getting punked by Butler and role players. I really thought Tatum’s game and mindset would have matured already. He clearly has the best skills/talent in the game. Better than Jokic and Giannis, but those guys have a different mentality and consistency. Especially Jokic. We won’t get over the hump unless Tatum take that next step. The will and mentality to dominate and win at all cost.

Man get outta here Tatum carried us in the Miami series we were on the verge of the greatest comeback in sports history until Tatum snapped his ankle 15 seconds into game 7. Let’s not rewrite history here.

A healthy Brogdon and an average performance from Brown and that series never sees a game 7. And to your point, Tatum turning that ankle to start game 7 and Brown still didnt step up was the end of the season.

[Jammer]

The fact remains that Mazzula failed to adjust to each game's particular circumstances.

Ergo, Mazzula is the reason that the Celtics lost that series.

You can try sticking up for him with these type of stats, but incompetence is incompetence.

He failed to adjust, and did not close games with the players who were hottest each night, but went with less optimal performers continually. That's a loser.

[BK_2020]

The fact remains that Mazzula failed to adjust to each game's particular circumstances.

Ergo, Mazzula is the reason that the Celtics lost that series.

You can try sticking up for him with these type of stats, but incompetence is incompetence.

He failed to adjust, and did not close games with the players who were hottest each night, but went with less optimal performers continually. That's a loser.

Yeah I too would've benched Jaylen Brown but I think Mazzulla's hands were tied for non-basketball reasons.

[Roger Federer]

Pretty pathetic to blame our loss on luck. If we had shot lights out and Miami has shot well below their average, there is no way we would see a thread created about how “lucky” we were. Miami has beat us 2 of the last 3 times we played them in the ECF and was very close to going 3/3 courtesy of Marcus Smart. At what point does it stop being “luck”?

[ryan in Maine]

Heat fans def gonna make fun of us for this one lol

[BK_2020]

Pretty pathetic to blame our loss on luck. If we had shot lights out and Miami has shot well below their average, there is no way we would see a thread created about how “lucky” we were. Miami has beat us 2 of the last 3 times we played them in the ECF and was very close to going 3/3 courtesy of Marcus Smart. At what point does it stop being “luck”?

It doesn't. Basketball is inherently a luck-based game. Short of a vast talent difference, it is impossible for defense to stop the offense from getting off a good shot. Most things you can do to stop the offensive player from scoring is a foul, so the best option left to the defense is to give up the outside shot and hope they miss. The expansion of the game out to the three point line with its disproportionately high reward makes it even more luck-driven. Over the course of an 82 game season it might even out but a 7 game series can be influenced greatly by luck.