Why Don't Teams Give 100% Every Playoff Games?

[Chubby Chaser]

Role players always play better at home. Finley and Brent Barry were struggling at staples. But yesterday they were torching us. Manu had a horrible game at LA also, but at home he's more comfortable and thus his shot was falling. Players aren't going to be on 100% of the time. Bad games happen that's why it's a seven game series instead of a one and done tournament.

[vonplyr]

Jordan, probably the greatest competitor in nba history, would get extra hyped playing at madison square garden or against certain opposing players. He would play extra hard against those guys, and the extra effort would show on the court.

Are you gonna say MJ dogged it and question why he didn't give it his all EVERY SINGLE TIME he was on the court? Someone already answered, its because we're human. You can't have the adrenaline pumping and go all out every single time out, it just doesn't work that way.

[kevC]

Because they're human?

[Buckeye-NBAFan]

The home team is the aggressors, and the home team tends to have more energy when they get home, especially the role players. Its all about the energy.

I've been trying to find some kind of analysis done comparing bench player performance home vs. away against start performance home vs. away.

You seem to think bench players perform worse than starters on the road. Not saying you're wrong, but I was wondering how you came to that conclusion, or did you just hear it from the talking heads?

I can look at individuals and find players all over the place. But I'm looking for articles that take large scale sample sizes into account.

[doctaJ_92]

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I've been trying to find some kind of analysis done comparing bench player performance home vs. away against start performance home vs. away.

You seem to think bench players perform worse than starters on the road. Not saying you're wrong, but I was wondering how you came to that conclusion, or did you just hear it from the talking heads?

I can look at individuals and find players all over the place. But I'm looking for articles that take large scale sample sizes into account.

The home teams, who play with more energy like I said, rotate quicker at home and play better defence, thus the role players, most of whom cant create their own shot, are either contested when they shoot or have their defender in their face right away when they catch the ball so they cant shoot.

And when we're talking about bigmen roleplayers, I dont think they get as many boards because as I said, the home team are the aggressors at home, and I think more players go to the offensive glass and they go harder because as we've all seen, the road teams seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to the refs as well so you can get away with more when the ball is in the air. That and the home team definately shoots a higher percentage so there isnt as many rebounds as well.

[Boss_]

Theyre human...they arent robots always giving 100%.

[Doctor MJ]

Why don't they give 100% every playoff game?

Simple: Energy conservation. I'm sure that most of the time players go into games planning to give 100%, but the moment a team starts to think the odds are low of pulling it out, they conserve energy if they think they can sacrifice that game.

Note that people tend to refer to this as "holding serve". That's a tennis reference, and in tennis players do the same thing generally to a greater extent than what happens in the NBA (though this year the NBA is doing it a ton).

[Buckeye-NBAFan]

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The home teams, who play with more energy like I said, rotate quicker at home and play better defence, thus the role players, most of whom cant create their own shot, are either contested when they shoot or have their defender in their face right away when they catch the ball so they cant shoot.

And when we're talking about bigmen roleplayers, I dont think they get as many boards because as I said, the home team are the aggressors at home, and I think more players go to the offensive glass and they go harder because as we've all seen, the road teams seem to get the short end of the stick when it comes to the refs as well so you can get away with more when the ball is in the air. That and the home team definately shoots a higher percentage so there isnt as many rebounds as well.

I wasn't looking for an opinion. I have my own opinions. I was looking for something done by 82games or someone else.