ESPN when will you learn? Offense is Sexy Defense wins rings

[PurpleTestament]

If this were wholly true then the Rockets should have a ring.

Not true considering, even T-Mac admitted the Celtics were the best defense he has ever seen.


Yes Balance wins, but a team with a good offense and a great defense will beat a team with a great offense and a good defense.

Or a team with three Hall of Famers in their prime will beat a team with one superstar and two pseudo-allstars. Look your defense looks awfully good when those three guys are nailing their shots on one end because usually that has to happen for the team to buy into their defense as the Celts have. If they were the best defensive team ever this is a sweep without hesitation. However statistically Cleveland is a better defensive squad.

T-Mac says alot of things. He said that he thought the 05-06 finals were rigged. That doesn't mean they were.

[richboy]

Offense sells tickets, defense wins games but rebounding wins championships. That what Pat Summit says and its very true. Its the reason why the Cavs are such a tough out in the playoffs. Its the reason a improved Laker defense look so bad at times against the Celtics. It doesn't matter how good your defense is if you can't grab the rebound it goes for waste.

[Ballings7]

That's a more lengthy and direct way to say it, talking about initial defense, then getting the rebound. But you can still just say something short about defense and it'll mean the same thing, too.

In a shorter way "defense is what wins" or "it's all about defense" "have to play better defense", etc. being said also, rebounding is included in there because defensive rebounding the ball completes the defensive stop.

[Ortho Stice]

Offense sells tickets, defense wins games but rebounding wins championships. That what Pat Summit says and its very true. Its the reason why the Cavs are such a tough out in the playoffs. Its the reason a improved Laker defense look so bad at times against the Celtics. It doesn't matter how good your defense is if you can't grab the rebound it goes for waste.

Yeah, if the "experts" did a close analysis they would've realized why the Celtics struggled against the Cavs and that they wouldn't have those problems against the Lakers. Cavs are a much better defensive team than the Lakers, and a much, much better rebounding team. They essentially started two centers at the same time -- Big Ben and Big Z -- while the Lakers had an SF playing as PF, and a soft PF playing as C. Yet experts completely ignored the fact that the Lakers would get abused on the boards. Or if they did realize it, they would simply use the flimsy argument of "well Kobe is Kobe and if Kobe is Kobe then Kobe will win it!"

Another reason why the Cavs played the Celtics tougher is because they had a big man that could hit automatic midrange jumpers (Big Z and Joe Smith). While the Celtics overloaded the strong side of the ball, their big man would be open on the weak side for an open jumper. Celtics had to focus on Lebron, and it was extremely beneficial that he could pass it to Big Z or Joe Smith for an open jumper. Odom, on the other hand, is very, very inconsistent with jumpers, and Gasol may be a good shooter, but that didn't matter because he was often too hesitant to shoot them. So the Cavs big men not only could hang with the Celtics' in terms of rebounding, but they were a threat for hitting jump shots, which would kill you when you focused the D on Lebron.

[$ bankshot $]

i know they arent necessarily the most important part of defense, but getting steals and blocks doesnt lead to rebounds, i guess its all about getting the ball back after your defensive stop.

celtics and all those steals last game....

[BubbaTee]

it wasnt totally offense vs defense

boston still had good offensive power and LA still had good defense

i put this down to execution and mental toughness

What.


The Laker defense showed up occasionally, but I don't know how you could classify it as "good" considering how many times a Boston Celtic would waltz down the lane for an easy layup. And LA's pick and roll defense was atrocious for a highschool team, let alone in the NBA Finals.


The best instance this year of good defense losing out to defense that was just a bit better was the Celtics beating the Cavs.

[GuyClinch]

This is overblown. Yes defense wins championships. But it's because MOST teams can score fairly well. Offense is fun. People like to score so it kind of takes care of itself to some extent. Whereas you have to COMMIT to a good defense. It takes work and real sacrifice.

If a team has a really BAD offense they are not winning a championship. The C's feature 3 very talented scorers - and have a number of bench guys who are scorers. They have a very solid offense and a GREAT defense. If they had a really crappy offense they wouldn't win a title.

Pete

[triplet1984]

RealGM when will you learn? CONTRAST makes webpages and forums pleasantly readable to the eye.

CONTRAST!

[richboy]

Offensive rebounding is important too. When you play good defensive teams its really important to have that aspect to get second shots. One of the reasons why Pistons struggle so much with Cavs.

[RayAllen#34]

I was pretty sure the Celtics would win before the series started, and was puzzled that all but one ESPN expert picked the Lakers. Some even said it could possibly be a sweep. I saw some stat that said Boston had the third best defensive efficiency dating back to the 70s. And yet people picked the Lakers to roll over this dominant defense? Hint: if your team has the third best defensive efficiency ever recorded, with three future Hall of Famers that can step up on offense, and you're playing a team that's significantly worse at defense and rebounding, you're not going to lose. Don't know how people missed that.

that's because the Lakers had rolled their opponents leading up to this series/Celtics had struggled a bit + it's ESPN and I think their analysts all got caught up in the Kobe hype - hats off to Pierce and Posey for shutting him down like they did.

Ray played kobe more than pierce and posey did in this series, but yea, they definitely played kobe really well.

[Ballings7]

This is overblown. Yes defense wins championships. But it's because MOST teams can score fairly well. Offense is fun. People like to score so it kind of takes care of itself to some extent. Whereas you have to COMMIT to a good defense. It takes work and real sacrifice.

Yes, well said - this is quite similar to what I've said on this in the past.

That's why "defense wins championships" is always said. All the teams that can play competitive offense (most importantly the better ones) in the league, a pretty good deal either don't defend or don't defend well enough to be a title contender.

[PPAW4Life]

So good scoring teams will have a good regular season = make playoffs

but.....

only the truly great defensive teams will make and win the Finals.