Bgil wrote:5) WRT SAS?
With Regard To
San Antonio Spurs
1) Pace is not mean you have a better defense
I did not say Pace = better defense. I said defensive teams often use pace as a defensive tactic. That does not exclude the existence defensive teams that don't, really bad teams that play at slow paces, or any other instance. However, my point about many defensive teams using pace manipulation as a tactic is FACT.
Again, Defensive Rating says Denver > CLE and Utah and I don't think anyone here agrees with that, probably not even Nuggets players.
2. Pace is a defensive and offensive tactic. For instance, slowing the PHX or GS offense down to a slow half court game has been a tactic that has worked very well against them, regardless of their shooting percentage. The NBA is a game of runs... controlling those runs leads to wins.
3. The 'handcheck rule' was inacted the following year and was caused to defensive drop.
4. Handchecking on the perimeter wasn't disallowed in 94-95. I have no idea what would make you think that.
I'm not even going to discuss the idea that it didn't affect defensive play.
NOTHING supports that and there's a mountain of evidence against you.
You are a funny guy.
1) I meant to say after the 94-95 season. But that is irrelevant
2) I know slowing the game down can be a tactic
Slower pace only really makes games closer since there are fewer chances to score in the game.
But some things result in a slower pace (ie. getting back on D instead of crashing board, working the ball into the post, zones, structured offenses, etc.) But the point is pace has no bearing on whether or not a team's defense is good or not, because you said
1. Pace is a major part of defense hence why the best defensive teams use a slower pace and the worst defensive teams use a much faster pace (think Suns and Warriors vs Rockets, Pistons, Celtics, and Spurs). Removing it invalidates the entire discussion.
Which was disproved in my earlier post.
3) Teams get roughly the same amount of possessions in a game. So slowing the pace down might reduce the number of possessions for your opponent but it also reduces the number of possessions for your own team. Most NBA teams just run their offense to their strengths. Heavy underdogs, especially in the NCAA tourney, will slow the game down to a crawl in order to create very few possessions. It is more effective in college because a) shorter game b) semi-continuous clock c) longer shot clock.
4) Now i will prove what you said I could not. Let's look at the league average defensive ratings for from the 92-93 to 97-98. (three years before the hand-checking rule and three years after)
92-93 : 108.0
93-94 : 106.3
94-95 : 108.3
95-96 : 107.6
96-97 : 106.7
97-98 : 105.0
Based on your analysis, teams should be scoring more efficiently so the defensive rating should get considerably worse. But as you can see this is not the case. The ratings actually get better after the hand-checking. So this statement:
The 'handcheck rule' was inacted the following year and was caused to defensive drop.
Is 100% false. Maybe they were less steals but defenses overall actually got a little better.
I want to let you know the stuff I am saying is based on science. The people who pioneered these numbers are on NBA payrolls, some of them are GMs. I have backed up everything I have said.