BaNT Championship - vote now! deadline monday night.

[dockingsched]

this time for sure we have to start voting on thursday.



BaNT Championship Match



Snakebites vs. dcash4



-------------------

Snakebites

PG: Kirk Hinrich / Jason Terry
SG: Kevin Martin / Dahntay Jones
SF: Tayshaun Prince / Michael Beasley
PF: Pau Gasol / Ronnie Turiaf
C: Tyson Chandler / Anderson Varejao



dcash4

pg: Devin Harris / Monta Ellis
sg: John Salmons / Anthony Parker
sf: Rashard Lewis / James Posey
pf: Al Jefferson / Brandon Bass
c: Joel Przybilla / Andris Biedrins

[vincecarter4pres]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MUGAxpI0Bc

[dockingsched]

pg: Devin Harris / Monta Ellis
sg: John Salmons / Anthony Parker
sf: Rashard Lewis / James Posey
pf: Al Jefferson / Brandon Bass
c: Joel Przybilla / Andris Biedrins

defensive strategy: going to obviously focus most of our attention on their only player maker, pau gasol. i feel that with a strong post defender like joel przybilla, my team will be able to keep him from getting deep post position ala kendrick perkins in the 08 finals. doing this will allow me to keep his team under control. kirk hinrich will not have the ability to get around john salmons. this means we're putting devin harris on kevin martin who will shadow him every where. martin can't create for anyone else at all, so we'll let harris guard him one on one. tayshaun's will be matched up against a similarly sized lewis so no posting up or shooting over his defender for him. chandler is no threat and will be guarded by aljeff/beans, who can keep him off the boards. off the bench he has one real threat, jason terry, and he'll be against either ellis or parker, both quick enough and big enough to guard him. no one else off the bench is a threat.

offensive strategy: al jefferson will be leading the attack either against pau gasol or chandler, who i anticipate will be the main defender. we'll also be using lewis in the post who will use his height to take prince into the post, where lewis has shown the ability to score going back to his sonics days when he played against sf's. john salmons will also get a look against a very limited defender in martin. harris will take it to hinrich. harris had a 60% 42pt performance against him last yr. don't expect the same performance, but he's shown that hinrich can't simply stop him. off the bench we'll use ellis to run circles around his guards, since he has zero true pg's. ellis should have dominating performances against a team who's fastest guy is jason terry.

summary:

-big tough defender on pau (joel przy) just like celtics did in 08 finals.

-very good defender in harris on martin without a double since he can't create for others. salmons guards hinrich.

- jefferson in the post, lewis on smaller/weaker defender like he used to with the sonics

- salmons attacking poor defender martin, harris keeping hinrich busy

- ellis running wild on his zero small guards.

[knicksfan3232]

So any thoughts on what the next games gunna be?

[dockingsched]

cellar i'm sure will keep everyone updated. just keep checking.


also, voting will begin as soon as snakebites gets his write up posted. all 14 other participants can vote.

[Snakebites]

I hope Cellar's new game involves a draft. I enjoy those the most. I tried doing a GM a Team and am frankly not feeling the wheeling and dealing aspect. Just not my thing I guess.

Before entering my writeup all clarify a couple of things:

Rashard doesn't have anything resembling the large size advantage dcash4 is asserting. Tay is only 1 inch shorter and not even 10 pounds lighter. Tay also has length that makes even that minor size advantage deceptive.

Kirk Hinrich was the 4th heaviest minute receiving guard in the game in which Harris went off, and Rose likely played most of the minutes head to head with Harris. I'm not saying Kirk is a Harris stopper, but the notion that he somehow becomes a defensive liability against dcash's guards isn't really substantiated.

K. Now that thats out of the way, lets roll:

Defense: We match up particularly well with his core offensive threat, Jefferson. We can rotate Gasol, Chandler, or even Varejao on him while the other relaxes with the limited offensive games of Pryz and Biedrins to occupy them. With his front court rotation as it is currently set (with Rashard seeing minutes at the 3 for the most part), he does not have a 4/5 who can spread the floor at all (Jefferson is a post player and neither Joel nor Biedrins can hit a shot from beyong 3 feet), meaning the lanes will be less acessable to his other offensive options at the guards, giving my guards a bit of flexibility on defense and limiting the opponents options. Our big man will not have to step out at any point. Hinrich will guard the hot man while he is on the court, and he has the quickness to do so.

Offense: As always, Gasol is the key here. He has both a post game and a rock solid midrange game, so, as has been demonstrated in my previous matchups (particularly round 1 with Bynum and Haywood), a decen post defender is not sufficient to shut him down, and Biedrins/Pryz won't have a Kevin Garnett to help them either. He's up against a fairly decent front court defense, but its not the best he's faced in this tournament. Martin will likely be facing a good defender much of the time he's out there, but he does retain a size advantage over all but Salmons, who, as dcash stipulates, will be busy with Hinrich. Tayshaun Prince isn't a high powered offensive player, but he'll be spending much of his time guarded by Rashard Lewis, who, while big and fairly mobile, has a reputation as a man who takes possessions off on that end of the court with relative regularity. Overall, we will look to our range and superior spacing to limit the effectiveness of his overall defensive plan. We don't have a top flight playmaker on the team, but our combination of various options has proven sufficient against other defenses, particularly with the well balanced array of offensive options that the team possesses.

Overall:

We have the tools on defense to match up well with our opponents' team and believe the advantages we have on offense are enough to carry the day.

[dockingsched]

voting has started and ends monday night. i'll be sending some pm's out to get more voter turn out.

[john2jer]

I want to vote for dcash4 because he seems like a nice kid, his parents raised him well. Plus, snakes scare me.

But honestly, I think Al Jefferson kills his team. Ball movement stops when it's in his hands. There will be a lot of standing around and watching. Jefferson just doesn't get to the free throw line like you'd want a first option to. I love the rest of the team, though.

Gasol and Prince bring championship experience. Posey does as well, but snakebites' guys do it as major players. Kevin Martin gets to the FT line.

Both teams are well constructed, but ultimately, I give the slight edge to snakebites for the win.

WINNER: Snakebites.

[MadNESS]

to me Gasol is to much to handle for Al Jeff or Billa, hes the difference maker here....

Snakebites in 7.

[BlackIce]

I've got snake as well. Prince matchs up very well againest Lewis on defense and hinrich matchs up well with Harris. Martin vs Salmons kills any offensive advantage that cash might have had. I've got snake.

[SamBone]

I will help out dcash and vote for snakes. I think almost every team I voted for (including my own matchup) has lost. I agree that Gasol wins it for him

SNAKES in 7

[poopdamoop]

Gotta go with Snake here, just too well rounded and Salmons and Jefferson look terrible so far. Even dismissing that, cash's main threats all have great defenders on them.

[CellarDoor]

Getting my vote in a few...snakebites: PM me your email please, I'll get your thoughts on what game we should do next. I'm thinking about resurrecting an old one..

[CellarDoor]

For my own piece of mind I'd like to clarify that Kirk did in fact get torched by Devin last year. When he was in the game guarding him, Devin went off. To be fair, Devin also went off on Ben Gordon, Derrick Rose, and every other Bulls guard and fan in the building. He was just hot.

Rashard's not going to have any advantage whatsoever on Prince. He'll get his points, but he's not going to be generating many of his own shots.

Al Jefferson hasn't looked good this year. The weight he lost seems to be effecting him, but that's with him at CENTER. At PF, I believe he'd still have similar success, though J2J's comment about ball movement still holds true though.

Neither team has an impressive playmaker anywhere on the roster, but at least Snake can run some offense through Gasol.

Going snake in 7

[Snakebites]

For my own piece of mind I'd like to clarify that Kirk did in fact get torched by Devin last year. When he was in the game guarding him, Devin went off. To be fair, Devin also went off on Ben Gordon, Derrick Rose, and every other Bulls guard and fan in the building. He was just hot.

Yeah, I was guessing there.

Good to hear clarification from someone who actually saw the game.

PM sent.

[vincecarter4pres]

I gotta go Snake in 7...