Retro POY '07-08 (Voting Complete)

[wigglestrue]

f it - first person on my ignore list.

I won't be ignoring you, though. Not when you come up with golden material like:

- John Havlicek was statistically slightly above average
- Reggie Miller was a superstar, and Ray Allen was never in the same stratosphere
- Mark Blount was a defensive specialist

[ElGee]

I spent some time pouring over Boston and Cleveland media reports surrounding that 08 series. I watched the highlights of the first 6 games. I think it's misguided to look at a 7 game sample and use averages as a be-all-end, especially since people aren't really considering defense, offense created for teammates and critical plays (which LeBron made a number of down the stretch in G3-G7).

(As an aside, does this mean in a 3-game series if LeBron went 0-30 in a G1 blowout loss, then did everything in G2 and G3 in 1-point wins -- and let's say he was 28-56 in those 2 games, just above his average -- that everyone would argue he was terrible because he shot 28-86, 32.5%?)

Now, let's look at the rest of the series:

The consensus in G1 and G2 was that LeBron couldn't throw it in the ocean. He was 0-11 outside of 15-feet in G1. 1-13 in G2. But in the first half of G3, he took 3 jumpers (1-3) and had a dunk, assists on three teammate dunk/layups, a Joe Smith 10-footer. He was 2-5 in the half, but when he left the game it was 43-17 Cavs. Boston would go on a 7-0 run, before LeBron was inserted back into the game, promptly setting up Ilgauskas for a score.

He had 4 steals and 3 blocks in the game -- two highlight reel jobs saving Rondo layups.

G4 was a tight, ugly, low scoring affair. LeBron went to the bench with Cleveland up 41-33 for 4 minutes near the end of the second half. A struggling Paul Pierce suddenly attacked with LeBron out of the game -- picking up 2 layups, setting up an Allen jumper and missing a 17-footer. It was 45-43 Cleveland at halftime.

In the 4th quarter, LeBron missed a bunch of shots. If I recall, a desperate 3 against the clock (shot clock violations were an issue in that series both ways) and 3 missed jumpers. But he had four 4th quarter assists (eight second half assists) and a stretch where he missed a layup, grabbed an offensive rebound, assisted on a Gibson 3, assisted on a Varejao jumper, made a key 3 to make it 79-73 and of course the highlight dunk in which he lost regard for all human life to seal the win. 3 more steals, 2 more blocks.

Paul Pierce was 4-14 with 9 points when James was on the floor. Pierce was 12-35 in the first 3 games primarily guarded by James.

Now, games 5 and 6 he is described by people as "completely dominating the game." Fred Carter did criticizing him for "focusing too much on scoring." I guess Fred didn't think he had the all-around impact he had in earlier games? He finished with 35 and 5 on 12-25 shooting. I don't have a detailed analysis of what Boston was doing in G1-G4, but they did seem to run more pick-and-roll action into James for Pierce. Paul had his biggest game of the series -- 29 points -- and if you watch the highlights you'll notice James is screened out of a lot of those plays. This certainly was their MO in G7 and I do have the tape to confirm that.

In Game 6, LeBron was 4-8 in the 4th quarter with 2 assists 2 rebounds and a key steal. He was trapped with 2:12 left and hit Wally for the clinching 3, then added a key steal in the waning seconds to ice the victory. 32-12-6 for Lebron...which is more staggering when one considers that Cleveland scored all of 72 points as a team.

I thought Kobe Bryant had a very good 13 point, 4-9 game the other night. And I thought LeBron had an enormous role in Cleveland winning G3 and G4, despite bad shooting (in other words, he did just about everything else well). Games 5-6 most people would (and did) describe as awesome. I don't think I need to say anything about G7.

So again, in those last 5 games (3 Cavs win and near G7 steal), James numbers:

35 ppg, 7.6 apg, 6.0 rpg, 54% TS% 2.4 steals 1.4 blocks

[Silver Bullet]

I spent some time pouring over Boston and Cleveland media reports surrounding that 08 series. I watched the highlights of the first 6 games. I think it's misguided to look at a 7 game sample and use averages as a be-all-end, especially since people aren't really considering defense, offense created for teammates and critical plays (which LeBron made a number of down the stretch in G3-G7).

(As an aside, does this mean in a 3-game series if LeBron went 0-30 in a G1 blowout loss, then did everything in G2 and G3 in 1-point wins -- and let's say he was 28-56 in those 2 games, just above his average -- that everyone would argue he was terrible because he shot 28-86, 32.5%?)

Now, let's look at the rest of the series:

The consensus in G1 and G2 was that LeBron couldn't throw it in the ocean. He was 0-11 outside of 15-feet in G1. 1-13 in G2. But in the first half of G3, he took 3 jumpers (1-3) and had a dunk, assists on three teammate dunk/layups, a Joe Smith 10-footer. He was 2-5 in the half, but when he left the game it was 43-17 Cavs. Boston would go on a 7-0 run, before LeBron was inserted back into the game, promptly setting up Ilgauskas for a score.

He had 4 steals and 3 blocks in the game -- two highlight reel jobs saving Rondo layups.

G4 was a tight, ugly, low scoring affair. LeBron went to the bench with Cleveland up 41-33 for 4 minutes near the end of the second half. A struggling Paul Pierce suddenly attacked with LeBron out of the game -- picking up 2 layups, setting up an Allen jumper and missing a 17-footer. It was 45-43 Cleveland at halftime.

In the 4th quarter, LeBron missed a bunch of shots. If I recall, a desperate 3 against the clock (shot clock violations were an issue in that series both ways) and 3 missed jumpers. But he had four 4th quarter assists (eight second half assists) and a stretch where he missed a layup, grabbed an offensive rebound, assisted on a Gibson 3, assisted on a Varejao jumper, made a key 3 to make it 79-73 and of course the highlight dunk in which he lost regard for all human life to seal the win. 3 more steals, 2 more blocks.

Paul Pierce was 4-14 with 9 points when James was on the floor. Pierce was 12-35 in the first 3 games primarily guarded by James.

Now, games 5 and 6 he is described by people as "completely dominating the game." Fred Carter did criticizing him for "focusing too much on scoring." I guess Fred didn't think he had the all-around impact he had in earlier games? He finished with 35 and 5 on 12-25 shooting. I don't have a detailed analysis of what Boston was doing in G1-G4, but they did seem to run more pick-and-roll action into James for Pierce. Paul had his biggest game of the series -- 29 points -- and if you watch the highlights you'll notice James is screened out of a lot of those plays. This certainly was their MO in G7 and I do have the tape to confirm that.

In Game 6, LeBron was 4-8 in the 4th quarter with 2 assists 2 rebounds and a key steal. He was trapped with 2:12 left and hit Wally for the clinching 3, then added a key steal in the waning seconds to ice the victory. 32-12-6 for Lebron...which is more staggering when one considers that Cleveland scored all of 72 points as a team.

I thought Kobe Bryant had a very good 13 point, 4-9 game the other night. And I thought LeBron had an enormous role in Cleveland winning G3 and G4, despite bad shooting (in other words, he did just about everything else well). Games 5-6 most people would (and did) describe as awesome. I don't think I need to say anything about G7.

So again, in those last 5 games (3 Cavs win and near G7 steal), James numbers:

35 ppg, 7.6 apg, 6.0 rpg, 54% TS% 2.4 steals 1.4 blocks

]

What are his real shooting numbers ?

And do you have any comment on Boston getting better and better throughout the playoff run and firing on all cylinders by the time the Finals rolled around - or do you think that's not an accurate way of putting it.

[bastillon]

I don't see why you would throw the first two games out, especially when in fact those may have been his two worst games of the season; freaking Ilgauskas was far better player in game #1. more importantly, had Allen showed up for the series, this thing would've been over in 4, max 5 games, and thus unabling LeBron to show up for the series late like he did. I'm not going to give credit to LeBron for Ray's son having serious health issues (actually the way it sounds, I don't think LeBron would want that credit anyway ).

[Wile E. Coyote]

Here's my list:

1. Kevin Garnett
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Chris Paul
4. LeBron James
5. Tim Duncan

[ElGee]

SB - I think what you mentioned -- namely Allen's issues and Doc going lineup crazy -- is why the series was close(r). It's independent of how James played though -- my analysis of his play doesn't hinge on "LeBron takes 66-win title juggernaut to wire by himself."

Bastillon - I'm not "throwing out" two games -- just trying to put the whole series into perspective.

[ElGee]

My Ballot for 2008 POY:

1. LeBron James
2. Kobe Bryant
3. Kevin Garnett
4. Chris Paul
5. Tim Duncan

LeBron are Kobe fairly close for the top spot for me. 30-8-7 57% TS, a slightly larger defensive impact than Kobe and doing everything for a team that looked hopeless (0-7) without him. 48 points the year before in Detroit, 45 in G7 vs. Boston. I feel pretty good about him at #1, although he certainly takes a leap in 09.

I contemplated a lot of the analysis with regards to Garnett (someone I already thought was MVP), but just couldn't justify taking him over either James or Bryant. It's possible I'm undervaluing KG's defensive impact, but despite a nice attempt by drza (great posts) I'm not convinced that 08 KG had the same eff-you games in him that 04 KG did. Maybe it's closer than I'm making it...

Paul is clearly ahead of the rest of the field.

The fifth spot was agonizing between Dirk, Nash and Duncan. Here the tiebreaker for me was essentially Duncan's regular season boost, which again anchored an elite defense and 56 fairly impressive wins. Yes, Manu was awesome at times and Duncan wasn't his "old self" in the playoffs, but he certainly wasn't old in the playoffs. Nash disappointed a bit - maybe this is some kind of Shaq/Steve Kerr penalty -- and Dirk had a small drop off im the regular season. Tough year.

[Silver Bullet]

I think it's been pretty clear from the start that I was opposed to giving this thing to KG, but I didn't know how opposed until I went back to review my stuff.

PER and WS are stats that favors big men - so on average KG's PER looks better than it is against perimeter oriented players like Kobe and Lebron than it actually is. When you factor that the average big man MVP winner over the past 15 odd years has an average PER of 28.2 and an average WS of 17.1 - KG's numbers don't warrant an MVP - his PER of 25.3 and WS of 12.9 would make him the worse MVP winner perhaps ever -

This is not a case like Steve Nash where you added one player and the team does one of the biggest turnaround in history. You've overhauled the whole roster - you have 3 all stars very close to their prime, and another kid who's very likely to be an all-star soon enough. You have a defensive stalwart in Tom Thibedeau, I mean - there's no way to justify giving so much credit to KG.

And these would be my misgivings after he had played 82 games. I mean, how do I put him on my list and then leave out guys like Dirk and Stoudemire, who put up bigger numbers, played nearly a fifth more minutes, had far less help, yet didn't win substantially less games.

Anyway, on to my rankings:

1. Kobe Bryant
2. Lebron James
3. Chris Paul
4. Tim Duncan
5. Paul Pierce

HM: Chauncey Billups

[bastillon]

Anyway, on to my rankings:

1. Kobe Bryant
2. Lebron James
3. Chris Paul
4. Tim Duncan
5. Paul Pierce

HM: Chauncey Billups

how do you justify Pierce over Garnett ? KG murdered him in PER, WS, WP, APM and raw +/-, finished higher in MVP voting and was more recognized for his contributions even on his own team. if Garnett's WS were so low historically for an MVP candidate, Pierce is a joke compared to KG. see, this is where you show you have an agenda. it's completely unreasonable to put Pierce ahead of Garnett when criterias you yourself used to diminish his accomplishments are in his favor in this comparison.

it's one thing to downgrade KG for his lesser boxscore stats (raw stats, he's actually the best in advanced), but when you put him below Duncan and Pierce when they clearly weren't that close to him by any measureable standard, that screws your credibility.

how do you prove it's not the case where you're breaking the rules:

-Vote sincerely. Do not move a player down in your voting to give another player an advantage. I would encourage every voter to give some explanations while they do their voting - but particularly if you have a top 5 that deviates strongly with the norm and you haven't expressed your thoughts on it earlier in the thread. If I'm not satisfied, I may ask you for more of an explanation - and it may come to actually booting people out of the project.

by the way, an interesting thing about KG's Win Shares.
Win Shares = OWS (offensive) + DWS (defensive).
KG led the Celtics along with Pierce in offensive Win Shares in 2008:

Code: Select all

         OWS
KG       6.6
Pierce   6.7
Ray      5.6
Rondo    2.3
Posey    2.2
Perkins  1.9
Powe     2.7
House    1.1

completely reasonable. where it becomes ridiculous is DWS:

Code: Select all

         DWS
KG       6.2
Pierce   5.7
Ray      4.1
Rondo    4.9
Posey    4.0
Perkins  4.3
Powe     1.6
House    2.8

House and Ray are credited together with more DWS than Garnett. Pierce is pretty much even. Rondo and Powe own him together.

the reason why it happened is because DWS is strongly linked to team DRtg. when you're playing a lot of minutes on a team with great DRtg (and Celtics were 2nd all-time behind Spurs in DRtg relative to lg average), you're gonna be automatically credited with a lot DWS regardless of your true impact. after all, it's a boxscore stat and only takes defensive rebounds, blocks and steals into account. that's why Pierce is somewhat comparable to Garnett in DWS, despite the fact that he doesn't even have quarter of impact Garnett does.

historically, it gets even more interesting.
Pierce DWS:

Code: Select all

       DWS
05     3.6
06     3.2
07     1.6
08     5.7

Ray Allen:

Code: Select all

       DWS
05     1.0
06    -0.3
07     0.9
08     4.1

Ray Allen in his career in Milwaukee and Seattle produced combined 14.4 DWS in 32479 mins. in 2008 he produced 4.1 DWS in 2624 mins. in Milwaukee and Seattle his DWS per 48 mins was at 0.021. in 2008 ? 0.075.

so what happened is either Ray Allen vastly improved defensively in Boston, tripling his usual career contributions as a 32-year-old perimeter defender or he lucked out into playing with great defensive anchor who in reality was more responsible for this sudden improvement.

[bastillon]

I contemplated a lot of the analysis with regards to Garnett (someone I already thought was MVP), but just couldn't justify taking him over either James or Bryant. It's possible I'm undervaluing KG's defensive impact, but despite a nice attempt by drza (great posts) I'm not convinced that 08 KG had the same eff-you games in him that 04 KG did. Maybe it's closer than I'm making it...

I suppose you don't value head2head playoff matchups ? Garnett dominated both James and Bryant in their playoff series. I don't know why you would take either above KG in this situation.

Code: Select all

       PPG   TS%   APG   TOV   RPG   SPG   BPG
KG    19.6  0.58   3.1   1.1  10.9   0.9   1.0
James 26.7  0.48   7.6   5.3   6.4   2.1   1.3

this, according to simple metric like Win Score is tripling LeBron's contributions by Garnett. can't have a better proof of KG being a better player than significantly outperforming his rival in the playoff series.

[mysticbb]

this, according to simple metric like Win Score is tripling LeBron's contributions by Garnett. can't have a better proof of KG being a better player than significantly outperforming his rival in the playoff series.

You shouldn't use Win Score or any Dave Berri metric in a comparison. Dave Berri punishes players for creating shots, and really overvalues rebounding. Berri doesn't understand that even the worst shot has a higher probability for points than a turnover. What does that mean? Well, if nobody is taking a shot a shotclock violation occurs and the other team gains possession. The ball is in the hands of some players more often than in others for a reason. Either all coaches in the NBA are morons or Berri is. Well, which one of those is more likely?

[bastillon]

this, according to simple metric like Win Score is tripling LeBron's contributions by Garnett. can't have a better proof of KG being a better player than significantly outperforming his rival in the playoff series.

You shouldn't use Win Score or any Dave Berri metric in a comparison. Dave Berri punishes players for creating shots, and really overvalues rebounding. Berri doesn't understand that even the worst shot has a higher probability for points than a turnover. What does that mean? Well, if nobody is taking a shot a shotclock violation occurs and the other team gains possession. The ball is in the hands of some players more often than in others for a reason. Either all coaches in the NBA are morons or Berri is. Well, which one of those is more likely?

umm Berri didn't invent Win Score...

if you wanna criticize this metric, what substitute do you expect me to use ? Win Score is pretty good IMO.

[mysticbb]

if you wanna criticize this metric, what substitute do you expect me to use ? Win Score is pretty good IMO.

Hollinger's Game Score, which would also give credit to the shot creator. B-R.com is using that.

To explain that a little bit further: Usually around 15% of the shots are taken in late shot clock situation (last 3 seconds), those shots were probably not taken, if it weren't for the shot clock. It also happens that there is a 100% correlation between the overall amount of total rebounds and missed shots. Something like this will screw up any regression analysis.

[bastillon]

it also happens that Win Score correlates better with actual wins as evidenced by Berri. IIRC Game Score doesn't really correlate at all.

WP >>> PER, quite easily. PER doesn't really tell you who's responsible for wins. WP does. the same applies to their ancestors in Win Score and Game Score.

[mysticbb]

it also happens that Win Score correlates better with actual wins as evidenced by Berri. IIRC Game Score doesn't really correlate at all.

Well, I guess you mean Wins Produced. And let me say it with Dan Rosenbaum's words: With the right team adjustment even the player's jersey numbers will have a great correlation to winning. Berri is cheating by using a team adjustment. Without that adjustment his marginal values he is using for Wins Produced will create a rating which has even a lower correlation to winning than NBA.com's EFF. ;)

[Doctor MJ]

Last call guys. Got a couple errands to run, then will tally up.

[lorak]

it also happens that Win Score correlates better with actual wins as evidenced by Berri. IIRC Game Score doesn't really correlate at all.

Well, I guess you mean Wins Produced. And let me say it with Dan Rosenbaum's words: With the right team adjustment even the player's jersey numbers will have a great correlation to winning. Berri is cheating by using a team adjustment. Without that adjustment his marginal values he is using for Wins Produced will create a rating which has even a lower correlation to winning than NBA.com's EFF.

That's not true.

BTW, by my - unofficialy - count KG is the winner with 162 points, Kobe is second with 154 and 24 people voted.

[Silver Bullet]

Anyway, on to my rankings:

1. Kobe Bryant
2. Lebron James
3. Chris Paul
4. Tim Duncan
5. Paul Pierce

HM: Chauncey Billups

how do you justify Pierce over Garnett ? KG murdered him in PER, WS, WP, APM and raw +/-, finished higher in MVP voting and was more recognized for his contributions even on his own team. if Garnett's WS were so low historically for an MVP candidate, Pierce is a joke compared to KG. see, this is where you show you have an agenda. it's completely unreasonable to put Pierce ahead of Garnett when criterias you yourself used to diminish his accomplishments are in his favor in this comparison.

it's one thing to downgrade KG for his lesser boxscore stats (raw stats, he's actually the best in advanced), but when you put him below Duncan and Pierce when they clearly weren't that close to him by any measureable standard, that screws your credibility.

how do you prove it's not the case where you're breaking the rules:

-Vote sincerely. Do not move a player down in your voting to give another player an advantage. I would encourage every voter to give some explanations while they do their voting - but particularly if you have a top 5 that deviates strongly with the norm and you haven't expressed your thoughts on it earlier in the thread. If I'm not satisfied, I may ask you for more of an explanation - and it may come to actually booting people out of the project.

by the way, an interesting thing about KG's Win Shares.
Win Shares = OWS (offensive) + DWS (defensive).
KG led the Celtics along with Pierce in offensive Win Shares in 2008:

Code: Select all

         OWS
KG       6.6
Pierce   6.7
Ray      5.6
Rondo    2.3
Posey    2.2
Perkins  1.9
Powe     2.7
House    1.1

completely reasonable. where it becomes ridiculous is DWS:

Code: Select all

         DWS
KG       6.2
Pierce   5.7
Ray      4.1
Rondo    4.9
Posey    4.0
Perkins  4.3
Powe     1.6
House    2.8

House and Ray are credited together with more DWS than Garnett. Pierce is pretty much even. Rondo and Powe own him together.

the reason why it happened is because DWS is strongly linked to team DRtg. when you're playing a lot of minutes on a team with great DRtg (and Celtics were 2nd all-time behind Spurs in DRtg relative to lg average), you're gonna be automatically credited with a lot DWS regardless of your true impact. after all, it's a boxscore stat and only takes defensive rebounds, blocks and steals into account. that's why Pierce is somewhat comparable to Garnett in DWS, despite the fact that he doesn't even have quarter of impact Garnett does.

historically, it gets even more interesting.
Pierce DWS:

Code: Select all

       DWS
05     3.6
06     3.2
07     1.6
08     5.7

Ray Allen:

Code: Select all

       DWS
05     1.0
06    -0.3
07     0.9
08     4.1

Ray Allen in his career in Milwaukee and Seattle produced combined 14.4 DWS in 32479 mins. in 2008 he produced 4.1 DWS in 2624 mins. in Milwaukee and Seattle his DWS per 48 mins was at 0.021. in 2008 ? 0.075.

so what happened is either Ray Allen vastly improved defensively in Boston, tripling his usual career contributions as a 32-year-old perimeter defender or he lucked out into playing with great defensive anchor who in reality was more responsible for this sudden improvement.

Dude, I think it's been pretty clear from my first post in this thread that i wasn't gonna vote for Garnett, that was well before I knew how the voting would turn out - so I couldn't have had an agenda.

And I don't know if you're familiar with my posting on this board, but I've never been a fan of KG, you can ask a number of posters to vouch for this, but I've always seen him as a 2nd banana ever since I've been here. In the playoffs, Pierce was the heart and soul of the team, in the Finals when he had to be carried off and came back to hit back to back threes is where the series changed. He was the clearcut leader on the team, every time they needed a score, they hopped on Pierce's back - not KG's. And the problem with your advanced stats comparison is, PER and WS and every other metric I'm familiar with, favours big men, especially rebounding - so I compared him to other big men, I posted his stats relative to other big men on the third of fourth page - His numbers are the same as Duncan and Nowitzki and worse than Stoudemire's. BUT he played substantially fewer minutes. So two players have the same stats - but one played a lot fewer minutes - who should get the nod ?
Then I posted another chart, showing how he compared statistically to other big men award winners - and I put this in my explanation too - and he's not even in the same stratosphere.

You are implying, I did not vote sincerely to help Kobe - but it is unfair to lump me in with other crazy Kobe fans - because I'm not that crazy of a Kobe fan to begin with - I'm a crazy fan of the current era, which is why you'll seldom see me pick a past player over a current player, but I have no issues taking Nash, Nowitzki, Duncan, Shaq over him.

For example, you say Duncan is not favorably comparable to KG - but he had 19.7 and 11.3 vs 19 and 8.4 or something AND he played 78 games to 71 - that's one extra 7 game series. And he played 34 minutes vs 32. And he did not have 2 franchise players next to him.

So I don't think I am voting unreasonably here -

[Doctor MJ]

'07-08 Results

Code: Select all

Player             1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th Pts   POY Shares
1. Kevin Garnett     9   6   5   3   0 166   0.692
2. Kobe Bryant       6   7   7   4   0 156   0.650
3. LeBron James      6   4   6   8   0 142   0.592
4. Chris Paul        3   7   6   8   0 133   0.554
5. Tim Duncan        0   0   0   1  16  19   0.079
6. Dirk Nowitzki     0   0   0   0   3   3   0.013
   Steve Nash        0   0   0   0   3   3   0.013
8. Amar'e Stoudemire 0   0   0   0   1   1   0.004
   Paul Pierce       0   0   0   0   1   1   0.004


[NO-KG-AI]

Dude, I think it's been pretty clear from my first post in this thread that i wasn't gonna vote for Garnett, that was well before I knew how the voting would turn out - so I couldn't have had an agenda.

And I don't know if you're familiar with my posting on this board, but I've never been a fan of KG, you can ask a number of posters to vouch for this, but I've always seen him as a 2nd banana ever since I've been here. In the playoffs, Pierce was the heart and soul of the team, in the Finals when he had to be carried off and came back to hit back to back threes is where the series changed. He was the clearcut leader on the team, every time they needed a score, they hopped on Pierce's back - not KG's. And the problem with your advanced stats comparison is, PER and WS and every other metric I'm familiar with, favours big men, especially rebounding - so I compared him to other big men, I posted his stats relative to other big men on the third of fourth page - His numbers are the same as Duncan and Nowitzki and worse than Stoudemire's. BUT he played substantially fewer minutes. So two players have the same stats - but one played a lot fewer minutes - who should get the nod ?
Then I posted another chart, showing how he compared statistically to other big men award winners - and I put this in my explanation too - and he's not even in the same stratosphere.

You are implying, I did not vote sincerely to help Kobe - but it is unfair to lump me in with other crazy Kobe fans - because I'm not that crazy of a Kobe fan to begin with - I'm a crazy fan of the current era, which is why you'll seldom see me pick a past player over a current player, but I have no issues taking Nash, Nowitzki, Duncan, Shaq over him.

For example, you say Duncan is not favorably comparable to KG - but he had 19.7 and 11.3 vs 19 and 8.4 or something AND he played 78 games to 71 - that's one extra 7 game series. And he played 34 minutes vs 32. And he did not have 2 franchise players next to him.

So I don't think I am voting unreasonably here -

drza showed that Garnett was the leading 4th quarter scorer, the leading scorer in the last few minutes, and clinched more games with late buckets than Pierce did.

But yea, Pierce got carried off and hit some 3's.

You're entitled to your own beliefs, just don't make things up like "they always hopped on Pierce's back, when it was already proven otherwise. Pierce was the Tony Parker or Manu, except he wasn't nearly as consistent.