Bruh Man wrote:ElGee wrote:ardee wrote:I don't want to be that guy but some of these posts.... Come on.
I understand this is a team coming off a phenomenal run, they played extremely well as a unit and everyone performed their roles at maximum efficiency.
But these kind of fictional series' are all about matchups. These teams they'd be facing would not be one superstar, one star turned role player, and a broken down shell named Wade.
The Kobe-Shaq Lakers, when in their groove, had just as good shooting and ball-sharing but at the center of it were two all-time matchup nightmares. Seriously, Splitter or a 38 year old Duncan on Shaq? Kawhi is great, he really is, but you're putting him on Kobe at his athletic peak?
The Spurs looked so good defensively against the Heat because the supporting cast just couldn't play. Wade, Chalmers and Cole could barely penetrate, and when they did they simply didn't have the ability to finish. This gave them the chance to let Kawhi play LeBron straight up, let him get his, and keep the rest of the team in the miserable state that it was.
You can't do that to a prime Shaq when you have to worry about a red-hot Fisher or Horry who can very easily 4-5 threes if given space. Oh, and there's that Kobe guy who's going to get to the rim with absurd ease if you start shading Shaq with perimeter players.
And on offense, you think Pop can play those 3 guard lineups or Leonard at the 4 when he has to worry about frontlines with Shaq, Duncan, KG or Dirk in them?
This Spurs team is good, no, it's great, but stop living in the moment. A bunch of past teams were even better and there's nothing wrong with recognizing that.
I'll use this post to make a general point -- this kind of analysis is not reflective of how the game works. The game is global; teams do not compete in 5 one-on-one games. The notion of matchup problems is much richer and complex than this kind of breakdown...
Based on this kind of analysis, the Spurs wouldn't stand a change against a bunch of teams in the league
right now, which should be the indicator that this is not how the game works. San Antonio, of all the teams of the 3-point era, demonstrates the Global, interactive nature of basketball more than any other team.
I see nothing wrong with his analysis, what other way would evaluate the match-up? Out of curiosity how do you think this Spurs team stacks up to the 01 Lakers? Or any of the other champs of the past decade.
The same way I evaluate all team match ups --by looking at the Offense/Defense matchup of each side holistically.
Sometimes that's about one-on-one isolation match ups, but the Spurs almost never play that way.
Second, the equivalency to the Heat is just bizarre. I, nor most in this thread I imagine, think highly of the Spurs because of what they did vs. the Heat.
Then, you get into this hyperbole around the stars -- "Oh, and there's that Kobe guy who's going to get to the rim with absurd ease if you start shading Shaq with perimeter players." Is that like how the LeBron guy would get to the rim with ease? Or Westbrook? Or how no one can "stop" Wilt Chamberlain? Tony Parker switched on to LeBron quite often, even in the post -- do you think that the Heat scored at 2.0 pts/pos all of a sudden on those plays?
Do you know what the defensive juggernaut of Vlade Divac, Chris Webber Scot Pollard and co. did to Shaq in 2001? They got lit up to the tune of 33 ppg on 1.18 pts/TSA. Kobe against the venerable Doug Christie: 35 ppg on 1.18 pts/TSA. And do you know what the Lakers team ORtg was in the series?
110.
They scored 1.10 pts/pos as a team. And that's with this little video-game type scenario at full bore. "Who can stop Shaq? Who can stop Kobe?" We could do nothing more analytical then just say "Pop, Duncan, Split, Len and co. are no better than Sac on defense." And if they get smoked like that by the "two all-time matchup nightmares," all they have to do is score at about 3 points lesser efficiency than they did during the league in 2014 and they still win.
The Spurs ORtgs in the 2014 PS
113
113
114
121
They are like an offensive machine. And they've established themselves as a good team defensive club -- Duncan's still a well above-average anchor. Splitter is solid. Leonard too. And Pop adjusts accordingly. If I were to delve into a full analysis, it would be how LA could defend the Spurs relative to the approach other team take to somehow dent their efficiency (good luck -- I wouldn't be surprised to a zone sprung there), and on the other end how the Spurs would defend LA's attack relative to other teams in the league. Once that's established I'd get more granular with counter-measures, different lineups, etc. (I did this type of analysis last year for Finals right before the matchup if you wanted a full example).
