Chuck Texas wrote:Looked it up myself:
Regular Season
Dirk 23/8/2 46/39/89
KG 22/12/4 52/29/79 And obviously the 3 pt % is irrelevant because KG took like 10 total and that was never his game.
Dirk's team won a couple more games, but again that's irrelevant here.
So yeah I'd concede KG was the better performer in the games both guys played in. I wouldn't call it "one-sided", but clearly an edge to KG.
Post Season (warning tiny sample)
Dirk 33/16/1 53/73/89
KG 24/19/5 43/50/72
First, its obvious KG was great in that series(tho his defense actually wasnt that great as the guy he mostly guarded Finley had maybe the best playoff series of his career) but Dirk was still considerably better. Those are monster numbers. I wouldn't say "one-sided" here either tho not when KG played that well.
So while H2H isn't the best way to compare KG and Dirk imo, I can buy into the idea that KG played a little better than Dirk overall in their matchups.
When I saw the mini-exchange between you and Ushvinder, I had a vague memory that once I had put a bit of time into breaking down the head-to-head matchups between KG and Dirk through the years. It niggled me, so I looked and I have a spreadsheet called "KG vs Dirk". Apparently I had a LOT of free time at some point (the file was last saved in early 2012), because there's a crap-ton of data in the spreadsheet. Not to jump in on the conclusions of your exchange, but I'll post some things here and, like Owly said, people can make of it what they will.
The overall head-to-head numbers from basketball-reference include every time their teams have faced off, but circumstances have changed a lot through time. For instance, in 98-99 Dirk wasn't even a full-time starter yet while KG was early prime so those numbers skew in KG's favor. Meanwhile, in later years Garnett has had a clearly different role so I think it's good to separate them into epochs. Plus, as pointed out, we aren't sure exactly how often they were covering each other in Minnesota. But in Boston I can attest that, especially in this time period, they were the primary covers for each other. Plus, I had access to more detailed play-by-play data for the Boston years so I was able to see how they played on the court against each other vs how they played when the other was on the bench.
Alright, let's do it.
KG vs Dirk 2000 - 2007, when KG was in Minnesota and both were starting
25 games. Mavs lead the win/loss 15 - 10
Dirk: 38.5 mpg, 23.1 ppg (8/17.2 FG, 5.4/6.2 FT, 58.0% TS), 8.4 rpg, 2.2 apg, 1.3 TO
KG: 38.5 mpg, 24.3 ppg (9.5/17.8 FG, 5/6.6 FT, 58.6% TS), 12.6 rpg, 4.9 apg, 2.9 TO
Again, we don't know who was guarding who in these games. However, I did think it was interesting that KG actually outscored him on the same scoring efficiency while posting the clear rebounding and assist edges that you would expect.
KG vs Dirk 2002 playoffs
3 games, Mavs win 3 - 0
Dirk: 43.3 mpg, 33.3 ppg (10/19 FG, 10.7/12 FT, 68.6% TS), 15.7 rpg, 0.7 apg, 2.0 TO
KG: 43.3 mpg, 24 ppg (8/18.7 FG, 7.7/10.7 FT, 51.4% TS), 18.7 rpg, 5.0 apg, 4.0 TO
As has been pretty clearly established, they didn't spend a whole lot of time guarding each other. Chuck, I'd quibble slightly with you saying that KG was primarily on Finley because that doesn't match my memory (I remember Wally mainly on Finley, and KG spending time as primary cover for Najera, Dirk and LaFrentz at different times but with a lot of helping off). But that really isn't the biggest deal.
Incidentally, at the time I made the spreadsheet it wasn't as universally accepted that KG wasn't on Dirk much that series, so I had gone through and found some Youtube clips that showed highlights from games 2 and 3 of that series. I did basic scoring on both clips and broke down when Dirk was scoring on KG, when KG was trying to help onto Dirk, when KG was helping someone else off of Dirk, or just not on KG at all.
In game 2, the clip showed 20 of Dirk's 31 points.
4 of his 20 points were scored on KG 1-on-1
3 of the 20 points were scored when KG was trying to help onto Dirk (I think it was a 3-pointer)
3 of the 20 points were scored when KG was helping someone else off of Dirk
10 of the points were just not scored on KG
In game 3, the clip showed 35 of Dirk's 39 points
2 of his 35 points were scored on KG 1-on-1
4 of his 35 points were scored when KG was trying to help onto Dirk
5 of his 35 points were scored when KG was helping someone else off of Dirk
24 of his 35 points were just not scored on KG
All told, across the two Youtube clips, 55 of Dirk's points were shown. 6 of those were scored on KG 1-on-1, 7 were scored when KG was guarding someone else and helping onto Dirk, 8 were scored when KG was guarding Dirk and helping onto someone else, and 34 were scored when KG just wasn't the one guarding him (including fast breaks).
KG vs Dirk, the Boston years (up through Feb. 20, 2012)
10 games total, teams were 5 - 5. But, KG missed 3 of the games. Celtics led series 4 - 3 in games KG played, Mavs led 2 - 1 in games KG sat.
Here, I went through play-by-play data and calculated both KG's and Dirk's stats when both were on the court, Dirk's stats when KG was out of the game (but playing in the game), and Dirk's stats when KG sat out the game completely. And as I mentioned above, during this phase of their careers Dirk and KG were spending a lot of time as each other's primary defenders.
Overall, Dirk played about 200 minutes with KG on the court. He played about 68 minutes with KG off the court (but actually playing in those games), and he had 116 minutes on-court in games KG didn't play in at all. KG had about 31 minutes on-court without Dirk.
Broken down in per-36 minute style:
Dirk (KG on): 21.0 pp36, 57.3% TS, 7.6 reb, 1.6 ast, 3.4 TO
Dirk (KG off): 31.2 pp36, 59.4% TS, 7.9 reb, 1.6 ast, 1.6 TO
Dirk (KG out): 31.3 pp36, 59.6% TS, 11.3 reb, 3.3 ast, 2.0 TO
KG (Dirk on): 18.4 pp36, 50.3% TS, 8.8 reb, 1.8 ast, 1.4 TO
KG (Dirk off): 16.3 pp36, 44.4% TS, 11.6 reb, 5.8 ast, 0 TO
Some fun notes. Clearly they were at much different parts of their careers than the Minnesota numbers. DIrk's role was similar but in Boston (especially post 2008) KG had more defensive than offensive priorities in general. However, when playing Dirk it was clear that defending him was his main priority even beyond his own offense (that conclusion is my opinion from watching the game, not the numbers. But I think the numbers supports it).
It's interesting to see that Dirk absolutely exploded against Boston any time KG wasn't on the court, be it in games that KG was playing but on the bench or games he sat out completely. In both instances Dirk was scoring over 31 pp36 on about 59.5% TS without KG. With KG on court, though, his scoring dropped dramatically (by 10 pp36 and a couple TS%) and his turnovers doubled as well with no bump in assists. On KG's end, his scoring efficiency was poor (though interestingly better when Dirk was on the court), but across the board he came pretty close to equalling Dirk when both were on the court.
Both KG and Dirk seemed to have better non-scoring contributions when they didn't have to worry about the other. Dirk's rebounding/assist bumps happened more in the games KG didn't play in at all, while KG's bumps in those areas came in games with Dirk playing but while Dirk was on the bench.
Bottom line
Again, I put the numbers out there and people can make of it what they will. When taken to this level of detail, it seems clear to me that KG was generally outplaying Dirk to a solid degree in his Minnesota days (though we don't know what proportion of the time they were guarding each other). In Boston Dirk was still near peak as KG went post-prime and changed roles, but we know they were spending more time on each other (especially KG on Dirk). While their on-court numbers were comparable against each other, I'd argue that KG being able to reduce Dirk's scoring output to such a significant degree represented a win because this really hurt the Mavs' approach.
Again, Chuck, not meant to be combatitive (you've already conceded the point to a degree, which is fair). I'm just further amplifying the detail on the comparison, so that we can all make more informed decisions.
) in such backwoods as Minnesota. Also Duncan and Nowitzki played on winning teams (even more so - they played on some absolutely elite teams in the league) and the winning bias is a tremendous factor as far as the All-NBA selections, MVP voting results etc. KG missing the playoffs in his prime 3 times in a row certainly didn't help his reputation, either (despite the fact that it was virtually impossible to lead the 2005-07 Wolves to the playoffs, in the Western conference). Make no mistake, it had a lot of impact on those results, and that's why I don't even take accolades like that into account. All facts point to KG being Kobe's equal (or better) most of the time (before '09, that is, although I think that Garnett's unimpressive volume stats are deceiving, and Kobe wasn't necessarily better every year after 2010 - for instance I'd take 2012 KG over Kobe).
