Giannis Antetokounmpo 20-21 Thread

[Doctor MJ]

For the series:

Giannis: 32/13/3 on 59% TS
Durant: 35/10/5 on 59% TS



I mean, KD was obviously incredible and I have no problem with anyone saying that he edged out Giannis slightly as the better player that series. But this just illustrates how misleading our eyes can be when you look at someone like KD out there making absurd, contested shots in crucial situations, while kind of forgetting about all the little things that a guy like Giannis does simply because he doesn't have a flashy perimeter game. And the numbers don't even illustrate the massive impact advantage he has over Durant on the defensive end.

They weren't taking the same types of shots though. There was vastly more defensive attention on KD.

I don't want to lionized KD too much because I think he's actually at his most impressive when he doesn't have teammates, and he lacks the team understanding to make sure he's always the most impactful guy on the floor, but I think KD was clearly the MVP of that series, and the Bucks won the next series without Giannis. Going into the finals, there really wasn't any reason to say Giannis was the best player in the regular season or the playoffs to my mind.

But he is looking like the best player in the world against the Suns through 4 games, and I think the whole league needs to go back to being afraid of Giannis. "Uh oh, Giannis figured out he's not a point guard. The jig is up."

[70sFan]

For the series:

Giannis: 32/13/3 on 59% TS
Durant: 35/10/5 on 59% TS



I mean, KD was obviously incredible and I have no problem with anyone saying that he edged out Giannis slightly as the better player that series. But this just illustrates how misleading our eyes can be when you look at someone like KD out there making absurd, contested shots in crucial situations, while kind of forgetting about all the little things that a guy like Giannis does simply because he doesn't have a flashy perimeter game. And the numbers don't even illustrate the massive impact advantage he has over Durant on the defensive end.

They weren't taking the same types of shots though. There was vastly more defensive attention on KD.

I don't want to lionized KD too much because I think he's actually at his most impressive when he doesn't have teammates, and he lacks the team understanding to make sure he's always the most impactful guy on the floor, but I think KD was clearly the MVP of that series, and the Bucks won the next series without Giannis. Going into the finals, there really wasn't any reason to say Giannis was the best player in the regular season or the playoffs to my mind.

But he is looking like the best player in the world against the Suns through 4 games, and I think the whole league needs to go back to being afraid of Giannis. "Uh oh, Giannis figured out he's not a point guard. The jig is up."

It seems you also got excited of bigman version of Giannis I'm glad that Giannis started to play like he's supposed to, enough with this all stupid talk about point forward anymore. It seems that he doesn't even need consistent jumpshot when he doesn't play like a guard, which I've been saying for over 2 years.

[parsnips33]

For the series:

Giannis: 32/13/3 on 59% TS
Durant: 35/10/5 on 59% TS



I mean, KD was obviously incredible and I have no problem with anyone saying that he edged out Giannis slightly as the better player that series. But this just illustrates how misleading our eyes can be when you look at someone like KD out there making absurd, contested shots in crucial situations, while kind of forgetting about all the little things that a guy like Giannis does simply because he doesn't have a flashy perimeter game. And the numbers don't even illustrate the massive impact advantage he has over Durant on the defensive end.

They weren't taking the same types of shots though. There was vastly more defensive attention on KD.

I don't want to lionized KD too much because I think he's actually at his most impressive when he doesn't have teammates, and he lacks the team understanding to make sure he's always the most impactful guy on the floor, but I think KD was clearly the MVP of that series, and the Bucks won the next series without Giannis. Going into the finals, there really wasn't any reason to say Giannis was the best player in the regular season or the playoffs to my mind.

But he is looking like the best player in the world against the Suns through 4 games, and I think the whole league needs to go back to being afraid of Giannis. "Uh oh, Giannis figured out he's not a point guard. The jig is up."

It seems you also got excited of bigman version of Giannis I'm glad that Giannis started to play like he's supposed to, enough with this all stupid talk about point forward anymore. It seems that he doesn't even need consistent jumpshot when he doesn't play like a guard, which I've been saying for over 2 years.

I agree with you, but it's also interesting how the guardskills help make him a better big man. Thinking back to a particular play at the end of the game last night where he no-looked essentially a touch pass to Conaughton in the corner that very few big men can make. He's like if Draymond and Amare were morphed together and then stretched out to 7 feet.

[BobbyPortisFan]

For the series:

Giannis: 32/13/3 on 59% TS
Durant: 35/10/5 on 59% TS



I mean, KD was obviously incredible and I have no problem with anyone saying that he edged out Giannis slightly as the better player that series. But this just illustrates how misleading our eyes can be when you look at someone like KD out there making absurd, contested shots in crucial situations, while kind of forgetting about all the little things that a guy like Giannis does simply because he doesn't have a flashy perimeter game. And the numbers don't even illustrate the massive impact advantage he has over Durant on the defensive end.

They weren't taking the same types of shots though. There was vastly more defensive attention on KD.

I don't want to lionized KD too much because I think he's actually at his most impressive when he doesn't have teammates, and he lacks the team understanding to make sure he's always the most impactful guy on the floor, but I think KD was clearly the MVP of that series, and the Bucks won the next series without Giannis. Going into the finals, there really wasn't any reason to say Giannis was the best player in the regular season or the playoffs to my mind.

But he is looking like the best player in the world against the Suns through 4 games, and I think the whole league needs to go back to being afraid of Giannis. "Uh oh, Giannis figured out he's not a point guard. The jig is up."

Seriously? Durant got outsocred by giannis in 4 out of the 7 games(2 of which were with kyrie), got outcreated, got out defended and lost. Stastically durant actually had more help. Durant had a lower percentange of his team's effiency and volume than giannis's did. How was he the mvp?

The defensive game plan to stop giannis is a suped up version of the jordan rules. Durant spent much of the series being defended in single coveage. Durant had to take harder shots because of his defiencies as an athelete comapred to giannis. If you want to say the bucks defense was better, fine, but that defense is built around giannis.

With Giannis they went 2 to 1 up on the hawks with a healthy trae. Without giannis they went 2 to 1 on the hawks without trae. How good do you think the trae less hawks are? It's not like giannis can't thrive off ball, so blaming him for his teammates performance with him seems wierd. And if you're going to do that, it's probably worth pointing out that in the first two game of the finals giannis had a postive plus minus in both games despite the other bucks getting destroyed.

Also, is this really the way you wanna go this postseason? The clippers were 2 wins away from the final without kawhi. The nets were the second seed withotu durant, the sixers played alright without embid. The only players who this wouldn't apply to are curry and jokic... Were they your no.1 and 2?

[JulesWinnfield]

People get enamored with skill level at the expense of actual production. Players do too, it’s why I think Kevin Durant would 100% pass a lie detector test in a private moment telling you he’s been better than Lebron, because “my bag is so much deeper”. I’m old enough to remember Shaq sometimes being underrated as we lived through it, especially before he broke through and won. Even after he won he was often minimized by people in the same way we’d hear Harden talk about Giannis “oh he’s just so big and athletic it takes no actual skill the game is just easy”. Production. Keep a laser focus on that because at the end of the day that’s all that matters, not how it looks

Giannis actual production takes a back seat to no one in the sport right now (defining “right now” as the last 3 seasons), especially when you take both ends of the floor into account. When you take durability into account there is frankly no one who has any argument against him whatsoever in this span

[falcolombardi]

For the series:

Giannis: 32/13/3 on 59% TS
Durant: 35/10/5 on 59% TS



I mean, KD was obviously incredible and I have no problem with anyone saying that he edged out Giannis slightly as the better player that series. But this just illustrates how misleading our eyes can be when you look at someone like KD out there making absurd, contested shots in crucial situations, while kind of forgetting about all the little things that a guy like Giannis does simply because he doesn't have a flashy perimeter game. And the numbers don't even illustrate the massive impact advantage he has over Durant on the defensive end.

They weren't taking the same types of shots though. There was vastly more defensive attention on KD.

I don't want to lionized KD too much because I think he's actually at his most impressive when he doesn't have teammates, and he lacks the team understanding to make sure he's always the most impactful guy on the floor, but I think KD was clearly the MVP of that series, and the Bucks won the next series without Giannis. Going into the finals, there really wasn't any reason to say Giannis was the best player in the regular season or the playoffs to my mind.

But he is looking like the best player in the world against the Suns through 4 games, and I think the whole league needs to go back to being afraid of Giannis. "Uh oh, Giannis figured out he's not a point guard. The jig is up."

is not that kinda giving extra points por degree of difficulty ? a dunk/lay up and a fade away are worth the same 2 points after all

if anythingh, i would think giannis baskets being

putbacks/off boards (greater value than normal buckets cause the comparative return is 2 points instead of zero, not 2 instead of the average 1 per possesion)

drives that collpase the paint are involved many nets players to guard, for comparision bucks defended dursnt with single coverage for the most part so i dont understand what was that special defensive attention dursnt supposedly got (and the numbers suggest it was not a bad choice to not double, nets offense was kinda weak overall)

rolls in a pick and roll (where giannis makes more for jrue or middleton drives with the threat of his roll than middleton or jrue make for him as ballhandlers imo)

is probably a less pretty but more impactful scoring than durant iso or spot up game imo

durant impact in offense has always lagged behind the star guards he played with, even with a less tslented player overall like westbrook the impact stats sometimes liked west more, they also used to like curry more, and this season liked harden more

that is probably because dursnt is able to score efficiently on his own which helps a team, but less so of cresting easy points for teammates, he is extremely additive but not particularly team lifting

which i think is a underdiscussed part of his game. durant will take a quarter of your team shots in good efficiency but he wont raiser the other players field goals % quite as much, even against bucks the nets offense was bad despite dursnt theoricallt carrying it

giannis flawed of a playmaker as he is, i still believe he generates more for his teammates than kd... and that is only offense, there ks the defense part where giannis is easily better too

i just dont see durant as better than giannis that series

[TroubleS0me]

Game 4


Giannis
14 REBS
3 STLS
2 BLKS
8 AST
1 TOV
8 FREE THROW ATTEMPTS
11-19 FG% 57.9
FT 4-8 % 50
26 PTS

Middleton

40 PTS [ playoff career high ]
15-33 FG% 45.5
8 FREE THROW ATTEMPTS
7-8 FT% 87.5
2 STLS
6 REBS

Holiday
3 STLS
7 REBS
3 OFF REBS
7 AST
1 TOV
5-5 FT% 100

Connaughton
9 REBS

TOTAL STLS : 8 STLS between [Giannis, Holiday, & Middleton]

TOTAL REBS: 36 REBS with Pat C

[Doctor MJ]

For the series:

Giannis: 32/13/3 on 59% TS
Durant: 35/10/5 on 59% TS



I mean, KD was obviously incredible and I have no problem with anyone saying that he edged out Giannis slightly as the better player that series. But this just illustrates how misleading our eyes can be when you look at someone like KD out there making absurd, contested shots in crucial situations, while kind of forgetting about all the little things that a guy like Giannis does simply because he doesn't have a flashy perimeter game. And the numbers don't even illustrate the massive impact advantage he has over Durant on the defensive end.

They weren't taking the same types of shots though. There was vastly more defensive attention on KD.

I don't want to lionized KD too much because I think he's actually at his most impressive when he doesn't have teammates, and he lacks the team understanding to make sure he's always the most impactful guy on the floor, but I think KD was clearly the MVP of that series, and the Bucks won the next series without Giannis. Going into the finals, there really wasn't any reason to say Giannis was the best player in the regular season or the playoffs to my mind.

But he is looking like the best player in the world against the Suns through 4 games, and I think the whole league needs to go back to being afraid of Giannis. "Uh oh, Giannis figured out he's not a point guard. The jig is up."

Seriously? Durant got outsocred by giannis in 4 out of the 7 games(2 of which were with kyrie), got outcreated, got out defended and lost. Stastically durant actually had more help. Durant had a lower percentange of his team's effiency and volume than giannis's did. How was he the mvp?

I'm not sure what approach you're using to conclude that Durant had more help.

What we all know is that Middleton was a better scoring threat than anyone healthy on Brooklyn's roster - save Durant. Since you're not even addressing that, maybe start there. Middleton's a guy capable of leading a team past the Conference Finals team without Giannis and who we just saw scored 40. On what basis are you saing Durant had more help than that?

The defensive game plan to stop giannis is a suped up version of the jordan rules. Durant spent much of the series being defended in single coveage. Durant had to take harder shots because of his defiencies as an athelete comapred to giannis. If you want to say the bucks defense was better, fine, but that defense is built around giannis.

A big part of the Jordan Rules was to be mindful of Jordan's Durant-level mid-range shooting. With Giannis, the whole thing is just to not let him near the rim because he's useless from everywhere else.

Re: Bucks defense around Giannis! Well right, but the series was close because the Bucks couldn't do that much against a Net defense that had no business being seen as competent. They were able to look competent against the Bucks because of Giannis' limitations.

I said to multiple people up front that I thought Giannis had a good chance to average 40 against the Nets. I was really disappointed he wasn't able to do more. Had it been KD up against that Nets' defense, he'd have destroyed it.

I should be clear that I'm not trying to ignore the case for Giannis based on defense, but I take issue with trying to reduce offense down to simply what you can see in the box score.

With Giannis they went 2 to 1 up on the hawks with a healthy trae. Without giannis they went 2 to 1 on the hawks without trae. How good do you think the trae less hawks are? It's not like giannis can't thrive off ball, so blaming him for his teammates performance with him seems wierd. And if you're going to do that, it's probably worth pointing out that in the first two game of the finals giannis had a postive plus minus in both games despite the other bucks getting destroyed.

The Bucks finished off the Hawks because their offense was awesome. Yes an injured Trae hurts some, but it's way over-simplistic to assume that they could have done the same attack with Giannis out there. We've seen time and again that when Giannis isn't there, Middleton just becomes the alpha, and it's really nice when you have an alpha who can handle the ball, shoot, and pass better than Giannis can.

Re: Not like Giannis can't thrive off ball so blaming him for his teammates....wait, stop dude. Focus on how the teams actually play.

Point Giannis cripples his teammates and himself against top playoff defenses. Don't blame his teammates for that.

Want to blame Giannis' coaches for trying Point Giannis when he was struggling with a more a-traditional big man role? Okay, but do give back those 2 MVPs, because that approach was central to how he got those.

I completely agree with you that the way to play Giannis from here out is to play off-ball, and the fact that he's doing it in this series is central to why there's good reason to think they'll win...but against Brooklyn, the Bucks played dumb, and they'd have been slaughtered if the Nets had been healthy.

Also, is this really the way you wanna go this postseason? The clippers were 2 wins away from the final without kawhi. The nets were the second seed withotu durant, the sixers played alright without embid. The only players who this wouldn't apply to are curry and jokic... Were they your no.1 and 2?

Not sure where you're going with this rhetoric. I have analyses on all these things because that's what I do, but I'd say you're just bringing this stuff up right now though because you're defending your guy, not because you care about my thoughts on them, else you wouldn't have thrown them in at the last part of your post when it's not really much of response to what I said.

[letskissbro]

Am I the only one who's coming out of these playoffs lower on Giannis than last year? His box score numbers are better and things worked out for his team because of the Bucks' injury ridden path to the finals but this is the third year in a row that we've seen him barely make a dent in the quality of his team's offense. I felt comfortable chalking it up to sample size variance but at this point it's a clear trend that point Giannis is kinda gimmicky.

He just doesn't feel like a scalable offensive player to me. He requires 4 shooters around him to play his game and he isn't as good in a "#2 on offense, #1 on defense" type role as past bigs in his mold because they provided more offensively with their off ball game and/or were more impactful defenders (largely attributable to era).

[ZeppelinPage]

I agree with viewing Durant's series more favorably offensively compared to Giannis.

The most important points are:

1. Durant had less help without Kyrie and Harden for much of the series--also, Jeff Green was out for the first couple games.

and more importantly,

2. The Bucks defense was significantly better than what the Nets had shown the entire season. Giannis should have put those numbers up against Durant--hell, they probably shove have been even better from an efficiency stand-point. So, I think Durant had quite an uphill battle for himself, in comparison.

This is not even mentioning the shot creation Durant provided. No one else on that Nets team could create offense, so it was up to Durant to provide that. He was making extremely difficult shots with his team lacking and the defense focusing on him--that was the difference. This is why I always take into account context: Who is injured? Who is playing poorly? What defense is better? What offense? All of that matters in terms of evaluating performance.

[falcolombardi]

i love jrue but he has been doing his best Eric bledsoe imoersonation all these playoffs, specially against nets and suns. he has not been a "offensive all star" at all

and middleton totally dissapeared in many of those games while taking over a couple of them

the amount of help they gave giannis against nets offensively is pretty overstated by name recognition. hell, if jrue actually played as an all star that series doesnt even go to 7

durant performance is also overstated by raw points per game, his efficiency was only moderate and he didnt lift the nets to even average offense against bucks (and that included kyrie for half the series). for a carry job, it was not the most impressive one team results wise

it was better at looking impressive than at actually lifting his team offense

i have to remind people durant faced single coverage all series long, it was a bit deal, bud got really criticized over it
is not like the absences of kyrie and harden has him faving double coverage all game long line has happened to other stars

nets still has strong spacing, durant still has space to operate 1vs1

his volume/load increases and he was forced to generated his own offense and he -relatively- struggled doing so, for all the myth about durant resiliency and inevitability... he is a lot less efficient when not having a superstar guard as primary ball handler getting him easy shots

[parsnips33]

i love jrue but he has been doing his best Eric bledsoe imoersonation all these playoffs, specially against nets and suns. he has not been a "offensive all star" at all

and middleton totally dissapeared in many of those games while taking over a couple of them

the amount of help they have giannis against nets offensively is pretty overstated by name recognition

durant performance is also overstated by raw points per game, his efficiency was only moderate and he didnt lift the nets to even average offense against bucks (and that included kyrie for half the series)

i have to remind people durant faced single coverage all series long, it was a bit deal, bud got really criticized over it
is not like the absences of kyrie and harden has him faving double coverage all game long line has happened to other stars

nets still has strong spacing, durant still has space to operate 1vs1

his volume/load increases and he was forced to generated his own offense and he -relatively- struggled doing so, for all the myth about durant resiliency and inevitability... he is a lot less efficient when not having a superstar guard as primary ball handler getting him easy shots

No kidding lol. He still took what could be the eventual champions to 7 with half his team injured and Joe Harris shooting like Joe Biden

[falcolombardi]

Am I the only one who's coming out of these playoffs lower on Giannis than last year? His box score numbers are better and things worked out for his team because of the Bucks' injury ridden path to the finals but this is the third year in a row that we've seen him barely make a dent in the quality of his team's offense. I felt comfortable chalking it up to sample size variance but at this point it's a clear trend that point Giannis is kinda gimmicky.

He just doesn't feel like a scalable offensive player to me. He requires 4 shooters around him to play his game and he isn't as good in a "#2 on offense, #1 on defense" type role as past bigs in his mold because they provided more offensively with their off ball game and/or were more impactful defenders (largely attributable to era).

the only series they benefitted from injury was nets, and according to this board healthy nets are unbeatable so i dont see why not being good enough to beat a hipothetically unbeatable team would be held against bucks
is not beating healthy warriors held against kawhi?

Miami was healthtly, hawks and suns were/have been healthier than bucks

it got forgottwn than bucks lost a starter in divicenzo

against hawks the missed him and 2 and a half games of giannis vs the missed games of young

against suns they are missing a starter vs suns missing a backup

[feyki]

Seems he turned to his normal after the two consecutive games . Mostly about 40+ b2b games, but these two games reminds me 2016 Finals; because of Dray/Lebron loop on Yannis/Ayton. I wonder about Lebron's and Yannis' statlines when Draymond and Ayton on the court.

[KTM_2813]

Am I the only one who's coming out of these playoffs lower on Giannis than last year? His box score numbers are better and things worked out for his team because of the Bucks' injury ridden path to the finals but this is the third year in a row that we've seen him barely make a dent in the quality of his team's offense. I felt comfortable chalking it up to sample size variance but at this point it's a clear trend that point Giannis is kinda gimmicky.

He just doesn't feel like a scalable offensive player to me. He requires 4 shooters around him to play his game and he isn't as good in a "#2 on offense, #1 on defense" type role as past bigs in his mold because they provided more offensively with their off ball game and/or were more impactful defenders (largely attributable to era).

If I had to guess, I'd say that you're probably in the extreme minority. Most people, myself included, are feeling better about Giannis than ever before. Perhaps I'm being too emotional, but it's hard not to think higher of someone (or at least not think less of them) after registering one of the best back-to-back performances in NBA Finals history and possibly the greatest block in NBA Finals history, all on the heels of a hyperextended knee.

I also think you're a bit too focused on the idea of scalability. For one, some of the most successful players in the history of the NBA had low scalability in the Ben Taylor sense, so I'm not sure how much it actually matters. Secondly, the Bucks have not been a great three-point shooting team in the playoffs. They're shooting 32%, which is 14th out of 16 teams and would have ranked dead last in the regular season. In spite of this, Giannis is playing well and the team is winning, so it kind of runs contradictory to the idea that he requires a bunch of elite shooters around him.

[BobbyPortisFan]

They weren't taking the same types of shots though. There was vastly more defensive attention on KD.

I don't want to lionized KD too much because I think he's actually at his most impressive when he doesn't have teammates, and he lacks the team understanding to make sure he's always the most impactful guy on the floor, but I think KD was clearly the MVP of that series, and the Bucks won the next series without Giannis. Going into the finals, there really wasn't any reason to say Giannis was the best player in the regular season or the playoffs to my mind.

But he is looking like the best player in the world against the Suns through 4 games, and I think the whole league needs to go back to being afraid of Giannis. "Uh oh, Giannis figured out he's not a point guard. The jig is up."

Seriously? Durant got outsocred by giannis in 4 out of the 7 games(2 of which were with kyrie), got outcreated, got out defended and lost. Stastically durant actually had more help. Durant had a lower percentange of his team's effiency and volume than giannis's did. How was he the mvp?

I'm not sure what approach you're using to conclude that Durant had more help.

What we all know is that Middleton was a better scoring threat than anyone healthy on Brooklyn's roster - save Durant. Since you're not even addressing that, maybe start there. Middleton's a guy capable of leading a team past the Conference Finals team without Giannis and who we just saw scored 40. On what basis are you saing Durant had more help than that?

The defensive game plan to stop giannis is a suped up version of the jordan rules. Durant spent much of the series being defended in single coveage. Durant had to take harder shots because of his defiencies as an athelete comapred to giannis. If you want to say the bucks defense was better, fine, but that defense is built around giannis.

A big part of the Jordan Rules was to be mindful of Jordan's Durant-level mid-range shooting. With Giannis, the whole thing is just to not let him near the rim because he's useless from everywhere else.

Re: Bucks defense around Giannis! Well right, but the series was close because the Bucks couldn't do that much against a Net defense that had no business being seen as competent. They were able to look competent against the Bucks because of Giannis' limitations.

I said to multiple people up front that I thought Giannis had a good chance to average 40 against the Nets. I was really disappointed he wasn't able to do more. Had it been KD up against that Nets' defense, he'd have destroyed it.

I should be clear that I'm not trying to ignore the case for Giannis based on defense, but I take issue with trying to reduce offense down to simply what you can see in the box score.

With Giannis they went 2 to 1 up on the hawks with a healthy trae. Without giannis they went 2 to 1 on the hawks without trae. How good do you think the trae less hawks are? It's not like giannis can't thrive off ball, so blaming him for his teammates performance with him seems wierd. And if you're going to do that, it's probably worth pointing out that in the first two game of the finals giannis had a postive plus minus in both games despite the other bucks getting destroyed.

The Bucks finished off the Hawks because their offense was awesome. Yes an injured Trae hurts some, but it's way over-simplistic to assume that they could have done the same attack with Giannis out there. We've seen time and again that when Giannis isn't there, Middleton just becomes the alpha, and it's really nice when you have an alpha who can handle the ball, shoot, and pass better than Giannis can.

Re: Not like Giannis can't thrive off ball so blaming him for his teammates....wait, stop dude. Focus on how the teams actually play.

Point Giannis cripples his teammates and himself against top playoff defenses. Don't blame his teammates for that.

Want to blame Giannis' coaches for trying Point Giannis when he was struggling with a more a-traditional big man role? Okay, but do give back those 2 MVPs, because that approach was central to how he got those.

I completely agree with you that the way to play Giannis from here out is to play off-ball, and the fact that he's doing it in this series is central to why there's good reason to think they'll win...but against Brooklyn, the Bucks played dumb, and they'd have been slaughtered if the Nets had been healthy.

Also, is this really the way you wanna go this postseason? The clippers were 2 wins away from the final without kawhi. The nets were the second seed withotu durant, the sixers played alright without embid. The only players who this wouldn't apply to are curry and jokic... Were they your no.1 and 2?

Not sure where you're going with this rhetoric. I have analyses on all these things because that's what I do, but I'd say you're just bringing this stuff up right now though because you're defending your guy, not because you care about my thoughts on them, else you wouldn't have thrown them in at the last part of your post when it's not really much of response to what I said.

Giannis versus Nets: 30.4 per 75 on +9.8% rest of team efficiency

Luka versus Clippers: 34.9 per 75 on +2% rest of team efficiency

Durant versus Bucks: 32.7 per 75 on +5.4% rest of team efficiency

Giannis was twice as effecient relative to his teammates on similar volume. The narrative that durant "almost beat the bucks without help" is silly. When durant didn't have a healthy version of the second best player in the series, his team went 1-3. And even then harden was still an effective decoy, and blake/bowen went off. When he had kyrie he went 2 to 1, ad may or may not have lost the 4th game. KD had more help than giannis, had a better coach, and still lost. How is kd the mvp?. If your calling card is scoring and you do that ineffeciently for most of the series, i don't get how you can say it was his teamamtes fault he lost.

Maybe you could say kd's playmaking? But it looked to me like giannis was creating more looks, and fwiw, some redditor apparently counted all the created shots or something and he said giannis averaged six created looks a game while durant averaged three.

No? Harden and Kyrie are both much bigger scorng threats than middleton. The bucks even trapped game five harden when he was hobbling on one leg.

Probably fair for the 2020 mvp. But 2019 point forward giannis was only really stoppable by one or two teams in the league at the time(depending on what you feel about the sixers.)

Wasn't the defense "minding jordan in the midrange" just them having a dude track him till he crossed into the free throw line? Do you think putting a defender on a speeding giannis would work?

I concede on everything else.

[BobbyPortisFan]

I agree with viewing Durant's series more favorably offensively compared to Giannis.

The most important points are:

1. Durant had less help without Kyrie and Harden for much of the series--also, Jeff Green was out for the first couple games.

and more importantly,

2. The Bucks defense was significantly better than what the Nets had shown the entire season. Giannis should have put those numbers up against Durant--hell, they probably shove have been even better from an efficiency stand-point. So, I think Durant had quite an uphill battle for himself, in comparison.

This is not even mentioning the shot creation Durant provided. No one else on that Nets team could create offense, so it was up to Durant to provide that. He was making extremely difficult shots with his team lacking and the defense focusing on him--that was the difference. This is why I always take into account context: Who is injured? Who is playing poorly? What defense is better? What offense? All of that matters in terms of evaluating performance.

Thoughts on this?

Giannis versus Nets: 30.4 per 75 on +9.8% rest of team efficiency

Luka versus Clippers: 34.9 per 75 on +2% rest of team efficiency

Durant versus Bucks: 32.7 per 75 on +5.4% rest of team efficiency

Defensive quality woudl be accounted for here right?

[70sFan]

Team efficiency doesn't make any sense to me to be honest.

[JulesWinnfield]

32.3 ppg 13 Rebs 5.6 ast on a 63.4 TS% and some of the most memorable defensive plays we’ve seen in the finals, plays that will make their way onto highlight reels for eternity. All after his knee bent backward in a way that had people fearing a 9-12 month recovery at first

[TroubleS0me]

Game 5

Giannis
32 PTS
11 Free throw attempts (4-11)
6 AST
0 TOV
FG% 60.9
FG (14-23)
9 REBS


Holiday
13 AST
3 STLS
1 BLK
27 PTS
FG% 60
FG 12-20
3PT FG% 50
3PT FG 3-5

Middleton
29 PTS
7 REBS
FG 12-23
FG% 52.2