ShotCreator wrote:Gonna almost certainly be someone with a high capacity for truly elite defense.
Jordan out of the question IMO. Just never even near the kind of defender needed.
Joel Embiid crushed the Raptors and Nets offenses so much in the 19 playoffs he was tilting games toward blowouts in just a few minutes at a time.
Defense can scale up astronomically.
LeBron was amazing in the back end of the 16 finals. Magic level offense, Russell level defense, t minimum for 3 games.
However on the whole, one of those absolute max motor Duncan series from 01-03 could be overall as good if not better.
Even KG had a 19 Embiid type playoff run at like 35 in 2012. In/out splits showed he wa a pretty much shutting LeBron down drastically in that series, and LeBron erupted outrageously in the non-KG mins.
Only god knows the kind of destruction two-at guys would put on pre-1997.
One thing about Jordan in these is, is his offense even better than a hot….like Lillard or somebody? Lillard when hot, and he’s been piping hot in the playoffs although a generally bad playoff player, his offense is likely better and more floor shifting than Jordan’s.
Shaq has some really dominant overall series where his foul rate ruined rotations, and on top of an efficient 30/13, he made teams less aggressive on both ends with his presence, and it’s a visible thing only +/- can pick up. And could even affect the game with him off court.
17 Kawhi likely peaked higher than any wing in the era though. His series against Memphis he tamed a piping hot Conley, and had a cyborg Kobe kind of shot creation series. Superhuman stuff that I just haven’t seen since. 22 Butler was not a regular kind of great either but Kawhi was more resilient.
09 LeBron is a different era. Confident he peaked higher than any Jordan series or run of any kind.
Oh brother the myth of 17 Kawhi series against Memphis. Danny Green was who cooled Conley down not Kawhi and there was no Tony Allen that series. Kawhi went off against 40yo Vc, James Ennis and Wayne Seldon relax. He was good but not spectacular against Houston. They had their best defensive performance without him where they forced elimination game James to one of his worst bed **** meltdowns. There were excuses for Kawhis defense that season and defensive metrics not aligning when while opponent 3pt shooting was a factor a lot of it was the Jonathan Simmons minutes and him playing better wing defense than Kawhi that season and we saw that when Kawhi was out. I know Bpm, Vorp, Raptor etc are the foundation for a lot of your analysis but there's more to it than that
Jimmy's defense this playoff run was def better than Kawhis 17 playoff defense or any of his defensive playoff runs besides 16. His defense on Trae, Maxey, Harden and Jaylen was real not like Kawhis fake defense on Conley which again Conley was mostly on fire when Danny was on the bench.
And that was Jimmy's 41/9/5 game 1 with 4 steals and 3 blocks. Tucker was def the biggest issue for Jayson by far and Dipos ball pressure made Jaylens live dribble tougher but Jimmy's overall defense this run was tremendous and higher level than any non 16 Kawhi playoff run
Dunno how to properly gauge Kawhis overrated 19 playoff defense with how loaded that roster was and Nurse turning out to be a defensive mastermind too
