2021-22 RealGM All-Season Awards - Discussion Thread

[Outside]

The thing is for me, it wasn't a slight dip. It was a clear and sizeable regression.

I know Curry got injured, but we still have to take into account what happened.

His RS was GOAT level. His playoffs tailed off by a very sizeable amount. His on-off per 100 possessions in the playoffs was even negative I think.

I think most here would consider his playoffs a disappointment then.

i remember vividly how curry murdered oklahoma in 2016, which is why i dont think he was all that hurt during the finals imo

that narrative kinda took hold only after the fact if i remember correctly

i'll never forget this game

Watch on YouTube

in curry's first game back from injury he had maybe the best overtime performance i've ever seen and proclaimed "i'm back." and it certainly looked like it through the WCF

And Robert Williams has looked great in some games, so his injury is also not an issue, right?

This will be the last I'll say on it because it's all been said before, and anyone who wants to say that the injury was an issue will say that, and the same goes for those who want to say that it was no issue at all.

Curry wore down over the course of the playoffs, and by the finals, the knee was hampering his mobility, his lateral mobility especially. By the end of that series, he couldn't get around Kevin "Curry stopper" Love. His play in the 2016 finals stands out as a huge outlier to his other finals. Those who want to say he choked will do so. Some of us point to a different reason. Chris Paul sure seemed to get the benefit of the doubt about being injured against Dallas this year.

[falcolombardi]

i remember vividly how curry murdered oklahoma in 2016, which is why i dont think he was all that hurt during the finals imo

that narrative kinda took hold only after the fact if i remember correctly

i'll never forget this game

Watch on YouTube

in curry's first game back from injury he had maybe the best overtime performance i've ever seen and proclaimed "i'm back." and it certainly looked like it through the WCF

And Robert Williams has looked great in some games, so his injury is also not an issue, right?

This will be the last I'll say on it because it's all been said before, and anyone who wants to say that the injury was an issue will say that, and the same goes for those who want to say that it was no issue at all.

Curry wore down over the course of the playoffs, and by the finals, the knee was hampering his mobility, his lateral mobility especially. By the end of that series, he couldn't get around Kevin "Curry stopper" Love. His play in the 2016 finals stands out as a huge outlier to his other finals. Those who want to say he choked will do so. Some of us point to a different reason. Chris Paul sure seemed to get the benefit of the doubt about being injured against Dallas this year.

is the oposite if anythingh

chris paul got murdered for his play and loss this year

curry gets a lot of benefit of the doubt for his 2016 health

[jalengreen]

i remember vividly how curry murdered oklahoma in 2016, which is why i dont think he was all that hurt during the finals imo

that narrative kinda took hold only after the fact if i remember correctly

i'll never forget this game

Watch on YouTube

in curry's first game back from injury he had maybe the best overtime performance i've ever seen and proclaimed "i'm back." and it certainly looked like it through the WCF

And Robert Williams has looked great in some games, so his injury is also not an issue, right?

This will be the last I'll say on it because it's all been said before, and anyone who wants to say that the injury was an issue will say that, and the same goes for those who want to say that it was no issue at all.

Curry wore down over the course of the playoffs, and by the finals, the knee was hampering his mobility, his lateral mobility especially. By the end of that series, he couldn't get around Kevin "Curry stopper" Love. His play in the 2016 finals stands out as a huge outlier to his other finals. Those who want to say he choked will do so. Some of us point to a different reason. Chris Paul sure seemed to get the benefit of the doubt about being injured against Dallas this year.

are you talking about the play at the end of game 7?

"I'm like, 'I just need a little space' -- and that's where I started to rush," Curry told ESPN's Jackie MacMullan. "I look back and think I could have easily gone around [Love] and gotten a 2, and we could have gotten a stop, and then I could come back down and hit another shot, and we win another championship, instead of me going for the hero shot, which I felt like I could make. That was a shot where I was not under control. And it cost us a championship."

it was very clear that curry easily could've blown past love if he wanted to. he was just deadset on getting a 3 off. just a mental mistake that he's admitted to. perhaps it was just the effect of lebron's rim protection

[Doctor MJ]

doc, i think you may be looking at this from the wrong angle

centers, almost all of them, are vulnerable on the perimeter in the modern game yet we dont see center-less ball taking off (rip tucker ball, you died too soon 2020-2020)

is because even adjusted to their perimeter weakness, teams still need centers for rim protection and rebounding more, there is a reason why centers are still seen as the mpst importan defensive position

jokic doesnt need to be less of a perimeter vulnerability than curry, just like curry doesnt need to be as goof of a rebouding and rim protector as a center

mpst guards, including curry are as much of a "defensive weakness" in modern game as centers, even more so as wings usually can defend guards bettee than they can defend the paint imo,

but we dont see center and guard less all-wing lineups do we? (except for the wacky raptors, god bless them)

if you think jokic is a below average center in defense and curry is above average for a guard then sure

but if you are saying jokic is a worse defender thsn curry cause he is a perimeter vulnerability, that would be like saying curry is worse defender than jokic cause he is a rim protecting vulneeability

guards can be put in situations where their lack of size is a weakness (mainly in the paint) and centers lack of mobility too (in the outside) but of the two centers remaim a fair bit more important

neither jokic is a outlier center who can lock down the perimerer nor is curry a outlier guard who can defend the paint and comtrol the rebounds against bigs

I'm not talking about perimeter vulnerability, I'm talking about vulnerability period.

If you can be targeted effectively, by some way, shape, or form, that's a vulnerability. Then the question becomes how well the opponent can expect to exploit that.

If I can create an elite defense with Curry, but I cannot with Jokic, then to me that's a major edge for Curry.

If anyone disagrees with that, then I think they should elaborate on how they think that can be done.

play jokic with good perimeter defenders and other rim protector, preferably a mobile one

jokic/green/wiggins/klay/payton would be a great defense imo

a underated use of jokic skillset is that you can get away with not having a good ballhandler, jokic in warriors could straight up replace curry and still have a strong offense, he did great stuff with a worse offensive roster which lacked a good point guard

you could play him with a defensive guard ala payton, 2 wings and another rim protector for a defensive minded team that he makes strong in offense almost alone

the big issue of a center who struggles outside the paint is actually that he has tl defend the 3 without letting the guards blow by him

if there is other guys to cover for him at the rin that means he can play a bit more agressively against the 3

add pesky guard defenders like gary payton or alex caruso and wings who rotate well to help make his life easier in the pick and roll and you can have a better hedge and recover scheme that doesnt gift 3's the way a full drop scheme does

bulls had a nice defense with vucevic when caruso and lonzo plaued , is jokic so much worse in defense than the other nikola? that would not even be a particularly stacked defensive roster and i suspect it would have a good defense with jokic in vucevic place

I appreciate you elaborating. I still struggle to imagine a scenario where Jokic gets pulled to the perimeter and it doesn't allow for exploitation, but will acknowledge I can't truly know.

Re: Bulls had a nice defense with Vucevic...in the regular season. Are you confident that this would have held up in the playoffs against concerted, tactical aggression? I'm not.

[Doctor MJ]

doc, i think you may be looking at this from the wrong angle

centers, almost all of them, are vulnerable on the perimeter in the modern game yet we dont see center-less ball taking off (rip tucker ball, you died too soon 2020-2020)

is because even adjusted to their perimeter weakness, teams still need centers for rim protection and rebounding more, there is a reason why centers are still seen as the mpst importan defensive position

jokic doesnt need to be less of a perimeter vulnerability than curry, just like curry doesnt need to be as goof of a rebouding and rim protector as a center

mpst guards, including curry are as much of a "defensive weakness" in modern game as centers, even more so as wings usually can defend guards bettee than they can defend the paint imo,

but we dont see center and guard less all-wing lineups do we? (except for the wacky raptors, god bless them)

if you think jokic is a below average center in defense and curry is above average for a guard then sure

but if you are saying jokic is a worse defender thsn curry cause he is a perimeter vulnerability, that would be like saying curry is worse defender than jokic cause he is a rim protecting vulneeability

guards can be put in situations where their lack of size is a weakness (mainly in the paint) and centers lack of mobility too (in the outside) but of the two centers remaim a fair bit more important

neither jokic is a outlier center who can lock down the perimerer nor is curry a outlier guard who can defend the paint and comtrol the rebounds against bigs

I'm not talking about perimeter vulnerability, I'm talking about vulnerability period.

If you can be targeted effectively, by some way, shape, or form, that's a vulnerability. Then the question becomes how well the opponent can expect to exploit that.

If I can create an elite defense with Curry, but I cannot with Jokic, then to me that's a major edge for Curry.

If anyone disagrees with that, then I think they should elaborate on how they think that can be done.

to be clear, is this in reference to POY? or just a general player ranking

Seems relevant to both to me.

[Doctor MJ]

doc, i think you may be looking at this from the wrong angle

centers, almost all of them, are vulnerable on the perimeter in the modern game yet we dont see center-less ball taking off (rip tucker ball, you died too soon 2020-2020)

is because even adjusted to their perimeter weakness, teams still need centers for rim protection and rebounding more, there is a reason why centers are still seen as the mpst importan defensive position

jokic doesnt need to be less of a perimeter vulnerability than curry, just like curry doesnt need to be as goof of a rebouding and rim protector as a center

mpst guards, including curry are as much of a "defensive weakness" in modern game as centers, even more so as wings usually can defend guards bettee than they can defend the paint imo,

but we dont see center and guard less all-wing lineups do we? (except for the wacky raptors, god bless them)

if you think jokic is a below average center in defense and curry is above average for a guard then sure

but if you are saying jokic is a worse defender thsn curry cause he is a perimeter vulnerability, that would be like saying curry is worse defender than jokic cause he is a rim protecting vulneeability

guards can be put in situations where their lack of size is a weakness (mainly in the paint) and centers lack of mobility too (in the outside) but of the two centers remaim a fair bit more important

neither jokic is a outlier center who can lock down the perimerer nor is curry a outlier guard who can defend the paint and comtrol the rebounds against bigs

I'm not talking about perimeter vulnerability, I'm talking about vulnerability period.

If you can be targeted effectively, by some way, shape, or form, that's a vulnerability. Then the question becomes how well the opponent can expect to exploit that.

If I can create an elite defense with Curry, but I cannot with Jokic, then to me that's a major edge for Curry.

If anyone disagrees with that, then I think they should elaborate on how they think that can be done.

I agree on jokic being more exploitable and that him being a good defender in the RS turns into him being a pretty bad one in the playoffs

I don’t really think the Warriors defense has shown itself to be super elite these playoffs before in a similar way, in the same way it was the regular season, on an individual series by series basis only based upon the results so far, they had a good defensive series against memphis, more bleh against the nuggets and Mavericks, and against Boston have had 2 great and 2 horrible defensive games

Context matters, they held up fairly well during Jokic minutes they just got killed outside of those in terms of their def rtg (noise), and the Celtics went supernova at the end of game 1, but I think the Warriors defense hasn’t been like super elite these playoffs either

That being said I do think in general Jokic is more exploitable than Curry, in most situations and against most teams because spaced out pick and roll is kind of the modern auto pilot for a lot of the teams on offense

In terms of POY, one thing that isn’t brought up much is the Warriors offense this playoffs.

It’s more complicated than “this offensive cast has shown to be bottom tier and They’re doing great in the playoffs”

But I do think it’s worth noting that the playoff offense has been pretty much, outside of the grizzlies series, has been pretty much a top of the league type especially considering the defenses they have faced.

Especially if you value the postseason heavily, if Curry basically takes a cast that probably is a bottom 5 offense without him and in 3/4 series they have ATG levels of offensive production, particularly with him on the floor, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to give him the nod. Especially if he continues a historic performance against a Celtics defense that successfully to a large extent clamped up Durant and Giannis. (Playoff butler built different)

Another way to look at it.

2016 Curry is great, but his playoff performance is a pretty large blot. Would 2022 Curry, as a season, be better than that if he continues his finals performance?

An underwhelming regular season vs a strong WCF run and his best finals by far, or his best RS by far and a decent WCF run when healthy and his worst finals by far

I don’t think that’s a crazy take, and I think Curry that RS was probably the best offensive season of all time in an outlier type of way

I also think when evaluating seasons we should do so under the context of that season.

While I’m not against celebrating great regular seasons, the regular season for players that win (this is of course only if the warriors win) should not be held against them if they won despite lower seeding or something like that

So, I tend to look at playoff offense/defense performance with an eye toward how the team did compared to the other teams that placed the same opponent. It's not the only thing I look at, but in general, I'm reluctant to criticize a team's defense (or offense) if they performed better by DRtg (or ORtg) than others did in the same crucible.

To look at what we see so far:

Memphis
vs Minny: 112.7 ORtg
vs GS: 109.2

Dallas
vs Utah: 115.6
vs Phoenix: 116.8
vs GS: 114.6

Boston
vs Brooklyn: 121.9
vs Milwaukee: 109.8
vs Miami: 112.3
vs GS: 110.9

So by this measure, GS has had the most successful defense all of their opponents have faced except Boston where they lag slightly behind Milwaukee to this point.

If you look at what you see here and don't see something you'd call "elite", I'm certainly not going to say you're crazy - the gap between the Warrior D and other NBA-level defenses (which doesn't exist in Brooklyn) is not gigantic - but in terms of the Warrior defense still looking like they are among the most effective defenses in the league, like they did in the regular season, I think they do.

In general one of the trends I think is interesting is that this year the elite regular season defenses have still looked like they are among the very best in the playoffs...but the elite regular season offenses (Utah & Atlanta), don't. We tend to think that it's a team's defense (more so than offense) that can either "flip a switch" or "get exposed" in a playoff series more so than offense, but the opposite has seemed more true this year.

[Doctor MJ]

i'll never forget this game

Watch on YouTube

in curry's first game back from injury he had maybe the best overtime performance i've ever seen and proclaimed "i'm back." and it certainly looked like it through the WCF

And Robert Williams has looked great in some games, so his injury is also not an issue, right?

This will be the last I'll say on it because it's all been said before, and anyone who wants to say that the injury was an issue will say that, and the same goes for those who want to say that it was no issue at all.

Curry wore down over the course of the playoffs, and by the finals, the knee was hampering his mobility, his lateral mobility especially. By the end of that series, he couldn't get around Kevin "Curry stopper" Love. His play in the 2016 finals stands out as a huge outlier to his other finals. Those who want to say he choked will do so. Some of us point to a different reason. Chris Paul sure seemed to get the benefit of the doubt about being injured against Dallas this year.

is the oposite if anythingh

chris paul got murdered for his play and loss this year

curry gets a lot of benefit of the doubt for his 2016 health

I think I'd argue that in both cases Curry & Paul got pretty crucified in the moment, and either did get continued to be crucified for a long time, or will get crucified for a long time to come, as a result.

The impact of the 2016 finals weighing down Curry's standing on, say, RealGM's Top 100 is basically impossible to overstate imho, and the scale of it didn't truly hit me in the face until 2020.

The impact of the 2022 western conference semi-finals weighing down Paul's standing is something we'll have to watch over time, but it's going to hurt.

[jalengreen]

I think over time there's been defense of Curry's performance due to the injury, likely in part due to him not having another Finals series close to that level. But yeah he was criticized IMMENSELY at the time and we can't really compare the "five years later" response to Curry with the immediate response to CP3. The argument I'd make in favor of CP3 was that his expectations were sorta high for a 37-year-old. In either case I don't put too much stock into the injury

[LukaTheGOAT]

I think the point about it being more difficult to build an elite defense about Jokic may have truth, but I also think Jokic is in a different stratosphere from Curry right now offensively, so I don't think this would be enough to prevent me from giving Jokic a POY vote. I think in a vacuum, I would take Giannis over Jokic because of the defensive troubles, but I don't think it drops him to below Curry level.

[falcolombardi]

remember all the talk about smart defensive value being that he allows you to avoid playing a "normal" point guard which are usually weak defense points?

jokic easily allows for that you can get away with playing 4 defensive specialists with some shooting and still have a ok offense with him if defense is what you are going for

and because of his elite big man shooting and passing from the high post and perimeter you can have a defensive big who is a dunker/offensive rebounder/roll man occupying the paint in offense easily

[Doctor MJ]

remember all the talk about smart defensive value being that he allows you to avoid playing a "normal" point guard which are usually weak defense points?

jokic easily allows for that you can get away with playing 4 defensive specialists with some shooting and still have a ok offense with him if defense is what you are going for

I certainly get the point about surrounding Jokic with better defenders being a good thing, but there's a major difference in the two examples:

Smart is making it so that there is no weak point in the Celtics defense.

Surrounding Jokic with better defenders means that you hope you can better mitigate the weak point that is still out there.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I'm not talking about perimeter vulnerability, I'm talking about vulnerability period.

If you can be targeted effectively, by some way, shape, or form, that's a vulnerability. Then the question becomes how well the opponent can expect to exploit that.

If I can create an elite defense with Curry, but I cannot with Jokic, then to me that's a major edge for Curry.

If anyone disagrees with that, then I think they should elaborate on how they think that can be done.

I agree on jokic being more exploitable and that him being a good defender in the RS turns into him being a pretty bad one in the playoffs

I don’t really think the Warriors defense has shown itself to be super elite these playoffs before in a similar way, in the same way it was the regular season, on an individual series by series basis only based upon the results so far, they had a good defensive series against memphis, more bleh against the nuggets and Mavericks, and against Boston have had 2 great and 2 horrible defensive games

Context matters, they held up fairly well during Jokic minutes they just got killed outside of those in terms of their def rtg (noise), and the Celtics went supernova at the end of game 1, but I think the Warriors defense hasn’t been like super elite these playoffs either

That being said I do think in general Jokic is more exploitable than Curry, in most situations and against most teams because spaced out pick and roll is kind of the modern auto pilot for a lot of the teams on offense

In terms of POY, one thing that isn’t brought up much is the Warriors offense this playoffs.

It’s more complicated than “this offensive cast has shown to be bottom tier and They’re doing great in the playoffs”

But I do think it’s worth noting that the playoff offense has been pretty much, outside of the grizzlies series, has been pretty much a top of the league type especially considering the defenses they have faced.

Especially if you value the postseason heavily, if Curry basically takes a cast that probably is a bottom 5 offense without him and in 3/4 series they have ATG levels of offensive production, particularly with him on the floor, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to give him the nod. Especially if he continues a historic performance against a Celtics defense that successfully to a large extent clamped up Durant and Giannis. (Playoff butler built different)

Another way to look at it.

2016 Curry is great, but his playoff performance is a pretty large blot. Would 2022 Curry, as a season, be better than that if he continues his finals performance?

An underwhelming regular season vs a strong WCF run and his best finals by far, or his best RS by far and a decent WCF run when healthy and his worst finals by far

I don’t think that’s a crazy take, and I think Curry that RS was probably the best offensive season of all time in an outlier type of way

I also think when evaluating seasons we should do so under the context of that season.

While I’m not against celebrating great regular seasons, the regular season for players that win (this is of course only if the warriors win) should not be held against them if they won despite lower seeding or something like that

So, I tend to look at playoff offense/defense performance with an eye toward how the team did compared to the other teams that placed the same opponent. It's not the only thing I look at, but in general, I'm reluctant to criticize a team's defense (or offense) if they performed better by DRtg (or ORtg) than others did in the same crucible.

To look at what we see so far:

Memphis
vs Minny: 112.7 ORtg
vs GS: 109.2

Dallas
vs Utah: 115.6
vs Phoenix: 116.8
vs GS: 114.6

Boston
vs Brooklyn: 121.9
vs Milwaukee: 109.8
vs Miami: 112.3
vs GS: 110.9

So by this measure, GS has had the most successful defense all of their opponents have faced except Boston where they lag slightly behind Milwaukee to this point.

If you look at what you see here and don't see something you'd call "elite", I'm certainly not going to say you're crazy - the gap between the Warrior D and other NBA-level defenses (which doesn't exist in Brooklyn) is not gigantic - but in terms of the Warrior defense still looking like they are among the most effective defenses in the league, like they did in the regular season, I think they do.

In general one of the trends I think is interesting is that this year the elite regular season defenses have still looked like they are among the very best in the playoffs...but the elite regular season offenses (Utah & Atlanta), don't. We tend to think that it's a team's defense (more so than offense) that can either "flip a switch" or "get exposed" in a playoff series more so than offense, but the opposite has seemed more true this year.

Hmm, so on a series average basis I get it, but on a game by game basis I don’t know if I agree

Vs the mavs, it’s only because game 1 really pulls it down, from games 2-5 each game they had an off rtg of 116+, 3 above 120. (Bball ref).

The mavs went crazy in general, I would still say they did better than Phoenix but not as good as Utah did from a perspective of only looking at that, but that’s mainly cuz it seemed they figured out Phoenix more so.

The Celtics are similar, 2 great defensive games and 2 very poor ones

I feel it’s not so much that they didn’t hold up but certain other ones turnt up more so, other offenses turnt up

[MyUniBroDavis]

I think the point about it being more difficult to build an elite defense about Jokic may have truth, but I also think Jokic is in a different stratosphere from Curry right now offensively, so I don't think this would be enough to prevent me from giving Jokic a POY vote. I think in a vacuum, I would take Giannis over Jokic because of the defensive troubles, but I don't think it drops him to below Curry level.

How about Curry in the playoffs though?

[TheGOATRises007]

I don't think any player in NBA history is in a different stratosphere to Curry offensively.

Especially when you see his performances in the finals thus far.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I think the point about it being more difficult to build an elite defense about Jokic may have truth, but I also think Jokic is in a different stratosphere from Curry right now offensively, so I don't think this would be enough to prevent me from giving Jokic a POY vote. I think in a vacuum, I would take Giannis over Jokic because of the defensive troubles, but I don't think it drops him to below Curry level.

How about Curry in the playoffs though?

Jokic by quite a gap offensively in the playoffs.

[Doctor MJ]

I agree on jokic being more exploitable and that him being a good defender in the RS turns into him being a pretty bad one in the playoffs

I don’t really think the Warriors defense has shown itself to be super elite these playoffs before in a similar way, in the same way it was the regular season, on an individual series by series basis only based upon the results so far, they had a good defensive series against memphis, more bleh against the nuggets and Mavericks, and against Boston have had 2 great and 2 horrible defensive games

Context matters, they held up fairly well during Jokic minutes they just got killed outside of those in terms of their def rtg (noise), and the Celtics went supernova at the end of game 1, but I think the Warriors defense hasn’t been like super elite these playoffs either

That being said I do think in general Jokic is more exploitable than Curry, in most situations and against most teams because spaced out pick and roll is kind of the modern auto pilot for a lot of the teams on offense

In terms of POY, one thing that isn’t brought up much is the Warriors offense this playoffs.

It’s more complicated than “this offensive cast has shown to be bottom tier and They’re doing great in the playoffs”

But I do think it’s worth noting that the playoff offense has been pretty much, outside of the grizzlies series, has been pretty much a top of the league type especially considering the defenses they have faced.

Especially if you value the postseason heavily, if Curry basically takes a cast that probably is a bottom 5 offense without him and in 3/4 series they have ATG levels of offensive production, particularly with him on the floor, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to give him the nod. Especially if he continues a historic performance against a Celtics defense that successfully to a large extent clamped up Durant and Giannis. (Playoff butler built different)

Another way to look at it.

2016 Curry is great, but his playoff performance is a pretty large blot. Would 2022 Curry, as a season, be better than that if he continues his finals performance?

An underwhelming regular season vs a strong WCF run and his best finals by far, or his best RS by far and a decent WCF run when healthy and his worst finals by far

I don’t think that’s a crazy take, and I think Curry that RS was probably the best offensive season of all time in an outlier type of way

I also think when evaluating seasons we should do so under the context of that season.

While I’m not against celebrating great regular seasons, the regular season for players that win (this is of course only if the warriors win) should not be held against them if they won despite lower seeding or something like that

So, I tend to look at playoff offense/defense performance with an eye toward how the team did compared to the other teams that placed the same opponent. It's not the only thing I look at, but in general, I'm reluctant to criticize a team's defense (or offense) if they performed better by DRtg (or ORtg) than others did in the same crucible.

To look at what we see so far:

Memphis
vs Minny: 112.7 ORtg
vs GS: 109.2

Dallas
vs Utah: 115.6
vs Phoenix: 116.8
vs GS: 114.6

Boston
vs Brooklyn: 121.9
vs Milwaukee: 109.8
vs Miami: 112.3
vs GS: 110.9

So by this measure, GS has had the most successful defense all of their opponents have faced except Boston where they lag slightly behind Milwaukee to this point.

If you look at what you see here and don't see something you'd call "elite", I'm certainly not going to say you're crazy - the gap between the Warrior D and other NBA-level defenses (which doesn't exist in Brooklyn) is not gigantic - but in terms of the Warrior defense still looking like they are among the most effective defenses in the league, like they did in the regular season, I think they do.

In general one of the trends I think is interesting is that this year the elite regular season defenses have still looked like they are among the very best in the playoffs...but the elite regular season offenses (Utah & Atlanta), don't. We tend to think that it's a team's defense (more so than offense) that can either "flip a switch" or "get exposed" in a playoff series more so than offense, but the opposite has seemed more true this year.

Hmm, so on a series average basis I get it, but on a game by game basis I don’t know if I agree

Vs the mavs, it’s only because game 1 really pulls it down, from games 2-5 each game they had an off rtg of 116+, 3 above 120. (Bball ref).

The mavs went crazy in general, I would still say they did better than Phoenix but not as good as Utah did from a perspective of only looking at that, but that’s mainly cuz it seemed they figured out Phoenix more so.

The Celtics are similar, 2 great defensive games and 2 very poor ones

I feel it’s not so much that they didn’t hold up but certain other ones turnt up more so, other offenses turnt up

It's an excellent point that the series average doesn't tell the whole story. I've said similar things about how Boston's Game 1 skews their average up.

Re: not as good as Utah. You mean the defense that couldn't stop Dallas without Doncic? I'm reluctant to call that better than the GS did.

Re: more so offenses turnt up. Well that's certainly true. Some offenses are clearly reaching a new level in these playoffs.

[MyUniBroDavis]

So, I tend to look at playoff offense/defense performance with an eye toward how the team did compared to the other teams that placed the same opponent. It's not the only thing I look at, but in general, I'm reluctant to criticize a team's defense (or offense) if they performed better by DRtg (or ORtg) than others did in the same crucible.

To look at what we see so far:

Memphis
vs Minny: 112.7 ORtg
vs GS: 109.2

Dallas
vs Utah: 115.6
vs Phoenix: 116.8
vs GS: 114.6

Boston
vs Brooklyn: 121.9
vs Milwaukee: 109.8
vs Miami: 112.3
vs GS: 110.9

So by this measure, GS has had the most successful defense all of their opponents have faced except Boston where they lag slightly behind Milwaukee to this point.

If you look at what you see here and don't see something you'd call "elite", I'm certainly not going to say you're crazy - the gap between the Warrior D and other NBA-level defenses (which doesn't exist in Brooklyn) is not gigantic - but in terms of the Warrior defense still looking like they are among the most effective defenses in the league, like they did in the regular season, I think they do.

In general one of the trends I think is interesting is that this year the elite regular season defenses have still looked like they are among the very best in the playoffs...but the elite regular season offenses (Utah & Atlanta), don't. We tend to think that it's a team's defense (more so than offense) that can either "flip a switch" or "get exposed" in a playoff series more so than offense, but the opposite has seemed more true this year.

Hmm, so on a series average basis I get it, but on a game by game basis I don’t know if I agree

Vs the mavs, it’s only because game 1 really pulls it down, from games 2-5 each game they had an off rtg of 116+, 3 above 120. (Bball ref).

The mavs went crazy in general, I would still say they did better than Phoenix but not as good as Utah did from a perspective of only looking at that, but that’s mainly cuz it seemed they figured out Phoenix more so.

The Celtics are similar, 2 great defensive games and 2 very poor ones

I feel it’s not so much that they didn’t hold up but certain other ones turnt up more so, other offenses turnt up

It's an excellent point that the series average doesn't tell the whole story. I've said similar things about how Boston's Game 1 skews their average up.

Re: not as good as Utah. You mean the defense that couldn't stop Dallas without Doncic? I'm reluctant to call that better than the GS did.

Re: more so offenses turnt up. Well that's certainly true. Some offenses are clearly reaching a new level in these playoffs.

Completely forgot that luka was hurt lol

I think the Warriors being one of the offenses that has turnt up to such a great degree is a big + for Curry, if they win he’s probably my POY if he continues this finals performance

[LukaTheGOAT]

I don't think any player in NBA history is in a different stratosphere to Curry offensively.

Especially when you see his performances in the finals thus far.

Current Curry isn't close to his peak and 4 great games isn't changing that.

[SpreeS]

I don't think any player in NBA history is in a different stratosphere to Curry offensively.

Especially when you see his performances in the finals thus far.

Current Curry isn't close to his peak and 4 great games isn't changing that.

Curry has 118.2 Ortg in these PO

against defence (RS)

DEN 15th
MEM 4th
DAL 6th
BOS 1st

[TheGOATRises007]

I don't think current Curry is that far off his peak, but even then so, suggesting a player is in a different stratosphere to him offensively seems hyperbolic to the extreme.

And I do think Jokic is otherworldly offensively. I just believe Curry is too. Even this "diminished Curry"