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David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 6:09 pm
by cooper84

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 6:14 pm
by tsherkin


Almost no one forgets this. The conversation is almost always about Robinson's regular season efficacy and his considerable drop-off into the postseason, versus Hakeem's stellar postseason career...

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 7:27 pm
by Blackfyre
Mmm, no. Their numbers are very similar. The biggest difference was their scoring efficiency. Robinson was more efficient as a scorer on less volume, but neither was stellar in that regard and the efficiency gap wasn't VERY big. In head to head games Hakeem was a better FT shooter, but Robinson was better at converting from the field.

If you look at their scoring, then it seems that Robinson was more consistent with his scoring, but Hakeem had more games when he went ham against his opponent. D-Rob scored 30 or more only three times against Hakeem (once 40). Hakeem scored seven times over 30 and twice over 40 (47 & 47 & 38 point games were his highest). I don't think your statement holds true at all. Everything else (rebounds, assists, defense etc) was pretty much a tie.

Robinson was definitely better in RS match-ups and that's to be expected, but nobody dominated anyone. Robinson was always better RS performer than Hakeem, but the gap in all-time ranking comes from the fact that in PS Hakeem raised his game probably more than any other tier one superstar ever while Robinson is known for performing way under his RS level in PS. '95 WCF perfectly illustrated the fact.

Is there a way to exclude the later years from these stats ? I'd like to see their prime head2head numbers.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 10:21 pm
by Texas Chuck
Actually people did used to forget this a lot, but honestly I spammed the board with this a lot to get people to look beyond that one playoff series so its hard for any regular posters here not to be aware. And frankly most of the good regs already understood that. It's more of a media narrative really.

I'd also agree with the above posters than Robinson didn't dominate Dream by any means, but sharing this data is a good reminder that the reverse isn't remotely true either.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2016 10:35 pm
by tsherkin
Texas Chuck wrote:Actually people did used to forget this a lot, but honestly I spammed the board with this a lot to get people to look beyond that one playoff series so its hard for any regular posters here not to be aware. And frankly most of the good regs already understood that. It's more of a media narrative really.


I would agree with the media narrative part. To the first, I would say most people didn't really care because a lot of the numbers were quite close H2H in the regular season and Robinson withered on the vine come the postseason while Olajuwon went HAM, even outside of 94 and 95. Olajuwon's claim against D-Rob is more that he was consistently a brutal playoff opponent, and outside of some soft teams at the beginning of his career, Robinson was more like Ewing, incapable of maintaining his peak form come the postseason. Was still a magnificent player, naturally, but that's the pro-Olajuwon argument distilled.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2016 6:24 pm
by FuShengTHEGreat
I think even moreso than their 1995 meeting is the 1994 playoffs.

They both had roughly = talent heading into the playoffs and Robinson flat out played terrible vs Utah. Whereas Hakeem flat out abused Utah at nearly every facet on the game.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2016 6:48 pm
by Clyde Frazier
I find it more interesting that they were in the playoffs together 8 times and only met once.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2016 6:53 pm
by Quotatious
Clyde Frazier wrote:I find it more interesting that they were in the playoffs together 8 times and only met once.

Just like Kobe and Dirk. It's indeed amazing that two superstar players who spent their careers on contender teams in the same conference met only once in the playoffs.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2016 11:16 pm
by trex_8063
Texas Chuck wrote: I'd also agree with the above posters than Robinson didn't dominate Dream by any means, but sharing this data is a good reminder that the reverse isn't remotely true either.


I agree; and there are still people who believe that was the case: that Hakeem essentially made DRob his b**** in every single meeting.

Even within that one series that has so defined their hierarchy, few remember that Robinson actually outplayed Hakeem in two of the six meetings (and quite badly in one of them).
Or that the Rockets won game 1 by a single point on wide open game winner by Robert Horry (because Rodman had gone rogue and totally left him alone on the perimeter), in a game in which Robinson's teammates also shot just 25% from 3pt range and just 60.9% from the FT line.
Or that in game 2 (which the Spurs lost by 10), Robinson actually had a fairly nice game.......but his teammates again tanked out at 22.2% (4/18) from 3pt range, while Hakeem's cast was a smokin' 47.4% (9/19) from 3pt range. If DRob's teammates shoot even semi-average on those same attempts (like 6/18, or 33.3%) and Hakeem's are just slightly less red-hot at say 7/19 (still a nice 36.8%), and this perhaps turns into a 2-pt Spurs victory.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2016 11:40 pm
by Hawk
trex_8063 wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote: I'd also agree with the above posters than Robinson didn't dominate Dream by any means, but sharing this data is a good reminder that the reverse isn't remotely true either.


I agree; and there are still people who believe that was the case: that Hakeem essentially made DRob his b**** in every single meeting.

Even within that one series that has so defined their hierarchy, few remember that Robinson actually outplayed Hakeem in two of the six meetings (and quite badly in one of them).
Or that the Rockets won game 1 by a single point on wide open game winner by Robert Horry (because Rodman had gone rogue and totally left him alone on the perimeter), in a game in which Robinson's teammates also shot just 25% from 3pt range and just 60.9% from the FT line.
Or that in game 2 (which the Spurs lost by 10), Robinson actually had a fairly nice game.......but his teammates again tanked out at 22.2% (4/18) from 3pt range, while Hakeem's cast was a smokin' 47.4% (9/19) from 3pt range. If DRob's teammates shoot even semi-average on those same attempts (like 6/18, or 33.3%) and Hakeem's are just slightly less red-hot at say 7/19 (still a nice 36.8%), and this perhaps turns into a 2-pt Spurs victory.


That G1 the Spurs lost by 1, Robinson shot 5/17 from the field (.437 TS%)

In which two games did Robinson outplay Hakeem?

G1: 27/8/6/5 .53 TS% vs 21/9/2/2 .437 TS%
G2: 41/16/4/2 .609 TS% vs 32/12/2/1 .662 TS%
G3: 43/11/4/5 .637 TS% vs 29/9/4/1 .765 TS%
G4: 20/14/5/3 .395 TS% vs 20/16/3/5 .49 TS%
G5: 42/9/8/5 .635 TS% vs 22/12/0/3 .567 TS%
G6: 39/17/3/5 .684 TS% vs 19/10/5/1 .426 TS%

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2016 11:49 pm
by mischievous
Drob was the better regular season player, Hakeem was the better postseason performer and probably by a bigger gap. I don't know why people don't just accept this and move on.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:11 am
by E-Balla
Texas Chuck wrote:Actually people did used to forget this a lot, but honestly I spammed the board with this a lot to get people to look beyond that one playoff series so its hard for any regular posters here not to be aware. And frankly most of the good regs already understood that. It's more of a media narrative really.

I'd also agree with the above posters than Robinson didn't dominate Dream by any means, but sharing this data is a good reminder that the reverse isn't remotely true either.

I don't think its a media narrative when in their best seasons (92-96) Hakeem outplayed him and in the playoffs he crushed him.

Hakeem in those 20 games averaged 26.8/11.5/3.6 with 5 stocks in 40.5 mpg on 51.5 TS% (47.3 FG%) with a 10.8 TOV%.

Robinson in those 20 games averaged 22.4/12.8/3.9 with 5.4 stocks in 41.4 mpg on 52.7 TS% (46.2 FG%) with a 14.3 TOV%.

Adding their 6 playoff games Hakeem averaged 28.8/11.7/3.9 with 5.1 stocks in 41.2 mpg on 53.4 TS% (49.6 FG%) with a 11.2 TOV%.

Robinson averaged 22.7/12.4/3.6 with 4.9 stocks in 41.4 mpg on 53.3 TS% (45.9 FG%) with a 15.0 TOV%.

The media narrative is right - Hakeem flat out outplayed Robinson and only on this board do you see people propping up Robinson based on his post prime performance.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:20 am
by Texas Chuck
E-Balla wrote:
Texas Chuck wrote:Actually people did used to forget this a lot, but honestly I spammed the board with this a lot to get people to look beyond that one playoff series so its hard for any regular posters here not to be aware. And frankly most of the good regs already understood that. It's more of a media narrative really.

I'd also agree with the above posters than Robinson didn't dominate Dream by any means, but sharing this data is a good reminder that the reverse isn't remotely true either.

I don't think its a media narrative when in their best seasons (92-96) Hakeem outplayed him and in the playoffs he crushed him.

Hakeem in those 20 games averaged 26.8/11.5/3.6 with 5 stocks in 40.5 mpg on 51.5 TS% (47.3 TS%) with a 10.8 TOV%.

Robinson in those 20 games averaged 22.4/12.8/3.9 with 5.4 stocks in 41.4 mpg on 52.7 TS% (46.2 TS%) with a 14.3 TOV%.

Adding their 6 playoff games Hakeem averaged 28.8/11.7/3.9 with 5.1 stocks in 41.2 mpg on 53.4 TS% (49.6 FG%) with a 11.2 TOV%.

Robinson averaged 22.7/12.4/3.6 with 4.9 stocks in 41.4 mpg on 53.3 TS% (45.9 FG%) with a 15.0 TOV%.

The media narrative is right - Hakeem flat out outplayed Robinson and only on this board do you see people propping up Robinson based on his post prime performance.


I know you are a Dream guy so I won't argue other than to say the RS numbers you posted there don't show Dream outplaying him at all imo--particularly when you see that Robinson's teams won most of those games suggesting his defensive impact might be higher as well because its not like Robinson had stronger supporting casts during that stretch of time--not even close.

And of course while including games prior to this time would only seem to benefit Dream as Robinson wasn't yet fully in his prime if we went back and included those games, Robinson's numbers would only look better in comparison. Dream's only real RS advantage is in volume scoring which isn't really worth that much in the overall context.


But yes Dream did get the better of him in that large sample size of one series. I would never base a comparison of two players of this caliber on one series, but to each their own I suppose.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:22 am
by penbeast0
E-Balla, they played once in the playoffs and Hakeem crushed him. That is true and has defined their relationship ever since in people's minds. It also helps that this played into a reasonable narrative about each of their careers even outside of that series.

In their regular season matchups, they were close to even head to head except that Robinson's team won the great majority of those games. In their games against the rest of the league in the regular season, again, both were terrific players with a slight edge to Robinson before the injury. In their games against the rest of the league in the post season, Hakeem against pushed his postseason performance more than Robinson to hold a postseason edge. It doesn't mean Robinson was a choke artist, it does mean that Hakeem was a great postseason performer. They were both great players and we were lucky to be able to see them perform.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 1:59 am
by E-Balla
Texas Chuck wrote:I know you are a Dream guy so I won't argue other than to say the RS numbers you posted there don't show Dream outplaying him at all imo--particularly when you see that Robinson's teams won most of those games suggesting his defensive impact might be higher as well because its not like Robinson had stronger supporting casts during that stretch of time--not even close.

And of course while including games prior to this time would only seem to benefit Dream as Robinson wasn't yet fully in his prime if we went back and included those games, Robinson's numbers would only look better in comparison. Dream's only real RS advantage is in volume scoring which isn't really worth that much in the overall context.


But yes Dream did get the better of him in that large sample size of one series. I would never base a comparison of two players of this caliber on one series, but to each their own I suppose.

First off 12-8 in the regular season and 14-12 overall isn't that big a gap especially when Hakeem's numbers are better. Its certainly not enough to say that Robinson was definitely outplaying him defensively unless you watched all the games. Also you can say volume scoring isn't much in the long run but one of these guys has 2 rings and the other failed at scoring enough in the playoffs against tough matchups to win yearly until a big that can volume score consistently got him 2 rings. Volume scoring matters when you're on trash teams.

And that last paragraph is exactly what people are referring to when we say a lot of guys here ignore reality. Look at the overall numbers and explain to me how Robinson wasn't vastly outplayed by Hakeem in their 26 prime meet ups.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 2:08 am
by E-Balla
penbeast0 wrote:E-Balla, they played once in the playoffs and Hakeem crushed him. That is true and has defined their relationship ever since in people's minds. It also helps that this played into a reasonable narrative about each of their careers even outside of that series.

In their regular season matchups, they were close to even head to head except that Robinson's team won the great majority of those games. In their games against the rest of the league in the regular season, again, both were terrific players with a slight edge to Robinson before the injury. In their games against the rest of the league in the post season, Hakeem against pushed his postseason performance more than Robinson to hold a postseason edge. It doesn't mean Robinson was a choke artist, it does mean that Hakeem was a great postseason performer. They were both great players and we were lucky to be able to see them perform.

It doesn't. He was but that alone isn't what makes him a choke artist it's his individual performance in those losses that make him a choke artist. Great player but he's a choke and saying he stood up well to Hakeem in head to head matchups is crazy. DRob is solidly top 30 all time but Hakeem is top 10. Not the biggest difference but a noticeable one head to head when it really matters.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 2:25 am
by Quotatious
E-Balla wrote:DRob is solidly top 30 all time

Meaning you don't necessarily have Robinson in top 20? If so, I would very strongly disagree. Can't see him any lower than 20. As a matter of fact, I think he's much closer to 10 than he is to 30. Even as a relative "playoff choker" (relative to how great he was in RS), he was still a 24/12/3/3 blk and over 1 steal, below 3 tpg, 24 PER, almost 56% TS, over 6 BPM guy in the pre-Duncan era. That's pretty damn good. For the sake of comparison, Larry Bird's first 7 seasons - 24/11/6/2 stl/1 blk, 3.3 tpg, 22.2 PER, 55.3% TS (slightly lower than Robinson, with exactly the same scoring average), 8 BPM. Comparable numbers, and keep in mind that box-score is strongly skewed in favor of offense, and Robinson was a considerably superior defensive player (and no surprise - he looks fantastic based on plus/minus stats, even in in the early 2000s when he was past his prime).

Robinson's prime regular seasons were just a little below Jordan's and LeBron's, near GOAT level, and he was still a pretty good player in postseason. That makes him an absolute lock for top 20, IMO.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 2:26 am
by Senior
Dr Olajuwon wrote:
trex_8063 wrote:
I agree; and there are still people who believe that was the case: that Hakeem essentially made DRob his b**** in every single meeting.

Even within that one series that has so defined their hierarchy, few remember that Robinson actually outplayed Hakeem in two of the six meetings (and quite badly in one of them).
Or that the Rockets won game 1 by a single point on wide open game winner by Robert Horry (because Rodman had gone rogue and totally left him alone on the perimeter), in a game in which Robinson's teammates also shot just 25% from 3pt range and just 60.9% from the FT line.
Or that in game 2 (which the Spurs lost by 10), Robinson actually had a fairly nice game.......but his teammates again tanked out at 22.2% (4/18) from 3pt range, while Hakeem's cast was a smokin' 47.4% (9/19) from 3pt range. If DRob's teammates shoot even semi-average on those same attempts (like 6/18, or 33.3%) and Hakeem's are just slightly less red-hot at say 7/19 (still a nice 36.8%), and this perhaps turns into a 2-pt Spurs victory.


That G1 the Spurs lost by 1, Robinson shot 5/17 from the field (.437 TS%)

In which two games did Robinson outplay Hakeem?

G1: 27/8/6/5 .53 TS% vs 21/9/2/2 .437 TS%
G2: 41/16/4/2 .609 TS% vs 32/12/2/1 .662 TS%
G3: 43/11/4/5 .637 TS% vs 29/9/4/1 .765 TS%
G4: 20/14/5/3 .395 TS% vs 20/16/3/5 .49 TS%
G5: 42/9/8/5 .635 TS% vs 22/12/0/3 .567 TS%
G6: 39/17/3/5 .684 TS% vs 19/10/5/1 .426 TS%

At best you can say one of those D-Rob box scores is better than Hakeem's, Game 4. Hakeem at least outplayed D-Rob in Games 1-2 and dominated the box score in the other three. I mean, D-Rob got outscored by 40 in the last two games, not to mention the huge TOV% difference with Hakeem at 12.2% and D-Rob at 17.3% even as Hakeem took like 80 more shots than D-Rob.

Furthermore, it's not as if D-Rob's teammates aren't influenced by D-Rob's own lacking skillset. Both teams relied pretty heavily on generating threes through their center...except Hakeem's skillset was far more reliable than D-Rob's. D-Rob couldn't make the Rockets pay for doubling him because he wasn't a creative/good enough passer and he couldn't exploit 1v1 situations against Hakeem. Even though VDN, Elliott, and Rivers all shot near their RS %s from 3, they had less attempts and less quality shots.

D-Rob's always gonna get a few easy points off offensive rebounds/putbacks, transition baskets or FTs and such (not to say Hakeem didn't but D-Rob really relied on this). Even if D-Rob put up better box score numbers or had better RAPM or whatever, I never felt he was as good as Hakeem when both were in their primes. His skills and abilities were just not that resilient. It's telling that when D-Rob was at his peak from 94-96 he flamed out HARD against the Jazz and Rockets, intelligent teams that could take away the easy things and leave D-Rob with almost nothing. D-Rob owns bad defensive teams. Against everyone else? Different story. Name one series where D-Rob took apart a top 10 defensive team and looked like an MVP.

Again, say what you want about D-Rob's RS numbers or his H2H against Hakeem. If you give credit to D-Rob's RS play, you must dock him heavily for his playoffs.

I know you are a Dream guy so I won't argue other than to say the RS numbers you posted there don't show Dream outplaying him at all imo--particularly when you see that Robinson's teams won most of those games suggesting his defensive impact might be higher as well because its not like Robinson had stronger supporting casts during that stretch of time--not even close.

And of course while including games prior to this time would only seem to benefit Dream as Robinson wasn't yet fully in his prime if we went back and included those games, Robinson's numbers would only look better in comparison. Dream's only real RS advantage is in volume scoring which isn't really worth that much in the overall context.

But yes Dream did get the better of him in that large sample size of one series. I would never base a comparison of two players of this caliber on one series, but to each their own I suppose.

Hakeem's supporting cast was probably better from 93-96, especially with Clyde in the fold. Doesn't change the fact that Hakeem was better too. That's why Houston got 2 titles and SA only made the CF once.

I can't agree with
Dream's only real RS advantage is in volume scoring which isn't really worth that much in the overall context.

because it IS critical, and it was an advantage that only got larger in the playoffs. It's not just the volume scoring that Hakeem has, it's the ability to generate resilient, efficient looks in tougher defensive environments. You don't think D-Rob losing like 7-9 points off his average against Utah and Houston mattered? You don't think the subsequent offensive team drop off caused by D-Rob's inability to do what he did in the RS mattered? It's not the number of points as much as the ability to create consistent, high quality shots. In a lot of cases it's better for the star to take the shot anyway. We've seen so many playoff games where the defense tightens up in the last 6 minutes and points become that much harder to come by - amazes me that quality volume scoring is considered unimportant.

Finally, I do think Hakeem beats D-Rob pretty handily, but it's more because he was a better offensive player, not afraid of the big moment, and at least D-Rob's equal defensively. The 1995 WCF was just a representation of the difference between the two. Has nothing to do with sample size.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 12:03 pm
by E-Balla
Quotatious wrote:
E-Balla wrote:DRob is solidly top 30 all time

Meaning you don't necessarily have Robinson in top 20? If so, I would very strongly disagree. Can't see him any lower than 20. As a matter of fact, I think he's much closer to 10 than he is to 30. Even as a relative "playoff choker" (relative to how great he was in RS), he was still a 24/12/3/3 blk and over 1 steal, below 3 tpg, 24 PER, almost 56% TS, over 6 BPM guy in the pre-Duncan era. That's pretty damn good. For the sake of comparison, Larry Bird's first 7 seasons - 24/11/6/2 stl/1 blk, 3.3 tpg, 22.2 PER, 55.3% TS (slightly lower than Robinson, with exactly the same scoring average), 8 BPM. Comparable numbers, and keep in mind that box-score is strongly skewed in favor of offense, and Robinson was a considerably superior defensive player (and no surprise - he looks fantastic based on plus/minus stats, even in in the early 2000s when he was past his prime).

Robinson's prime regular seasons were just a little below Jordan's and LeBron's, near GOAT level, and he was still a pretty good player in postseason. That makes him an absolute lock for top 20, IMO.

There's a major difference in the quality of defenses they played. Robinson beat up on cupcake teams but was killed by good defenses the second he became a high volume scorer. He's great in the Dwight Howard role but that's not leading you to a ring. He has no series like Bird vs Philly in 81. He has no playoff performances like Bird in 84 (who played all top 8 defenses excluding LA's 9th ranked defense in the finals). Bird's best is just way better than Robinson's and it's not particularly close either.

And with that in mind I can't take him over Wade. I can't take him over Nash. I can't take him over Barkley. These are all guys that can lead teams to wins against good teams in the postseason. You can put 2nd options in your top 20 but I'm not.

Re: David Robinson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon Head2Head

Posted: Wed Sep 14, 2016 4:25 pm
by trex_8063
Senior wrote:
Dr Olajuwon wrote:
trex_8063 wrote:
I agree; and there are still people who believe that was the case: that Hakeem essentially made DRob his b**** in every single meeting.

Even within that one series that has so defined their hierarchy, few remember that Robinson actually outplayed Hakeem in two of the six meetings (and quite badly in one of them).
Or that the Rockets won game 1 by a single point on wide open game winner by Robert Horry (because Rodman had gone rogue and totally left him alone on the perimeter), in a game in which Robinson's teammates also shot just 25% from 3pt range and just 60.9% from the FT line.
Or that in game 2 (which the Spurs lost by 10), Robinson actually had a fairly nice game.......but his teammates again tanked out at 22.2% (4/18) from 3pt range, while Hakeem's cast was a smokin' 47.4% (9/19) from 3pt range. If DRob's teammates shoot even semi-average on those same attempts (like 6/18, or 33.3%) and Hakeem's are just slightly less red-hot at say 7/19 (still a nice 36.8%), and this perhaps turns into a 2-pt Spurs victory.


That G1 the Spurs lost by 1, Robinson shot 5/17 from the field (.437 TS%)


Is anything I said about game 1 untrue?
While Robinson played poorly in that game, his teammates played poorly as well, and one or two of them made crucial errors in key moments in what turned out to be a 1-pt loss. True or untrue?
I'm merely pointing out that narratives would be much different had the Spurs won the series, and the absence of one Rodman error or 1-2 more made FT's by his teammates could have changed the outcome of that game (and perhaps the series).

Senior wrote:
Dr Olajuwon wrote:In which two games did Robinson outplay Hakeem?

G1: 27/8/6/5 .53 TS% vs 21/9/2/2 .437 TS%
G2: 41/16/4/2 .609 TS% vs 32/12/2/1 .662 TS%
G3: 43/11/4/5 .637 TS% vs 29/9/4/1 .765 TS%
G4: 20/14/5/3 .395 TS% vs 20/16/3/5 .49 TS%
G5: 42/9/8/5 .635 TS% vs 22/12/0/3 .567 TS%
G6: 39/17/3/5 .684 TS% vs 19/10/5/1 .426 TS%

At best you can say one of those D-Rob box scores is better than Hakeem's, Game 4. Hakeem at least outplayed D-Rob in Games 1-2 and dominated the box score in the other three.


We're obviously interpreting one game very very differently. I think you may be more centric on simple volume numbers, whereas I'm taking a more broad look at the game.....

G3:
Hakeem - 43 pts, 11 reb (3 off), 4 ast, 0 stl, 5 blk, 2 tov @ 63.7% TS, 127 ORtg/122 DRtg (+5)
Robinson - 29 pts, 9 reb (3 off), 4 ast, 4 stl, 1 blk, 1 tov @ 76.5% TS, 160 ORtg/112 DRtg (+48)

Let's look at the above on both sides of the ball. Offensively, they both had 4 ast, they both had 3 offensive rebounds; Hakeem scored 14 more points, however was also -12.8% TS relative to Robinson (though he was still quite efficient) and turned the ball over one additional time. So who had the better offensive game? You're obviously saying Hakeem; I, otoh, think it's pretty close to a wash, but would probably give the slight nod to Robinson as he's delivering high volume too, and on vastly superior efficiency (both shooting efficiency and turnover economy). Note his ORtg is +32 to his team's already-stellar ORtg; Hakeem's is just +5 to his team's.

Defensively, Hakeem blocked 5 shots to only 1 block for Robinson. Though Robinson came up with 4 stl (to Hakeem's 0). Robinson isn't someone with a tendency to gamble himself out of position to come up with a steal; and both are still occupying the paint and protecting the rim, even when not coming up with a blocked shot. So missed gambles and other rim-protection aside, I [in a vacuum, if you will] put more value on a steal compared to a block (as they definitively end a possession, and may even trigger a transition opportunity). A block, otoh, is potentially erasing a shot that would have missed anyway, and does not necessarily end the possession. So based only on the stl/block numbers, I'd be giving a small edge to Robinson.
However, Hakeem also obtained +2 defensive boards relative to Robinson. So that brings things roughly to parity; could even see giving a paper-thin edge to Hakeem. Though then I note that the Spurs rocked the Hakeem-anchored defense to the tune of a 127.8 ORtg in a winning effort (the Spurs defense didn't perform well on this front either......but not quite that bad). So I'm calling defensive a wash (though fwiw, Hakeem's DRtg is -6 to his team's DRtg, while Robinson's is -10 to his team's already better DRtg).

Overall, I give the very small edge to Robinson in G3 mostly based on my above interpretation of the offensive comparison.

I can see calling it a wash. I could perhaps even see giving Hakeem a negligible edge (though I don't agree). Saying Hakeem "dominated" the match-up in this game......I strenuously disagree. I honestly don't know how one can arrive at that conclusion.