1970s Top Team Tourney Ro32, '78 Sonics @ '72 Bucks

[sansterre]

Don't forget, the home team for the series only benefits from that designation for Game 7. The rankings for these teams are out of 37 (because there are 37 teams in the 1970s tourney). The player stats are SS (ShotShare, percentage of team's shots taken when on the court), and the slash stats are rebounds per game, assists per game and stocks per game (if applicable), all adjusted to a Pace of 100.

The 1978 Seattle SuperSonics (#28) @ The 1972 Milwaukee Bucks (#5)

Overall:

Record: ‘72 Bucks, 63 wins (4th) > '78 Sonics, 47 wins (33rd)
RSRS: ‘72 Bucks, +10.70 (3rd) > '78 Sonics, +1.48 (35th)
PSRS: ‘72 Bucks, +14.08 (2nd) > '78 Sonics, +3.80 (28th)

When the '78 Sonics have Possession:

Overall Comparison, '78 Sonics' offense vs '72 Bucks' defense:

Regular Season: -1.7 Offensive Rating (37th) vs -5.3 Defensive Rating (6th): -7.0 expected
Playoffs: +2.8 Offensive Rating (11th) vs -9.8 Defensive Rating (1st): -7.0 expected

Lineup:

PG: Gus Williams, 25.6% SS on -2.4% rTS, 17.3 / 3.1 / 3.5 / 2.7: +2.9 playoff OBPM
SG: Dennis Johnson, 21.7% SS on -2.9% rTS, 12.1 / 3.4 / 2.7 / 2.0: +0.8 playoff OBPM
SF: John Johnson, 22.4% SS on -6.2% rTS, 10.2 / 3.8 / 2.7 / 0.9: -1.8 playoff OBPM
PF: Paul Silas, 11.4% SS on -7.8% rTS, 5.5 / 7.7 / 1.7 / 1.0: -0.7 playoff OBPM
C: Marvin Webster, 16.4% SS on +2.8% rTS, 13.4 / 12.0 / 2.4 / 2.5: +1.0 playoff OBPM
6th: Jack Sikma, 17.4% SS on -0.6% rTS, 10.2 / 7.9 / 1.5 / 1.2: -0.1 playoff OBPM
7th: Fred Brown, 26.0% SS on +1.3% rTS, 15.8 / 2.5 / 3.1 / 1.7: +2.8 playoff OBPM


When the '72 Bucks have Possession:

Overall Comparison, '72 Bucks' offense vs '78 Sonics' defense:

Regular Season: +4.7 Offensive Rating (3rd) vs -3.2 Defensive Rating (19th): +1.5 expected
Playoffs: +2.0 Offensive Rating (20th) vs +0.1 Defensive Rating (29th): +2.1 expected

Lineup:

PG: Oscar Robertson, 19.6% SS on +3.6% rTS, 15.6 / 4.5 / 6.9
SG: Lucius Allen, 19.4% SS on +4.3% rTS, 12.1 / 2.9 / 3.8
SF: Bob Dandridge, 21.4% SS on +3.6% rTS, 16.5 / 6.9 / 2.8
PF: Curtis Perry, 12.7% SS on -8.0% rTS, 6.3 / 8.5 / 1.4
C: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, 29.7% SS on +9.9% rTS, 31.3 / 14.9 / 4.1
6th: Wali Jones, 17.4% SS on -4.4% rTS, 6.7 / 1.4 / 2.6
7th: Jon McGlocklin, 16.2% SS on +3.9% rTS, 9.6 / 2.1 / 2.6

Thoughts:

-Injuries: Wali Jones will miss Game 4, Jon McGlocklin will miss Games 4, 5, 6 and 7, both for the Bucks.
-The ‘78 Sonics are one of the worst shooting teams in this tournament. And the ‘72 Bucks have the best shot defense in this tournament. I’ll grant that Gus Williams was an unusually resilient SOB, but his resilience in ‘78 was good enough to raise him to . . . league average. So I think that the Sonics are really, really, really going to struggle to shoot well in this matchup. They might actually have an advantage on the glass though. They grade out as one of the top offensive rebounding teams in this tournament and the ‘72 Bucks . . . well, it’s hard to say. The ‘72 Bucks were slightly above average in Rebounds per game relative to the league, but given that the Bucks missed few shots and their opponents missed a ton of shots, you’d expect them to be higher (there should have been a lot of defensive rebounds to get). So the Sonics may have some success on that front. But I don’t know if it’ll be enough. The ‘78 Sonics demonstrated a fairly resilient playoff offense, but the ‘72 Bucks were defensive monsters in the playoffs. They held the ‘72 Lakers to almost 18 points per game lower than their regular season average. You’d think that might have been pace (maybe it was) but the Lakers used the exact same number of TSA per game in that series as in the regular season. The ‘72 Bucks had a *great* defense.
- The ‘72 Bucks’ offense was surprisingly mortal in the postseason. But a big part of that was Kareem getting matched up against two of the toughest defensive centers ever, in Wilt and Thurmond. No disrespect to Webster and Sikma, but I don’t see them being quite as effective against Kareem. I wouldn’t guess that the Bucks’ offense is going to dominate or anything . . . but if their defense plays extremely well (seems likely) I don’t know that they’ll need to.

I’m going to put this up for 48 hours, unless I need to keep it open for a tie-breaker.

Post with who you would pick to win this series, ideally with the number of games. And if you have any insight into these players or matchups beyond what is above please don't hesitate to post; the goal (as always) is for us all to walk away with more knowledge than we started with. We always have more to learn.


I’m going to put this up for 48 hours, unless I need to keep it open for a tie-breaker.

Post with who you would pick to win this series, ideally with the number of games. And if you have any insight into these players or matchups beyond what is above please don't hesitate to post; the goal (as always) is for us all to walk away with more knowledge than we started with. We always have more to learn!

Spoiler:

MasterThread

[penbeast0]

Kareem is too quick for Marvin Webster and too tall for Sikma plus he can get the skyhook off on anyone. At this point he is one of the most unstoppable forces in NBA history. The rest of the Sonics will do a good job defensively but only Fred Brown is an outside scoring force (Gus Williams had a down year) and Milwaukee plays good defense with Kareem backing them up. Bucks in 4

[trex_8063]

I've not participated in this project up to this point, and tbh I'm not sure if I've qualified specific criteria to do so now (so if my vote doesn't count, that's fine).

But imo: the '72 Bucks soooooo super-easily. That was a true contender-level team [I would perhaps even say an "all-timer"].
They just happened to come up against one of the other great "all-timers" during the WDF in the '72 Lakers.......whom they took to 6 games and actually OUT-scored in the series.

But this was the same basic core as the '71 Champions [one of the greatest teams ever]; so make no mistake this was a legit BEAST of a team, in an all-time sense.

The '78 Sonics were, how shall I put this?.......not.

[sansterre]

I've not participated in this project up to this point, and tbh I'm not sure if I've qualified specific criteria to do so now (so if my vote doesn't count, that's fine).

But imo: the '72 Bucks soooooo super-easily. That was a true contender-level team [I would perhaps even say an "all-timer"].
They just happened to come up against one of the other great "all-timers" during the WDF in the '72 Lakers.......whom they took to 6 games and actually OUT-scored in the series.

But this was the same basic core as the '71 Champions [one of the greatest teams ever]; so make no mistake this was a legit BEAST of a team, in an all-time sense.

The '78 Sonics were, how shall I put this?.......not.

TRex! Awesome to hear from you!

The standards are basically "Make a prediction and justify it with reasoning that isn't obviously stupid". It's a standard that, to date, hasn't come close to being invoked, and one that you certainly clear with ease

[trex_8063]

I've not participated in this project up to this point, and tbh I'm not sure if I've qualified specific criteria to do so now (so if my vote doesn't count, that's fine).

But imo: the '72 Bucks soooooo super-easily. That was a true contender-level team [I would perhaps even say an "all-timer"].
They just happened to come up against one of the other great "all-timers" during the WDF in the '72 Lakers.......whom they took to 6 games and actually OUT-scored in the series.

But this was the same basic core as the '71 Champions [one of the greatest teams ever]; so make no mistake this was a legit BEAST of a team, in an all-time sense.

The '78 Sonics were, how shall I put this?.......not.

TRex! Awesome to hear from you!

The standards are basically "Make a prediction and justify it with reasoning that isn't obviously stupid". It's a standard that, to date, hasn't come close to being invoked, and one that you certainly clear with ease

I don't know if my above post constitutes "reasoning that isn't obviously stupid". At any rate it was brief, lacking in statistical nuance, and sort of flippant.
And I'm going to follow it up by being flippant again; but in all honestly I don't think this particular match-up warrants anything more.

This one is sort of like asking "who wins between the '96 Bulls and '02 Nets [the Bulls with HCA]?"
You really don't need to overthink it: it's going to be the Bulls, and it's [most likely] going to be a merciless slaughter. Next....

[homecourtloss]

Just can’t see a middling Sonics’ offense do anything against the Bucks. Then there’s the challenge of containing Kareem. It could easily be Bucks in 4, but sweeps of good teams is very difficult, so I’ll say Bucks in 5.

[sansterre]

I'm comfortable with Bucks in 4. The Sonics' offense against the Bucks' defense is going to be ugly.

[sansterre]

I've not participated in this project up to this point, and tbh I'm not sure if I've qualified specific criteria to do so now (so if my vote doesn't count, that's fine).

But imo: the '72 Bucks soooooo super-easily. That was a true contender-level team [I would perhaps even say an "all-timer"].
They just happened to come up against one of the other great "all-timers" during the WDF in the '72 Lakers.......whom they took to 6 games and actually OUT-scored in the series.

But this was the same basic core as the '71 Champions [one of the greatest teams ever]; so make no mistake this was a legit BEAST of a team, in an all-time sense.

The '78 Sonics were, how shall I put this?.......not.

TRex! Awesome to hear from you!

The standards are basically "Make a prediction and justify it with reasoning that isn't obviously stupid". It's a standard that, to date, hasn't come close to being invoked, and one that you certainly clear with ease

I don't know if my above post constitutes "reasoning that isn't obviously stupid". At any rate it was brief, lacking in statistical nuance, and sort of flippant.
And I'm going to follow it up by being flippant again; but in all honestly I don't think this particular match-up warrants anything more.

This one is sort of like asking "who wins between the '96 Bulls and '02 Nets [the Bulls with HCA]?"
You really don't need to overthink it: it's going to be the Bulls, and it's [most likely] going to be a merciless slaughter. Next....

Completely agreed. This is the round of 32, there are plenty of lopsided matchups. It's still good to hear the different observations of the people who know the teams better than I do. Every now and then somebody will make a really good point that changes a lot of minds. And sometimes, if we're very very good, 70sFan shares a video with us.

Either way, it's interesting and I'm learning a lot from working on these teams and reading these posts so I'm calling it a win

[sansterre]

Bucks take this 4-0 (appropriately) and advance to face the '72 Knicks.