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2016-17 NBA - 1st Half


Dolfan in NYC

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15 hours ago, Niners Fan in CT said:

I read he was just assigned a diffevent seat.

As someone who works for an NBA team, I can assure you, it takes more than that to eject someone that's paying five figures for season tickets for courtside seats. 

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Watched Spurs/Kings last night. Kawhi, no crap, was amazing. At one point in the game he stole the ball two times in a row from Ben McLemore. Just ganked him twice in a row. He took everything from Ben McLemore but his social security card. Just ridiculous and hilarious to watch.

 

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Pistons stomped ass on the Magic.

What I liked most about it is that it was the bench that really sparked the run that put them ahead. Then, we didn't take the boot off their throat. Beno Udrih did exactly what a backup PG needs to do and Baynes was fantastic. Ish Smith played his ass off and really dictated the game in a lot of ways. And, AND, Drummond hit two free throws, CONSECUTIVELY, and with some decent form.

 

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2 hours ago, RolandTHTG said:

OKC probably get out of jail here, but that was a dog of a last shot of the game from Westbrook.

I'm starting to feel like Thunder are going to be the down-to-the-wire must-see games this season.  Basically the Durantless year 2 seasons ago.  They really should be 2-0 easily, and a bad bounce and they are 0-2.

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So I had major doubts about Harrison Barnes after preseason, but the first 2 games of regular season has me very optimistic.  With Dirk out last night, HB did a great job of carrying the offense, but the bench and Wes Matthews STILL not being able to hit a shot let us down.

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On the plus side, Steph and Durant are looking real good, Zaza has been perfectly acceptable in his role, and Draymond has been great defending players much bigger than him. On the downside, no one can hit a three pointer except Durant and Steph. So many wide open threes missed, especially by Klay. But you have to imagine that eventually they'll start going in and as the offense starts flowing better they'll stop turning the ball over so much.

I end up feeling bad for the Suns and Timberwolves when I watch them play because of how stacked the west remains. 

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16 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Also, the Jazz have extended Rudy Gobert, who I'm told is a real person. 

4/102

Whiteside is looking like more and more of a bargain these days. 

Gobert is worth it, because he protects the rim while working within the defensive scheme.  Whiteside protects the rim in a way that disrupts his own defensive scheme, which is why the Heat were better on defense without him last season.  Team defense is much more valuable than individual defense in the NBA.  I think the 2008 Celtics figured out that it doesn't matter how good your individual defenders are if they can stick to a scheme.  It helps that they had hall of fame level talent, but NBA defense is much more about scheme than individual stats.

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There's room for freelancing in a NBA defense. Kawhi freelances a lot. Those steals he had on McLemore were because he stepped up to gank him as opposed to going to sit back and wait for the set to develop. Pippen certainly freelanced. Dikembe did. Miami did when they had Bron and Wade trapping everyone all over the court. Every great defender does, but they know how to pick their spots. Freelancing is a gamble. You're trying to at the very least disrupt a play from starting, with a best case scenario of getting hands on a ball. But losing that gamble results in a 5-on-4 to start a set or a foul. Or centers freelance by leaving an assignment to move from the weakside to try and get a block on someone who is already defended. One or two passes out of a crappy double not used to disrupt a play but instead to try and knock a ball out-of-bounds results in a wide open look.

It's all about gambling at the right time. Someone like Hassan really doesn't know how to do that. He's athletic enough to get a bunch of blocks a game and looks like a good defender when he's actually guarding the guy with the ball. But man, he just moves around so dumb and gets beat a lot. He also has the reputation as a guy who absolutely does not care about staying in a scheme.

Also: Blocked shots, for the most part, are really friggin' dumb. Blocked shots almost always just result in an out-of-bounds play set piece. Altering a shot by playing tall is so much better than swatting a shot into the fourth row. It's the NBA -- no one in the league is intimidated by having shot get put into the crowd.

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11 minutes ago, Greggulator said:

There's room for freelancing in a NBA defense. Kawhi freelances a lot. Those steals he had on McLemore were because he stepped up to gank him as opposed to going to sit back and wait for the set to develop. Pippen certainly freelanced. Dikembe did. Miami did when they had Bron and Wade trapping everyone all over the court. Every great defender does, but they know how to pick their spots. Freelancing is a gamble. You're trying to at the very least disrupt a play from starting, with a best case scenario of getting hands on a ball. But losing that gamble results in a 5-on-4 to start a set or a foul. Or centers freelance by leaving an assignment to move from the weakside to try and get a block on someone who is already defended. One or two passes out of a crappy double not used to disrupt a play but instead to try and knock a ball out-of-bounds results in a wide open look.

It's all about gambling at the right time. Someone like Hassan really doesn't know how to do that. He's athletic enough to get a bunch of blocks a game and looks like a good defender when he's actually guarding the guy with the ball. But man, he just moves around so dumb and gets beat a lot. He also has the reputation as a guy who absolutely does not care about staying in a scheme.

Also: Blocked shots, for the most part, are really friggin' dumb. Blocked shots almost always just result in an out-of-bounds play set piece. Altering a shot by playing tall is so much better than swatting a shot into the fourth row. It's the NBA -- no one in the league is intimidated by having shot get put into the crowd.

There is much more room for freelancing on the perimeter than on the interior.  Kawhi can take more risks, because he trusts that the interior defense is there to back him up.  The Big 3 era heat are a completely different story.  The biggest strength of that team was that LeBron, Wade, and especially Bosh were incredible athletes and otherworldly individual defenders who played extremely well together.  Do you remember the Jeremy Lin game where the Knicks couldn't even get the ball over half court?  When they were all healthy, they were probably the best defensive team of all time.  The issue was that Wade's knees started to go, Bosh kept getting nagging injuries, and they couldn't keep up that kind of effort.  Bosh could very well be the best defender of all time.  He was equally good in the post and on the perimeter and could legitimately destroy pick and rolls.  He's the most underappreciated player of this generation.  

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That Lin game was absolutely brutal.

I 100% agree about Bosh. That dude was great on an "eh" at best Raptors era. But he reinvented himself fully to fit in with LeBron and Wade. I loved how he became a Nowitzki-type on offense in a way -- not afraid to play inside or outside, but willing to let LeBron use his awesome post game and moving to the perimeter when that's how they decided the offense should flow.

That team was so ridiculously good on defense when they were primed and running. Those dudes just rampaged and trapped everyone they could. It was like watching a really good college team that presses a lot take on a completely overmatched small conference team in November.

It's a total shame he has his health issues. He's only 32. If he was healthy, I could see him ending up on another title-type team. San Antonio would snatch him in one second flat.

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Thunder/Warriors was fucking brutal.  Kanter jawing at Durant with Adams staring a hole through him on the bench reminded me of the April Fools video where Durant walked in on their Stache Brothers interview with a taped on mustache to join them and Adams muttered "you always gotta take the spotlight" and they both seemed annoyed that he was there.  Thought he was just being funny then.  Not so much now.

The media makes a big deal out of Russell vs KD.  I think the explosion may actually be Adams.  

 

 

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