NBA Thread 2019-20 Season

[NineOneSeven]

The team can’t score. Lowry is killing them on offense. They need Mitchell’s scoring.

Lowry’s defense was huge though.

 

[samspann1]

I want to see Ben Simmons with a walk off 3 pointer

 

[Alsacs]

Put Gobert and Mitchell in for defense here.

 

[samspann1]

What is Harden doing?

 

[W'boro'Cuse315]

Would be something if AD, the Chicago native, won it.

 

[longislandcuse]

Ugh... what a lame way to end it.

Lebron, go one on one with Giannis. Posting up AD on Lowry for the win... trash.

 

[Alsacs]

That 4th quarter was exactly what fans want.
Intensity and effort.

 

[jncuse]

The team can’t score. Lowry is killing them on offense. They need Mitchell’s scoring.

You must have been watching a different Kemba Walker than I was. He was totally useless in the fourth.
At least Lowry was making big defensive plays. But "Team pseudo East" stank in the fourth on offence. The whole bunch. Zero movement -- Giannis really hid when the bully ball stopped working.

 

[Alsacs]

You must have been watching a different Kemba Walker than I was. .
At least Lowry was making big defensive plays. But "Team pseudo East" stank in the fourth on offence. The whole bunch. Zero movement -- Giannis really hid when the bully ball stopped working.

Nurse coaches that 4th quarter poorly.
Mitchell, Gobert, Butler, Giannis, Embiid should have been the players.

It wasn’t a good lineup.

 

[jncuse]

Nurse coaches that 4th quarter poorly.
Mitchell, Gobert, Butler, Giannis, Embiid should have been the players.

It wasn’t a good lineup.

I don't disagree with that lineup except only one of Gobert/Embiid.

Nurse loves the two small guard lineup to a fault at times. It was almost inevitable that he would go with Lowry and Walker in the end. He should have went with only one, and put Butler in for Siakam. Pascal was good defensively, but could not create. But I really think a big part of the blame has to go Giannis as well. He disappeared and did not go get the ball at the end after failing when it really ramped up early on in the 4th. Kyle took some dumb 2's when the offense was flat.

It is amazing though when superstars like the "West" team decide to get intense. They are all great defensively and being stars they are given more latitude as well when it comes to contact. Very tough for anybody to score against them. Lebron was basically permitted to foul at least once on every possession in the fourth.

In the end I don't know if anybody from team "East" including the coach can really hide from some criticism in the 4th. But it was an all start game.

The fact that I care this much to make a long post about it makes it show how great that final quarter was. Best all star sequence I have ever seen.

 

[jncuse]

I'm trying to think of any player that executed well offensively in that final quarter on either team. Seem to remember Paul hitting some shots to start.

But once the defensive intensity stepped up the Refs seemed confused. There was many more fouls than even in a regular season game at the end, and the refs didn't want to call everything. They called quite a few, but there was a number of no call muggings as well -- inside and even on the perimeter.

Not going to blame them. It was a hard quarter for the refs who clearly could not have expected something like that.

 

[samspann1]

Knicks are interested in Jay Wright...

The Knicks Have Strong Interest In Villanova Coach Jay Wright: Sources

League sources say Villanova coach Jay Wright could become the next head coach of the Knicks.

www.forbes.com

Maybe after he steps down as HC of the Knicks, he can step in as JB's successor...

 

[Knicks411]

I basically watched the last few minutes of the third and all of the fourth. I dug it.
Ending on a FT isn't great, I will grant that.

 

[kirbivore]

I think the NBA is way better right now than it was in the 90s, but there's one thing I really miss about the 90s, and that's the way All-Star Weekend was.

I find all the "filler" during the Saturday night stuff to be exhausting. Like why is there a Queen Latifah concert? Just show me the events, one after another, and just stop drawing it out so long.

Also, back in the day, the All-Star game usually started around maybe 3 pm, which was a nice thing to watch on a Sunday afternoon. Now it won't end until like 11 pm.

specifically for that reason I gave the DVR treatment and skipped the skills challenge and that other filler crap and only watch dunk and 3 pt contests

 

[OttoinGrotto]

The all-star game was a major step in the NBA adopting the Elam Ending as the official end to NBA games in the future.

Change my mind.

 

[Knicks411]

The all-star game was a major step in the NBA adopting the Elam Ending as the official end to NBA games in the future.

Change my mind.

I can't argue too much.

I don't know what everyone else thinks, but to me, I think it makes more sense at the college level. The ending of most NBA games isn't too bad; due to the shorter shot clock; better FT shooting/lack of 1 and 1s, and the ability to move the ball to halfcourt after time outs, teams in the NBA let things go much longer before just fouling.

In college, you get some scenarios where teams are fouling with like 90 seconds left and the last few minutes take forever.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

I can't argue too much.

I don't know what everyone else thinks, but to me, I think it makes more sense at the college level. The ending of most NBA games isn't too bad; due to the shorter shot clock; better FT shooting/lack of 1 and 1s, and the ability to move the ball to halfcourt after time outs, teams in the NBA let things go much longer before just fouling.

In college, you get some scenarios where teams are fouling with like 90 seconds left and the last few minutes take forever.

I agree with all of that, but if the innovation comes, it'll come from the NBA. The college game doesn't rock the boat.

While I think you're right that the college game needs it more, I also think that the college game is less equipped to smoothly adopt it. There are such disparities in scoring outputs that even with the Elam Ending it might take a loooooong time for some games to wrap up with natural scoring.

Re: not having games end on a free throw, I feel like the easy fix is that on the first shooting foul that could hit the Elam Ending score, you simply raise the final score target by 1 for each free throw made. The second shooting foul that sends the guy to the line can hit the target score on made FTs though. That way, teams aren't encouraged to foul.

 

[Knicks411]

I agree with all of that, but if the innovation comes, it'll come from the NBA. The college game doesn't rock the boat.

While I think you're right that the college game needs it more, I also think that the college game is less equipped to smoothly adopt it. There are such disparities in scoring outputs that even with the Elam Ending it might take a loooooong time for some games to wrap up with natural scoring.

Re: not having games end on a free throw, I feel like the easy fix is that on the first shooting foul that could hit the Elam Ending score, you simply raise the final score target by 1 for each free throw made. The second shooting foul that sends the guy to the line can hit the target score on made FTs though. That way, teams aren't encouraged to foul.

Totally agree on NBA being way more innovative than college. you're right if it happens, NBA would do it first.

Another idea I saw with the FT thing is that if you are 1 point away and can win on a FT, any ft you make subtracts a point from the score of the other team.

Honestly though, ending with FT aren't great, but I really don't think it's that big a deal. Games effectively end on FT now all the time. The stat nerd in me doesn't like the Elam Ending cause it would screw with some of the stats, but that's really my only complaint with it.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Totally agree on NBA being way more innovative than college. you're right if it happens, NBA would do it first.

Another idea I saw with the FT thing is that if you are 1 point away and can win on a FT, any ft you make subtracts a point from the score of the other team.

Honestly though, ending with FT aren't great, but I really don't think it's that big a deal. Games effectively end on FT now all the time. The stat nerd in me doesn't like the Elam Ending cause it would screw with some of the stats, but that's really my only complaint with it.

Subtracting is interesting.

I get the stats argument. Lots of history behind 48 minutes. Found this article that talks about a different idea the NBA tried, and part of the argument against shorter quarters was the stats argument - The NBA Has a Bright Idea to Make Basketball Games More Exciting

I think the Elam Ending just makes for such a better game end. I like that you win playing normal basketball, not by killing clock and milking points at the line.

 

[NineOneSeven]

Elam ending will never be in full time games.

I’m so confident I dropped an absolute on it.

Also, the strategy of JB stall ball is out the door if college adopted it. Wonder how we would do.

 

[STEVEHOLT]

So Rockets signing Demare Carroll and Jeff Green as buy out fodder. What are they DOING!!!!

Ill never understand it. They go small...the plan being surround the court with shooters and open up the middle for harden and Westbrook to slash to the rack.

BUT, they don't have a SINGLE legitimate dead eye three point shooter.
They have a bunch of OK to pretty decent shooters ranging from 33 to 38 percent from three yet there are multiple players on noncompetitive teams that shoot over 40 percent that IM sure would be readily available.

They are 23rd as a team in 3 point percentage. Detroit has FIVE guys shooting 40 percent or higher from 3. Pretty sure you could pry one of them away from the going nowhere Pistons.

 

[moqui]

So Rockets signing Demare Carroll and Jeff Green as buy out fodder. What are they DOING!!!!

Ill never understand it. They go small...the plan being surround the court with shooters and open up the middle for harden and Westbrook to slash to the rack.

BUT, they don't have a SINGLE legitimate dead eye three point shooter.
They have a bunch of OK to pretty decent shooters ranging from 33 to 38 percent from three yet there are multiple players on noncompetitive teams that shoot over 40 percent that IM sure would be readily available.

They are 23rd as a team in 3 point percentage. Detroit has FIVE guys shooting 40 percent or higher from 3. Pretty sure you could pry one of them away from the going nowhere Pistons.

you don't have to have a bunch of dead-eye shooters who can knock down well defended shots. you need a bunch of good-enough shooters who can knock down open shots when the help defender leaves them

 

[Knicks411]

Subtracting is interesting.

I get the stats argument. Lots of history behind 48 minutes. Found this article that talks about a different idea the NBA tried, and part of the argument against shorter quarters was the stats argument - The NBA Has a Bright Idea to Make Basketball Games More Exciting

I think the Elam Ending just makes for such a better game end. I like that you win playing normal basketball, not by killing clock and milking points at the line.

Yup. That was the same reason I didn't like the shorter game idea. But I'm not sure it's a good reason for me to not like it.

The Elam Ending really is way more exciting.

This is probably a terrible comp, but it's kind of interesting you had this right around the same time as the XFL came back, the XFL has a bunch of real interesting ideas that I think the NFL is going to end up using at some point. (Kickoff rule for sure) Lot of innovation and stuff.

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Yup. That was the same reason I didn't like the shorter game idea. But I'm not sure it's a good reason for me to not like it.

The Elam Ending really is way more exciting.

This is probably a terrible comp, but it's kind of interesting you had this right around the same time as the XFL came back, the XFL has a bunch of real interesting ideas that I think the NFL is going to end up using at some point. (Kickoff rule for sure) Lot of innovation and stuff.

I really like the idea that every game has a game winning shot that's basically a knock out punch.

 

[moqui]

The Elam Ending really is way more exciting.

n = 1

i would expect the opposite in a lot of real games. teams down 18+ after 3 more likely to tank