In a game that reminded me a lot of a certain mid-season Orlando-LA game, last night Scott Brooks instructed his team to foul Omer Asik repeatedly and intentionally, usually off the ball, sending Asik to the line 12 times in the fourth quarter. Predictably, most people hate this kind of basketball. Here's Royce Webb:

And it’s hard to blame Thunder coach Scott Brooks for trying to win (even if the strategy itself was dumb.

But it’s easy to blame a system that puts the game in the hands of the coaches and referees and the rulebook instead of the players.

The league has an enormous amount of intentional fouling of all kinds. The league continues to say it has the best athletes in the world.

It’s amazing that it would reward fouling at the expense of those athletes.

I understand some of this, but a couple of things trouble me about this:

• It mentions that the strategy is dumb but in passing. In truth, this strategy was the single most spectacularly stupid thing I have seen a head coach do in the playoffs this year, and possibly of all time. This "strategy" made George Karl not playing any big men seem like Einsteinian wisdom by comparison.
• For this reason, the league does not, in fact, reward fouling. Even if Asik had shot his typical 56% (he shot 13/18, or 72%), fouling Asik would have been terrible. It's true that the league could stand to learn some from FIBA rules, but this is hardly the same as "rewarding" fouling.

Let us assume that Asik would shoot 56%. Now, put yourself in the position of a coach trying to engineer a comeback win. There are some things you must do:

• play great defense. You need to do this because trading baskets isn't going to get you back in the game. You need to get stops; defensive stops lead to transition baskets as well. This sounds like a platitude but it boils down to is that if you are going to make a comeback, your defense will have to be very good.
• really lock up defensive rebounds. Giving the team with the lead second shots will crush your comeback chances.
• score efficiently -- you're probably going to have to run a little hot, and you definitely cannot afford any wasted posessions with bad shots.
• manage the clock. This factor, for obvious reasons, grows in importance as you get closer to the end.

If you fail to do any one of these things, it will be virtually impossible to come back.

By intentionally fouling Asik, it is actually not clear to me if Brooks was trying to do point 1) or point 4). The reasons it is not clear to me is that it is an awful way to acheive either goal. With respect to the clock, he started this "strategy" early on, when that was the least important of these factors. And as for defense, well, by fouling Asik, he a) more or less locks in Houston's eFG% at 56% and b) he completely prevents his team's ability to create a turnover on that possession. Asik is not a good free throw shooter, but he simply isn't anywhere near bad enough to make this worthwile.

Now, I am too lazy to scour basketball reference but I am pretty sure if you looked trough NBA history for teams that shot 56% and never turned the ball over, you'd be looking at essentially the greatest offense of all time. Ask yourself if it qualifies as great defense to give up 1.12 points per possession (actually, more, because of offensive rebounds). By adopting this strategy, Brooks essentially tried to get his team to make a comeback while playing horrible defense on a huge percentage of Houston's possessions.

And that, frankly, goes way beyond "dumb" and into the realm of "I can't believe anyone is stupid enough to try this". To McHale's credit, he was smart enough not to do the Thunder the favor of taking Asik out of the game to prevent the tactic and save the Thunder from Scott Brooks' folly.

Which leads me to the second point: the NBA does not use 1-and-1s, which would reward this kind of play (the eFG% of a 56% FT shooter shooting 1-and-1s is (.56)*1*(.56*1), or 31.36%).  Although I agree that the NBA would be better if it were a little more like FiBA, where "intentional" fouls include the kinds like last night where a player off the ball just harmlessly hugged Asik until he got the call. In FIBA games, since by definition the defender was not trying to make a play on the basketball, that would be an intentional foul and result in 2 free throws and the ball back, thus completely eliminating this strategy.

In other words, the FiBA rules save coaches like Scott Brooks from themselves. That wouldn't be a bad thing. But, the current rules are hardly "rewarding" this kind of play. There are just some coaches out there who aren't very good at math who believe that they do.

Categories: Omer Asik, Oklahoma City Thunder

Note from Patrick: If I occasionally indulge myself in a little Kahn-bashing, I have to let Dre get after Karl a little. What I find remarkable about Karl is how terrible he is in the playoffs. He gets away with a lot of awful rotations in the regular season and wins a lot of games because a) his opponents are playing deep rotations with plenty of crappy players too, because it is, after all, the regular season, and b) by definition half of your regular season games are against crappy teams.

But when you get to the playoffs, you no longer have the luxury of playing 40% of your games versus Minnesota, Sacremento, and your opponent coaches, unlike Mr. Karl, are not stupid enough to let the 9th (or 10th) man on their bench get 15+ minutes of playing time. And I do find it truly spectacularly stupid to try to beat Golden State at the small ball game. Because that worked out so well for Avery Johnson. Does Karl not know that Golden State's small players are really good? And that his, well...aren't? Why isn't Javale McGee averaging 40 minutes, 25 points, and 15 rebounds a game? Anyway, I'll let Dre take if from here.

At halftime I was prepared to write how the Nuggets won in spite of Karl's bad coaching. That the key to their success was the Lawson, Iguodala and Faried decided to play well in game three after subpar game 2s. I was prepared to say that Karl had done nothing to address the Warrior's sick three point shooting, or handle the fact that the Warriors were beating us on the boards. And then, the Nuggets lost! And to make sure my fans understand I'm not a complete hater.

• It wasn't all Karl's fault . Team Dre (Miller and Iguodala) killed us! At a combined 21 points on 28 shots, they were chucking too much.
• Wilson Chandler played well. Would love to fault the dude but 60% True Shooting and 9 boards is good.
• Lawson and Faried played well and that's good.

But let's be clear. This loss belongs to Karl. As my friend Mitch used to say "I don't mind poor execution, I mind poor planning." You can sometimes have a bad night as a player, even doing the right things. But if you're chucking up halfcourt shots and trying to pass between four guys, we can be upset. Karl is that guy!

Small Ball Nonsense

Karl's not playing his seven footers to compete with Golden State's linueps. Except, he's actually falling for a trap. Using the heights and weights at basketball-reference, here's a rundown of Golden State's Average height and weight per game.

Golden State Average Height and Weight by Game

• Game 1 - 79.1 inches tall, 218.2 pounds
• Game 2 - 78.6 inches tall, 214.6 pounds
• Game 3 - 78.8 inches tall, 215.2 pounds

Denver's Average Height and Weight by Game

• Game 1 - 78.3 inches tall, 212.0 pounds
• Game 2 - 78.1 inches tall, 209.5 pounds
• Game 3 - 77.9 inches tall, 209.7 pounds

Karl is giving Jackson almost an inch and five pounds every game. Karl seems to think the ideal response to smallball is to play smaller! And let's also ask why Karl might be playing smallball to begin. Here goes on the theory. With a smaller lineup, a team is able to spread the floor more. We need smaller players to be able to keep up with them instead of bigs to stay by the hoop. Sound good? Well guess what?

In game 2 Golden State shot historically well! At 74% True Shooting and over 50% from the three, what defense was a smaller lineup providing? What's more in game 2 the Warriors also outrebounded the Nuggets by 10.

In game 3 Golden State kept it up. While not a historic night, they shot a 61% True Shooting and 40% from three. And oh yeah, they outrebounded the Nuggets by 8.

So Karl is playing smaller players and he can't keep the Warriors from scoring and can't get the ball? At Sloan, Stan Van Gundy talked about how some coaches place a system over winning. And yes, Karl is doing just that.

The Nuggets will not win with Karl in charge

The Nuggets improved roughly ten games from last season. And we'd love to credit Karl. Except there were three simple factors. 

• Faried was a beast as a rookie. Just giving him more minutes was going to help.
• The Nuggets got a very good player in Iguodala.
• The Nuggets have a huge court edge due to altitude. This seemed to vanish in the lockout shortened season.

In short, the Nuggets were supposed to do better. This season wasn't a surprise. It wasn't Karl's great coaching. Good players + killer home court = winning season. That simple! The Nuggets have done a surprisingly good job of getting a roster of hardly any bad players. Karl has done a remarkable combination of giving lots of minutes to his weaker players, and playing smaller lineups. Unless you've got Jordan, Pippen and Rodman, you simple do not have the talent to forgo playing bigs. Karl hasn't learned this and as he's been a coach for almost two decades, I doubt he's going to change his ways.

-Dre

Categories: Andre Iguodala, Andrew Bogut, Corey Brewer, JaVale McGee, Kenneth Faried, Kosta Koufos, Wilson Chandler, Denver Nuggets, Golden State Warriors, George Karl, NBA Playoffs, Mark Jackson, Smallball

Today is a big NBA news day here at the Geek. Reportedly, the Minnesota Timberwolves have decided to replace David Kahn with Flip Saunders. This news is so big we've got TWO articles on it. Dre put up a piece earlier today, and I've got a few cents to add as well.

Interestingly, Dre argues that Kahn should have been fired long ago (duh), but that firing him this year is ironic because he did a great job. He even quotes me, as I gave Kahn an A+ for the last offseason. I disagree, for a couple of reasons.

As I pointed out way back when, we don't really know if Kahn was making the basketball decisions last summer. I gave Kahn the credit because, well, officially, he was the guy; and at the very least, he deserved credit for bowing to Adelman's wisdom (if indeed that's what was going on). But the bayesian in me says that the more likely scenario is that Adelman's camp was dictating basketball decisions.

Now, this wouldn't be a problem, actually...except that Adelman might be leaving. And if he is, that would mean basketball-related decisions revert to David Kahn. And if those decisions are anything like the decisions of his first three years, that would be Timbergeddon.

Next there's the draft. One of the reasons that Budinger was such a good acquisition is that he's a good, cheap player, which is essentially what you're likely to get with #17 if you draft well anyway -- so they traded two birds in the bush for one in the hand, so to speak. But another reason it was a good trade is that it prevented David Kahn from making a lousy draft choice. This year, the wolves have 2 first round picks. I think it's really wise to bring in someone else to handle those picks.

Lastly, there is Kevin Love. Kahn's mismanagement of Love from his first day on the job has been spectacularly poor. From calling him "the fourth best player" on a championship-contending team, to saying things like "Who could have seen this coming?" when Love had his breakout year in 2010-11 (and by "breakout", I mean Rambis finally stopped randomly benching him even though everyone on earth but Kahn and Rambis recognized that he was the best player on the squad), to not locking Love up for 5 years (flexibility is more important than having a superstar on your roster, I guess), to the way he delivered the contract extension.

You may say that Love was out of line for that interview with Woj (who, rumor has it, despises Kahn, so one wonders if that influenced the tone of the writing), and you'd probably be right. But the NBA is about superstars. You get one, you build around him, you win. And despite what the pundits believe, there are fewer than 30 superstars. There are like 10, or 15 if you stretch it. If you bungle relationships with superstars, you lose. Kahn's bungling of this relationship should have gotten him fired long ago.

Having said that, I'm not going to cheer too loudly for Saunders. Saunders was heavily involved in lots of personnel decisions during his tenure here. He may not have signed the ink, but if we are to believe that Adelman steered Kahn, you'd be hard pressed to argue that Saunders wasn't working very closely with McHale. Remember these decisions?

• letting Chauncey Billups, who would have signed for cheap if given a starting role, walk because they wouldn't promise that to him. By definition Saunders had a hand in this; he was the coach. He could have promised Billups the starting role (or at least made it "his to lose"). Even if Tarrell Brandon had been healthy (he was nowhere near it), this should have been a no-brainer decision. No, this isn't revisionist history. Chauncey was young, he was good, and the Wolves had just won 50 games with him starting many of them. No. Fucking. Brainer.
• Remember when Wolves management flew accross country to serenade Michael Olowokandi? Saunders was one of the guys on that plane. Never forget.
• When the Wolves signed Troy Hudson to one of the worst contracts ever, are we to believe that Saunders didn't endorse him?
• How involved was Saunders in the Joe Smith disaster? At the least, he must have been telling management how fantastic Smith is, to make them take such outrageous risks. The Joe Smith incident is probably the single-most egregious case of sports management incompetence in the modern NBA.

I'm uncertain about Flip's role in a lot of this stuff, so I won't pass judgment. But forgive me if I consider this recent signing the lesser of two evils. Mostly, I am a firm believer that corporate culture comes from the top. Ultimately, as long as Glen Taylor owns the franchise, there is little reason to beleive they will suddenly morph into the Spurs.

Categories: Minnesota Timberwolves, Kaaaaahn

Most years, we'd be on board with  this. Patrick is a Timberwolves fan and the pure insanity that Kahn has shown over the years is enough to make anyone's blood boil. But this season was different. Kahn almost appeared intelligent in his moves. And for once, Wolves fans had hope. Of course, injuries stole that dream. And with moves like keeping David Kahn after years of ineptitude, only to fire him when he finally makes good moves, I can only say that Wolves fans should not feel that happy.

Kahn was a really good GM this year

Patrick did a great post about David Kahn's good moves this season. It boiled down to the following:

• Ditching Darko and Wes Johnson was really really good.
• Getting Andrei Kirilenko was really really good.
• Instead of wasting a draft pick, getting Budinger was really really good.
• Stiemsma was a good pickup.

And, it should be noted that all of these moves occured before the season started. And all of these were really smart moves. With a decent core of Ridnour, Rubio, Love and Pekoviv, it looked like Kahn had finally surrounded them with the pieces to compete. Patrick said the upper limit could even by 57 games!

Injuries matter!

I often hear people say injuries in the NBA aren't an excuse. All teams have them and the good teams perservere. With all due respect, that's false on so many levels. First, some players matter more than others. If Chris Bosh goes down, the Heat can still win in the playoffs. In LeBron goes down, are they still favorites in the finals? Second, if a team has injuries to many major players, then it will definitely matter. It's hard enough for a team to pay for a good 5-10 players to win. To expect them to have another 5-10 in waiting on the off chance of major injuries is insane. Let's review that by the way

• Andrei Kirilenko - missed 18 games
• Nikola Pekovic - missed 20 games
• Ricky Rubio - missed 25 games
• Chase Budinger - missed 59 games
• Kevin Love - missed 64 games

We were excited the Wolves finally had multiple top tier players (Kirilenko, Pekovic and Love) and each of them missed a quarter of the season. Love was the major star pulling the Wolves and he went down practically the whoel season. Rubio and Budinger were supposed to help even out this great core. Budinger was lost the whole season and Rubio was out for over a quarter. Patrick's math had this as a very good team. Let's revise it:

[Great Team] - [Star Player] - [1/4 of season for good players] - [Chase Budinger] = [33 Win Team]

It actually seems to line up!

Good decisions that didn't work out

I'd like to point to three decisions that Kahn did this year that seem poor in hindsight but I think were good. Kahn signed Alexey Shved, who played terribly. He signed Greg Stiemsma, who played terribly, and he signed Brandon Roy, who didn't play. So, clearly he messed up, right? No!

Shved is a young player and Kahn signed him for three million a season. Now, maybe he never pans out, but he's young, affordable and his contract was only for three years. Stiemsma played very well in short minutes for the Celtics last season. Kahn signed him for two years for less than five million. Again, young, affordable, possible high ceiling, and short contract. Roy was once very good. Now, it was unlikely he'd return to form. That said, Kahn signed him for five million a season and only one season was guaranteed (based on health). It was a gamble. I risk five million. If I'm right even a small percentage of the time I get a star player. If I'm wrong, I only lose one season of cap space and less than the mid-level exception.

These are great decisions by a GM. We want our GMs to make affordable gambles that have high upside and low downside. Combined these three players cost as much as one season of Beasley cost the Wolves! And if any of them pan out, it's definitely worth it.

Grade decisions not outcomes

The fact that the Wolves waited until the end of the season to fire Kahn shows the major problem. Now, maybe the Wolves just wanted his contract to run out because they didn't want to waste any more money on GMs. But that's the sunk cost fallacy, which Patrick has explained runs rampant in the NBA. The truth is that the Wolves are upset they lost and want to blame someone. Blaming Kahn in prior seasons would have made so much sense. But, if they were going to fire Kahn over that, then they should have done so before this season started! If a season of making the completely right moves was not going to save his job, then why keep him around? The truth is sad. Teams don't understand what wins games and as such are poor at evaluating decisions. And as long as that's true of the Wolves, they'll rely on luck to win games. Of course, that strategy has oddly worked out occasionally for them.

 

-Dre

Categories: Alexey Shved, Andrei Kirilenko, Chase Budinger, Darko Milicic, Greg Stiemsma, Kevin Love, Ricky Rubio, Wesley Johnson, Minnesota Timberwolves, David Kahn

The Clippers now hold a commanding 2-0 lead against Memphis Grizzlies. Much of this had to do with the heroics of Chris Paul. But here's an important question: should he have been playing? While it can be hard to remember the entire flow of a game, Popcornmachine.net provides us a way to know how the flow of the game was. Here's a breakdown of the boxscore.

PopcornMachine.net MEM-LAC Game 2 Gameflow

Play whoever's hot?

Chris Paul actually had a pretty mediocre first half. He had 5 assists to go with 1 turnover , which is pretty typical for Paul. However, with only 1 steal, 1 defensive board and 5 points on 5 attempts and 3 free throw attempts, Chris Paul was playing way below his usually self!

Bledsoe has the misfortune of being Chris Paul's backup. In a mere 8 minutes of play he managed to score 4 points on perfect shooting and get a block. Of course, he was benched due to foul trouble.

Starting the second half though we knew the following - Chris Paul was slumping and Bledsoe was hot. So clearly, the wise plan would have been to play Bledsoe and not Paul, right? Of course not! Paul would go on to score 19 points, get 4 assists with 0 turnovers and pulled down 3 boards. And in a two point win, his play was absolutely key! Basically, the Chris Paul in the second half is the Chris Paul we've seen all season.

Bledsoe is a good player. Chris Paul though, has been an MVP candidate every year he's been healthy in his career. He's played insane in the playoffs. A few bad minutes from Paul should not convince any coach to bench him (unless there's a legitimate reason like injury) Chris Paul is normally over twice the player Bledsoe is, so playing Paul over Bledsoe, even after a subpar half, is the right move!

Summing up

As a Nuggets fan I have to deal with George Karl making insane rotations on a nightly basis. And every night someone on the blogosphere tries to explain "No, you see player X was playing poorly so Karl HAD to bench them." as if that made any sense. The best coaches play their best players. Yes, there are definitely strategies around limiting minutes for health and rest. Yes, there are definitely set plays that can make sense for very quick rotations. However, benching a good player because he had a bad stretch? That would be as insane as benching Chris Paul in a playoff game.

-Dre

Categories: Chris Paul, Eric Bledsoe, Los Angeles Clippers, Memphis Grizzlies, NBA Playoffs