Author Topic: A Stevens' smokescreen?  (Read 1501 times)

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A Stevens' smokescreen?
« on: May 23, 2018, 04:12:57 PM »

Offline Eddie20

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Stevens on LeBron:
Quote
“The thing that people don’t talk about is how good he’s shot over the years and that’s taken out going under, which probably 3-4 years ago was probably a primary option with most teams.” Almost every time Cs try to go under, he’s popped a pull up three."


I can't help, but think this is a smokescreen. If not, I can't really agree with him. When James is shooting 3's/long 2's he seems to lose his aggressiveness. What I don't want to see is the constant switching, which is what Cleveland actually wants, and end up with an easy scoring opportunity, either via James scoring or finding an open teammate.

Why not go under the entire game and let James try to beat you with 3's? He's shooting 32% during the post-season and about 36% this series. While this series' shooting percentage isn't bad, that was largely influenced as a result of that insane 1Q he had in game 2.

In our 2 wins this series James went to the FT line a total of 16 times and took 16 3's. In our 2 losses he only took 7 3's, but had 23 FT attempts.

Again, my strategy would be to go under the screen on James, don't switch off those screens (unless the switching defender is NOT Baynes or Rozier), switch on all off-ball-action involving Korver, and stay home on everyone else.

Re: A Stevens' smokescreen?
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2018, 04:16:28 PM »

Offline KGBirdBias

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As I've said before I believe Stevens is holding on to something. He had 2 games to make an adjustment and did nothing. I think we will see something different tonight and with a win they can get it back to Boston for a game 7.

Re: A Stevens' smokescreen?
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2018, 04:32:32 PM »

Offline Erik

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Michael Jordan shot 50% from the field on very little 3 pt shooting. So basically he shot 50% on 2 pointers. That means every time he shot the ball, the expected value was 1 point. For my entire lifetime, this has been the gold standard of a midrange shooter.

The cut off 3pt % to replicate this is 33.3% (3 * .33 = 1).

You cannot go under a pick for any shooter who shoots better than 33.3% otherwise you're essentially giving Michael Jordan a turnaround jumper with a handicap bonus.

No smokescreen, he's 100% correct.

Re: A Stevens' smokescreen?
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2018, 04:54:31 PM »

Offline coffee425

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Stevens on LeBron:
Quote
“The thing that people don’t talk about is how good he’s shot over the years and that’s taken out going under, which probably 3-4 years ago was probably a primary option with most teams.” Almost every time Cs try to go under, he’s popped a pull up three."


I can't help, but think this is a smokescreen. If not, I can't really agree with him. When James is shooting 3's/long 2's he seems to lose his aggressiveness. What I don't want to see is the constant switching, which is what Cleveland actually wants, and end up with an easy scoring opportunity, either via James scoring or finding an open teammate.

Why not go under the entire game and let James try to beat you with 3's? He's shooting 32% during the post-season and about 36% this series. While this series' shooting percentage isn't bad, that was largely influenced as a result of that insane 1Q he had in game 2.

In our 2 wins this series James went to the FT line a total of 16 times and took 16 3's. In our 2 losses he only took 7 3's, but had 23 FT attempts.

Again, my strategy would be to go under the screen on James, don't switch off those screens (unless the switching defender is NOT Baynes or Rozier), switch on all off-ball-action involving Korver, and stay home on everyone else.

if the defender honors his shot, driving on defender becomes 100x easier. Basketball 101
Quote
Even at the end of the game, we lined up in different formation that he hadn't seen and he called out our play before I got the ball. I heard him calling it out. -John Wall on Brad Stevens

Re: A Stevens' smokescreen?
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2018, 05:26:33 PM »

Offline liam

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Hopefully Brad uses actual smoke tonight and some of it gets in LeBron's eyes.

Re: A Stevens' smokescreen?
« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2018, 05:38:12 PM »

Offline Beat LA

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Michael Jordan shot 50% from the field on very little 3 pt shooting. So basically he shot 50% on 2 pointers. That means every time he shot the ball, the expected value was 1 point. For my entire lifetime, this has been the gold standard of a midrange shooter.

The cut off 3pt % to replicate this is 33.3% (3 * .33 = 1).

You cannot go under a pick for any shooter who shoots better than 33.3% otherwise you're essentially giving Michael Jordan a turnaround jumper with a handicap bonus.

No smokescreen, he's 100% correct.

A great deal of Jordan's field goals were dunks and layups, though, as he was never a great shooter and only became streakier as he aged. There is also a difference in terms of the type of shots with which you can live against him, defensively, imo. Take said turnaround jumper, for example. Yeah, you can't give him that shot, as it not only gets him going but also often results in his getting too many of your players in foul trouble, whether they actually fouled him or not, lol ;D, and, like Bird and Magic, he would milk that matchup until his opponent adjusted, by which time it was often too little, too late.

This is something that the Knicks, in particular, never seemed to understand, which is quite surprising to me, to say the least, because Pat Riley, lol. In the 92 series, for example, and while Gerald Wilkins did his best, him roughly being the same size as Jordan meant that Michael would just attack him in the post from the get-go, but at least "Not Dominique" ;D was a much better alternative against MJ than Starks, who, again, while an excellent defender who certainly did his best, simply wasn't tall or strong enough to ever bother Jordan, and thus the decision to let Wilkins go and move Starks into the starting lineup really hurt them the following year, imo, even with the injury to Michael's wrist.

Interestingly, the only coaches who seemed to recognize as to how to guard MJ were Don Nelson, during his brief stint in New York, and Dave Cowens, although Bird and co. did a pretty good job against him, as well, who simply assigned the task to Anthony Mason, who was not only stronger than Michael but also possessed excellent lateral quickness, and the fact that he was taller than Jordan took away the post game from the latter, for the most part, as seen in the 1998 semifinal series between Chicago and Charlotte, and the results were quite shocking.

Case in point, in Games 1 and 3, when he was not being defended by Mason, Jordan went 12-14 and 9-10 from the line, respectively, while in Games 2, 4, and 5, Michael shot 2-3, 3-3, and 3-4, well, again, respectively :o, and as a result he attempted a combined 46 shots in Games 1 and 3, as opposed to a total of 81 fga in the other contests, so, sure, because of his body type, Mason would have most likely struggled with picks/screens, but would you rather give up a preferably contested midrange jumper to Jordan or have him feast on smaller defenders in the post? Right; and I would have loved to have seen the Knicks put Mason on Jordan, Wilkins on Pippen, and McDaniel on Grant in 1992. That series was already incredibly tight, and who knows, maybe the Knicks could have actually prevailed, but I doubt it (re-signing Trent Tucker after he had been released by the Suns following the trade for the X-Man would have also helped their cause, imo, lol, but I digress). Fun to think about, though, I guess, but I'm weird ;D

Anywho ;D, in terms of Lebron, if Boston would actually attack him, defensively, dude wouldn't have the legs later in games, meaning that "going under" probably wouldn't exactly kill you, to say the least, imo, but whatever :-\.

Re: A Stevens' smokescreen?
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2018, 05:41:38 PM »

Offline nickagneta

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Find it strange that Stevens went 3rd person saying "Almost every time the Cs have gone under, he's popped a pull up three." Unless whoever wrote this screwed up the quotation marks.

Re: A Stevens' smokescreen?
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2018, 05:50:37 PM »

Offline More Banners

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Find it strange that Stevens went 3rd person saying "Almost every time the Cs have gone under, he's popped a pull up three." Unless whoever wrote this screwed up the quotation marks.

Maybe that's how the film guys write things up.

If he refers to himself in the 3rd person... I dunno... that would be un-Bradly.

Re: A Stevens' smokescreen?
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2018, 05:53:00 PM »

Offline Fan from VT

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Michael Jordan shot 50% from the field on very little 3 pt shooting. So basically he shot 50% on 2 pointers. That means every time he shot the ball, the expected value was 1 point. For my entire lifetime, this has been the gold standard of a midrange shooter.

The cut off 3pt % to replicate this is 33.3% (3 * .33 = 1).

You cannot go under a pick for any shooter who shoots better than 33.3% otherwise you're essentially giving Michael Jordan a turnaround jumper with a handicap bonus.

No smokescreen, he's 100% correct.

This is not quite entirely true. I can't find official numbers, but I think we can safely assume Jordan had very few 4 point plays, so let's ignore those. Ignoring those, for his career, Jordan had 28.3 ppg on 21.6 shots per game. He also made 0.5 3's on 1.6 attempts per game. So take away 1.5 points and take away 1.6 attempts, and you get that Jordan scored 26.8 ppg on 19.9 shots as a function of a relatively good FG% (for a guard) and a rate of drawing fouls on his 2 pointers. That gives you a career Non-3-point Points Per Shot of 1.35. This means, as long as you never foul Lebron on a 3 pointer to give him 3 free throws or a possible 4 point play, he would actually need to shoot 0.45% from 3 to match his 2 point production.

Taking a look at Lebron this regular season, he had 27.5 ppg on 19.3 attempts. I'll also again assume that he was fouled on 3s an insignificant number of times. He made 1.8 threes on 5.0 attempts, for a PPS of 1.08. However, take the threes away from his PPG and attempts, and he scored 25.7 ppg on 14.3 2 pt attempts, which gives you a PPS of 1.80!!
« Last Edit: May 23, 2018, 05:59:29 PM by Fan from VT »

Re: A Stevens' smokescreen?
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2018, 06:32:19 PM »

Offline Eddie20

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Michael Jordan shot 50% from the field on very little 3 pt shooting. So basically he shot 50% on 2 pointers. That means every time he shot the ball, the expected value was 1 point. For my entire lifetime, this has been the gold standard of a midrange shooter.

The cut off 3pt % to replicate this is 33.3% (3 * .33 = 1).

You cannot go under a pick for any shooter who shoots better than 33.3% otherwise you're essentially giving Michael Jordan a turnaround jumper with a handicap bonus.

No smokescreen, he's 100% correct.

This is not quite entirely true. I can't find official numbers, but I think we can safely assume Jordan had very few 4 point plays, so let's ignore those. Ignoring those, for his career, Jordan had 28.3 ppg on 21.6 shots per game. He also made 0.5 3's on 1.6 attempts per game. So take away 1.5 points and take away 1.6 attempts, and you get that Jordan scored 26.8 ppg on 19.9 shots as a function of a relatively good FG% (for a guard) and a rate of drawing fouls on his 2 pointers. That gives you a career Non-3-point Points Per Shot of 1.35. This means, as long as you never foul Lebron on a 3 pointer to give him 3 free throws or a possible 4 point play, he would actually need to shoot 0.45% from 3 to match his 2 point production.

Taking a look at Lebron this regular season, he had 27.5 ppg on 19.3 attempts. I'll also again assume that he was fouled on 3s an insignificant number of times. He made 1.8 threes on 5.0 attempts, for a PPS of 1.08. However, take the threes away from his PPG and attempts, and he scored 25.7 ppg on 14.3 2 pt attempts, which gives you a PPS of 1.80!!

I also read a stat that said the Cavs shot 9 for 10, or something insane, on shots in which Rozier was switched and defending the shooter. I know that's all primary James, but I do recall Thompson scoring inside a couple of times as well.

I would love to throw this curveball at James and see how he responds during the pressure of a road game 5, especially in the latter stages of the game with tired legs.

Re: A Stevens' smokescreen?
« Reply #10 on: May 24, 2018, 04:52:25 PM »

Offline hpantazo

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As I've said before I believe Stevens is holding on to something. He had 2 games to make an adjustment and did nothing. I think we will see something different tonight and with a win they can get it back to Boston for a game 7.


He certainly was holding on to something! You nailed it, Stevens was saving the adjustment of the starting lineup for game 5, and it totally threw Lue for a loop!