Timing of Blatt Firing is Odd
David Blatt is not an NBA championship level coach. I
said that from the start:
"How could he be? He has spent his whole career coaching basketball on
the other side of the world, with different rules and inferior players.
Blatt is a very good FIBA coach. That does not mean that he possesses
either the strategic acumen or the right personality to lead a team to
an NBA title."
Therefore, I cannot criticize the Cleveland Cavaliers for firing Blatt. However, the timing and the context are strange. The Cavaliers have the best record in the Eastern Conference and have won two games in a row after their
embarrassing 132-98 loss to the Golden State Warriors. We have not learned anything about Blatt in the past week--or in the first half of the 2015-16 season--that we did not already know. General Manager David Griffin said that he replaced Blatt with lead assistant coach Tyronn Lue--who has been given the job outright and does not wear the interim tag--not based on the win/loss record but because Blatt is not creating a championship culture. If that is really the reason that Blatt was fired--and it is a legitimate concern--then Griffin should have fired Blatt after the Cavaliers blew a 2-1 lead in the 2015 NBA Finals.
Brendan Haywood, an NBA commentator who played for Blatt's Cleveland Cavaliers last season, gave a very insightful interview today in which he stated that Blatt is a nice man and a good coach but all of the players knew that he could not help them win a game against the likes of Gregg Popovich or Steve Kerr. Blatt does not understand NBA substitution patterns and he struggles to design effective end of game plays. Haywood said that the Cavs ultimately had to scrap Blatt's offense and run sets that Lue learned from his time working as an assistant for Doc Rivers. Blatt simply does not know the league well enough and, to compound the issue, he is very stubborn and stuck in his ways because he thinks that decades of minor league coaching in Europe qualify him to run the show in the most sophisticated basketball league in the world. Blatt is overmatched and anyone who understands NBA basketball could see it. Haywood also noted that Blatt would not call out LeBron James during film sessions but would criticize mistakes made by other players. Great players want and need to be coached hard and to be pushed. Julius Erving and Tim Duncan are two examples of great players who did not bristle when their coaches yelled at them, because they understood that if they were coachable then everyone else on the roster would fall in line.
If Griffin had fired Blatt last summer then he either could have replaced him with a veteran NBA coach or, at a minimum, he could have given Lue the opportunity to have a whole training camp to put in his system. I don't know if Lue is an elite NBA coach or not. Lue was a heady role player during his NBA career and there is a precedent for heady role players becoming championship coaches (Pat Riley, Phil Jackson and Steve Kerr immediately come to mind) but Derek Fisher was a heady role player who hardly has taken the league by storm as a head coach.
Lue has been on Griffin's radar since Griffin made Lue the highest paid assistant coach in the NBA less than two years ago. If Lue is really a championship level coach, then the Cavs should have hired him in 2014 or 2015; a year and a half of cleaning up Blatt's mistakes has hardly made Lue any more prepared to run the show than he already was. Throwing Lue into the fire in the middle of the season looks like a panic move as opposed to a well thought out decision--or, it looks like a move made to appease the man who really runs the show in Cleveland: LeBron James.
Griffin's defiant assertions that he does not take polls before making decisions and that he did not seek LeBron James' opinion/approval are equally disingenuous and unsurprising. The Cavaliers don't change the toilet paper in the bathrooms at Quicken Loans Arena without having James' approval--and they don't have to ask his opinion about anything because James, through his minions, makes his wishes very clearly known. It is no secret that James does not respect Blatt and it is no secret that James signs short term deals with the Cavs to maximize his leverage based on the very credible threat that he will flee town if he does not get his way. James has every right to conduct his playing and business careers as he sees fit--but his greatest success as a player came in Miami when Pat Riley insisted that James respect his coach and did not let James' crew run roughshod over everyone in the organization.
James says that he left Miami to bring a championship to Cleveland but it is not a stretch to suggest that, after winning two rings in Miami, James grew tired of having to follow Riley's rules and preferred to return to a situation where he knew he could call all of the shots--and that is what he has done: LeBron James the general manager wanted Kevin Love instead of Andrew Wiggins and he wanted reserve forward Tristan Thompson signed to a huge deal. James the general manager wanted Tyronn Lue as head coach. James is the only player in the NBA who checks himself in and out of games on his whim without consulting his coach and that practice is likely to continue with his hand picked man/puppet on the bench.
So, when the Cavaliers are eliminated from the 2016 playoffs, if James blames the general manager for how the roster is put together or the coach for playing him too much/too little, let us hope that the talking heads who keep trying to put James in the same class with Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan make it clear that the blame belongs with James.
Labels: Brendan Haywood, Cleveland Cavaliers, David Blatt, LeBron James, Tyronn Lue
posted by David Friedman @ 10:45 PM
Warriors Demonstrate Folly of Trying to Play Small Ball Against Them, Take 3-2 Finals Lead Over Cavaliers
Stephen Curry scored 37 points--including 17 in the fourth quarter--as his Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 104-91 to take a 3-2 lead in the NBA Finals. Curry shot 13-23 from the field, including 7-13 from three point range. He also had seven rebounds and four assists. Curry is one of five players to score 17 points in
the fourth quarter of an NBA Finals game in the past 40 years, a list that includes Shaquille O’Neal (2000 Lakers), Dwyane Wade (2006 Heat), Russell Westbrook (2012 Thunder) and Kevin Durant (2012 Thunder).
LeBron James had another huge game for the Cavaliers, compiling 40 points, 14 rebounds and 11 assists with just two turnovers in 45 minutes. James shot 15-34 from the field, including 1-4 in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter after the Cavaliers had trimmed the Warriors' lead to 85-84.
The big story--literally and figuratively--is Cleveland's starting center Timofey Mozgov, who played a scoreless nine minutes after scoring 28 points in game four and helping to keep the Cavaliers close with his inside presence at both ends of the court. Cleveland Coach David Blatt pulled Mozgov from game five after just five minutes with Golden State leading 8-2; Blatt did not give Mozgov a chance to go to work against Golden State's undersized lineup, a markedly different approach to coaching and matchups from the one that Golden State Coach Steve Kerr took in game four when he stuck with his small lineup despite trailing 7-0 early in the first quarter.
Any player--but particularly a big man whose size and length can wear down opponents over the course of a game--would struggle to find his rhythm if he is used to playing regular minutes but then is suddenly relegated to just four or five minutes per half.
Mozgov averaged 16.8 ppg on .550 field goal shooting plus 8.3 rpg in the first four games of the series, yet after Blatt benched Mozgov early in game five he did not put Mozgov back in the game until late in the third quarter. The Cavaliers cut a 71-67 Golden State lead to 78-77 during Mozgov's cameo second half appearance and then were outscored 26-14 the rest of the way after Blatt yanked Mozgov again. Essentially, Blatt iced his second best player and failed to exploit the only matchup advantage that the Cavaliers have other than James versus whoever tries to guard him one on one.
The minutes that Mozgov would have and should have played went to a combination of perimeter players J.R.
Smith (14 points on 5-15 field goal shooting in 36 minutes), James Jones
(0 points in 18 minutes) and Mike Miller (3 points in 14 minutes).
The bottom line is that Kerr has outcoached Blatt. Yes, Kerr has more cards to play but Blatt has the biggest card (LeBron James) plus the edge inside with Mozgov but Blatt has not taken full advantage of those trumps. On offense, the Cavaliers should be running a steady diet of James-Mozgov screen/roll plays, forcing the Warriors to either trap James and leave Mozgov open at the rim or else single cover James and pray for salvation. On defense, the idea that Mozgov could not guard any of the Warriors is wrong; Mozgov should be assigned to stand two feet away from Andre Iguodala, who is struggling to make uncontested and wide open 15 foot shots (Iguodala shot 2-11 from the free throw line in game five). The Cavaliers could then pack the paint, stay close to Golden State's three point shooters and dare Iguodala to beat them with two point jump shots. If that strategy sounds familiar that is because it is the strategy that Kerr used to beat Memphis in the playoffs, assigning Bogut to guard Tony Allen--and by "guard" I mean give Allen the space to shoot open jumpers to his heart's content. Iguodala is a very good all-around player but the Warriors are not going to win a championship with Iguodala shooting 15-18 foot jumpers while James and/or Mozgov are getting dunks and free throws.
What did Kerr think of Blatt's quick hook of Mozgov? Here is what Kerr said after game five: "I thought from the very beginning when they went small, had their
shooters out there, I thought this is Steph's night. This
is going to be a big one for him because he has all that room. He took
over the game down the stretch and was fantastic." Translation: "If I had known that all I had to do was bench Bogut and Blatt would respond by taking out his second best player then I would have done it in game one and this series would have been over in four games. I will match our five best perimeter players against Cleveland's five best perimeter players any day of the week. Cleveland then has one matchup advantage with LeBron James but we have four matchup advantages and we do not have to worry about foul trouble or our guys getting worn down by banging around in the paint against a true big man."
While Golden State is deeper on paper than Cleveland, it is interesting to look at who is actually seeing action in this series. In game five, three Golden State starters played at least 40 minutes and seven Golden State players played at least 17 minutes; three Cleveland starters played at least 40 minutes and seven Cleveland players played at least 18 minutes. For all of the talk about fatigue and depth, the reality is that both teams are using seven man rotations. Yes, LeBron James is carrying a heavy individual workload but that is at least partially because Blatt refuses to take advantage of his second best weapon. Is James really more tired than Michael Jordan was in 1998 at the end of the Bulls' second three-peat or than Kobe Bryant was in 2010 after battling Boston's historically good defense for seven games or than most other great players were when they fought to win championships against worthy opposition? James is putting up great numbers but he is also consistently fading down the stretch while being offered (and accepting) a fatigue excuse that is rarely if ever granted to any other person who has held the greatest player in the world title.
Let's stop pretending that the Cavaliers are nothing more than LeBron James and a bunch of guys he rounded up at the YMCA. Timofey Mozgov is the best big man on either roster. Tristan Thompson is the leading rebounder in the series (and James is second). Iman Shumpert and Matthew Dellavedova are credible perimeter defenders. J.R. Smith is a talented, if erratic, player. The main difference in this series since Cleveland took a 2-1 lead is that Kerr convinced Blatt to bench Mozgov in exchange for Kerr benching Bogut, who is averaging 2.5 ppg in the Finals.
Maybe the Cavaliers would have lost game four even if Mozgov had played 35 or 40 minutes. Maybe the Cavaliers would have lost game five even if Mozgov had played more than nine minutes. However, it is a near certainty that if Blatt insists using some combination of Smith, Miller and Jones to match up with Golden State's skilled perimeter players while Mozgov languishes on the bench then Cleveland will lose every time.
As bizarre as this may sound, Cleveland could still win this series
if Blatt makes the right moves and if James figures out how to play as
hard and well in the final five minutes as he does the rest of the game. A Cleveland victory is by no means probable but it sure would be interesting to see what would happen if Blatt came up with a strategy other than expecting James to play point guard and center the rest of the way while Mozgov watches the action. Magic Johnson won his first NBA championship while doing the point guard/center routine in one game of the 1980 NBA Finals due to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's ankle injury--and Johnson's Lakers already enjoyed a 3-2 lead over Philadelphia, while James' Cavaliers trail 3-2. No one expected Johnson to do that for an entire Finals.
Labels: Andre Iguodala, Cleveland Cavaliers, David Blatt, Golden State Warriors, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Steve Kerr, Timofey Mozgov
posted by David Friedman @ 3:36 AM
Adjustments for Cleveland Heading Into Game Five
Basketball is a game of matchups and adjustments but sometimes the best adjustment is no adjustment at all. The favored 67-15 Golden State Warriors had to do something after falling behind 2-1 to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals because it was clear that the slow down style of play that predominated in the first three games favored Cleveland. Golden State Coach Steve Kerr elected to try to speed up the tempo by going with a small lineup, replacing starting center Andrew Bogut with Andre Iguodala. The Cavaliers promptly took a 7-0 lead in game four by taking advantage of their size inside but the Warriors took control after the Cavaliers went small to match up with Golden State's small lineup; Golden State won 103-82 to even up the series.
In my newest article at
The Roar, I explain why Cleveland's best adjustment now is no adjustment at all, but rather
sticking with the team's strengths and forcing the Warriors to match up
with them or get pounded in the paint:
Cleveland Needs LeBron--and Timofey Mozgov's Height--to Win the TitleLabels: Cleveland Cavaliers, David Blatt, Golden State Warriors, LeBron James, Steve Kerr, Timofey Mozgov
posted by David Friedman @ 6:23 PM
Warriors Regain Homecourt Advantage with 103-82 Game Four Win
Golden State defeated Cleveland 103-82 to tie the NBA Finals at 2-2 and regain homecourt advantage. Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala led Golden State with 22 points apiece. Timofey Mozgov scored a game-high 28 points for Cleveland while pulling down 10 rebounds. LeBron James finished with 20 points on 7-22 field goal shooting plus 12 rebounds and eight assists.
This game is yet another reminder of how quickly things can turn in a seven game series and how foolish it is to make too much of just one game. Prior to game four, everyone was talking about the Cavaliers being on the verge of pulling off a huge upset as James authored possibly the greatest performance in NBA Finals history. Then in game four the Cavaliers suffered the fourth worst home loss in Finals history. The same people who were writing off Golden State after game three will probably write off Cleveland after game four. The reality is that, except for an occasional mismatch, most NBA Finals are seesaw affairs in which each game is both its own individual story and also one chapter in a larger story that cannot be completely understood until after the fact. It could very well be that the most important moment of the 2015 NBA Finals has not happened yet--or it may have already happened and we do not realize it because we do not know the final outcome.
Most of the analysis of game four will probably focus on Golden State Coach Steve Kerr's decision to go small by inserting Andre Iguodala in the starting lineup over Andrew Bogut. Iguodala, a former All-Star, had started every game of his career prior to this season but had yet to start a single game for Kerr's Warriors. Kerr's move had such an immediate impact that Golden State promptly fell behind 7-0. You can bet that this part of the story will be left out or glossed over in most accounts of the game.
Kerr's decision to go small did not spark the Warriors--but what happened shortly after the game started did. To understand that part of the story we need to look at the plus/minus numbers from this game. Every Cleveland player who played significant minutes had a plus/minus number of -12 or worse except for Mozgov (-5). Kerr went small for two reasons: to accelerate the pace of the game (which favors the Warriors because they are deeper and because their perimeter players are better than Cleveland's) and to entice the Cavaliers to take the bait and also go small--and Blatt fell for the banana in the tailpipe, giving J.R. Smith 28 minutes even though Smith was a one man disaster area. Smith's plus/minus number of -27 (12 points worse than any other player who
appeared in the game) only hints at how poorly he played and how
negative his impact was. Smith shot 2-12 from the field (including 0-8
from three point range) and finished with as many fouls as points
(four).
The Warriors made a 10-4 run to take a 22-20 lead after J.R. Smith replaced Matthew Dellavedova in Cleveland's lineup. Matters really went south for Cleveland after Blatt took out Mozgov at that point to go small with James Jones; Golden State pushed the lead to 31-24 before Blatt put Mozgov back in the game.
There is a natural tendency to focus on the fourth quarter in general and the final minutes/final plays in particular but students of the NBA understand that games are often decided early, even if there are subsequent runs by both teams. Cleveland made a late run in game four but the Cavaliers could not overcome the double digit lead that Golden State built by halftime. Golden State did a lot of damage in the first half with Mozgov on the bench; the Cavs played too fast during that stretch and Smith was awful. Instead of going small, Blatt should have stayed true to his team's strength and exploited his team's advantage inside.
When the Cavaliers went small they also started to play faster and they started firing up three pointers. Cleveland shot 4-27 from three point range. The problem is not just the number of misses or even the number of attempts but rather the quality and nature of the shots. Cleveland won games two and three by pounding the ball inside with James posting or driving, Mozgov cutting through the lane and Tristan Thompson pounding the offensive boards. Most of the Cavaliers' three pointers in those games came as a result of penetration and good ball movement. In game four, James did not attack as much, the Cavaliers settled for low percentage three pointers and the Cavaliers paid the price for Blatt's substitution patterns.
I understand that Blatt has limited options due to injuries but in order for Cleveland to win this series Mozgov's minutes need to go up, Smith's minutes need to go down and James cannot sit out the first two minutes of the fourth quarter because every time that happens Golden State goes on a run; this almost cost Cleveland in game three and it thwarted a potential Cleveland comeback in game four.
James may have to play 42 or 43 minutes per game the rest of the way, including all 12 in the final stanza. That work load is not the cruel and unusual punishment that the media portrays it to be. In the 1993 Finals, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen--en route to winning their third straight championship--averaged 45.7 mpg and 44.3 mpg. In the 1996 Finals, Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen--en route to completing their second three-peat--each averaged more than 41 mpg (and Gary Payton averaged almost 46 mpg for Seattle in a losing cause that year). Superstar players should not only expect heavy minutes in the Finals but they should demand heavy minutes.
Hall of Famer Jerry West, a consultant for the Warriors,
has said that in the NBA when you don't have talent coaching can only do so much but when you do have talent coaching is everything. While it is true that Golden State has more talent and more depth than Cleveland, for all intents and purposes both teams are using a seven man rotation now and both teams are talented or they would not be in the Finals; in game four, seven Cleveland players played at least 18 minutes (and three players received three garbage time minutes apiece) and seven Golden State players played at least 15 minutes (and five other players received between one and seven minutes, with four of those players playing three minutes or less). Kerr may have more chess pieces to move around the board than Blatt does but Blatt has the ultimate chess piece (James) and he has a chess piece who is a matchup nightmare for Golden State (Mozgov) so within the options that Blatt has he needs to make the best possible choices to maximize the damage done by his two best pieces.
In addition to Kerr outcoaching Blatt (or Blatt outcoaching himself), the other big factor in game four is that LeBron James was not nearly as aggressive as he had been in the first three games of the series when he averaged 41 ppg. James scored 10 points on 4-12 field goal shooting in the first half and if he had reached his normal level of production in this series then Cleveland would not have trailed by 12 at halftime. Yes, that is a lot to ask of one player but when James is aggressive he not only creates scoring opportunities for himself but he also creates scoring opportunities for his teammates.
James suffered a large gash late in the first half when he hit his head on a courtside camera lens after receiving a hard foul from Andrew Bogut. It is unclear how much that injury affected James but he had been passive and the Cavaliers had been trailing even before that happened.
As a longtime advocate for the ABA, I cannot neglect to mention that even though James' 123 points through the first three games of the Finals is an NBA record it is not a pro basketball record; in the
1976 ABA Finals, Julius Erving scored 124 points in the first three games as his underdog New York Nets took a 2-1 lead over the powerful Denver Nuggets. James now has 143 points after four games but Erving scored 158 points in the first four games in the 1976 ABA Finals and for the series he led both teams in scoring (37.7 ppg), rebounding (14.2 rpg), assists (6.0 apg), steals (3.0 spg) and blocked shots (2.2 bpg) as the Nets won 4-2 over a squad that featured two Hall of Famers (David Thompson and Dan Issel) plus the best defensive forward in pro basketball (Bobby Jones) and a Hall of Fame coach (Larry Brown). Erving shot .590 from the field against the Nuggets. Considering the quality of the opponent, the all-around statistical dominance and the efficiency, a good case can be made that this is the greatest single series performance in pro basketball history. Just keep that historical perspective in mind when placing James' numbers in proper context. James has played great overall in the first four games but basketball history did not begin with Kobe Bryant or Michael Jordan and basketball history includes (or should include) the ABA, though you might not realize this if you depend on the mainstream media outlets for basketball commentary.
OK, enough with the historical interlude for now. What will happen next in the 2015 NBA Finals? The only honest answer is, "I don't know." What I do know is that Golden State has the better team but Cleveland has the best player. Cleveland is capable of winning by employing the right strategy and playing really hard but Golden State has a larger margin for error. If Cleveland wins this series it would clearly be an upset but I am not sure it would be the biggest upset ever, as some people have suggested; let's wait and see if Cleveland prevails before trying to figure out how big of an upset it would be.
Labels: Andre Iguodala, Cleveland Cavaliers, David Blatt, Golden State Warriors, Julius Erving, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Steve Kerr, Timofey Mozgov
posted by David Friedman @ 3:14 AM
NBA Finals Focus: The Coaching Matchup
Unless you remember the Truman administration, you do not remember the last time that two rookie head coaches squared off in the NBA Finals. In 1947, Eddie Gottlieb's Philadelphia Warriors defeated Harold Olsen's Chicago Stags 4-1 in the Basketball Association of America (BAA) Finals. In 1949, four teams from the National Basketball League (NBL) joined the BAA to form the National Basketball Association (NBA). The NBA traces its history back to the 1946-47 season, so the 1947 Philadelphia-Chicago series is considered to be the first official NBA Finals.
This year's NBA Finals features a coaching matchup of rookie David Blatt of the Cleveland Cavaliers and rookie Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors (the same franchise that won the first NBA title).
My newest article for
The Roar looks at the Blatt-Kerr chess match that will not receive as much hype as the LeBron James-Stephen Curry duel but that could ultimately decide which team wins the series:
NBA Finals Focus: The Coaching MatchupLabels: Cleveland Cavaliers, David Blatt, Golden State Warriors, NBA Finals, Steve Kerr
posted by David Friedman @ 3:05 PM
Blatt's Blunders/Houston's Predictable Collapse
Thanks to a buzzer beating jumper by LeBron James, the Cleveland Cavaliers won game four against the Chicago Bulls to tie their series at 2-2--but only after the Cavaliers survived some potentially disastrous coaching by David Blatt. First, Blatt almost did a Chris Webber, confidently walking on to the court and attempting to call a late game timeout when his team had no timeouts left. Assistant Coach Tyronn Lue dragged Blatt off of the court and saved the day. Then, when the Cavaliers had possession with about one second left and the game tied, Blatt instructed LeBron James to inbound the ball. James replied that unless he could shoot the ball over the backboard he was not going to inbound the ball but that the Cavs should give him the ball and he would win the game--which is exactly what ultimately happened.
Blatt's first mistake is inexcusable. A coach has to know clock, score and game situation at all times. Blatt haughtily insists that is not a rookie because he coached overseas for many years but the reality is that in the NBA he is a rookie and he is in over his head. Coaching in the minor leagues is not the same as coaching in the big leagues.
Blatt's second mistake could be debated/discussed a bit. In game three of the second round of the 1994 playoffs, the Chicago Bulls--sans the retired Michael Jordan--were set to inbound the ball with less than two seconds remaining in a tied game versus the New York Knicks. Hall of Fame Coach Phil Jackson, who had already won three NBA titles en route to capturing 11 championships, drew up a play for MVP candidate Scottie Pippen to pass the ball to Toni Kukoc. Pippen disagreed with the call, could not persuade Jackson to change his mind and then elected to sit out the last play. Pete Myers inbounded the ball to Kukoc, who drained a game-winning jumper as time ran out. Pippen was clearly a better player than Kukoc but Jackson later explained that since this was a catch and shoot situation he felt that Kukoc was the better option; Kukoc is taller than Pippen, is a better pure shooter than Pippen and had already hit several game-winning shots that season. Jackson emphasized that if there had been more time left on the clock then he would have definitely put the ball in Pippen's hands, which is what the Bulls tried on the previous play (the ball was deflected out of bounds by the Knicks, setting up the scenario for the final play).
LeBron James is a great player but not necessarily a great catch and shoot player--and he shot just 9-29 from the field prior to making the game-winner. It is not clear who Blatt intended to take the last shot but perhaps Blatt was thinking that a cold-shooting James is not the best option for a catch and shoot opportunity. However, since Blatt cannot even keep straight how many timeouts he has left I am disinclined to credit him with Phil Jackson-level strategic capabilities. In general, the optimum call is to give the ball to your best player and rely on him to win the game. Kyrie Irving is hobbling and J.R. Smith is inconsistent, so it is not like Blatt had Toni Kukoc waiting in the wings.
In the second game of yesterday's doubleheader, the L.A. Clippers took a 3-1 lead over the Houston Rockets with a convincing 128-95 win. Chris Paul is still hobbled by his hamstring injury but Blake Griffin (21 points, eight rebounds) continues to play at a high level and the Rockets made DeAndre Jordan (26 points, 17 rebounds) look like Shaquille O'Neal. The Rockets repeatedly fouled Jordan on purpose and he made 14 of 34 free throws. Even if the target of intentional fouling misses his free throws, the strategy still often backfires because it lets his team set up their half court defense and it puts free points on the board, taking pressure off of his team and putting pressure on the fouling team to make field goals. In this game, the strategy also extended Paul's minutes because he did not have to endure the strain of running up and down the court.
I think that intentional fouling betrays a lack of faith by the coach in his team's defensive capabilities. If you can just stop the other team mano a mano then why resort to a gimmick like intentional fouling? If the fouled player makes even half of his free throws then the fouling team has to average a point per possession just to keep pace and that is not necessarily going to be so easy to do in a half court set in a playoff series.
This series is being decided primarily based on the fact that Blake Griffin plus Austin Rivers/fractional Chris Paul is better than Dwight Howard/James Harden. All season long, we have heard that James Harden is a legit MVP candidate. We have also heard that the Clippers have no bench and are completely dependent on Chris Paul to create offense. This series is providing convincing refutations of all of those notions. Harden is not even close to being the best player on the court in this series (that would be Blake Griffin), let alone being the best player in the NBA. If you contest Harden's jumpers and refrain from committing silly fouls when he throws his body into the lane, it is easy to throw Harden off of his game. Harden's box score numbers in this series are not terrible but they are also a classic example of putting up meaningless statistics that are devoid of impact. Harden is supposed to be the best player on the second best team in the West but his team is getting killed by a squad with (allegedly) no bench, a one-legged point guard and a center who cannot make free throws. Furthermore, the L.A. Clippers are not exactly a team with championship pedigree; their recent playoff resume is not much better than Houston's, so it is not like an all-time great squad is pounding the Rockers into submission.
Some people might say that Harden's postseason struggles have nothing to do with the regular season MVP race but I think that the MVP award should go to either the best all-around player or the most dominant player (someone like prime Shaquille O'Neal). Harden can put up numbers in the regular season and he is obviously an All-Star caliber player but when he faces good teams in the playoffs he cannot get the job done because all of his skill set flaws are exposed. Perhaps the same thing is happening to 2015 MVP Stephen Curry in the other Western Conference series as well but Curry's Warriors still have a chance to tie the series tonight and head home for a pivotal game five. We will see how that turns out before pronouncing judgment on Curry; in contrast, Harden has three years' worth of disappointing playoff performances as an allegedly elite player for the Rockets and his team is already down 3-1, which is typically tantamount to elimination.
Labels: Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, Cleveland Cavaliers, David Blatt, Houston Rockets, James Harden, L.A. Clippers, LeBron James
posted by David Friedman @ 1:56 PM
NBA Potpourri: James Harden, David Blatt, and The New York Knicks' Mess
The start of a new year is as good a time as any to revisit some recurring NBA themes, specifically how James Harden's game should be evaluated, how good of an NBA coach David Blatt is and what it will take to turn around the New York Knicks.
How Good Is James Harden?
When the Oklahoma City Thunder traded James Harden to Houston in 2012 after Harden refused to sign anything less than a max contract, I
declared that Harden is best-suited to being a third option on a championship-contending team and I rejected the notion that he is an All-NBA First Team or Second Team caliber player. In contrast, Houston General Manager Daryl Morey, one of the most highly regarded "stat gurus," proclaimed that Harden is a
"foundational player." I had never heard that phrase before but the only relevant or sensible interpretation is that Morey believes that Harden is great enough to be the best player on a championship-caliber team and/or that Harden is great enough to lift a mediocre or worse team well above its otherwise expected performance level. Harden is more than a third of the way through his third season in Houston, so one can draw at least preliminary conclusions about his game. Three issues should be examined: How Harden's departure affected the Thunder, how Harden's arrival affected the Rockets and how Harden has performed in terms of his individual productivity.
The Thunder posted a .712 winning percentage in Harden's final season with the team (2011-12) and they advanced to the NBA Finals, losing to the Miami Heat in no small part because Harden performed awfully on the sport's biggest stage; during the 2012 NBA Finals, Harden averaged 12.4 ppg--4.4 ppg worse than his regular season average--while shooting just .375 from the field and committing 12 turnovers in 164 minutes (Harden's teammate Russell Westbrook posted 11 turnovers in 211 minutes despite playing most of his minutes against the Heat's best players while Harden had the opportunity to play against reserves and/or tired starters).
Without Harden in 2012-13, the Thunder improved their winning percentage to .732 and eliminated Harden's Rockets 4-2 in the first round of the playoffs--but Westbrook suffered a playoff-ending injury versus the Rockets, crushing the Thunder's hopes of returning to the NBA Finals. In 2013-14, the Thunder posted a .720 winning percentage even though Westbrook missed 36 games while recovering from his knee injury. The Thunder advanced to the Western Conference Finals before falling to the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs. This season, both Westbrook and 2013-14 NBA regular season MVP Kevin Durant have missed a significant number of games due to injury but the Thunder are 17-17, including six wins in their past 10 games as Durant and Westbrook have returned to action.
There is no evidence that Harden's departure has negatively impacted the Thunder; their regular season record improved without him--no small accomplishment considering how good their record was in 2011-12--and their failure to make it back to the NBA Finals is related to injuries, not Harden's absence. If the Thunder had kept Harden then they likely would have lost Serge Ibaka and they would have been worse off.
What about Harden's impact on his new team? The Rockets' winning percentage improved from .515 to .549 in Harden's first season in Houston. That is equivalent to about three wins in an 82 game season. After missing the playoffs for three straight seasons, the Rockets sneaked in as the eighth seed and promptly lost in the first round to, as mentioned above, Harden's old team.
In 2013-14, the Rockets added Dwight Howard--a five-time All-NBA First Team center who had almost completely recovered from the back surgery that slowed him down in 2012-13 when he played for the L.A. Lakers--and improved their winning percentage to .659. The Rockets tied with the Portland Trail Blazers for the fourth best record in the Western Conference, received homecourt advantage versus Portland based on a tiebreaker and still did not manage to even push the series to seven games, losing 4-2.
This season, the Rockets got off to a fast start but their current winning percentage is .697 and they would not even have homecourt advantage in the first round if the playoffs began today. They are 5-5 in their last 10 games and it seems much more likely that they will fall behind the L.A. Clippers, San Antonio Spurs and Oklahoma City Thunder as opposed to passing the teams that are already ahead of them in the standings.
The Rockets have improved a bit since Harden's arrival but they are still not a legitimate contender and the improvement that they have made has at least as much to do with Dwight Howard as it does with Harden. Harden is neither carrying a bad roster to unexpected heights nor is he lifting a good roster into legitimate championship contention. The Rockets have been first round playoff fodder the past two seasons and there is no reason to believe that they will advance past the first round this season.
Individually, Harden has put up some gaudy scoring numbers. He ranked fifth in the league in scoring in both 2012-13 and 2013-14 and he currently leads the league in scoring. However, Harden's field goal percentage plummeted as his role changed from being the third option to being the first option. For such a big-time scorer, Harden has a very limited offensive game; he either shoots three pointers or he drives to the hoop, throws himself into opposing players and begs for foul calls (which he often gets, at least in the regular season). Harden has no postup game and no midrange game; he plays the way that "stat gurus" prefer, because he racks up most of his points from either three pointers or free throws. It does not require an advanced mathematics degree to figure out that long two point shots (i.e., shots taken from just inside three point range) are not good shots; a player who has the ball just inside the three point arc should either step back and take advantage of the potential extra point or else drive closer to the hoop for a higher percentage two point shot. However, the idea held by many "stat gurus" that the midrange game is completely inefficient and/or unnecessary is extreme. Teams that cannot score in the midrange game are not going to advance very far in the playoffs unless they perform exceptionally well in other areas on a consistent basis.
Harden puts up decent assist totals but those numbers are a deceptive
product of Houston's drive and kick offense; Harden is not individually
creating offensive opportunities for his teammates a la great playmakers
such as Magic Johnson or Isiah Thomas.
A player like Harden is not so hard to defend in the playoffs when the competition is tougher and the teams are well rested; you put one mobile defender on Harden, you deny Harden open three point shots and when Harden drives you avoid body contact while making sure to contest his shot. It is not necessary to double team Harden; Harden does not "tilt the floor" the way that LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Kobe Bryant do. It is no accident that Harden has shot worse than .400 from the field in three of his five postseasons, including both of his Houston playoff appearances.
Despite his high scoring average, I still think that Harden is an overrated offensive player. When Durant and Westbrook created opportunities for Harden, Harden was a much more efficient player. Now, Harden has a license to shoot at any time but he is not efficient and he has not elevated his team beyond the middle of the playoff pack.
Then, there is the notorious matter of Harden's defense. Harden may be the worst defender among All-Star players in quite some time. Often, he does not even pretend to try at that end of the court. Supposedly his defense has improved this season but he set the bar so low that the only way he could have gotten worse is if he actually put the ball in the hoop for the other team.
So, if my description of Harden is correct then why did he make the All-Star team the past two years and why did he earn an All-NBA Third Team selection in 2013 before making the All-NBA First Team in 2014? I never said that Harden is a bad player. He is a good player; he just is not an elite or "foundational" player. If Manu Ginobili had left the Spurs early in his career he probably could have scored 25 ppg, made several All-Star teams and received some All-NBA selections--but Ginobili never was an elite player and neither is Harden. Ginobili elected to take less money, stay in San Antonio and fill a major role on a championship team behind Tim Duncan and Tony Parker; Harden chose to seek more money and, in his opinion, more glory. It will be interesting to see how that works out for Harden, Morey and the Rockets.
In 2013, I gave Harden serious All-NBA consideration before
tapping Kobe Bryant, Russell Westbrook, Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, Tony Parker and Stephen Curry as my choices for the league's six best guards. Last season, injuries decimated the ranks of the league's elite guards (including Kobe Bryant, Russell Westbrook, Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo), paving the way for Harden to ascend to All-NBA First Team status.
Maybe Harden will prove me wrong. Maybe he will become more efficient offensively. Maybe he will start to play defense. Maybe he will shoot better than .400 in the playoffs and lead Houston past the first round. Until he does those things, though, I will not consider him an elite or "foundational" player.
Is David Blatt an NBA Championship-caliber Coach?
The simple answer is "No." How could he be? He has spent his whole career coaching basketball on the other side of the world, with different rules and inferior players. Blatt is a very good FIBA coach. That does not mean that he possesses
either the strategic acumen or the right personality to lead a team to
an NBA title.
Let us not misunderstand what happened several years ago when Team USA went through a stretch of failing to win gold medals in FIBA play. Those Team USA rosters
did not include Kobe Bryant--the best player in the world at the time--and neither the players nor the coaching staff took the task seriously enough. If Team USA had been better coached and if the rosters had been better constructed then Team USA would have won every time. The fact that some FIBA teams could win one 40 minute game under FIBA rules against NBA players did not at all prove that the FIBA players and/or teams are superior to NBA players and NBA teams playing under NBA rules. If the best FIBA team played an 82 game NBA schedule that team would struggle to win 41 games--but if Team USA players trained year round under FIBA rules they could show up in any FIBA league or competition and win the championship.
The NBA game is faster, tougher, more physical and more complicated than the FIBA game with which Blatt is familiar. Blatt's supposedly sophisticated FIBA offensive sets are not getting the job done in the NBA even though Blatt's Cleveland squad is blessed with the best player in the NBA, two other All-Stars and a host of good NBA role players--and Blatt has yet to prove that he can teach and/or motivate NBA players to play good defense on a consistent basis.
The real questions are (1) Can David Blatt become an NBA championship-caliber coach? and (2) Will he become such a coach fast enough to keep his job in Cleveland? Blatt is not entirely to blame for Cleveland performing below expectations; LeBron James has admittedly coasted at times, various players have been injured and now Anderson Varejao is out for the season. However, even when LeBron James played hard and the Cavaliers were at full strength they did not consistently look like a championship team. It is interesting to recall how much criticism Mike Brown received during his first stint as Cleveland's coach. The current Cleveland team has more name-brand talent than Brown ever coached in Cleveland--though I think that
talent on Brown's teams has been underrated a bit--but Blatt's squad lacks the attention to detail on defense that Brown's teams consistently displayed.
What Will it Take to Turn Around the Knicks?
The Knicks must get rid of Carmelo Anthony and rebuild their roster from the bottom up. When Mike Ditka first became coach of the Chicago Bears, he told the players that the good news was that he was going to lead the team to a championship but the bad news was that most of them would not be on the team by the time that happened. I expected that after Phil Jackson took over New York's basketball operations he would not re-sign Anthony; if someone other than Jackson did that he would probably be ridiculed for letting an allegedly elite player go but I thought that Jackson has enough championship credibility to defend such a move in the media--and cutting ties with Anthony is clearly the route that the Knicks should have taken.
Jackson publicly
identified the Knicks' problems before he joined the team's front office: the Knicks have, as Jackson put it, a "clumsy roster." Anthony will probably be able to put the ball in the bucket until he is 40 years old but his overall game has not improved much since he entered the league: he likes to play one-on-one isolation basketball, he passes only as a last resort, he plays defense when he feels like doing so (not often enough to lead a team to a championship) and he is a capable, though not exceptional, rebounder considering his overall athletic gifts. He is not a good leader; he and his teams perform best when he is being guided/mentored by players with a championship mentality (Chauncey Billups and Jason Kidd in the NBA, Kobe Bryant with Team USA).
The Knicks are currently 5-30, barely ahead of a Philadelphia team that has been accused of tanking. How can anyone possibly believe that Anthony is even close to being an elite player? Take Anthony off of that New York roster and add any elite player from the past 30 years; can you imagine the Knicks only winning five out of 35 games? A few years ago, Kobe Bryant made it to the playoffs in the Western Conference with Smush Parker at point guard and Kwame Brown at center. At some point, people have to stop looking at statistics, stop being blinded by reputation and just look at what is actually happening on the court. Carmelo Anthony is a physically gifted athlete and an All-Star caliber performer but he is never, ever going to lead a team to an NBA championship. He could possibly be the second best player on a championship team if the best player is a great leader, if the team is extremely well coached and if the right supporting cast is on hand.
I wonder if Jackson thought that Anthony would play his way out of New York in such a fashion that Jackson would not be blamed and meanwhile Jackson could take his time retooling the rest of the roster. In other words, if the Knicks had posted a respectable 45-37 record this season and Anthony had turned in his typical playoff disappearing act in a first round loss then Anthony might have considered waiving his no-trade clause and Jackson could have dealt Anthony without being viewed as the villain.
Jackson must have known that the Knicks would not be a contender this season but he could not have possibly imagined things going as disastrously as they have. Media members are rightly criticizing Jackson for giving up Tyson Chandler but Jackson's biggest mistake thus far has been committing so much guaranteed money to someone who is just not a franchise player. Jackson should have done what Masai Ujiri did in Denver: send Anthony to a team dumb enough to take him in exchange for a package of good, solid players. If Anthony would not have agreed to such a sign and trade, then the Knicks should have let him walk and used the salary cap space to rebuild their roster. Normally, I would not advocate possibly letting an All-Star leave without getting anything in return but in this case the reality is that Anthony is not going to lead New York to a championship and thus it makes no sense for the Knicks to pay him as if he is an elite performer.
Labels: Carmelo Anthony, Cleveland Cavaliers, Daryl Morey, David Blatt, Houston Rockets, James Harden, New York Knicks, Oklahoma City Thunder, Phil Jackson
posted by David Friedman @ 1:35 AM
