20 Second Timeout

Knicks Crush Cavaliers to Reach NBA Finals for the First Time Since 1999

The New York Knicks led the Cleveland Cavaliers 38-26 at the end of the first quarter of game four of the Eastern Conference Finals before cruising to a 130-93 win to complete a 4-0 Eastern Conference Finals sweep. Six Knicks scored in double figures, with Karl-Anthony Towns leading the way (team-high 19 points, game-high 14 rebounds). OG Anunoby scored 17 points, Landry Shamet added 16 points off of the bench, and Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges each had 15 points and five assists. Miles "Deuce" McBride chipped in 11 points in a reserve role, and Josh Hart had another solid all-around game (six points, 11 rebounds, six assists). The outcome was decided early due to a combination of New York's great play and the Cavaliers blatantly quitting; as a result, Brunson, Bridges, and Hart did not play in the fourth quarter.

In short, if the occasion had called for it, Brunson could have easily scored 30 points, and his teammates could have added to their statistics as well--which is yet another example of how foolish it is to evaluate players based solely on numbers without looking at the larger context. Kenny Smith calls a player who pads his numbers on a bad team a "looter in a riot," because even a bad team will likely have a 20 ppg scorer just because of the nature of the NBA game (and the use of the shot clock). One cannot (or should not) assume that individual numbers compiled in one context can also be compiled in a different context. The Dallas Mavericks have long bragged about being in the forefront of the so-called "analytics" revolution, but it is not clear if "analytics" took the Mavericks to the top or dragged them down from the top. In 2011, Dirk Nowitzki carried the Mavericks to their lone NBA title, but the Mavericks promptly broke up his supporting cast and then more than a decade later they made two very questionable major personnel decisions; the Lakers appreciate the gift of Luka Doncic, and the Knicks very much appreciate the gift of Jalen Brunson.

The Knicks received the Bob Cousy Trophy for winning the Eastern Conference Championship. Brunson averaged 25.5 ppg and 7.8 apg while shooting .487 from the field in the Eastern Conference Finals en route to capturing the 2026 Larry Bird Eastern Conference Finals MVP; previous honorees include Jayson Tatum (2022), Jimmy Butler (2023), Jaylen Brown (2024), and Pascal Siakam (2025).

Coach Mike Brown, who has received much unwarranted criticism from uninformed media members, deserves a lot of credit for lifting an already very good team to the next level by not only implementing productive changes at both ends of the court but also by instilling a group feeling of camaraderie--but chemistry cannot be quantified, so the "stat gurus" refuse to believe that it matters or even exists. 

In my NBA Finals Preview, I will further discuss the Knicks' remarkable 2026 playoff run--which now includes a record three elimination game wins by at least 20 points each--but a lot needs to be said about the Cleveland Cavaliers, a fully healthy team with the league's highest payroll that overtly quit versus the Knicks; the Knicks deserve full credit for how well they are playing, but when a team repeatedly fails to get back on defense and repeatedly fails to make basic defensive rotations in the half court that team has quit, and that is what we saw from the Cavaliers at the end of game three and then carrying over into game four.

In game four, Donovan Mitchell scored a game-high 31 points on 9-18 field goal shooting, but that was not nearly enough to even keep the game close--and several of his highly touted teammates were conspicuous in their absence. No, Evan Mobley (15 points, seven rebounds, four assists, no blocked shots) is not the next Tim Duncan. No, Jarrett Allen (six points, three rebounds)--who played well in Cleveland's two game seven wins earlier in this year's playoffs--is not dependable enough. Mitchell was the only main Cleveland player who met reasonable performance expectations in the Eastern Conference Finals, averaging 27.3 ppg on .475 field goal shooting, albeit with shaky floor game numbers (2.3 apg, 3.5 tpg).

Then, of course, there is the ongoing playoff saga of James Harden--and don't fall for the propaganda that he is getting old: he played fine during this regular season, and he has been falling apart during the playoffs throughout his career. His elimination game record since fleeing Oklahoma City in 2012 is now 5-14, and he played poorly in most of those games. Recent examples include scoring 11 points on 4-9 field goal shooting in Philadelphia's 99-90 loss to Miami in 2022, scoring nine points on 3-11 field goal shooting in Philadelphia's 112-88 loss to Boston in 2023, scoring 16 points on 5-16 field goal shooting in the L.A. Clippers' 114-101 loss to Dallas in 2024, and scoring seven points on 2-8 field goal shooting in the Clippers' 120-101 game seven loss to the Denver Nuggets in 2025

After the Cavaliers traded Darius Garland for Harden, I declared, "I can write the template for the Cavaliers' 2026 elimination game loss now, and after the game I can fill in the blanks around the words "James Harden disappeared" and "James Harden scored just xxx second half points."  As I predicted, James Harden disappeared, and James Harden scored just zero second half points on 0-3 field goal shooting, finally reaching a nadir that not even he can surpass and adding yet another pathetic line to his horrific elimination game resume.

The Cavaliers acquired Harden to be the difference, and he was, because the Cavaliers have taken on his playoff identity: shoot bad shots at a low percentage (.416 field goal percentage in game four, .426 field goal percentage in the four games overall), make careless turnovers, don't hustle back on defense, and then quit in an elimination game. Harden and the Cavaliers checked off every one of those boxes. Harden provided yet another playoff game with a "concert tour" field goal percentage (2-8 for a chilly February outing), a "Harden" (a game with more turnovers than field goals made--here, a game-high five turnovers versus just two field goals made), and lackadaisical defense. As Shaquille O'Neal said at halftime, "James is doing what he usually does--disappear." Harden finished with 12 points, four assists, and five turnovers. He shot 0-6 from beyond the arc, and if the Knicks had not charitably fouled him (why foul a guy who can't make a shot?) to give him eight free points then he would not have even reached double figures in scoring. In the Eastern Conference Finals, Harden averaged 16.0 ppg on .389 field goal shooting (including .179 from three point range) with 3.0 apg and 4.3 tpg. It is difficult to win when your floor general with a supposedly genius-level basketball IQ can't make a shot, has more turnovers than assists, and is the opposing team's number one target to attack on defense.

"Stat gurus" love Harden, and they love lavishing outrageously false praise on him. Kirk Goldsberry called Harden "the greatest scorer of this NBA era," a ludicrous notion that I debunked in 2019. Daryl Morey declared that James Harden is a better scorer than Michael Jordan. 

The Cavaliers clearly relied on such delusional thinking when they acquired Harden, and it is evident that delusional thinking pervades the organization. All you need to know about the misapplication of "advanced basketball statistics" can be summarized in this quote from Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson, who declared that "analytically" his Cavaliers won two of the first three games versus the Knicks. In the real world of real numbers, the Cavaliers lost the first three games before quitting in game four, and every game was decided by at least 11 points (the first game went to overtime after the Cavaliers squandered a 22 point fourth quarter lead). Analytically, it would appear that Cleveland's 22 point lead was the outlier in this three game sample size, because otherwise the Knicks outplayed, outcoached, outshot, and outhustled the Cavaliers.

When you are delusional enough to think that you are winning on a spreadsheet despite getting destroyed on the basketball court, you are not smart enough or self-aware enough to make decisions that will lead to winning a championship.

Let's be perfectly clear: it is smart to use statistics with understanding and in the larger context of how basketball is played/should be played--but there are a lot of "stat gurus" who have made a lot of money peddling fish oil as NBA executives and media members without having a clue about how to evaluate players or teams, and those are the people whose faulty thinking I have been refuting for decades.

It is true that the Cavaliers advanced one round farther this year than they did last year, but they did that despite Harden more so than because of him--and the Cavaliers did not assemble the most expensive roster in the league to fall eight wins short of capturing the NBA title. Just like this season was "NBA Finals or bust" for the Knicks, the same was true (or should have been true) for the Cavaliers.   

Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, James Harden, Karl-Anthony Towns, Kenny Atkinson, Mike Brown, New York Knicks

posted by David Friedman @ 12:33 AM

6 comments

New York Knicks Bully Cleveland Cavaliers, 119-111

The New York Knicks outrebounded the Cleveland Cavaliers 48-31 and had twice as many free throw attempts (36-18) en route to a 119-111 home win in the season opener for both of the Eastern Conference's presumptive top two teams. The Knicks outscored the Cavaliers in the paint, 42-30. This kind of loss to a contending team is all too familiar to the Cavaliers and their fans; the Cavaliers fell to the Indiana Pacers in the second round of last season's playoffs after finishing with the best record in the Eastern Conference (64-18), they were dominated 4-1 by the Boston Celtics in the second round of the 2024 playoffs, and the Knicks outrebounded the Cavaliers 227-186 and had 127 free throw attempts while conceding just 93 free throw attempts in a 4-1 rout of the Cavaliers in the second round of the 2023 playoffs.

OG Anunboy led the Knicks with 24 points and a game-high 14 rebounds. Jalen Brunson scored 23 points despite shooting just 5-18 from the field, including 1-9 from three point range. Karl-Anthony Towns overcame early foul trouble to finish with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Mikal Bridges had a solid all-around game (16 points, game-high tying six assists, five rebounds), and Miles McBride made a strong contribution off of the bench (15 points in 26 minutes, game-high +17 plus/minus number). 

Donovan Mitchell poured in a game-high 31 points, but he also had a game-worst -14 plus/minus number; this was a game of runs, and he was on the court not only for Cleveland's big third quarter run but also for most of the Knicks' many runs. Evan Mobley added 22 points and a team-high eight rebounds. Sam Merrill chipped in 19 points, but also fouled out in just 28 minutes. Lonzo Ball had a game-high tying six assists in his Cleveland debut, but he scored just three points on 1-7 field goal shooting in 23 minutes off of the bench.

Both teams were without the services of key injured players: Cleveland did not have two-time All-Star Darius Garland, versatile wing De'Andre Hunter and three point shooter Max Strus, while the Knicks missed strong rebounder/defensive anchor Mitchell Robinson and versatile Josh Hart, who ranked second on the team in rebounding (9.6 rpg) and assists (5.9 apg) last season. The concerning thing for the Cavaliers is that their absent players are unlikely to help much in terms of rebounding and free throw attempts, while the Knicks who did not play are both excellent rebounders. 

It is often said that the NBA is a fourth quarter league, but I often point out that the NBA is frequently a first quarter league, meaning that the matchups and tendencies that emerge in the opening stanza foreshadow what will happen the rest of the way. The Knicks led by as many as 12 points in the first quarter, and they were up 33-23 after the first 12 minutes. They established the rebounding dominance (15-7) and free throw attempts lead (8-0) that proved to be the game's two main themes; the Knicks attacked the paint offensively, and protected the paint well defensively, outshooting the Cavaliers from the field .524 (11-21) to .391 (9-23).

The Knicks extended their lead to 15 in the second quarter before the Cavaliers went on a 16-2 run to pull within 44-43 at the 4:44 mark. Just when it may have seemed like the Cavaliers were back in the game, the Knicks hit them with a 21-7 burst to enjoy a 65-50 halftime lead.

Before the third quarter began, ESPN's Tim Legler said that the Cavaliers need for Mitchell to be much more aggressive. Mitchell had just eight points on 3-7 field goal shooting in the first half. As I noted in my recap of Oklahoma City's 125-124 double overtime win versus Houston, a team's leading scorer has an obligation to take a high volume of shots and score a lot of points, because otherwise he is throwing off his team's rhythm. It may sound nice to say things like "Everyone is going to eat," but the reality is that when the star player "eats" that forces double teams and traps that make it easier for his less talented teammates to "eat." This is one of the most misunderstood factors behind some of LeBron James' biggest postseason failures, most notably in the 2010 playoffs and the 2011 NBA Finals; when James became inexplicably (and inexcusably) passive after being a big-time scorer throughout those seasons, he left his teams high and dry without a realistic chance to win. 

Coach Kenny Atkinson told ESPN's Lisa Salters that he was unhappy with his team's lack of aggressiveness, poor shot selection, and lack of focus, including fouling three point shooters four times.

Mitchell received the message loud and clear, erupting for 21 third quarter points on 9-14 field goal shooting as the Cavaliers outscored the Knicks 37-22 to knot the score at 87-87 entering the fourth quarter. In the third quarter, the Cavaliers outrebounded the Knicks 12-8 and attempted seven free throws while conceding just four free throw attempts. 

The third quarter proved to be an aberration, and in the fourth quarter the regularly scheduled programming resumed: the Knicks outscored the Cavaliers 32-24 while winning the rebounding war 13-4 and attempting 13 free throws while allowing just six free throw attempts. Mitchell had two points on 0-4 field goal shooting in 10 minutes.  

A road loss to one of the Eastern Conference Finalists from 2025 does not spell the end of Cleveland's championship dreams and goals, but it is clear that the Cavaliers not only need to get healthy but they need to cultivate a more aggressive mindset; they can glide by most teams in the regular season based on talent, but they cannot glide by elite teams relying on talent alone. 

Last season, the Knicks went 0-4 versus the Cavaliers, and 2-9 combined versus the Cavaliers, Boston Celtics, and Indiana Pacers. This is just one game, but it was a successful start for the Mike Brown era in New York. No sensible person can deny that Tom Thibodeau did an outstanding job coaching the Knicks before being fired after last season's Eastern Conference Finals loss to the Pacers, but the Knicks' brass felt that the Knicks could and should have at least reached the NBA Finals. It remains to be seen if Brown will lead the Knicks to the NBA Finals for the first time since 1999.

Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Donovan Mitchell, Jalen Brunson, Mike Brown, New York Knicks, OG Anunoby

posted by David Friedman @ 12:29 AM

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NBA's Coaching Carousel Keeps Spinning as Denver Fires Michael Malone

In a season notable for the shocking Luka Doncic-Anthony Davis trade and the firing of respected veteran coaches Mike Brown and Taylor Jenkins, the Denver Nuggets added to the list of surprising moves by firing Michael Malone, who coached the team to the franchise's first championship just two years ago. The Nuggets could finish as high as third in the West, so firing the coach with the most wins (471) in franchise history and the most wins (438) in the NBA since 2016-17 is stunning, even considering the contentious nature of Malone's relationship with General Manager Calvin Booth, who the Nuggets also fired. Assistant coach David Adelman, son of long-time NBA coach Rick Adelman, is now Denver's interim head coach.

Media members and fans often make impulsive and subjective evaluations of coaches (and players). I evaluate coaches based on how well their teams play defensively, because defense requires (1) the correct schemes based on the team's personnel and based on matchups, and (2) players buying into whatever the coach is selling. I also evaluate coaches based on the extent to which a team meets or exceeds reasonable expectations. A coach with a roster capable of winning 25 games with a bottom third defensive ranking did a good job if his team finished 30-52 with a top 15 defensive ranking, but a coach with a roster capable of winning 45 games with a top 15 defensive ranking did a bad job if his team won 40 games while ranking 20th in defense (assuming that the teams in this comparison both had reasonably healthy rosters). I evaluate the decision to fire a coach based not only on the above factors but also based on the likelihood of finding a replacement who can do better than the fired coach.

Prior to this season, I picked Denver to be the third best team in the Western Conference. The Nuggets are currently in a four way tie for fourth with a 47-32 record (the Nuggets are fifth based on tiebreakers), but the standings are so bunched together that Denver could finish anywhere between third and eighth. Denver's second best player, Jamal Murray, has been limited by injuries for most of this season, and he has missed the last five games due to injury, with the Nuggets losing four in a row after winning the first game that he missed. Until we see how healthy the Nuggets are during the playoffs (or the Play-In Tournament if they drop below sixth in the standings) and how far they advance, it is too soon to say if they have met reasonable expectations. The Nuggets rank 14th in the NBA in defensive field goal percentage and 25th in points allowed; when they won the 2023 NBA championship they ranked 20th and eighth respectively in those categories, but their roster had more plus defenders at that time. It does not seem likely that a coach is available who will win 438 games and at least one NBA title in the next eight years, so firing Malone with three games to go seems like a rash, irrational move.

It will be interesting to see what happens with the other two high profile coach firings. 

The Sacramento Kings fired Mike Brown after a 13-18 start this season. A 13-18 record is not great, but that winning percentage (.419) is better than the full season winning percentages of every Kings team from 2009-18. Brown won the 2023 Coach of the Year award after leading the Kings to a 48-34 record in his first season with the team, and they went 46-36 last season to post their first consecutive winning seasons since 2005-06. A little over a month after firing Brown, the Kings received Zach LaVine in a three team deal during which they sent De'Aaron Fox to the San Antonio Spurs. The Kings are 26-22 under Doug Christie, and they are clinging to the ninth spot in the Western Conference. The Kings rank 23rd in defensive field goal percentage and 20th in points allowed after ranking 21st and 17th respectively in those categories last season. Before the season, I ranked the Kings as the eighth best team in the Western Conference. It is fair to say that they underperformed early in the season under Brown, but it is not clear if that sample size of games was sufficient to make the decision to fire Brown, nor is it clear that Christie or whoever else the Kings may bring in next season will be more successful than Brown was.

The Memphis Grizzlies fired Taylor Jenkins, who posted a 250-214 record with the Grizzlies from 2019-25, including 44-29 this season. Jenkins led the Grizzlies to two Southwest Division titles (2022-23) and three playoff appearances (2021-23) even though the team's most prominent player--Ja Morant--has never played in more than 67 games in a season (a number that Morant only reached during the COVID-19 shortened 2020 campaign, when he won the Rookie of the Year award). Jenkins is the franchise's career wins leader, and he ranks second in franchise history in career winning percentage while notching the franchise's first (and only) division titles. The Grizzlies went 8-11 after the All-Star Game before firing Jenkins, and they are are 3-3 after replacing him with interim coach Tuomas Iisalo, who has no prior NBA head coaching experience. Their defense has not been good recently but overall they rank third in defensive field goal percentage and 23rd in points allowed (which is not as bad as that may sound because they are second in points scored and thus enjoy a nearly +5 ppg point differential). I ranked Memphis as the seventh best team in the Western Conference, and they are currently tied with Denver and two other teams for fourth.

Of the three teams that fired their coaches this season, only the Kings could be singled out for not meeting reasonable expectations, but it is fair to ask (1) if Mike Brown was given enough time and opportunity to right the ship and (2) if either Doug Christie or Doug Christie's replacement can do better long term than Brown. The Nuggets and Grizzlies are who we thought they were, to hearken back to the famous Dennis Green rant; one wonders what their owners think they are/should be, and what those teams will look like not just in the next two weeks but in the next seasons without the services of the excellent coaches who they summarily dismissed. 

The NBA is experiencing an influx of new money; the league just signed a record-setting media rights deal, and many teams have young owners who are flush with cash and who think that possessing billions of dollars makes them experts on everything, including roster construction and coaching strategies. In Phoenix, Mat Ishbia has fired two coaches and done a complete roster overhaul in less than three years, and the Suns have crashed from winning 64 games and reaching the NBA Finals in 2021 to being a 35-44 Draft Lottery team this season.

Labels: Denver Nuggets, Memphis Grizzlies, Michael Malone, Mike Brown, Sacramento Kings, Taylor Jenkins

posted by David Friedman @ 10:07 PM

11 comments

Mike Brown's Firing Demonstrates that the Kings Are Still Dysfunctional

Last Friday, the Sacramento Kings fired Coach Mike Brown just before the team boarded a flight to Los Angeles, right after he conducted practice and met with the media. That is a bad and dysfunctional but not surprising look for a team that has been bad and dysfunctional for the better part of the past 20 years. In his first season with the Kings, Brown was the unanimous selection as the 2023 NBA Coach of the Year after the Kings posted a 48-34 record--their first winning season since 2005-06, and their best winning percentage since 2004-05. Brown led the Kings to a 46-36 record last season--the first time the Kings had consecutive winning seasons since 2005-06--but the Kings let go of Brown after a 13-18 start this season, a .419 winning percentage that is better than the full season winning percentages of every Kings team from 2009-18. Brown's track record prior to arriving in Sacramento includes winning the 2009 NBA Coach of the Year award after leading the Cleveland Cavaliers to the best regular season record (66-16) in franchise history, a mark that still stands. Brown was an assistant coach on four NBA championship teams (San Antonio 2003, Golden State 2017-18, 2022), and it is a good bet that if he does not receive a head coaching offer soon then he will be on the bench of a top contender as an assistant coach.

Brown's brief Sacramento tenure is the only bright spot on the franchise's otherwise dismal track record of losing followed by coaching changes followed by more losing; the Kings have had 12 coaches since 2006, and Brown is the only one of those 12 coaches who posted a winning record (107-89) with the Kings. Four of those 12 coaches--Brown, Paul Westphal, George Karl, and Michael Malone--led other teams to the NBA Finals, and Malone's Denver Nuggets won the 2023 NBA title, a track record which strongly suggests that the Kings' problem is not bad coaching but mismanagement.

Brown took over a Kings team that ranked 29th in points allowed and 28th in defensive field goal percentage. The Kings ranked 17th and 21st respectively in those categories last season, and they ranked 19th and 15th respectively so far this season prior to Brown being fired. However, the Kings' leadership may not understand the importance of defense, and thus may not place sufficient value on the type of program Brown built. The Kings had a positive point differential this season despite their losing record, a statistic that suggests that over a larger sample size they would turn things around.

Vivek Ranadive has been the Kings' majority owner since 2013. In 2014, he suggested that it would be optimal for a team to keep one player on offense for the entire game and thus to play defense four on five--an idea that only sounds intelligent or reasonable to someone who made a lot of money outside of basketball but does not have a clue about what it takes to win basketball games.

Media members regularly display their ignorance of basketball history, and media members often have a poor understanding of the intricacies of high level NBA coaching, so don't hold your breath waiting for media members to produce intelligent and objective analysis of Brown's Sacramento tenure; such analysis was not forthcoming earlier in Brown's career, and it is even less likely to be forthcoming now in a media landscape dominated by loud mouths who confuse decibel level with IQ level and whose "hot takes" are devoid of intelligent analysis.

However, it is interesting and revealing to consider the comments made by Brown's coaching peers. Denver Coach Michael Malone did not mince words about Brown's firing: "I'm not surprised that Mike Brown got fired, because I got fired by the same person. And what really pissed me off about it was the fact that they lost [Thursday] night, fifth game in a row, I believe. Tough loss...They had practiced this morning. He does his postgame media, and he's in his car going to the airport to fly to L.A. and they call him on the phone. No class, no balls. That's what I'll say about that."

Indiana Pacers Coach (and longtime President of the National Basketball Coaches Association) Rick Carlisle called the firing "shocking to me and I'm sure all the people in our profession." He added, "I had the privilege of working with Mike when I was in Indiana coaching the first time. I view him as one of the standard bearers for integrity for our profession. And I'm just absolutely shocked that that decision was made."

Much like the New York Knicks spent decades stuck in mediocrity (or worse) until the owner hired smart people and then left the smart people alone to do their jobs, the Sacramento Kings will remain stuck in mediocrity (or worse) until the owner stops trying to prove that he is the smartest man in the room; there are few things more likely to destroy any group or organization than having someone in charge who is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

Labels: Michael Malone, Mike Brown, Rick Carlisle, Sacramento Kings, Vivek Ranadive

posted by David Friedman @ 3:01 AM

8 comments

Mike Brown's "Evolution"

A media member whose biggest career break has been knowing LeBron James since high school and thus being hired by various outlets to follow James around throughout his career just wrote a piece about Mike Brown's supposed "evolution" as a head coach. Media members (1) often tend to be wrong and (2) rarely admit that they have been wrong, so when something happens that confounds their predictions they feel compelled to contrive elaborate explanations.

For example, Bill Belichick did an excellent coaching job in Cleveland, but media members perceived him to be surly and so they portrayed him not only as surly (which may contain some degree of truth) but also as incompetent (which was completely false). At age 39 in his first NFL head coaching job, Belichick took over a team that had been 3-13, and by year four the Browns went 11-5 and won a playoff game. How impressive is it to do that in Cleveland? The next time the Browns went 11-5 was 2020, which was also the next time that they won a playoff game. The Browns collapsed to 5-11 in 1995, but that had a lot to do with the disruptions caused by Art Modell announcing that he planned to move the team to Baltimore and little to do with Belichick's coaching. 

On the way out of Cleveland, Modell fired Belichick. The next time Belichick was hired to be an NFL head coach, he led the New England Patriots to six Super Bowl titles. Belichick's coaching staff in Cleveland included Nick Saban (who became arguably the greatest college football coach ever), Ozzie Newsome (who later won two Super Bowls as Baltimore's General Manager), and several others who became successful coaches in the NFL or college. Objectively, it seems obvious that a coach who assembled a talented staff like that and who led the team to a playoff win not long after a 3-13 season must have known what he was doing--but Belichick being competent in the early 1990s (after he had already won two Super Bowls as a defensive coordinator, by the way) did not fit the media narrative, so instead we are told that Belichick "evolved" in New England.

If you converted what most media members understand about coaching into an explosive device, you would not generate enough power to ignite the smallest firecracker!

It should be obvious that any diligent professional learns and evolves--but the notion that Belichick "evolved" from incompetent bumbler to six-time Super Bowl champion is preposterous, as is the media's obsessive focus on "in-game adjustments." The most important coaching is done in practices. That is when coaches prepare their teams for (1) what is most likely to happen during games and (2) how to react to the various most likely scenarios. If the coach fails at anticipating what is most likely to happen and preparing how to react then he is not going to come up with some magic halftime "adjustment" to save the day; what media members incorrectly call "adjustments" are in reality just the coach implementing the parts of the pre-game plan that are most relevant at that time.

Tom Brown, who played safety for Vince Lombardi's Super Bowl-winning Green Bay Packers, told me that what changed after Lombardi left the team was the attention to detail in practices. Uninformed media members blabber about "in-game adjustments" and are often overly impressed by sideline histrionics, but--as I noted in that article mentioning Brown--the reality is (as I explained) "The importance of coaching is not revealed by sideline tantrums during games or witty comments in press conferences; the great coaches do their work on the practice field, outside of the public eye."

Much like Cleveland media members did not like Bill Belichick or understand what he was doing, they did not understand what Mike Brown was doing as the Cleveland Cavaliers' coach (though they may have liked Brown on a personal level more than they liked Belichick).

The season before Mike Brown first became the Cleveland Cavaliers' head coach, the Cavaliers ranked 11th in points allowed, 14th in rebounding, and 19th in defensive field goal percentage. Two years later, with the same frontcourt starters--LeBron James, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, and Drew Gooden--the Cavaliers ranked fifth in points allowed, eighth in defensive field goal percentage, and second in rebounding en route to advancing to the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history. In Brown's final two seasons during his first run in Cleveland, the team went 66-16 (ranking first in points allowed, second in defensive field goal percentage, and seventh in rebounding), and 61-21 (ranking sixth in points allowed, fourth in defensive field goal percentage, and 11th in rebounding). The same guy who is now declaring that Brown has "evolved" was one of many who at that time questioned Brown's ability to make "in-game adjustments." Brown built the Cavaliers into a defensive powerhouse and perennial championship contender, but the media narrative was that LeBron James was singlehandedly carrying a team that lacked talent and was not particularly well-coached--as if James, by himself, could outrebound entire teams and also lock down entire teams defensively. That is not a knock against James--who is one of the greatest players of all-time--but just an objective assessment of what it takes to win over 60 games in back to back seasons, something that no poorly coached team has ever done or ever will do.

If your career is based on following James around and being some sort of confidant to him--and if Brown does not even deign to provide you good soundbites--are you going to praise Brown's coaching or are you going to say that James is a one-man team overcoming bad teammates and bad coaching? That question is not difficult to answer, and the proof can be found in various articles and TV appearances.

After being dumped by the Cavaliers, Mike Brown coached the L.A. Lakers for one season, succeeding Phil Jackson and leading the team to a 41-25 record in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign. The Lakers fired Brown after a 1-4 start in 2012-13, limped into the playoffs under Mike D'Antoni, and did not sniff the playoffs again until player/general manager LeBron James joined the team and acquired Anthony Davis.

The Cavaliers brought Brown back for the 2013-14 season, and he guided the team to a 33-49 record after the squad had won 19, 21, and 24 games in the previous three campaigns. The Cavaliers fired Brown at the end of the season, and Brown then served as a Golden State assistant from 2016-2022, winning three championships to go along with the 2003 title he won as a San Antonio assistant. It is amusing that media members question Brown's coaching ability but two of the most successful head coaches of all-time (San Antonio's Gregg Popovich and Golden State's Steve Kerr) both hired Brown.

This season, Mike Brown inherited a Sacramento Kings team that went 30-52 last season while ranking 26th in rebounding, 28th in defensive field goal percentage, and 29th in points allowed. So far this season, the Kings are 27-20 while ranking 25th in rebounding, 28th in defensive field goal percentage, and 22nd in points allowed. Those are not huge improvements, but Brown's first Cleveland team did not make huge defensive improvements in the first season, either; Hank Egan, then an assistant coach in Cleveland, explained to me that when teaching defensive principles to a team it takes until "deep into your second year before you’re getting to the point that it is second nature."

The notion that Brown has "evolved" from a defensive coach into an offensive coach based on a 47 game sample size is as silly as it is premature; Brown inherited a team with a lot of offensive talent and not much of a defensive mindset, so as any smart coach would do he is maximizing their offensive efficiency while also attempting to improve the team's defensive efficiency. I expect the Kings to be better defensively in a year, and possibly even in the second half of this season.

Brown has always been an excellent coach, but in terms of media relations he never found a great niche; you are not going to see soundbite clips of him the way that you do with Gregg Popovich, Steve Kerr, and other popular coaches. Media members resent coaches like Brown because in order to cover him effectively they are forced to either (1) understand the nuances of the game (fat chance!) or (2) come up with catchy narratives. The Mike Brown narrative that has stuck is "Mike Brown is a good defensive coach who does not understand offense and is not good at making in-game adjustments." The Kings' success this season without immediately becoming a defensive powerhouse challenges that narrative, which means that media members either have to admit that the narrative is wrong or else they have to assert that Brown "evolved."

I am not suggesting that Mike Brown is as great at coaching basketball as Bill Belichick is at coaching football--but I am stating that the way that Cleveland media members (and other media members) misunderstood Belichick in the 1990s foreshadowed the way that Mike Brown has been misunderstood and continues to be misunderstood.

Labels: Bill Belichick, Cleveland Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors, L.A. Lakers, Mike Brown, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs

posted by David Friedman @ 8:26 PM

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Warriors Overwhelm Shorthanded Spurs 129-115, Complete Record-Setting Third Straight 4-0 Sweep

The Golden State Warriors advanced to their third straight NBA Finals after defeating the San Antonio Spurs 129-115 to complete their third consecutive four game sweep in the 2017 playoffs. The Warriors are the first team to advance to the Finals with a 12-0 record, though the 1989 Lakers and the 2001 Lakers each went 11-0 en route to the Finals when the first round was a best of five series. No NBA team has ever survived an entire playoff season without a loss; the 1983 76ers (12-1) and the 2001 Lakers (15-1) are the only NBA teams to make it through the postseason with just one loss.

The Warriors' one-two punch of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant has been impressive throughout this 12-0 run and particularly so versus the Spurs. Curry averaged 31.5 ppg and 4.8 apg in the Western Conference Finals while shooting .564 from the field (including .467 from three point range) and Durant averaged 29.8 ppg and 7.3 rpg while shooting .603 from the field (including .409 from three point range). Curry tallied 36 points on 14-24 field goal shooting in the closeout game, while Durant added 29 points on blistering 10-13 field goal shooting.

It is worth noting that the Warriors are undefeated with Interim Head Coach Mike Brown at the helm. Fools will say that anyone could coach a team that is this talented but the reality--without calling out any names in particular--is that pro basketball history is littered with the names of coaches who did not win as much as they could have or should have despite being blessed with talented rosters. Brown's coaching acumen is underrated by most media members, though within the coaching fraternity and among knowledgeable basketball observers his skills are understood.

Before commenting any further about the Warriors, it must be mentioned that a dirty play altered--at the very least--the duration of this series, if not the outcome; the Spurs enjoyed a lead of as much as 25 points in game one before Zaza Pachulia took away Kawhi Leonard's landing space on a jump shot, resulting in Leonard reinjuring the ankle that he had sprained in the previous round versus the Houston Rockets. With Leonard out of action for the rest of the series, the Spurs promptly blew their game one lead, played like a disheartened team in game two and then fought hard for most of games three and four despite clearly not having enough talent on the court to ultimately prevail. There is a game plan to beat the Warriors, as I noted in my Western Conference Finals preview, but it is not clear if any team has both the necessary talent and the game plan discipline to execute this plan over the entire course of a seven game series; what is clear is that the Spurs understood that game plan and were executing it very well in game one before Leonard's injury. We will never know if the Spurs would have pulled off the upset but before anyone crowns the Warriors as the greatest team of all-time it should be remembered that this series could have had a different outcome--and that is even more true considering that the Spurs' lost starting point guard Tony Parker to a season-ending injury in the previous series versus Houston.

Pachulia's play was unquestionably dirty. I have played organized basketball for over 35 years, albeit not at the professional level, and I can say without question that I know where my feet (and hands and elbows) are. I might slap at the ball and hit someone's arm by accident but I have never slid my foot underneath a shooter because that would be a dangerous and deliberate action that could cause a serious injury. ESPN's Jalen Rose addressed this issue directly, admitting that he intentionally injured Kobe Bryant during the 2000 NBA Finals and noting that such a move is never accidental. San Antonio Coach Gregg Popovich, understandably upset by the loss of his MVP candidate under such circumstances, publicly blasted Pachulia but Popovich is not the best spokesman to deliver this message; in fact, Popovich's comments seem hollow and hypocritical in light of the fact that for years he defended similar actions by his ace defender Bruce Bowen. If as a coach you encourage or at least tolerate dirty play then it is hard to credibly take the moral high ground on that subject.

Switching our focus back to the Warriors, the NBA Finals will not start until June 1, so there is plenty of time to engage in endless discussions about where this team ranks among the greatest squads in pro basketball history. The first thing to note is the phrase trademarked by Scottie Pippen and Ron Harper after the 1996 Bulls went 72-10: Don't Mean a Thing Without the Ring. If you are not the best team in a given season then it is doubtful that you are one of the greatest teams of all-time.

Assuming for the sake of discussion that the Warriors win the championship, that would be their second title in three years after setting several records for regular season wins. That is impressive but not unprecedented, as the Shaq-Kobe Lakers won three titles in a row, the Jordan-Pippen Bulls notched two three-peats sandwiched around Jordan's minor league baseball career and Bill Russell's Celtics won eight championships in a row. The Warriors have the two most recent regular season MVPs on their roster (Durant 2014, Curry 2015-16), a distinction matched only by the 1983 76ers (Moses Malone 1982, Julius Erving 1981). Malone won the 1983 MVP as well, but neither Durant nor Curry will receive the 2017 honor as they are not among the three MVP finalists recently announced by the league. In addition to their MVP power duo, the Warriors also have two All-Star level players (Klay Thompson, Draymond Green) plus a former All-Star who won the 2015 Finals MVP (Andre Iguodala); in this sense the Warriors are like a throwback team, even though their playing style is new: in the early to mid-1980s, the league's best teams (Lakers, Celtics, 76ers) were routinely stacked with multiple All-Stars and former All-Stars. This is much less commonplace today, perhaps a symptom of expansion (both in terms of number of teams and roster sizes) diluting the league's talent.

The bottom line is that the Warriors are great, they are fun to watch and they deserve a lot of praise but based on the eye test I cannot see them beating the star-studded teams of yesteryear, as I indicated in an earlier series preview article about the Warriors. I like Kevin McHale's line about Draymond Green: "That guy could not grow enough to guard me." The Lakers, Celtics and 76ers from the 1980s loved to play at a fast pace--and had players who could make three pointers, though that was not in vogue during that era--but they also could slow the game down and pound the ball inside to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Robert Parish-Kevin McHale and Moses Malone respectively. The combination of Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge looked pretty strong versus the Warriors in game one of the Western Conference Finals, so I would take my chances with Magic-Kareem, Bird-Parish-McHale or Julius Erving-Moses Malone. The 1990s Bulls did not have a low post dreadnought but Jordan-Pippen-Harper comprised the greatest perimeter defensive trio ever assembled on one roster, while Dennis Rodman likely would have baited the hotheaded Draymond Green into getting suspended.

Meanwhile, in the other bracket the Cleveland Cavaliers seemed poised to match Golden State's 12-0 playoff mark before suffering what was most likely a one game aberration versus the Boston Celtics. The Cavaliers not only have a three-headed monster of star power with LeBron James-Kyrie Irving-Kevin Love but they also have tremendous depth, with multiple former All-Stars coming off of the bench (Deron Williams, Kyle Korver) plus numerous veterans who understand and thrive in their roles. No NBA team in recent memory has been as deep as these Cavaliers and certainly no team that has three All-Stars has been this deep since at least the aforementioned elite teams from the 1980s, when former MVPs like Bob McAdoo and Bill Walton came off of the bench for championship squads.

It will be interesting to see how the 2017 playoffs conclude but my preliminary thoughts about the historical comparisons are that the Warriors and Cavaliers deserve high rankings on the all-time lists but not necessarily the very highest rankings; if you contracted the NBA by nearly 200 players (by folding seven teams to bring the total back to 23 and by limiting the rosters to 12 players instead of 15) it is unlikely that the Warriors and Cavaliers would be dominating to quite the extent that they are currently dominating.

Labels: Golden State Warriors, Gregg Popovich, Kawhi Leonard, Kevin Durant, Mike Brown, San Antonio Spurs, Stephen Curry

posted by David Friedman @ 1:32 AM

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First Impressions of the 2013-14 Season

The NBA season is a long grind and it would be foolish to draw definitive conclusions just two days into the process but every team has played at least one game and we have seen some interesting things so far:

1. Mike Brown will once again transform the Cavaliers into a top notch defensive team; in their home debut, they held the Brooklyn Nets to .402 field goal shooting while also winning the rebounding battle 48-37. Cleveland's 98-94 victory over a team that most people expect to be an Eastern Conference contender is surprising only to those who do not understand that Brown is one of the league's best coaches. 
2. The L.A. Lakers added some three point shooters and they will have a chance to win on the nights when their long range bombs hit their targets--but they are terrible defensively, they are soft mentally and physically and they will only make the playoffs if Kobe Bryant not only returns to action but if he is able to score 28-30 ppg.
3. Derrick Rose looked OK physically in his regular season debut but he is very rusty; he scored just 12 points on 4-15 field goal shooting as his Chicago Bulls fell 107-95 to the Miami Heat. He also had four assists and five turnovers. If the Bulls are going to beat the Heat in a playoff series Rose must produce at least 23-25 ppg while shooting at least .450 from the field. 
4. There is no question that LeBron James is an excellent passer, rebounder and defender--but, despite what anyone (including James himself) says, his greatest skill is scoring: he ranks third in NBA/ABA regular season history with a 27.5 ppg scoring average (trailing only Michael Jordan and Wilt Chamberlain) and he ranks fifth in NBA/ABA playoff history with a 28.1 ppg scoring average (trailing only Jordan, Allen Iverson, Jerry West and Kevin Durant). James led the NBA in playoff scoring in 2009 (35.3 ppg) and 2012 (30.3 ppg) and he has averaged at least 25.1 ppg in seven of his eight postseason campaigns. James' signature playoff performances during his two championship seasons have all included outstanding scoring numbers, including 37 points on 12-23 field goal shooting in game seven of the 2013 NBA Finals, 32 points on 8-17 field goal shooting in game seven of the 2013 Eastern Conference Finals, 26 points on 9-19 field goal shooting in the clinching game five of the 2012 NBA Finals, 31 points on 9-21 field goal shooting in game seven of the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals and 45 points on 19-26 field goal shooting in game six of the 2012 Eastern Conference Finals. With Dwyane Wade declining and Chris Bosh relegated to a glorified Horace Grant-jump shooting role, the Miami Heat need for James to continue to score prolifically and efficiently.
5. The Memphis Grizzlies miss Rudy Gay's scoring and Lionel Hollins' coaching; they shot just .419 from the field in their 101-94 season-opening loss to the San Antonio Spurs, failing to capitalize on an injury that limited Tim Duncan to three points in just 17 minutes.
6. Gay scored a team-high 19 points on 8-18 field goal shooting as his Toronto Raptors beat the Boston Celtics 93-87 in the first game of the season for both teams.
7. The Oklahoma City Thunder will need for Kevin Durant to be in Kobe Bryant 2006 mode just to tread water until Russell Westbrook returns from his knee injury; Durant scored 42 points on 9-24 field goal shooting as the Thunder barely held off the rebuilding Utah Jazz, 101-98.

Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Derrick Rose, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, LeBron James, Memphis Grizzlies, Miami Heat, Mike Brown, Oklahoma City Thunder, Rudy Gay, Toronto Raptors

posted by David Friedman @ 1:26 PM

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Real Talk About Media Coverage of NBA Coaching

I correctly predicted the winner of seven of the eight first round series, including both upsets in the #4 versus #5 matchups; my only mistake was favoring Denver over Golden State: the Nuggets took game one on Andre Miller's buzzer-beating layup and then lost four of the next five games. I should have known better than to pick a George Karl-coached team in the playoffs: Karl has a .599 regular season winning percentage but just a .432 playoff winning percentage; compare that to the winning percentages of championship-winning coaches Phil Jackson (.704/.688), Gregg Popovich (.681/.613), Erik Spoelstra (.660/.633), Pat Riley (.636/.606), Rick Carlisle (.587/.515), Larry Brown (.568/.511) and Doc Rivers (.554/.529) and it is clear that neither Karl's playoff winning percentage nor the gaping differential between his regular season/playoff winning percentages suggest that Karl is an elite level coach.

Coaching matters in the NBA, even though some "stat gurus" dispute this. When I picked Chicago to beat Brooklyn I wrote, "This series features a huge coaching mismatch. TNT's Kenny Smith says that if a team loses by more than five points then blame the players but if it loses by less than five points blame the coach; the games in this series figure to be low scoring and close and I trust Chicago's Tom Thibodeau much more than I trust Brooklyn's P. J. Carlesimo; this is not just about in-game adjustments but also about elements of preparation that give one team an edge over another." Only two of the seven games in the Chicago-Brooklyn series were decided by five points or less--with each team winning one of those games--but five of the games were decided by eight points or less (including the triple overtime contest that Chicago won by eight points) and the Bulls went 4-1 in those games. Brooklyn's other two victories were both blowouts; there is no doubt that the Nets have a more talented team on paper than the injury-ravaged Bulls but the Bulls proved to be a more disciplined and focused squad: the Bulls did all of the "little things" that actually are quite important, such as setting solid screens, executing plays crisply and taking advantage of opportunities to score easy baskets on inbounds plays while also denying Brooklyn similar opportunities.

Bum Phillips once said that Don Shula "can take his'n and beat your'n or he can take your'n and beat his'n." The Chicago-Brooklyn series very much had that feel; in game seven, the Bulls were without the services of 2011 MVP Derrick Rose (who missed the entire 2012-13 season), All-Star Luol Deng and Kirk Hinrich while the Nets had all hands on deck yet the Bulls took a huge first half lead and never trailed en route to a 99-93 road win: if everything else were kept the same but the head coaches switched sides, I'd be willing to bet that the Nets would have won the series.

Coach bashing is a favorite media pastime but most media members do not have a clue how to determine if a team is well coached or poorly coached. I respect all NBA coaches tremendously and I fully realize that even a bad NBA head coach knows more about basketball than the vast majority of coaches at any other level of the sport; Karl is a very good NBA coach but he seems to be better suited for rebuilding teams/coaching underdogs than he is at extracting the maximum out of 50-plus win teams. Carlesimo was an excellent collegiate coach and he served as an assistant on Gregg Popovich's San Antonio staff so Carlesimo obviously has a very good basketball mind--but as an NBA head coach he has not measured up well in comparison with the best of the best, a category in which Thibodeau clearly belongs.

When I critique coaches like Carlesimo and Karl I am not trying to suggest that I know more about basketball than they do or that I would be a better NBA head coach; in other words, I am not acting like Bill Simmons. I am just doing my job as an NBA analyst by pointing out that, as much as Karl and Carlesimo know about basketball, there are other coaches who are demonstrably performing at a higher level.

Media members do not like to admit being wrong and it is interesting to see the lengths some of them will go to in order to avoid such admissions. Simmons used to regularly bash Doc Rivers' coaching acumen but now Rivers is widely recognized as a great coach so Simmons had to stop degrading Rivers--but did Simmons admit that he was wrong? Of course not! Simmons' story is that Rivers has evolved into being a great coach. Rivers won the 2000 Coach of the Year award in his first season as an NBA head coach after leading the "heart and hustle" Orlando Magic to a 41-41 record with Darrell Armstrong, John Amaechi and Chucky Atkins as the top three players in the rotation. Has Rivers become a better coach in the intervening 13 years? I am sure that he has; I hope that anyone who does something for more than a decade becomes better at it--but the idea that Rivers was a terrible coach who then became a great coach is absurd. Simmons was dead wrong about Rivers and he should just admit it.

Simmons' arrogance is not unique; Cleveland media members still give the Simmons treatment to Bill Belichick, who took over a 3-13 Browns team in 1991 and transformed them into an 11-5 playoff team by 1994. During Belichick's entire tenure in Cleveland the media relentlessly mocked his coaching strategies and his public speaking style. The Browns have not won a playoff game since the 1994 team went 1-1 in the postseason, while Belichick has won three Super Bowls in New England. Belichick is now widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest coaches in NFL history--but do the Cleveland media members admit that they were wrong? Of course not! They insist that Belichick learned from his supposed mistakes in Cleveland and became a much better coach in New England. Sure, that makes sense: he was a dunce in Cleveland but he became a genius in New England--well, if ignorance is contagious then perhaps one could theorize that he caught it from those Cleveland media members! Smart people are much more apt to learn from their mistakes than stupid people, so there is no doubt that Belichick learned from some mistakes that he made in Cleveland but the record before, during and after his time there shows that he did a great job as the Browns' coach. A lot of those very same media members gave Mike Brown the Belichick treatment during Brown's first term as the Cavaliers' coach and they are no doubt gearing up to do so again as Brown takes over for the fired Byron Scott. We will be told that Brown should hire John Kuester as some kind of "offensive coordinator"--so that the Cavs can hope to replicate the awesome scoring attack that Kuester built during his tenure as Detroit's head coach when the Pistons ranked 29th and 22nd in points scored. Brown will be mocked for talking about his players letting him coach them, even though Hall of Fame Coach Chuck Daly said exactly the same thing; that statement has nothing to do with being a soft person or a bad leader and everything to do with understanding the nature of the culture in an NBA locker room: if a coach cannot elicit "voluntary cooperation" (Pat Riley's way of referring to the concept mentioned by Daly and Brown) then he cannot function effectively.

Mike Brown does not need me to defend him; he is well paid for his services and he is well respected by people who actually understand the technical aspects of the sport--I just wish that media members covered the league more intelligently, but we are all getting the media coverage that we accept/tolerate; perhaps some day editors and consumers will hold writers/TV talking heads to higher standards but it does not seem like that kind of change will happen any time soon.

Labels: Bill Belichick, Bill Simmons, Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets, Chicago Bulls, Doc Rivers, Mike Brown, Orlando Magic, P.J. Carlesimo, Tom Thibodeau

posted by David Friedman @ 3:31 AM

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The Lakers' Coaching Triangle

Mike Brown is an excellent defensive-minded coach. Mike D'Antoni is an excellent offensive-minded coach. Phil Jackson is arguably the greatest NBA coach of all-time. I think that the L.A. Lakers should have given Brown a full season to implement his program but I can understand firing Brown to replace him with Jackson. I do not understand firing Brown after only five regular season games--during which his projected starting lineup barely had any time on the court together--in order to replace him with D'Antoni. That is, at best, a lateral move. The Lakers have won two straight games under the direction of interim Coach Bernie Bickerstaff and I have no doubt that they will post a very good regular season record once D'Antoni takes the helm, just like I have no doubt that they would have posted a very good regular season record if Brown had not been fired (assuming, in both scenarios, that the Lakers do not suffer any more injuries to one of their top four players). The Lakers' regular season record is almost beside the point; it is obvious that the current Lakers' roster was assembled with just one idea in mind: winning at least one championship and possibly squeezing out two championships before Kobe Bryant and Steve Nash either retire or decline to the point that they are no longer top level performers. The Lakers need a coach who can lead them to the top of the league right now while also being prepared for the inevitable shift from a Bryant-centric squad to a Dwight Howard-centric squad. Phil Jackson can unquestionably perform the first task and he likely can groom a qualified successor to perform the second task. I believe that Mike Brown, who twice led the Cleveland Cavaliers to the best record in the league and who also guided the Cavaliers to the 2007 NBA Finals, could have performed both tasks. D'Antoni favors an exciting, fun to watch brand of uptempo offensive basketball but he does not place much emphasis on the defensive end of the court. The Lakers' main offensive problem right now is a lack of familiarity and continuity among the key players in their rotation; regardless of who the coach is, that problem will become less of an issue as the season progresses and the team's stars get used to playing with each other. In order to win a championship and in order to build a framework in which Howard becomes the team's literal and figurative centerpiece in the next two years or so, the Lakers need a coach who will put a system in place that fully exploits Howard's skills as a defender, rebounder and high percentage scorer in the paint.

For many years, Roland Lazenby--who probably knows as much as anyone about the inner workings of the Lakers' front office--has described the acrimonious relationship between Jim Buss and Phil Jackson. Lazenby has also expressed skepticism about Buss' ability to maintain the Lakers' status as an elite franchise the way that Jim's father Jerry did for nearly 30 years. Preliminary reports and indications suggest that the main reason the Lakers hired D'Antoni instead of Jackson is that Jackson tried to humiliate Buss with his requests/demands pertaining to Jackson's role with the team and Buss responded/retaliated by breaking off talks with Jackson. Jackson has denied that he made any outlandish demands and he has suggested that the Lakers lied to him, first saying that he had until Monday to decide whether or not to take the job only to then call him on Sunday night to announce that they had already hired D'Antoni.

Regardless of what exactly happened between Jim Buss and Phil Jackson over the weekend, it is no secret that the last time Jackson worked with the Lakers he did not get along well with Buss and it is also no secret that previously Jackson did not get along well with Jerry West in L.A. or with Jerry Krause in Chicago. The Zen Master has more that a little Machiavellian streak in him but the Lakers would have been wise to overlook that personality trait in view of Jackson's track record of delivering championships.

D'Antoni's Lakers will probably be setting the world on fire offensively within a couple months--but will they be equipped to beat smart, defensive-minded teams like the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder? It would not be surprising if D'Antoni's Lakers lead the league in field goal percentage this season but unless they also rank in the top 10 in defensive field goal percentage the Lakers likely will not win the West.

Labels: Jim Buss, L.A. Lakers, Mike Brown, Mike D'Antoni, Phil Jackson

posted by David Friedman @ 5:13 AM

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Sluggish Lakers Fire Mike Brown

Mike Brown did not even last 82 games on the job after following 11-time NBA Champion Phil Jackson as the Coach of the L.A. Lakers; the Lakers fired Brown today in the wake of the Lakers' disappointing 1-4 start. Brown won the 2009 NBA Coach of the Year award in Cleveland and owns a 314-167 regular season record, a .653 winning percentage that ranks 12th in NBA history, ahead of several Hall of Famers--including both Red Auerbach and Pat Riley. Brown's Lakers earned the third seed in the West with a 41-25 record during the lockout-shortened 66 game 2011-12 season despite giving up 2011 Sixth Man of the Year Lamar Odom without getting another player in return.

Brown's Lakers maximized their potential last season but expectations went through the roof prior to this season when the Lakers acquired Dwight Howard and used the financial flexibility provided by the Odom trade to sign Steve Nash. The Lakers' projected starting lineup included two former regular season MVPs (Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash) plus the league's most dominant center (Dwight Howard) and one of the league's top power forwards (Pau Gasol). If those four players were healthy and in their primes and had an even minimally competent group of reserves backing them up then the Lakers would be rightly expected to win 65-plus regular season games and strongly contend for the championship; even at the current stages of their respective careers, it seemed reasonable to predict that--health permitting--the Lakers would be serious championship contenders.

The Lakers' 0-8 preseason caused some alarm in Los Angeles even though Howard missed several games and is still rounding into form now (ahead of schedule, by the way) and even though Bryant also played sparingly. Through the first five regular season games, nothing has gone right for the Lakers except for Bryant's performance (27.2 ppg on .560 field goal shooting plus 5.2 rpg and 3.2 apg). Howard has scored well (22.4 ppg) and shot very well (.678 field goal percentage) but he clearly lacks his former explosiveness and thus has not been as dominant as he used to be defensively or on the boards (9.6 rpg, significantly worse than his career average of 13.0 rpg despite playing 36.0 mpg, right in line with his career average of 36.2 mpg).

Howard is still recovering from off-season back surgery, Nash only played in the first one and a half regular season games before breaking a bone in his leg, Bryant is dealing with a nagging foot injury (which has not stopped him from playing very well so far) and Gasol is putting up career-low numbers after back to back subpar playoff performances, suggesting that he is a declining player. No matter who was coaching the Lakers in those first five games, the Lakers were not going to be a dominant team under those circumstances. Contrary to popular belief, offense has not been the Lakers' problem this season, either in theory or in practice: the Lakers' system produced high percentage shots for Bryant and Howard (the team's two best players) and the Lakers scored enough (97.2 ppg, 13th in the NBA) and shot well enough (.470 field goal percentage, fifth in the NBA) to be successful. The Lakers' biggest problem has been their porous defense (98.8 ppg allowed, 19th in the NBA; .447 defensive field goal percentage, 20th in the NBA). Defense is Brown's calling card, so he is being blamed for the Lakers' struggles in that regard--but Brown did not suddenly forget how to coach defense: Howard's limited mobility, the team's lack of continuity (due to roster changes and injuries) and the team's unproductive bench have more to do with the Lakers' poor record than any supposed deficiencies in Brown's coaching. That said, when a team does not meet expectations the coach will generally take the fall; it is much easier to fire one guy than to trade several players--but, no matter who the Lakers bring in to replace Brown, their record will not improve unless Howard gets healthier, Nash returns to action and their bench becomes more productive.

It is rarely easy to be the guy who follows "The Guy" and it is generally much easier to be the guy who follows the guy who followed "The Guy." In June 2011, I explained that Brown faced a big challenge in Los Angeles and much of what I predicted came to pass: Brown improved the Lakers defensively last season but after a slow start this season he could not survive the high expectations placed on this team. It will be interesting to see who the Lakers hire now and how the Lakers perform during the rest of the season; if Howard and Nash get healthy and the bench performs adequately then the Lakers have a great chance to win the West but if those things don't happen then the Lakers will continue to struggle no matter who the new coach is.

Labels: Dwight Howard, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Mike Brown, Pau Gasol, Steve Nash

posted by David Friedman @ 4:15 PM

21 comments

Thoughts on the Lakers-Thunder Series and the Difference Between Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade

It may seem like ancient history to some people but little more than a week ago Magic Johnson, among others, stated that Mike Brown was being outcoached by George Karl in the first round prior to the L.A. Lakers' game seven win over Karl's Denver Nuggets. I assume that Johnson (and others) must now be willing to state that Brown outcoached Karl in that game seven and that Brown has also done an excellent job so far in the second round as the Lakers face a younger, faster, more talented and deeper Oklahoma City team. The Thunder blitzed the Lakers in game one--hardly a surprising development to anyone who has watched both teams play this season--but in the next two games Brown's excellent defensive game plan and underrated offensive game plan have slowed the pace of the game and turned a series that on paper looks very one-sided into one that could be surprisingly competitive if the Lakers win game four at home tonight.

The critics cannot have it both ways: if it is primarily Brown's fault when the Lakers lose then Brown must also deserve at least some credit when the Lakers win, particularly when the Lakers eliminate an underrated Nuggets team and then battle toe to toe with a clearly superior Thunder team. Brown is one of the best coaches in the NBA but he never played in the league, he does not crack many jokes and he does not have Phil Jackson's championship ring collection so media members find it easier to take shots at Brown than to actually analyze his coaching and his team's performance.

While Brown is saddled with two talented but inconsistent big men, a mess at the point guard position and a non-existent bench, he does have one big trump card: Kobe Bryant, who is no longer the best player in the league on a nightly basis but who is still quite capable of doing some remarkable things on the basketball court. After the Lakers made it to the NBA Finals three years in a row and won back to back titles, I placed Bryant's career in historical context. Here is an important passage from that article:

Here are Jordan's playoff averages from 1996-98 when the Bulls won three championships:

1996: 30.7 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 4.1 apg, .459 FG%, .403 3FG%, .818 FT%
1997: 31.1 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 4.8 apg, .456 FG%, .194 3FG%, .831 FT%
1998: 32.4 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 3.5 apg, .462 FG%, .302 3FG%, .812 FT%

Here are Bryant's playoff averages from 2008-10 when the Lakers made three straight trips to the Finals and won two championships:

2008: 30.1 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 5.6 apg, .479 FG%, .302 3FG%, .809 FT%
2009: 30.2 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 5.5 apg, .457 FG%, .349 3FG%, .883 FT%
2010: 29.2 ppg, 6.0 rpg, 5.5 apg, .458 FG%, .374 3FG%, .842 FT%

The Lakers' championship level play during those years depended on Bryant consistently scoring around 30 ppg while shooting better than .450 from the field. Kobe Bryant's overall career statistics and overall accomplishments (particularly in terms of MVPs and scoring titles) do not match Michael Jordan's but Bryant does not get enough credit for the fact that his 2008-10 postseason numbers match or even exceed Jordan's 1996-98 playoff productivity and efficiency. Bryant has aged remarkably well, evolving from young Slam Dunk Contest champion into a master of the midrange game much like Jordan did.

Everyone knows that the Lakers' bench is terrible now but the Lakers did not have much of a bench to support Bryant even during the 2008-10 period, particularly in comparison to championship teams of the previous two decades. Keep in mind that Lamar Odom was a de facto starter in terms of his minutes because Andrew Bynum was injured so frequently; other Laker reserves subsequently ended up out of the league (Sasha Vujacic) or had minimal impact upon joining other teams (Jordan Farmar became a reserve for a non-playoff team in New Jersey, Trevor Ariza's field goal percentage and per minute numbers declined after he left L.A. and Vladimir Radmanovic went from part-time starter in L.A. to a journeyman who has bounced around the league without accomplishing much). I have consistently maintained that when Bryant is no longer able to score 25-30 ppg while shooting better than .450 from the field in the playoffs the Lakers will have difficulty beating elite teams because neither Andrew Bynum nor Pau Gasol can replace Bryant as a legit first option scorer on a championship caliber squad.

On Friday night, the Lakers handed the Thunder their first loss of the 2012 playoffs. Bryant scored a game-high 36 points, balancing out his subpar 9-25 field goal shooting by making all 18 of his free throws. I don't know what the NBA record is for free throws attempted in a playoff game by a 33 year old shooting guard--let alone by a shooting guard who already has logged more than 50,000 combined regular season and playoff minutes--but Bryant's ability to draw fouls and then convert the pressure free throws enables him to still be a productive and efficient scorer even though he has clearly lost some of his athleticism; Bryant is getting his shot blocked or having the ball stripped more often during this series than I can ever recall happening before but it is important to understand that he is being guarded at various times by four different young, quick, long-armed defenders (Thabo Sefolosha, James Harden, Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook). Bryant is trying to evade those defenders with guile, footwork and his deft midrange shooting touch because it is obvious that Bryant cannot simply rise up and shoot over any of those players on a consistent basis.

The Lakers needed every point that Bryant provided because their bench mustered just 14 points--seven fewer than Sixth Man of the Year Harden scored--while Bynum stumbled and fumbled his way to 15 points on 2-13 field goal shooting, a stunningly bad percentage for a player who attempts most of his shots in the paint. ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy astutely noted that a major problem for Bynum is that he almost always takes one or two dribbles to "balance up," giving defenders time to crowd him. If Bynum's low post footwork were as good as some people say that it is then Bynum would be able to catch the ball (either off of a pass or a rebound) and immediately go up strong. Bynum is not an explosive leaper like Dwight Howard or Blake Griffin so it is vitally important that Bynum's footwork is efficient and that he take as few dribbles as possible. Pau Gasol matched Bynum's strong board work with 11 rebounds and added six assists (tying Bryant for team-high honors) but Gasol is content to drift around the perimeter on offense and thus he finished with just 12 points on 4-8 field goal shooting. At no time against the Thunder have either Bynum or Gasol played like first option scoring threats.

Certain people place a lot of undue emphasis on Bryant's shooting percentage during an arbitrarily defined "clutch" time frame but the reality is that the ability to control a game down the stretch is more significant than simply making buzzer beating shots. Think about the oft-discussed number of shots that Bryant has attempted in "clutch" time during his playoff career; Bryant has played in 218 playoff games and he has controlled enough of those games down the stretch to win five championships and two Finals MVPs but we are supposed to believe that his effectiveness and efficiency are best defined by his shooting percentage on a category of shots that occurred roughly once every eight games (i.e., less than one time in a full seven game series)--and that small sample size is further compromised by the fact that it does not distinguish between shots attempted in an organized play run out of a timeout, desperation heaves with the clock about to expire and shots attempted out of broken plays. That small sample size also does not distinguish between open shots and well-defended shots that still had to be attempted because there was not enough time to pass the ball to someone else. NBA defenses are very good, particularly in the playoffs, so when one team is trailing and has to attempt a game-tying or game-winning shot with the clock winding down that shot is an inherently low percentage play. That is why it is more important to be able to control a game down the stretch--and hopefully not need a last second shot--than it is to be able to make a low percentage shot against a set defense. Instead of focusing on Bryant's supposed "clutch" time field goal percentage it would be more interesting to know how many times he dominated the fourth quarter of a playoff game and thus rendered "clutch" time an irrelevant consideration.

"Stat gurus" often say that Dwayne Wade is better than Kobe Bryant; that has never been the case but now there is a stark contrast between Bryant's game and Wade's game. I don't know if Wade has suddenly gotten older--something that often happens to players who rely primarily on explosiveness, such as NFL cornerbacks--or if he is letting himself be mentally affected by the kind of nagging injuries that did not slow Bryant down at a similar age when Bryant led the Lakers to championships but it is stunning how ineffective Wade is at both ends of the court when he cannot simply jump over everyone and/or explode around people. Wade has an inconsistent midrange game, no three point game and a limited arsenal of footwork/fakes to get open or at least draw fouls; during Miami's series against Indiana, Wade has been reduced to delivering cheap shots, fussing at his coach and bricking shots from all angles. Wade may be turning into the George McGinnis of shooting guards right before our eyes: as a 28 year old, McGinnis was a 22.6 ppg All-Star but the next season his scoring average plummeted by more than 7 ppg and two years later his career was over. As soon as McGinnis' athleticism declined, he rapidly descended from All-Star status to bench warmer. I am not predicting quite as steep or fast of a slide for Wade but Wade looks like the kind of player whose effectiveness will dramatically decrease with even a marginal loss of athleticism simply because Wade relies so much on explosiveness. If LeBron James does not add some more tools to his game then within the next three-four years his effectiveness will also decrease as his athleticism wanes, though James will always have the advantage of his height and strength. It will be very interesting in a few years to compare Wade at 33 and then James at 33 with the 2012 season that Bryant had as a 33 year old.

Bryant is leading all playoff performers this season in MPG and PPG. He is averaging just over seven free throw attempts per game, nearly matching his career playoff average and refuting the notion that Bryant does nothing at this stage of his career except fire shots from the perimeter. If Bryant can continue to be this productive and durable--and either increase his field goal percentage or else make up for it by sinking nearly all of his free throws--then the Lakers indeed have a puncher's chance to upset the Thunder. However, I picked the Thunder to win this series not just because the Thunder are clearly the better team but also because I don't think that at this stage of his career Bryant is capable of coming back on no rest to drop 35-40 points on the Thunder and then following that up with yet another performance of that caliber on the road. It took a lot for Bryant to push, pull and drag the Lakers past the Nuggets in the first round and then the unforgiving compressed playoff schedule required the Lakers and Thunder to play four games in a six day span. It is unrealistic to expect 2006 Kobe Bryant (or even 2008-10 Kobe Bryant) to show up and save the day for the Lakers. If Andrew Bynum is truly a franchise center, game four tonight would be a good time for him to prove it.

Labels: Andrew Bynum, Dwyane Wade, James Harden, Kevin Durant, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Mike Brown, Oklahoma City Thunder, Pau Gasol, Russell Westbrook

posted by David Friedman @ 8:22 AM

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Why Do the Lakers Squander so Many Leads and Why do They Play Poorly on the Road?

The reflexive, mainstream media answer to the title question of this article is that Kobe Bryant "is not clutch" or at least that he has "not been clutch" this season. There are two problems with that kind of thinking:

1) "Clutch" statistics inherently involve a small sample size of data that contains a variety of kinds of plays and shots that cannot just be mixed together to produce any kind of rational, coherent analysis.

2) While it is true that Kobe Bryant's overall performance on the road--which comprises a much larger sample size than just his "clutch" statistics--this season has been much worse than his overall performance at home, the Lakers' problems go deeper than Bryant's road field goal percentage.

Kevin Ding, a rare NBA beat writer who actually provides excellent analysis instead of just filing by the numbers postgame reports, recently offered his take on the Lakers' road problems:

The Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder flat-out have the speed and bounce to win without refined execution--and to win for sure when they indeed do execute. We now know even better than three months ago how badly the Lakers needed at least an infusion of offensive creativity from Paul at point guard.

Lakers coach Mike Brown did craft this plan to play through big men Andrew Bynum and Gasol in the post, but Brown will admit the limitations of that approach.

"The post is the easiest place in basketball to double," Brown said.

That's why Brown is so often looking like a one-man bowling team with those constant underhand waves at Derek Fisher and Steve Blake to hurry the ball across halfcourt. The Lakers need every precious shot-clock second to set up the proper spacing, get Bryant a touch, throw the ball into the post, draw the double team, pass it back out, set up and fight for the re-post, swing the ball to the weak side to look for something there and ideally reach a fourth option on offense before the 24-second clock expires.

Doing all that is not a particularly fun way to play the game, which is a basic reason the Lakers do not do it when they're messing around instead of approaching the game in the most businesslike manner. (And if you've got a lead, is it human nature to stay businesslike or try to have some fun? Yeah, now you know why the Lakers blow so many leads.)

That cavalier attitude is what bit the Lakers in Washington, with Bynum piling up seven turnovers and Bryant jacking tough shots up before double teams arrived instead of everyone making patient passes, cutting toward space and doing the work.

Bryant has played a major role on five championship teams and he has been the Lakers' primary playmaker for the vast majority of his career. Is it logical to leap to the conclusion that his subpar road performance this season "proves" that he is a selfish gunner who is simply trying to move up the all-time scoring list or does it make more sense--based on Bryant's track record and the Lakers' anemic offense overall, as documented by Ding above--to give Bryant the benefit of the doubt and assume that Bryant is trying to do whatever he can to help the Lakers win?

Labels: Kevin Ding, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Mike Brown

posted by David Friedman @ 2:26 PM

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Kevin Ding Provides Excellent Lakers Coverage

A large percentage of what is reported about the NBA in general--and the Lakers in particular--consists of various kinds of nonsense: biased commentary, statistics that are either irrelevant and/or based on insignificant sample sizes, gossip, etc. One shining light amidst this darkness is Kevin Ding, the beat writer for the Orange County Register. His most recent article contains solid reporting with excellent insight. Here is Ding's coverage of how Kobe Bryant is dealing with the torn ligament in his right wrist:

Bryant has been taking a numbing injection to that wrist before every game in hopes of performing normally. Yes, it's that bad.

He does not want to publicize all the details of his wrist, which is usable only because the bones were not moved permanently out of alignment without the ligament to hold them in place. But it's now clear just how problematic the wrist is, and it's fair to wonder where all this will take Bryant.

Bryant walked out of Staples Center on Tuesday night with something that looked like an oven mitten over his right hand and wrist. He wears an immobilizing brace over the wrist when off the court, meaning take-for-granted parts of life such as texting on his phone or zipping his fly become rather challenging.
It was much the same aggravation in 2009-10, when Bryant played through the avulsion fracture in his right index finger--another rather useful body part for everyday activities apart from handling a basketball, too...

In 2009-10 Bryant paid a price for overextending himself, with the fracture in the top knuckle of that finger eventually healing, but the main middle knuckle so beaten down by the abuse that it wound up with arthritis.

That finger today remains, well, quite deformed. Actually, the most accurate way to describe the finger? Lumpy.

The L.A. Times, ESPN and other media outlets will try to convince you that Mike Brown is not a very good coach and that Kobe Bryant does not respect him. Ding has a much different take:

Days before Brown and Bryant reviewed video side-by-side on the flight home from Denver after Bryant's brutal 6-for-28 game Sunday night, Bryant shared with me the depth of his respect for Brown.

"I really want to win for him in the worst way, because I see how much he works and I see how much he wants it," Bryant said. "I hear the criticism he takes, and I believe it to be unwarranted. It makes me want to work even harder than I already am."

Brown and Bryant came out of their video study together with a mandate: Rededicate themselves to getting Bryant the ball in his favorite spots right off the free-throw line or in the short post.

"I think Kobe learned something when we sat down and watched tape," said Brown, staying typically humble by adding: "I know I learned something, too."

Brown also mentioned to Bryant the need to follow through properly with his wrist on jump shots. Well, when Bryant does that, the wrist howls in pain. It wasn't fatigue from six games in eight days that left so many of Bryant's shots in Denver on the front rim as much as the wrist failing.

Ding concludes:

Bryant is always the same but is never the same. Whether he's missing 22 shots or making 14, he's analyzing every one. He will travel to the ends of the earth for any possible edge, yet his nose will never leave the grindstone.

What he doesn't understand is why everyone doesn't get it by now:

This is what he does. This is who he is.

Bryant pounded away with that busted finger for six months of the 2009-10 season.

He got up only after he had what he calls the most satisfying of his five NBA championships.

For several years I have emphasized that Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum benefit immensely from the extra defensive attention that Kobe Bryant attracts. People who say that Bryant should have a smaller offensive role for the Lakers because Gasol and Bynum's shooting percentages are better than Bryant's shooting percentage do not understand the cause-effect relationship between how Bryant plays and the opportunities that Gasol and Bynum get--but, unlike many media members, Ding knows the difference between putting up numbers and being an elite player:

We said Andrew Bynum was going to be a beast this season.

Now that everyone has seen the 22.3 points, 15.8 rebounds and 2.3 blocks, let's be clear about something else:

Bynum is not an elite offensive player in this league yet. Not even close.

He has an awful lot to learn before he gets there, and the second half of the Lakers' loss in Portland on Thursday night was an early pop quiz he flunked.

No doubt Bynum has plenty of moves, via both power and footwork, but what he lacks is the ability to handle double teams. He struggled when presented with that challenge late last season, and he will struggle again with it much of this season--probably more so than even Lakers coach Mike Brown suspects.

Some commenters at this site have disputed my contention that Bryant, not Gasol or Bynum, is the main Laker who draws double teams. Ding provides a quote from Coach Brown about Bynum that supports my case:

That's new for him. Not only new for him, but if you think about it, it's kind of new for our team in terms of having a post-up guy who gets doubled. That's something we have to work on, so it was great for Andrew to have to go through that and our team to have to go through it.

Now we just have to work on it, because we know Andrew can score on the front side of plays and in a one-on-one environment. Now he has to understand that when they come to double, it's OK--but we've got to make 'em pay, whether it's on the backside or it's with the re-post.

Before deciding to run the offense through a particular player, that player must prove that he can deal with trapping defenses. Bryant has proven that he is highly proficient in that regard. As Coach Brown noted, it is "new" for the Lakers to put a post player in position to be regularly doubled and it remains to be seen how Bynum will react to this role. If Bynum is capable of performing well in this role then this will make the Lakers a better team and possibly extend Kobe Bryant's career--but it is premature to just automatically say that Bynum should be the focal point of the offense. The Lakers should definitely still be willing to trade the injury-prone Bynum to the Orlando Magic for Dwight Howard if possible; Howard is a better rebounder and defender than Bynum, Howard is more durable than Bynum and, even though his post footwork is a bit less polished than Bynum's, Howard is a more explosive athlete. Howard has improved his post game recently and if he played alongside Bryant then Howard's effectiveness and field goal percentage would improve much like Gasol's did after joining the Lakers.

Labels: Andrew Bynum, Kevin Ding, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, Mike Brown

posted by David Friedman @ 4:02 PM

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Kobe Bryant's Shot Selection Endlessly Fascinates Self-Proclaimed Experts

On January 1, Kobe Bryant had his worst shooting game (.214 field goal percentage) in nearly two years. Considering all of the obvious extenuating factors--Bryant is a 33 year old, 16 year veteran playing in his third game in four nights while trying to figure out how to deal with a torn ligament in his right (shooting) wrist--the natural response to Bryant's performance would be to note that it is an aberration and to assume that, unless the wrist injury worsens, Bryant will continue to perform at a high level (he has made the All-NBA First Team and finished in the top five in MVP voting in each of the past six seasons, the longest such active dual streak). Instead, we witnessed a media response that brought to mind what I wrote in an article titled Kobe Bryant's Missed Shots and the Torrent of "Psycho-Basketball Analysis" That They Unleashed:

"Kobe Bryant's shot selection is subject to a play by play microscopic evaluation that I have never seen applied to any other player of his status; literally every time he shoots--or doesn't shoot--someone questions his judgment and motivations, alternately suggesting that he is either forcing the issue or else playing too passively in order to allegedly make some kind of point. All great scorers are expected to shoot the ball 20-plus times a game and shots that would rightly be termed 'forced' if someone else took them are not forces if they are shots that the great player has a reasonable chance of making or if the shot clock is winding down and there are no other good options left."

In his first game after the much discussed January 1 debacle, Bryant scored 37 points on 14-29 field goal shooting (.483) while also contributing eight rebounds and six assists as his L.A. Lakers defeated the Houston Rockets 108-99--yes, the same Houston Rockets who purportedly use "advanced basketball statistics" to create a competitive advantage defensively against Bryant, a laughable claim that has been debunked on many occasions, most spectacularly in the 2009 regular season when the Lakers swept the Rockets 4-0 as Bryant averaged 28.3 ppg while shooting .533 from the field.

It generally is considered a logical basketball strategy for the best player on the team to take the most shots but many media members apparently struggle either to grasp this concept or to figure out who in fact is the best player on the Lakers. Mike Wilbon and Jon Barry have some kind of mental fetish that compels them to repeatedly insist that the Lakers are better off when Bryant shoots less frequently, a contention that I refuted thusly:

"Rather than focusing on how many field goals Bryant attempts to try to determine his optimal role for the Lakers, it makes more sense to look at the end result of his field goal attempts (and free throw attempts): Bryant has scored 40 or more points in 96 regular season games, third on the all-time career list behind Wilt Chamberlain (271) and Michael Jordan (173). The Lakers posted a 65-31 record in those games, a .677 winning percentage that is better than their overall winning percentage (.656) during Bryant's career. Bryant had 27 of those 40 point games in 2005-06, when he led the NBA in scoring with a 35.4 ppg average that ranks eighth on the single season scoring list; the Lakers went 45-37 overall that year (.549) but they went 18-9 (.667) in his 40 point games. Bryant 'only' had four 40 point games in the 2008-09 season and the Lakers went 2-2 in those contests; obviously, that is a small sample size, but Bryant had 27 games this season in which he scored at least 30 points and the Lakers went 21-6 (.778) in those games, which is virtually identical with their overall winning percentage (.793) this season."

I wrote that passage in 2009; the updated numbers--as of January 4, 2012--show that the Lakers are 73-34 (.682) in the regular season when Bryant scores at least 40 points, which is equivalent to 56 wins in an 82 game season.

Instead of listening to Wilbon provide unsolicited advice to a player who has won five championships, educated basketball fans are still waiting for him to ask LeBron James about James' phantom elbow injury during the 2010 playoffs (that topic never came up during ESPN's one hour "Decision" debacle, an oversight that Scott Raab rightly pilloried). It is also worth remembering that, as I emphasized in a December 2009 article, "Bryant does not miss games due to non-serious--or even some serious--injuries" but in the 2007-08 season "LeBron James missed five games because of a left index finger sprain (I am not questioning James' toughness at all, but merely pointing out that Bryant's toughness/pain threshold/will to win are off the charts even in comparison to other tough minded, elite athletes)." Bryant has mentioned that he plays through injuries even though this may hurt his personal statistics because he believes that he can always help his team win games; only James knows if he sat out because of his pain threshold or because he thought that he could not help the team or because he thought that playing with that finger sprain would have impacted his personal statistics. The difference between the way that Bryant handles injuries and the way that James handles injuries provides yet another perspective on the "great debate" regarding who is the better all-around player; while there is no question that James' youth and athleticism have enabled him to surpass Bryant in terms of regular season productivity since late in the 2009 season, Bryant's determination to fight through injuries and his ability to dissect elite defenses in the postseason have enabled Bryant to make three straight Finals appearances and win two championships since James entered the league (in addition to the three championships Bryant won in four Finals appearances between 2000 and 2004), while James has won just two out of 10 games in his two trips to the NBA Finals.

It should be obvious that Bryant's statistics have been negatively impacted because he played with--at various times and in various combinations--a broken index finger on his shooting hand, an avulsion fracture in his right pinkie finger, a gimpy right knee and a chronically injured left ankle. However, Bryant's overall productivity and his championship pedigree should give him a little leeway to have one awful shooting night every two years while playing his third game in four nights with an injury that would likely send most players in the league to the bench for weeks.

Bryant simply will not receive such leeway from the media; instead, we will hear that the smart thing for the Lakers to do is build their entire offense around an injury-prone big man (Andrew Bynum) who still is not in good enough shape to run up and down the court without losing his breath and who--in the victory against Houston--authored the first 20-20 game of his professional career (Dwight Howard, who entered the NBA one year before Bynum, has posted 33 such games, while DeJuan Blair and Chris Wilcox each have posted two such games). Before the Lakers phase out Bryant and restructure their entire offense around Bynum wouldn't it make some sense to see (1) if Bynum can actually get into (and stay in) shape, (2) if Bynum can avoid getting hurt (in the past four seasons he has played in just 204 out of a possible 328 games) and (3) if Bynum can consistently perform like an All-Star caliber player? Bynum has shown flashes of scoring and rebounding prowess but those flashes have always been followed by him either getting injured or simply not maintaining a high level of performance. The interesting thing about the Houston game is that at times Bynum's body language indicated that he wanted to receive the ball more often than he did yet he did not run hard down the court nor did he consistently fight to establish deep post position (last season, ESPN/ABC commentator Jeff Van Gundy repeatedly blasted Bynum and Pau Gasol for "trotting" instead of "running"); Bynum often wandered around the top of the key in the half court offense and one time when he got an offensive rebound instead of going up strong he passed the ball out to Troy Murphy, who was so surprised at Bynum's passivity that the ball actually bounced off of Murphy's face before Murphy caught it. Meanwhile, Pau Gasol seems intent (or content) to reinvent himself as a midrange jump shooter--he has been allergic to the paint on offense dating back to last season, something that became glaringly apparent during his disastrous 2011 playoff disappearing act. The funny thing is that the one Laker who most consistently and aggressively fights to establish low post position is the team's 33 year old shooting guard, the guy who so many "experts" think should be shooting less and deferring more.

Lakers' Coach Mike Brown has responded very sensibly to the media-created controversy regarding Bryant's shot attempts (which of course means that the media will soon be revisiting the tired nonsense about Brown not being a good coach): "He's got five championship rings. Bynum and Gasol have maybe one or two. So I'm going to go with the man who has five...He's been there and done that so I'm going to give him some freedom. Am I concerned about it at this point? No. Two months from now, if he's shooting 34% from the field, OK, I'm going to have a lot of concerns."

Labels: Houston Rockets, Kobe Bryant, L.A. Lakers, LeBron James, Mike Brown

posted by David Friedman @ 7:52 AM

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