Examining the Collapse of the "Leastern" Conference
The Eastern Conference has a proud tradition of producing great teams led by great players; in the 1980s and 1990s alone, Julius Erving/Moses Malone (Philadelphia), Larry Bird/Kevin McHale/Robert Parish (Boston), Isiah Thomas/Joe Dumars (Detroit) and Michael Jordan/Scottie Pippen (Chicago) played the game at the highest possible level--but now the Eastern Conference resembles the remains of some long lost civilization that has been devastated by a massive disaster: the eighth place team (Chicago) is barely on pace to win 32 games.
David Aldridge recently offered his take on the Eastern Conference's implosion (
Why is the East so bad now? Ten factors stand out the most). Here are his top 10 reasons for the East's collapse, along with my comments/observations (Aldridge's analysis is summarized in italics):
1)"Howard's End":
Aldridge notes that if Dwight Howard had stayed in Orlando then the Magic would be a perennial championship contender instead of being headed for yet another appearance in the Draft Lottery. Championship teams are almost always led by at least one superstar (a term which should not be used generically but instead should refer to someone who consistently plays at an All-NBA First Team level) and Howard is one of several superstars who have shifted the balance of power due to trades, injuries or free agency.
2) "The Devil in Mr. Rose":
Speaking of departing superstars, Derrick Rose missed all of last season due to a knee injury and he figures to miss all of this season due to another knee injury. Aldridge points out that with Rose the Chicago Bulls could have contended for the title but without him they may elect to rebuild and assemble a different nucleus. A fully healthy Chicago team could have posed a major challenge to the Miami Heat's current championship run; the Bulls are tough, defensive-minded, physical and they are not afraid of the Heat--even when Rose is out of the lineup. However, without Rose the Bulls simply do not have enough star power and scoring punch to take out the Heat in a seven game series.
3) "A Series of Unfortunate Events":
Aldridge mentions that for several years the Detroit Pistons were the "gold standard" but that the team "had to be rebuilt" and that the Pistons "came up snake eyes after rolling sevens year after year." While Aldridge correctly traces the Pistons' decline back to the firing of Coach Larry Brown, he neglects to mention
Joe Dumars' Peculiar Fascination with Rodney Stuckey. I will never understand why Dumars put so much faith in a journeyman player and why he discarded two perennial All-Stars (first Chauncey Billups, then Allen Iverson) in order to install Stuckey as one of Detroit's starting guards.
4) "The Man With Two Brains":
Aldridge traces the Wizards' recent somnolence to the fall of Gilbert Arenas. With all due respect to Aldridge and Arenas, Arenas was never an elite player and the Wizards were never a great team even when Arenas was at the peak of his powers; in fact, the Wizards
did better without Arenas in the 2007-08 season than they did with him in the 2006-07 season (they posted a .536 winning percentage sans Arenas in 2007-08, compared to a .534 winning percentage in the 2006-07 season prior to Arenas and Caron Butler suffering season-ending injuries). The Wizards never won more than 45 regular season games during Arenas' tenure with the team, nor did they ever advance past the second round of the playoffs, so it does not make sense to suggest that Arenas' decline has much to do with the decline of the Eastern Conference as a whole.
5) "A River(s) Runs Through It":
The departure of Coach Doc Rivers plus the entire Big Three spelled doom for the Boston Celtics. This is obvious and true, though the Celtics would not have been a legitimate championship contender this season even if Rivers, Paul Pierce, Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen were still Celtics. Pierce and Garnett are running on fumes, while Allen has settled comfortably into being a heady, reliable role player.
6) "Swimming With Sharks":
If Chris Paul had not ended up with the Clippers then Rivers might have chosen to coach the Nets instead of heading out to L.A. This is pure speculation by Aldridge; he might be right, he might be wrong but either way this could have been included in his analysis of reason five.
7) "Speaking of the Devil...":
Nobody expected the New York Knicks and Brooklyn Nets to be this bad. That is a reasonable assertion; I
predicted that the Nets would finish fourth in the East and that the Knicks would finish fifth in the East (they are currently 10th and 14th respectively) but I also wrote of the Nets "it is questionable how good this aging team will be defensively" (the Nets currently rank 22nd out of 30 teams in points allowed and 17th in defensive field goal percentage). I have
consistently criticized New York's rebuilding plan and while I did not expect them to be this bad I also never viewed the Knicks as a team that would get past the second round of the playoffs.
8) "South Beach":
The Decision set back the Cleveland Cavaliers for several years and they still have not fully recovered. True and true. However, I disagree with Aldridge's assertion, "...they couldn't put a team around him (James) that was good enough to win it all."
James led the Cavs to the 2007 NBA Finals and he also led them to the best regular season record in the league two years in a row (2009, 2010). James' refusal to commit to Cleveland and/or recruit players to come to Cleveland made it difficult for team management to surround him with the best talent but James had enough help around him to win a title if only he had not
quit against Boston during the 2010 playoffs. If James had stayed in Cleveland, if he had recruited players to join him there the way that he recruited players after signing with Miami and if he matured as a person/player the way that he did in Miami then he very likely would have led the Cavs to at least one championship.
9) "The Other Guys":
Orlando and Cleveland lost their superstars and the Knicks, Nets and Pistons engaged in rebuilding plans that have yet to build much of significance--but Western teams like Oklahoma City, Golden State, Memphis and Houston methodically improved their rosters. Aldridge is right for the most part, though Memphis has made a series of moves (including trading Rudy Gay and getting rid of Coach Lionel Hollins) that significantly set the franchise back and Houston floundered a la the Knicks for several years before becoming a marginal playoff team last year. It remains to be seen if Houston's highly touted free agent signings of Dwight Howard and James Harden will result in much postseason success.
10) "Tank":
Some teams may be more interested in jockeying for draft position than in winning right now. This is sad but true. It would be interesting to research the fates of franchises that genuinely tanked and/or could reasonably be accused of genuinely tanking. Has tanking ever led to a championship? The great Boston, Philadelphia and L.A. teams never tanked, nor did the more recent three-peat dynasties in Chicago and L.A. If there are any teams that are tanking now I hope that they keep losing for many years to come.
Labels: Boston Celtics, David Aldridge, Derrick Rose, Detroit Pistons, Doc Rivers, Dwight Howard, Eastern Conference, Gilbert Arenas, LeBron James, NBA, Rodney Stuckey
posted by David Friedman @ 4:17 PM
Pistons are "Stuck" in Last Place
Joe Dumars is a Hall of Famer who won two NBA championships as a player and one championship as an executive; there is no doubt that he understands what it takes to win at the highest level, which makes his
apparently undying belief in Rodney Stuckey all the more baffling: Dumars essentially got rid of three All-Stars (Chauncey Billups, Allen Iverson and Richard Hamilton) in order to hand the keys to the car to Stuckey, who has proceeded to drive the Pistons straight to the bottom of the standings. The Pistons missed the playoffs in each of the past three seasons and they are currently 1-8, sitting in last place in the Central Division and ranking ahead of only the 0-7 Washington Generals--I mean Washington Wizards--among the league's 30 teams.
If you
click here for NBA betting at Top Bet you will see that the oddsmakers think that
even the Dwight Howard-less Orlando Magic have a better chance to win
the NBA championship than the Pistons--and Stuckey has played a major role in Detroit's pathetic record: he shot .282 from the field while starting in all eight losses and, probably not coincidentally, the Pistons finally cracked the win column when he sat out the ninth game of the season due to illness.
Only four NBA franchises have won at least three championships in the past 25 years: the
Lakers, the Bulls, the
Spurs and the
Pistons--but the Pistons are not likely to add to that total as long as Stuckey is the team's second highest paid player and a key member of their rotation.
Labels: Allen Iverson, Chauncey Billups, Detroit Pistons, Joe Dumars, Richard Hamilton, Rodney Stuckey
posted by David Friedman @ 6:30 AM
Dumars' Peculiar Fascination with Stuckey Stalled the Pistons
The fall of the Detroit Pistons--who at their peak won the 2004 NBA title and advanced to the 2005 NBA Finals--began with the departures of Coach Larry Brown and defensive stalwart Ben Wallace but accelerated dramatically when team President Joe Dumars inexplicably convinced himself that Rodney Stuckey was some kind of star in the making. Stuckey did not show much in his 2007-08 rookie season other than an inconsistent shooting stroke combined with suspect passing skills; Stuckey seemed equally ill-suited to start at shooting guard or point guard but Dumars--utilizing the same type of hallucinatory/delusional vision that imagined that Darko Milicic would be better than Carmelo Anthony--apparently saw a future in which Stuckey would transform into some combination of Chauncey Billups and Richard Hamilton. Early in the 2008-09 season, Dumars traded 2004 Finals MVP Billups for perennial All-Star Allen Iverson with the idea of installing Stuckey as a starter and forcing either Iverson or Hamilton to come off of the bench, a role neither player had previously filled. Iverson became the convenient fall guy when the 2009 Pistons failed to advance past the first round of the playoffs but, as ESPN's Jeff Van Gundy later
bluntly and correctly put it, "Last year, the Detroit situation with him (Iverson) was mishandled. You don't bring in a guy like that and then tell either Richard Hamilton or Allen Iverson they're coming off the bench. You start Iverson, you start Hamilton, you bring Stuckey off the bench--or you just buy Iverson out when you make the trade. But to ask either one of those guys to come of the bench, to me, doesn't make any sense."
One supposed advantage of trading Billups for Iverson was the possibility of letting Iverson go after one season and then using the resulting cap space to reload Detroit's roster with young talent. Dumars indeed parted ways with Iverson but he transformed the Billups/Iverson cap space into Charlie Villanueva and Ben Gordon, two streak shooters who think that defense is what surrounds "de yard." Michael Curry struggled in his only season as Detroit's head coach--not helped at all by Dumars' Stuckey obsession--but things took a turn for the worse in 2009-10 when Dumars replaced Curry with John Kuester, who many media members had proclaimed to be the de facto "offensive coordinator" of Mike Brown's Cleveland Cavaliers.
Most mainstream media sports commentators understand as much about professional sports coaching as they do about the intricacies of particle physics: nothing at all (three quick examples: during the 1990s many media members loudly and repeatedly asserted that Bill Belichick could not coach his way out of a paper bag, much the same way that media members later belittled
Mike Brown's coaching acumen; purported basketball expert Bill Simmons shamelessly critiqued Doc Rivers--who has forgotten more about NBA strategy than Simmons will ever know--before Rivers brilliantly led Simmons' beloved Boston Celtics to the 2008 NBA championship; many NBA pundits declared that
Flip Saunders' "liberation offense" would prove to be a breath of fresh air for the Pistons in the wake of Larry Brown's departure). Kuester was a solid NBA assistant coach but the idea that he was the mastermind behind Cleveland's success during Mike Brown's tenure never made sense and looks completely ridiculous in the wake of Kuester's disastrous run in Detroit; Curry's 2009 Pistons went 39-43 and lost in the first round of the playoffs but with Kuester at the helm the Pistons went 27-55 in 2010 and 30-52 in 2011. NBA coaches put in long hours and have a much more demanding job than most casual observers realize but as much as I respect NBA coaches in general and Kuester specifically it must be said that Kuester hardly authored many strategic masterpieces during his Detroit career. Kuester also seemed to be completely disconnected from the players he was supposed to be leading and motivating: he benched and then feuded with respected veteran Hamilton for no apparent reason, in the process alienating Hamilton and many of Hamilton's teammates.
The bottom line is that Dumars and the Pistons lost sight of the primary reasons that they had been successful--Larry Brown's coaching/Ben Wallace's toughness and defensive mindset--and that is why they have been experiencing diminishing returns ever since Brown and Wallace departed; it is a long, precipitous drop from Brown to Saunders to Curry to Kuester and it is an equally long, precipitous drop from Wallace to the various players who have attempted to fill the pivot for the Pistons the past few years. Brown rarely stays in one place for long, so maybe he would have left Detroit no matter what, but it certainly seems like Dumars should have made a greater effort to retain Brown's services. Perhaps in Wallace's case Dumars felt that he was following in Bill Walsh's footsteps--getting rid of a player one year too early instead of one year too late--but that philosophy only works if (1) you are correct about how much (or how little) a star player has left in the tank and (2) you find a way to adequately replace that star player.
Even if the losses of Brown and Wallace could not have been avoided or handled any better, Dumars' Stuckey obsession is just baffling. Stuckey has been a 30-plus mpg starter for three seasons now despite only excelling in one category: free throw shooting (he consistently shoots better than .800 and he shot a career-high .866 in 2010-11). Stuckey ranks in the middle of the pack--or worse--among starting point guards in rebounding, assists, steals, field goal percentage and three point field goal percentage (his rankings are not any better if he is instead classified as a shooting guard); he is a productive scorer for a point guard (15.5 ppg in 2010-11) but he is not an efficient or versatile scorer. Stuckey has displayed neither the ability to consistently run a team well from the point guard position nor the ability to be a top notch shooting guard; perhaps he could be a solid third or fourth guard for a playoff team but it seems doubtful that he will ever be a starter for a team that makes much noise in the postseason: he just does not have that kind of skill set, nor has he shown much improvement during his four year career (his per minute productivity in most key categories has not changed substantially since his rookie season, which means that what we have already seen from him is likely what we will see from him in the future).
Joe Dumars did a very good job transforming the Pistons into perennial contenders several years ago and he has already enjoyed more success than most NBA executives ever will but until he abandons his Captain Ahab-like obsession with chasing Stuckey's presumed future greatness the Pistons are most likely doomed to be a mediocre team at best.
Labels: Allen Iverson, Ben Wallace, Detroit Pistons, Joe Dumars, Larry Brown, Rodney Stuckey
posted by David Friedman @ 4:20 AM
Cavs Toy With Pistons Before Slapping Them Around Like They Stole Something
Cleveland's 102-84 game one victory over Detroit is a classic example of a game in which the score was close for a while but the outcome was never really in doubt--not for the players on either team and not for anyone who watched the game. The Pistons briefly led by two points and the Cavs were never ahead by more than 10 until late in the first half but the whole exercise had an air of inevitability about it, as the Pistons went through the motions on defense, made some shots, missed some shots and then submitted meekly when the Cavs finally broke the game open late in the third quarter.
LeBron James finished with 38 points, eight rebounds and seven assists. He shot 13-20 from the field, made all 14 of his free throws and went wherever he wanted to on the court while facing little resistance from the Pistons; that observation is not meant to diminish how well he played but rather to emphasize the routine, punch the clock, put in two and a half hours and then go home mentality displayed by the Pistons. ABC commentators Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy both repeatedly observed that the Pistons looked disinterested both in their game plan and in each other, neither cheering in support of their teammates nor even offering a helping hand when a teammate fell to the floor. Van Gundy said that this typifies the attitude displayed by the team throughout the season and is a strong indication that time has run out for this particular group of players.
Indeed, it seems like the Detroit Pistons have three games left--four at the most if they win one game at home to avoid being swept--until Joe Dumars begins the next phase of blowing up the old nucleus and rebuilding the franchise around the young players plus whoever he will acquire with the salary cap space freed up when he gets rid of the already banished Allen Iverson and the occasionally interested Rasheed Wallace, the man who should be the team's best low post offensive threat but who attempted 319 three pointers and just 101 free throws in 66 regular season games.
James received balanced support from several of his teammates. Joe Smith scored 13 points on 5-10 shooting in just 19 minutes for the Cavs, while Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Mo Williams and Delonte West scored 12 points each. Cleveland's defense was a little shaky in the first quarter--yielding 25 points--but the Pistons only scored 20, 20 and 19 points in the final three stanzas.
Rodney Stuckey led the Pistons with 20 points but he shot just 7-21 from the field. Although Stuckey has shown flashes of talent as a strong, penetrating combo guard, it is difficult to understand why the Pistons apparently not only believe that he can be a worthy successor to Chauncey Billups but that he is also a more effective player right now than Allen Iverson, who averaged 26.4 ppg in 82 games for a 50 win Denver team last season while leading the NBA in minutes played (41.8 mpg) for the third year in a row and seventh time in his remarkable career. The only time that Detroit beat Cleveland in four regular season games this season is when Iverson scored a team-high 23 points on 8-16 shooting on November 19 as the Pistons won 96-89; not coincidentally, in that game Wallace had arguably his best all around performance of the season (21 points, 15 rebounds). Iverson and Wallace proved to be a deadly screen/roll duo in early season victories over the Cavs and Lakers but the Pistons inexplicably did not continue to feature that action even though it posed obvious matchup challenges even to elite teams.
Richard Hamilton played a solid game (15 points, four assists) and Rasheed Wallace had 13 points and nine rebounds (but no free throw attempts) but James simply annihilated his Olympic teammate Tayshaun Prince at both ends of the court: Prince accumulated a game-worst -20 plus/minus rating while scoring four points on 2-7 shooting and repeatedly getting burned defensively by James, though some of the responsibility for that falls on his teammates who were not in proper help position. Inexplicably, the Pistons crowd James on the perimeter--particularly in the playoffs in 2006 and 2007, in addition to this game--and practically usher him to the hoop instead of playing off of him and encouraging him to shoot midrange jump shots, the facet of the game that remains James' only weakness. Van Gundy mentioned this repeatedly during the telecast.
That said, James played so well and so efficiently that there may not have been a suitable plan to deal with him in this game; according to ESPN, James shot 8-9 from the field--including 4-4 on midrange jumpers--and scored 21 of his 38 points with six seconds or less remaining on the shot clock. Van Gundy reiterated his earlier statement that James should not only win the MVP but also the Most Improved Player award.
Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, Detroit Pistons, LeBron James, Rodney Stuckey
posted by David Friedman @ 3:56 AM
Celtics Survive Late Detroit Rally to Win Game Five, 106-102
The Boston Celtics dominated the paint, built a 17 point second half lead and withstood a big fourth quarter rally by the Detroit Pistons to post a 106-102 victory in game five of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Celtics are one win away from making their first trip to the NBA Finals since 1987. Kevin Garnett scored a game-high 33 points on 11-17 field goal shooting. He only had seven rebounds, he committed a team-high five turnovers and he did most of his scoring by making jumpers instead of posting up but scoring that many points on that kind of shooting in a pressure-packed game--more than 80% of game five winners in 2-2 series advance--is very impressive. While Garnett poured in jumpers from all angles, Kendrick Perkins did the dirty work in the paint, scoring a playoff career-high 18 points on 8-11 shooting and grabbing a playoff career-high 16 rebounds. Ray Allen had his best game of this year's playoffs, scoring 29 points on 9-15 field goal shooting, including a blistering 5-6 from three point range. Add those numbers up and you will find that Boston's top three scorers in this game shot 28-43 (.651) from the field. Paul Pierce had a solid game as well (16 points on 5-11 shooting, six assists, five rebounds). Rajon Rondo scored seven points and he shot just 3-14 from the field but he played a well rounded floor game, accumulating 13 assists, six rebounds and four steals while only having one turnover. Boston's bench only scored three points in 30 minutes of combined playing time as Celtics Coach Doc Rivers shortened his rotation tremendously.
Chauncey Billups led Detroit with 26 points and six assists, while Richard Hamilton had 25 points and six assists but also committed a game-high six turnovers. Hamilton injured his right elbow late in the game and had his arm in a sling when he left the arena, although preliminary X-rays were negative. Rasheed Wallace shot 6-9 from three point range and finished with 18 points but he only had four rebounds. Billups and Antonio McDyess led Detroit with five rebounds each.
I have repeatedly said that the three keys for the Celtics to win this series are their defensive field goal percentage, their rebounding and their ability to outscore the Pistons in the paint. Perceptive readers will note that those categories are interrelated. In game five, the Celtics shot 37-73 (.507) from the field while holding the Pistons to 31-67 (.463) shooting. During the season the Celtics had a much better defensive field goal percentage than that; nevertheless, the Celtics still outshot the Pistons and in a close game between teams that are fairly evenly matched that is very important. The Celtics outrebounded the Pistons 42-25; at halftime, Perkins had more rebounds (13) than Detroit's entire team (11)! The Celtics outscored the Pistons 36-16 in the paint and they have enjoyed double digit leads in this department in four of the five games. Looking at those numbers, it would seem like the Celtics should have won game five by a more comfortable margin. Detroit made up some ground by enjoying an edge in free throws made (29-24), by shooting excellently from three point range (11-21) and by forcing 17 turnovers.
In a harbinger of things to come, the Celtics scored their first points of the game by completely breaking down Detroit's defense in the paint: Pierce passed to Kevin Garnett in the high post and Garnett fed Perkins on the low block for a dunk. Boston built a 21-16 lead but the Pistons closed the first quarter with a 7-2 run to tie the score at 23-23.
The Pistons opened the second quarter with a 10-2 run to take their largest lead of the game. Eight of those points came on dunks and free throws. Detroit benefited from a dubious flagrant foul call when P.J. Brown contested Jason Maxiell's dunk attempt at the 10:28 mark. A flagrant foul is supposed to be called when there is excessive contact that includes a windup, a significant impact and a follow through; if all of those conditions are met then a flagrant two foul--resulting in immediate ejection of the guilty party--will be called, otherwise it is a flagrant one foul, which means that the offended team is awarded two free throws plus possession of the ball. The Brown-Maxiell play did not include any of the required elements, which Van Gundy and Mark Jackson both immediately noted (though not in so many words). Mike Breen defended the call, saying that making contact with an airborne player is dangerous. I am sympathetic with Breen's concerns and the issue he mentioned is precisely why I thought that the fouls by DeShawn Stevenson and Brendan Haywood against LeBron James and the foul by Jason Kidd against Jannero Pargo all warranted the flagrant designation. However, Brown's play was simply a clean, hard foul. Van Gundy predicted that the league office will rescind the flagrant foul in this instance but he noted that if the Celtics were to lose as a result of the free throws and extra possession then such an admission of error would be of little value.
Detroit's second quarter run was fueled in part by several Boston turnovers. Once the Celtics got their ballhandling under control they closed the quarter by outscoring the Pistons 27-13. Several of Boston's turnovers in this game resulted from overpassing as players who were open for shots instead tried to feed their teammates; Van Gundy said, "Sometimes the most unselfish play is taking the open shot"--which is
a point that I made regarding Kobe Bryant's 28 point, one assist performance in the Lakers' 93-91 win over the Spurs on Tuesday: "Bryant understands that when he is the open man he has to knock down shots; it is not unselfish to pass the ball when you are open and the player you are passing to is well defended." Van Gundy repeatedly admonished Garnett and Rondo for passing the ball when they were wide open. Some people ask why I often mention Bryant in posts about games in which he did not play but the answer to that should be obvious: Bryant is the best, most fundamentally sound player in the game, so it is often instructive to contrast the way that he plays with the way that other, less skilled players play. An uninformed person will look at a boxscore, see one assist by Bryant's name and 13 assists by Rondo's name and conclude that Bryant is selfish and Rondo is selfless--but an informed observer like Van Gundy understands that player evaluation must go a lot deeper than box score numbers. Statistics have great value but only when they are placed in proper context.
The Celtics extended their 52-46 halftime lead to 73-56 during the third quarter. Boston continued to punish Detroit on the glass and with points in the paint. Then, as Detroit scrambled to deal with those problems Allen suddenly found his shooting stroke and poured in 16 third quarter points. However, Van Gundy foreshadowed the close ending of the game when he observed that the Celtics began playing with less crispness on offense and less energy on defense after they got the big lead; he warned that such a loss of focus could let the Pistons get back in the game. Sure enough, the Pistons cut the margin to eight early in the fourth quarter and what could have been a Celtics rout turned into a real nail biter. It looked like the Celtics started playing not to lose rather than aggressively trying to win the game; Jackson said, "This is as poor an execution of pick and roll basketball to close out a game as I've ever seen." After Rodney Stuckey's three pointer at the 1:23 mark made the score 100-99 Boston, the Celtics seemed to be on the verge of a collapse like the one that Portland experienced versus the Lakers in the 2000 playoffs. The Celtics called a timeout and then ran a very nice play that led to Allen drilling an open jumper from just inside the three point line. Billups then missed two shots and Garnett missed a jumper. Rather than letting Detroit even attempt a tying three pointer, Rivers instructed his player to foul and essentially turn the final seconds of the game into a free throw contest. Stuckey made both of his free throws but Allen restored the three point advantage by also making two free throws. With the time remaining down to :04 and the Pistons out of timeouts, it became necessary for Detroit to try to make the first free throw, miss the second and then control the rebound. Ironically, Stuckey missed the first free throw while trying to make it and then made the second free throw while trying to miss it. Garnett closed out the scoring by sinking two clutch free throws to make it a two possession game.
The Pistons have made it to the Eastern Conference Finals for six straight seasons but unless they can win two games in a row against the team with the best regular season record in the NBA this will be their third consecutive defeat in this round of the playoffs. Their only two Finals appearances during the past six years came with Larry Brown as the coach and a young Ben Wallace patrolling the paint. Without Brown's leadership and Wallace's paint presence, the Pistons have simply not been the same team in the playoffs: they do not defend the paint well on a consistent basis against elite teams and their "liberation offense" is unproductive for long stretches.
Labels: Boston Celtics, Chauncey Billups, Detroit Pistons, Kendrick Perkins, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Richard Hamilton, Rodney Stuckey
posted by David Friedman @ 6:59 AM
The Big Payback: Boston Reasserts Control Over Detroit With Dominant Road Victory
I don't know karate, but I know KA-RAZY!!Get ready, that's a fact--get ready for the big payback--James Brown, "The Payback"
Detroit's fans showed up at game three of the Eastern Conference Finals ready to cheer for their conquering heroes after the Pistons' road win in game two but by the second half the Pistons trailed by 24 and boos echoed through the Palace of Auburn Hills. The Pistons made a late run but never got closer than nine points as the Celtics regained homecourt advantage with a 94-80 victory. Kevin Garnett made big plays at both ends of the court, leading the Celtics in points (22), rebounds (13) and assists (six). Ray Allen struggled with his shot again (5-16 from the field) after seeming to break out of his postseason slump in game two but he still finished second on the Celtics with 14 points while also playing a good floor game (six rebounds, six assists). Paul Pierce had a curiously quiet game, scoring just 11 points on 4-6 shooting and committing a game-high five turnovers. He did play good defense on Tayshaun Prince, though, holding him to four points on 2-11 shooting. Richard Hamilton scored a game-high 26 points but the other Detroit starters left a lot to be desired in terms of energy and execution. Rodney Stuckey scored 17 points and had four assists in 28 minutes off the bench and Coach Flip Saunders kept him on the court for significant fourth quarter minutes in place of the ineffective Chauncey Billups (six points, four assists, 1-6 field goal shooting).
The Celtics set the tone immediately with an 11-0 run to start the game. How those points were scored is very significant: Pierce dunk, Kendrick Perkins dunk, Garnett jumper, Rajon Rondo layup (three point play), Allen reverse layup--that is a veritable layup drill and the Celtics outscored the Pistons 34-24 in the paint overall but that should not surprise anyone because they have owned a double-digit edge in that category in each of the games in this series. Garnett picked up his second foul at the 7:00 mark in the first quarter and after he went to the bench the Pistons went to work, using a 13-4 run to take a 17-15 lead--their biggest (and only) lead of the entire game. The Celtics closed the quarter with a 10-0 run.
The second quarter was essentially a rerun of the first quarter once Garnett checked back into the game. Saunders' vaunted "liberation offense" produced 32 first half points on 12-38 (.316) field goal shooting as Boston enjoyed an 18 point lead that was supposedly "shocking"--anyone who was that surprised really needs to check out the previews and game recaps at this site: while many "experts" acted like the sky was falling for the Celtics after Detroit's game two win in Boston, I
calmly explained why Boston would win game three:I expect the Celtics to reciprocate with a road win of their own, probably in game three.
..the important numbers to consider in this series (and in most series) are defensive field goal percentage, rebounding and points in the paint. The Celtics had some major slippage in defensive field goal percentage and that--plus the excessive fouling--is what cost them this game. Boston outrebounded Detroit and outscored Detroit 36-24 in the paint. Assuming that the Celtics regain their defensive edge while maintaining their scoring and rebounding advantages in the paint, Boston will soon regain home court advantage in this series.
I already talked about Boston's points in the paint advantage in game three. The Celtics also outrebounded Detroit 44-28 and held the Pistons to 28-73 (.384) field goal shooting--including 1-13 (.077) from three point range. The Pistons cannot win this series while they are leaking so much oil in those three categories and it is not at all clear what adjustments they can make to fix those problems.
The Pistons did enjoy some success in the fourth quarter by going small and using a 1-2-2 zone to put pressure on ballhandlers and force turnovers. That generated some transition points, something that Detroit really needs since it is so difficult to score against Boston in the halfcourt set. However, don't expect the 1-2-2 zone to be nearly as effective the next time the Pistons use it. You cannot beat good NBA teams with a steady diet of zone defense; that is why even teams that regularly use a zone go in and out of it and don't play it for extended stretches of time. It can be a good surprise weapon in short bursts but eventually a good NBA team will get the ball to the middle of the zone, collapse the defense and then reverse the ball to open shooters. Each time the Celtics did that they obtained open shots but a few times they rushed things and turned the ball over. If Detroit opens game four with that zone expect to see Boston expose so many holes in it that it will look like the Swiss cheese defense--and that is the very reason that I think Saunders will not use the zone at the start of the game but instead selectively employ it later in the game, possibly against the second unit.
The easy assumption is that now that the Pistons are facing some adversity they will bounce back and win game four and that may very well happen but there are two important things to consider: one, Boston's formula--winning the points in the paint battle, posting an excellent defensive field goal percentage and controlling the boards--is a good recipe to win on the road, a recipe that can overcome offensive slumps by one or two players (witness Pierce's subpar scoring and Allen's erratic shooting); two, even if the Pistons win game four they will still have to win another game in Boston in order to advance to the Finals.
Labels: Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Richard Hamilton, Rodney Stuckey
posted by David Friedman @ 12:21 AM
Hamilton Scores 25 as Pistons Earn Split
Richard Hamilton (25 points) and Chauncey Billups (19 points, seven assists) led a well-balanced attack as Detroit beat Boston 103-97, handing the Celtics their first home loss in this year's playoffs. The Pistons played very efficiently on offense, shooting 35-71 (.493) from the field, converting 28 of 32 free throw attempts (.875) and passing for 21 assists while only committing nine turnovers. Although Boston won the rebounding battle 39-31, Detroit grabbed several key offensive boards down the stretch and that helped the Pistons to preserve their lead. All five Detroit starters played at least 32 minutes and scored at least 13 points. The one reserve player from either team who had a significant impact was Rodney Stuckey, who had 13 points and three assists while backing up Billups. Stuckey shot 5-8 from the field and the Pistons actually ran plays for him in the fourth quarter, showing a lot of confidence in the rookie point guard.
The one big positive for Boston is that Ray Allen returned to form: he scored 25 points on 9-16 shooting and looked like the sharpshooter that he has been for his whole career minus the past month or so. As this series progresses, that could prove to be the most important development from game two. Paul Pierce continued to play well (26 points on 9-16 shooting, five assists), while Kevin Garnett had 24 points and a game-high 13 rebounds. Rajon Rondo was all over the map: he nearly had a triple double (10 points, nine rebounds, eight assists) but he shot just 2-9 from the field, he seemed uncertain at times whether he should shoot or pass and he made some defensive gaffes.
What impressed me the most about the Celtics during the regular season is how hard they played on a nightly basis, particularly on defense. A little bit of that edge seemed to be missing in this game but more than effort I thought that Boston lacked efficiency and intelligence; during the telecast, Jeff Van Gundy repeatedly singled out the stupid fouls that the Celtics committed that just handed Detroit free points during stretches when the Pistons were not shooting well from the field. At one point, Van Gundy called Boston's defensive performance "substandard" and he said, "The Celtics have to be more disciplined with the Pistons' shot fakes." It seemed like every time a Detroit player pump faked he drew a foul. Detroit made six more free throws than Boston and won by six points. Another example of the Celtics' lack of concentration is that they allowed Billups to score an uncontested layup off of an inbounds pass with :18 remaining in a three point game.
We are sure to hear a lot of "the sky is falling" rhetoric about the Celtics until game three is played: the Celtics have not won a road game in this year's playoffs, the "Big Three" of Garnett, Pierce and Allen played great but the Celtics still lost, the Pistons seem to have a deeper bench, the Pistons have more collective playoff experience. All of those things are true but Boston is still going to win this series. The Pistons have now won nine straight game twos, the second longest such streak in NBA playoff history, and that is why I said in my
game one recap that I would not be surprised if the Pistons won game two of this series; by the same token, I expect the Celtics to reciprocate with a road win of their own, probably in game three. For several years the Pistons have had a tendency to rise to the occasion when they think that their backs are up against the wall only to be curiously flat and lackadaisical once they seem to have control of a series. Some people get a little bit too caught up in overanalyzing what one or two players did in a given game and trying to derive some grand meaning from this for subsequent games; that is what leads to the train of thought that if Boston's All-Star trio scored 75 points at home and the Celtics still lost then they won't be able to win in Detroit. Every playoff game has a storyline of its own; some players are going to play better than they did in game two and some are going to play worse, so you cannot just cut and paste certain numbers from game two into a projected game three boxscore. Anyway, the important numbers to consider in this series (and in most series) are defensive field goal percentage, rebounding and points in the paint. The Celtics had some major slippage in defensive field goal percentage and that--plus the excessive fouling--is what cost them this game. Boston outrebounded Detroit and outscored Detroit 36-24 in the paint. Assuming that the Celtics regain their defensive edge while maintaining their scoring and rebounding advantages in the paint, Boston will soon regain home court advantage in this series.
It is worth remembering that the Celtics had the best road record in the NBA this season and that the Pistons lost a road playoff game to Philadelphia, won a playoff game in Orlando with the help of a Billups three pointer that should not have counted and won another playoff game in Orlando by just one point. If the Pistons simply win this series in routine fashion after obtaining home court advantage that would be out of character for the way that they have performed in the postseason in recent years.
Labels: Boston Celtics, Chauncey Billups, Detroit Pistons, Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Richard Hamilton, Rodney Stuckey
posted by David Friedman @ 6:00 AM
