ITS THE OFFS BABY THE 2023 NBA PLAYOFFS

still some way to go on this but the heat & celtics in particular are poised to play in 3 of the last 4 ECF with the one off year being the post-bubble season where the “offseason” was barely two months long & those teams coincidentally put up no fight in the first round

agree, and was just saying this to my wife. these series are falling into an alternating intensity / alternating blowouts pattern that feels right on brand with a league where the players just seem to be less and less focused on playing basketball.

should also be noted that the focus on playing basketball is surely at an all time high as evidenced by maniacal year round training increasingly complex and intense style of play etc

if anything the nba is —too optimized—

yeah with the current pace and intensity of the game is it really that surprising that some guys can't put up their best performance in consecutive games when the games are even 2 days apart

for some reason i always remembered them getting an extra day off every time the series changed cities but i guess i was imagining it

i do think there are prob more blowouts now because as bise said of 3pt shooting variance and fast pace, but that also made lead one to the question what is a blowout, you see big leads but you also see big comebacks, a ten point lead used to be a big deal in the nba now its some sort of joke, you see one totally wiped out in 90 seconds in seemingly the majority of games now

fast pace shouldnt actually increase variance on its own should it? more possessions per game = lower variance. but the 3pt effect is huge

i guess transition play is higher variance is what it is

2-3-2 with some extra travel days would probably be better for hte players. didn't they have 2-3-2 at some point or am i thinking of baseball

2-3-2 was the finals format for a while

2-3-2 is bad from a series pacing perspective but yeah there should be extra travel days in the current system

fast pace shouldnt actually increase variance on its own should it? more possessions per game = lower variance. but the 3pt effect is huge

― ciderpress, Sunday, May 7, 2023 12:07 PM (twenty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i guess transition play is higher variance is what it is

― ciderpress, Sunday, May 7, 2023 12:08 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think it might reduce variance over all but in any individual game more possessions gives a team a chance to get further ahead

cider, you’re right about pace/possessions… one of the reasons why the university of virginia often gets upset in the NCAA tourney is bcuz they play at a glacial pace & never allow themselves to build a lead on much less talented teams. or it’s why a viable football strategy against a high powered offensive team is to run the ball a ton and kill the clock

but 3 point variance is still a phenomenon bcuz you can never hit a representative sample of 3 point attempts in one basketball game, no matter the pace. we’re often judging these games based off a limited sample of the lowest percentage shots in basketball & so sometimes just, say, 3 or 4 misses in either direction can completely change the outcome of a game. over the course of a 7 game series, the warriors shooting usually wins out but of course in any one game they’re liable to miss 6 or 8 threes they might make on another night & get blown out

anecdotally it feels like to me, in the regular season, the increase in pace/possessions leads to fewer blowouts bcuz any team is just a hot 4 minute shooting stretch away from cutting a 22 point lead to 10 points. i do think we see certainly way more games now where one team is up by i.e. 20+ points at half and then the game is tied before the end of the third quarter & that phenomenon feels 3 point variance driven to me (again w/in such small sample sizes of even 1 quarter of play)

transition play is actually very low variance bcuz every team is great in transition as you’re often taking the easiest shots in the game

i think it might reduce variance over all but in any individual game more possessions gives a team a chance to get further ahead

― lag∞n, Sunday, May 7, 2023 12:33 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if the team is better then yeah more possessions gives them more chances to prove that. it shouldnt lead to more blowouts in both directions though, just one

one team can be better one day then the other team is the next

tho when you have less evenly matched series you do see the only one team gets blowouts pattern

i would like to see the stats on if there are more blowouts now, i would guess that there are on purely point differential, but maybe not if you consider what the point differential means

i doubt there are significantly more but yeah i'd love to see the stats

also wonder if theres something going on with more reactive strategies/gameplans? the winning team not anticipating the adjustments that are going ot be made vs them

the celtics are disrespecting PJ tucker like beyond what is normal. they just had a guy who could’ve rotated like 2 feet to the left to contest a corner 3 and literally just stood there watching tucker shoot it (shot was not even close)

that was funny

i havent been following these series close enough to know baout that though other than the celtics one

lol, Harden and Harris just watching a 3 and neither bothering to box out a lone Tatum

i think theres something to the idea that the team doing the adjusting has an advantage

jfc celtics missing one million open shots

yeah i guess my question is has the game changed in a way that amplifies that effect

think prob schemes just have more going on which makes more to change

espn replaying harden successfully completing a lay up like it’s the moon landing

lol

lol, J0rdan, you're so vicious.

I mean, you're not wrong.

Mars landing: harden blocking a shot

celtics relying on smart step backs to stay in this its not good

celtics letting harden roast brogdon as jaylen brown just kinda hangs around watching

its the fouls

celtics cant hit a shot man

celtics should consider missing fewer wide open threes

live by the 3 die by the 3

i prefer to just live by it

They are just clunking them right and left.

i think that rockets warriors game 7 made me permanently numb to 3pt variance i just dont get frustrated anymore

brogdon time baby

just dont have any confidence in Philly holding this lead sorry

ok if they insist on jacking up shots like that maybe

celtics very lucky to only be down 9

they were straight up just not running their stuff

nice that Harden is actually drilling shots again but god damn he is so bad on defense, Doc you gotta help him out

it feels like harden’s entire game at this point comes down to whether he can make the step back 3