#focus#mustwin#playoffs#drama? : 2013 NBA playoffs

gerald wallace has been incredible to watch all year, he toggles between flashes of old all-star level talent and guy who couldn't make a third tier euroleague team on consecutive plays

heh so.... is george karl overrated?? xp

Gets out of first round in 1/3 of playoff appearances

Torn about Karl-- dude is demonstrably a great coach (like 20+ seasons @ 60% winning percentage); I've never dug into the hows/whys for his underachieving in the playoffs.

I do know that people ran Rick Carlisle, whom I loved, out of Indy for similar reasons; then, he got his ring in Dallas finally. Difference was that at least Carlisle was taking Indy out of the 1st round; rough to look at all those 1st Rnd exits Karl has piled on over the last 20 years.

Like, when you've been bounced in the 1st Rnd 9 OF THE 10 PAST YEARS, tough to explain that away.

Personnel-wise, though, Nuggs have a ton of young players who are still improving. Seems natural to be optimistic about then (not to mention the fact that Karl has taken his more-talented teams at least to Conference Finals / NBA Finals ... not as hot w/ the middling teams he's been coaching these past 10 years though).

he's suffered a bit at the hands of pop and jax the last decade or so, and his best recent shot (08-09 nuggs) was pinned to a still kind-of-underachieving carmelo

he's kind of the new don nelson

those anthony/billups/iverson/JR nuggets teams had a ton of talent and would always seem to fall apart and forget how to play together over the course of a playoff series. I know the East is weaker and all, but Woodson is a game away from taking an older and less talented version of the old Nuggets nucleus into the second round, for just the second time in Melo's career.

i think reading this long chauncey profile in ESPN kinda turned me against Karl:

"With 2:54 left in the fourth quarter, the Nuggets are clinging to a 99-98 lead, when the ball goes out of bounds to the Nuggets underneath their own basket. Chauncey's fear is realized. The team has no out-of-bounds play. Karl just wants them to improvise, to use their basketball instincts, but Chauncey can't live that way. So he calls time.

In the huddle, they're all stumped. Smith tells Anthony: "He just got here, and he's calling timeouts?" But Chauncey waves them close and starts in: "Look, George, I need you to draw me up an out-of-bounds play, man, to get the ball in. Because if we don't and we turn the ball over and lose this game because we didn't have something, that just won't sit well with me."

Karl and the team's response is: wow."

http://espn.go.com/espn/eticket/story?page=090511/billups

there's a video lost to the sands of hoops time of george karl and his assistant coaches in a huddle getting hype to rap music before a game, it was hilarious + disturbing

he's suffered a bit at the hands of pop and jax the last decade or so, and his best recent shot (08-09 nuggs) was pinned to a still kind-of-underachieving carmelo
he's kind of the new don nelson
― joe smith avatar (agent hibachi), Friday, May 3, 2013 1:51 PM (2 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You'd think, but if you go through the series they've lost in reverse-chron:

- 6th seed GSW
- 3rd seed Lakers
- 4th seed OKC
- 5th seed Jazz
- 1st seed Lakers
- 3rd seed Spurs
- 6th seed Clips
- 2nd seed Spurs

Only two of those series losses was to juggernaut teams (one LAL, one SAS). Otherwise, they've lost a ton of winnable series.

Ha xps smh @ Karl just all, "Do I have to coach all the time u babies? WTH JUST THROW THE BALL IN U SHOULDN'T NEED ME TO DRAW A PLAY FOR THIS!"

Zach Lowe ‏@ZachLowe_NBA 1m
Random DEN fall-out point #1: JaVale McGee was awful in this series, especially on defense and on the glass. Almost no sign of progress.

also at holding on to the ball and passing

javale's defense is starting to wear on me it's true

this is a good article

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9234169/will-denver-nuggets-starless-roster-ever-prove-win-nba-playoffs

Though they lack an elite half-court defender, they have enough specialists — Wilson Chandler (physicality either on the perimeter or inside), Brewer (length, instincts, and anticipation), Koufos (pick-and-roll technique), and McGee (shot-blocking) — to find a place among the league's top 10 defensive teams.

ok maybe this is a dumb sentence

oh god remember birdman?

Hahaha. Big disappointment for them this year was Javele's regression, or rather just his lack of improvement. His /36min numbers are basically the same as last few years, but dude can only playing 18min/game now. Was kinda shocked all season that he wasn't playing more minutes, esp. since I figured that they'd really push him to go 27-30min/game after they diagnosed that asthma thing.

Don't want to believe that, after like 6 years in the league, he actually just can't understand Xs and Os stuff on defense.

Should be an Onion URL but http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/9238503/kobe-bryant-los-angeles-lakers-battles-mom-nj-business-auction

ice cold kobe mom

damn, wtf mom

http://i.imgur.com/3WfBlvP.png

guess kobe never broke her off

whoa, this is messed up. never knew about kobe's relationship with his parents, though i'm hesitant to blame the mom here, given that kobe is a sociopath. i mean, dude worth nine figures offers his mom 250k for a house? i'd sell his shit too

pardon, kobe talk goes in the non-playoff thread now BURN

Hahaha. Big disappointment for them this year was Javele's regression, or rather just his lack of improvement. His /36min numbers are basically the same as last few years, but dude can only playing 18min/game now. Was kinda shocked all season that he wasn't playing more minutes, esp. since I figured that they'd really push him to go 27-30min/game after they diagnosed that asthma thing.

He had career highs in points per 36 and in fg%. His fg% and overall game have gotten better every year. His combination of scoring and shot blocking per minute was at a historic level.

He plays 18 minutes per game because his coach is George Karl.

He plays 18 minutes a game because he doesn't actually produce the expected per 36 numbers when he plays more. Plus his basketball IQ is the inverse of his athletic talent.

His combination of scoring and shot blocking per minute was at a historic level.

this is sort of an absurd point. per minute stats... i dunno man.

but anyway doesn't that almost encapsulate the javale problem? he can look AMAZING for short bursts (i.e. blocking multiple shots and dunking a few times in the span of a minute) but in totality it's inconsistent/underwhelming/destructive?

The only way I see him developing into a solid starting option is if a coach is willing to take a chance and give him solid starting minutes.

He plays 18 minutes a game because he doesn't actually produce the expected per 36 numbers when he plays more.
― EZ Snappin, Friday, 3 May 2013 21:00 (18 minutes ago) Permalink

McGee never got more than 32 minutes in a game this season. In the 7 games where he got between 24 and 32 minutes he put up:

16-3-1-2 (24m)
6-6-0-0-3 (25m)
20-8-0-0-1 (30m)
17-6-0-3-2 (26m)
5-16-0-0-3 (32m)
14-3-0-1-0 (27m)
21-11-0-2-3 (26m)
10-17-0-0-2 (25m

8 games, rather

this is sort of an absurd point. per minute stats... i dunno man.

― J0rdan S., Friday, May 3, 2013 9:02 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If it was easy to have the per minute production Javale is having, then someone other than hall of famers would have done it. Why aren't there any other 18mpg guys out there that are finding this per minute loophole that Javale is? It's not even something silly like a guy who produces a lot but averaged 8 fouls per 36.

just back of the enveloping it, Javale's per 36 in those higher minute games I mentioned is 19-12-0-1-3

He had career highs in points per 36 and in fg%. His fg% and overall game have gotten better every year.

Huh? He had the same per-36 in points (18per) and his FG% actually went down from last season. Although maybe you meant that both were above his career average, but that's not saying much?

His combination of scoring and shot blocking per minute was at a historic level.

You understand that his 1st ballot HoF teammates Jordan Hamilton and Wilson Chandler had better per-36 scoring averages than Javale, right? To be fair, his block #s were really high/impressive, but as has been beaten to death here/elsewhere, dude can't manage more than about 27min/game, so you can't really responsibly extrapolate much.

compu you're looking at his 20 games with denver and reading it as the whole season.

why not give him 27 minutes per game then.

You're right, I was-- my bad. Point still kinda stands, though-- his scoring numbers really haven't changed drastically over five years. 15.4 his rookie year -> 18 this year. Not really spellbinding stuff.

I'd love to give Javale 27min/game! Maybe K3v/another Nuggs booster can explain this better, but it's really really hard to play Javale a ton of minutes, either by virtue of his body/conditioning or the likelihood that he's hurting the team elsewhere.

the complaint w mcgee iirc is that he gets lost on offense/defense, not really sure exactly how true that is, its def at least kinda true, but i have to agree w matt that his numbers warrant a bigger role than he had this season, part of it is that he plays for the deepest team in the league allowing his coach to fuck w him all he wants

he looked lost as fuck last night but so did klay thompson sometimes, playoffs do that to some dudes sometimes

i just think overall maximizing javale mcgee isn't precisely the ticket to the conference finals in any case

I mean, you're talking to someone who had talked himself into letting Hibbert go and signing Javale to near-max contract last year. I figured that, w/ his first full season in a good environment that he'd really flourish / put shit together, and 18min/game says to me that the coaching staff didn't see that.

So like, per36 numbers totally say that he should be on the floor more -- and he probably should! -- but simple block stats don't take into account how much he potentially fucks up on offensive/defensive ends (not to mention all the goaltends).

He's also a shitty FT shooter, which factors into stuff like this, too.

Koufos is also a shitty FT shooter though. This is the second straight playoffs where Karl had to grudgingly concede the center minutes to McGee midway through the series.

how much does playing at 5000ft with asthma factor into it i wonder- honest question, i have no idea how he deals with it overall

Well Koufos might fit the team play a lot better. He's got better WS #s than Javale fwiw.

much worse hair though

xp I read up on it a while back. It should hypothetically factor in, but Javale says that it doesn't affect him (?). He said iirc that it's only a problem on the East Coast (?) and the place he breathes best is Los Angeles (?).

hot damn FOUR game sixes tonight!

that sounds like allergies to me, la air gets a bad rap and denver always fucks with my system something fierce

This stat from 82games shows a definite problem with playing McGee more minutes:

Net Points per 100 Possessions
On Court +2.3
Off court +7.2
Difference -4.9

The same #'s for Koufos:

Net Points per 100 Possessions
On Court +8.6
Off Court +2.9
Difference +5.7