WildWolf2813 wrote:I shrug off Love to an extent because of his defense and let's be honest, this team will never be without a star PF. From Laettner to Gugliotta to KG to Big Al to Love, we've been spoiled at that position. I don't see that changing once Love is gone. We know PF's. We just don't know anything else.
I also think the team falling apart the way it did when Rubio tore his ACL despite Love playing out of his mind was a huge red flag on Love.
That doesn't make any sense.
Obviously, that's more coincidental than anything else... considering multiple regimes are responsible for those choices...
That's my point though. We've always had it. I don't see why that would change.
I pretty much agree with markkbu on this one, game winning shot is just as likely to come from a great play drawn up as it is from a closer. A closer is someone who can get a quality shot off, in the course of play, near the end of games when the D has tightened up. Love is a great scorer I just don't think they way he scores leads to successful scoring near the end of games.
I would say in his prime Duncan was a closer (basically what separated him KG), he could get off his shot with a good rate of success, now I think he's just getting older plus Parker has taken over that role. Love doesn't have the height or length of Duncan to get his shot off consistently.
Also why dosnt K. Love ever take the full court shot at the end of quarters. Im pretty sure he is the best at heaving the ball that far but Corey Brewer is always the one chunkin them from half court. The only logical excuss is because hes scared of lowering his field goal percentage. Another one is that Corey likes to do it. I remember seeing a post game interview with Brewer a few years ago and he said he didn't care about his field goal percentage and he is willing to take the miss even if it hurts his stats. I for one would rather have Love shooting them because there is probably a better chance he makes from half/ full court, but I have never actually seen him shoot one in during an actual NBA game. Remember he has also been on sports science for it and has highlights of him making them in practice
What? Who gives a crap. What are the odds here...even for a "better" half court shooter...1 in a 100? This is like the time when Jamarcus Russell threw a football from his behind like 70 yards, and this was listed as a positive to his ability to play football...where you never throw from your behind.
The Rage Monster wrote:I pretty much agree with markkbu on this one, game winning shot is just as likely to come from a great play drawn up as it is from a closer. A closer is someone who can get a quality shot off, in the course of play, near the end of games when the D has tightened up. Love is a great scorer I just don't think they way he scores leads to successful scoring near the end of games.
I would say in his prime Duncan was a closer (basically what separated him KG), he could get off his shot with a good rate of success, now I think he's just getting older plus Parker has taken over that role. Love doesn't have the height or length of Duncan to get his shot off consistently.
Yet somehow, Kevin Love has figured out how to get his shot off enough to score more PPG than Duncan or Nowitzski ever produced in their best year! How is that possible? It's not all through offensive rebounds and getting fouled (and by the way, those things can happen in crunch time too!).
I'm not going to argue that Kevin Love is the ideal closer. He's not. But I don't think it's as black and white as you make it out to be.
The Rage Monster wrote:I pretty much agree with markkbu on this one, game winning shot is just as likely to come from a great play drawn up as it is from a closer. A closer is someone who can get a quality shot off, in the course of play, near the end of games when the D has tightened up. Love is a great scorer I just don't think they way he scores leads to successful scoring near the end of games.
I would say in his prime Duncan was a closer (basically what separated him KG), he could get off his shot with a good rate of success, now I think he's just getting older plus Parker has taken over that role. Love doesn't have the height or length of Duncan to get his shot off consistently.
Yet somehow, Kevin Love has figured out how to get his shot off enough to score more PPG than Duncan or Nowitzski ever produced in their best year! How is that possible? It's not all through offensive rebounds and getting fouled (and by the way, those things can happen in crunch time too!).
I'm not going to argue that Kevin Love is the ideal closer. He's not. But I don't think it's as black and white as you make it out to be.
I hate to nitpick... but what the hell...
Nowitzki averaged 26.6 in 2006, that's higher than Love's best season.
But I get your point and I don't think Love has been all that bad late in games during his career.
The Rage Monster wrote:I pretty much agree with markkbu on this one, game winning shot is just as likely to come from a great play drawn up as it is from a closer. A closer is someone who can get a quality shot off, in the course of play, near the end of games when the D has tightened up. Love is a great scorer I just don't think they way he scores leads to successful scoring near the end of games.
I would say in his prime Duncan was a closer (basically what separated him KG), he could get off his shot with a good rate of success, now I think he's just getting older plus Parker has taken over that role. Love doesn't have the height or length of Duncan to get his shot off consistently.
Yet somehow, Kevin Love has figured out how to get his shot off enough to score more PPG than Duncan or Nowitzski ever produced in their best year! How is that possible? It's not all through offensive rebounds and getting fouled (and by the way, those things can happen in crunch time too!).
I'm not going to argue that Kevin Love is the ideal closer. He's not. But I don't think it's as black and white as you make it out to be.
I just went back and did a quick check on the last 5 games ( Bos, Mem, San, Philly and OKC ) where we were within 6 points at some point during the last 5 minutes and counted Love's scoring during those 25 minutes.
He scored 10 point in those 25 minutes. He may have been out a couple of those minutes......but the point remains the same........during those 5 games he scored 141 points in 182 minutes. that is an average of .77 points per minute........during the last 5 minutes of the last 5 close games he has scored .4 points per minute.
In those game he was about 1/2 as effective at putting points on the board as he is during non-crunch time minutes. That also means that during non-crunch time minutes his average was over .77 pts per minute.
Someone else can do the rest of researching the season during crunch time......but I wasn't able to find 1 game where he was the leading scorer for us in the last 5 minutes of a close game.
This leads me to conclude that he doesn't close games well.
The Rage Monster wrote:I pretty much agree with markkbu on this one, game winning shot is just as likely to come from a great play drawn up as it is from a closer. A closer is someone who can get a quality shot off, in the course of play, near the end of games when the D has tightened up. Love is a great scorer I just don't think they way he scores leads to successful scoring near the end of games.
I would say in his prime Duncan was a closer (basically what separated him KG), he could get off his shot with a good rate of success, now I think he's just getting older plus Parker has taken over that role. Love doesn't have the height or length of Duncan to get his shot off consistently.
Yet somehow, Kevin Love has figured out how to get his shot off enough to score more PPG than Duncan or Nowitzski ever produced in their best year! How is that possible? It's not all through offensive rebounds and getting fouled (and by the way, those things can happen in crunch time too!).
I'm not going to argue that Kevin Love is the ideal closer. He's not. But I don't think it's as black and white as you make it out to be.
I just went back and did a quick check on the last 5 games ( Bos, Mem, San, Philly and OKC ) where we were within 6 points at some point during the last 5 minutes and counted Love's scoring during those 25 minutes.
He scored 10 point in those 25 minutes. He may have been out a couple of those minutes......but the point remains the same........during those 5 games he scored 141 points in 182 minutes. that is an average of .77 points per minute........during the last 5 minutes of the last 5 close games he has scored .4 points per minute.
In those game he was about 1/2 as effective at putting points on the board as he is during non-crunch time minutes. That also means that during non-crunch time minutes his average was over .77 pts per minute.
Someone else can do the rest of researching the season during crunch time......but I wasn't able to find 1 game where he was the leading scorer for us in the last 5 minutes of a close game.
This leads me to conclude that he doesn't close games well.
Yup, agree he hasn't been a good closer the last few opportunities. That sample size, even if bigger, doesn't lead me to believe that he will never be a good closer.
For starters, Love doesn't take the shots at the end of quarters because he is the inbounder. He can get the ball down the court faster and more accurate than anybody else on the team combined with the fact that he is already in position to grab the ball and fling it down the court quickly because he is trying to rebound the ball to begin with. Also, the least efficient offense we could have is to just give the ball to Love every possession and say score the ball. There's a reason Kobe doesn't have a great shooting percentage when trying to close games or hit game winning shots. The other team knows it's coming and Kobe has to hit tougher shots. That makes him look like a closer because he is always the one taking the shot, but he's not taking good shots and that has lead to a bad shooting percentage percentage. In fact most of the top players in clutch scoring last year (listed here http://www.82games.com/1213/CSORT11.HTM) did not shoot great percentages and mainly scored a lot because of how many shots they took. Love was 9th in clutch scoring per 48 minutes in the season before last when he played a lot of games. At the end of the day, we are better off taking the best shot than just giving the ball to one guy and telling his to score out of nothing. It will lead to higher percentage looks that give us a better chance to win.
I took a couple more minutes and looked at all the games that were within 6 points in the last 5 minutes (including the OT against the Magic) and found that his normally puts up .625 points per minute during those times. His season average is .70 points per minute through the course of the season.
(Just so that Q will leave me alone about sample size ;-) )
So we know that this season, Love is slightly less (a bit over 10%) likely to score in the last 5 minutes of a close game than he is normally.
That doesn't make him a bad person, or means that he beats his cat, it just means that we either need him to improve his performance in the last 5 minutes of the game, or we need our defense to step up, or we need another player to step up.
