Minnesota Sports Forum

Golden State is both incredibly lucky AND good. I'd love nothing more than to see Cleveland take them down. However, you have to tip your cap to any team that won 67 games in the Western Conference. That is sustained excellence in a ridiculously difficult conference.

Camden wrote:The game has changed, but the Warriors, Rockets and to an extent the Clippers all play ugly basketball. The type of basketball that will fade, falter in the playoffs (helps when your opponent in every series was banged up, Warriors).

The three-ball DOES need to be utilized, but in the way that the Spurs and Hawks play. THAT is good basketball.

I don't really see how Golden State and Houston are in the same mix.

Houston has one guy dominating the ball. Golden State has wonderful ball movement. There's a reason why Golden State was way ahead of everybody else this season in assists. For example, Golden State is welcoming the switches up top just so guys other than Curry can create vs. a 4-on-3 after that initial pass. Houston wouldn't continually run a PnR there. They'd just have Harden iso time after time after time, trying to draw fouls or get to the rim or shoot the three.

Golden State is running legit offensive sets. They're just angling to end up with a three pointer on them instead of a 12-to - 18-foot jump shot. When you have Curry and Thompson... it makes sense.


[Note: Conversely, I think Cleveland's offense is terrible to watch. It's one guy with the ball using brute force (and skill) over and over and over and over. Granted, when that guy is one of the greatest to ever play the game, it can work. I'm just going by aesthetics here though.]

Camden wrote:NOLA: Holiday.
MEM: Conley and Allen.
HOU: Howard, Beverley and Motiejunas.
CLE: Love, Irving and Varejao.

I'm not arguing this any further than this post. Are they a good team? Sure, I think any team that wins 55+ games is obviously a good team. Do I think they're a typical championship level team? No, and they've had a ridiculous amount of luck and good fortune to get to this point. To stay completely healthy while facing banged up, not-even-close-to-being-healthy teams is ridiculous.

It's not the Warriors fault; don't get me wrong. They can only play who's on the schedule, but I think it's very fair to throw an asterisk on this title should they close it out because of how lucky they've been through the entire playoffs. They haven't beaten ONE team that had its three best players the entire series. That's a huge advantage and I'm probably not the only one who thinks this way.

I'll give them their congratulations and all that, but I can't say they deserved it. Nope.

They aren't just a good team. They put on one of the best regular season performances of all time (tied for 6th best winning percentage ever). They were the best offense and best defense in the league in the same season. They won over 80% of their games with only 4 losses at home the entire year including the playoffs. In what world is that not a typical championship level team? Do you think even with full strength opponents that they don't win the title this year because you are making it sound like they have needed all that luck to get this far when the regular season clearly says otherwise? They were the team who most deserved it before the playoffs even started.

khans2k5 wrote:

Camden wrote:NOLA: Holiday.
MEM: Conley and Allen.
HOU: Howard, Beverley and Motiejunas.
CLE: Love, Irving and Varejao.

I'm not arguing this any further than this post. Are they a good team? Sure, I think any team that wins 55+ games is obviously a good team. Do I think they're a typical championship level team? No, and they've had a ridiculous amount of luck and good fortune to get to this point. To stay completely healthy while facing banged up, not-even-close-to-being-healthy teams is ridiculous.

It's not the Warriors fault; don't get me wrong. They can only play who's on the schedule, but I think it's very fair to throw an asterisk on this title should they close it out because of how lucky they've been through the entire playoffs. They haven't beaten ONE team that had its three best players the entire series. That's a huge advantage and I'm probably not the only one who thinks this way.

I'll give them their congratulations and all that, but I can't say they deserved it. Nope.

They aren't just a good team. They put on one of the best regular season performances of all time (tied for 6th best winning percentage ever). They were the best offense and best defense in the league in the same season. They won over 80% of their games with only 4 losses at home the entire year including the playoffs. In what world is that not a typical championship level team? Do you think even with full strength opponents that they don't win the title this year because you are making it sound like they have needed all that luck to get this far when the regular season clearly says otherwise? They were the team who most deserved it before the playoffs even started.

Yeah. It's not a fluke thing we're dealing with here. The Warriors are 82 - 20. They're beating the teams in front of them. Often, they did so rather handily. Asterisk season?

No.

MANY, MANY championship teams win titles because of good fortune. Nobody is clamoring for Magic Johnson's Lakers to have asterisks because Kevin McHale broke his foot one year and the Houston Rockets backcourt snorted too much coke and Sampson got injured. It's part of basketball. Teams that win get good fortune. Unless you're claiming that the Warriors have won more than 80% of their games solely on "good fortune"... I'm not seeing the case why they'd have an asterisk should they win.


[Note: I've said it before... David Lee is a borderline All Star. He was an 18/9 guy for a good playoff team only a year ago. He was 11th man for most of these playoffs. That team is ridiculously talented. To be fair, I don't have an answer for L. Barbosa though...]

Q12543 wrote:

TRKO wrote:If the future of the NBA is guys jacking up threes, I don't think I like the future. I miss the inside post stuff of yesteryear.

Well, the future is the present. This is how the game is played these days, and frankly, for the past few years.

The post game will always exist, but it takes a ton of skill to develop a repertoire of moves and inside touch. Plus teams have really become advanced at how to double-team and then rotate and recover on the ensuing kick-out. It's still valuable, but it's tough making it your bread and butter offense as opposed to something you use to expose mismatches.

The old formula seemed to be an inside out game, Shaq and Kobe, Duncan and Parker. I see how versatility is big today, but I don't see how the inside-out game is irrelevant today. I think it's really helpful to have a big who can create shots for himself in the post. I see how a guy like Towns brings a lot of versatility (including some efficiency in the post), which is kind of why I lean toward him. But admit it, Golden State could never get away with this small lineup against a guy like Okafor. He's just too good at creating shots for himself down low. I'm not sure Towns has a good enough ability to create his own shot down low to force them out of it. Golden State is lucky enough to have Bogut who can step in, but that forces them to change up their offense. Mosgov can't really get his own shot. And really, there aren't many guys who can anymore down low. A guy like Okafor might really force a lot of teams to adjust how they defend, probably forcing the other team to put a big out there to defend who is not as good offensively as Okafor. If Towns could develop that low post game, he'd be great because he can also step outside and defend those stretch 5s. But these small lineups we're seeing in the NBA make me wonder if a guy like Okafor couldn't really hurt some teams. Look how Big Al is getting better, maybe because defenses don't know how to deal with guys like that anymore. And Okafor looks better than Big Al in the low post. Ugh, I can't decide!!!

Edit: I edited this post so there's more in there than what doper quoted.

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

TRKO wrote:If the future of the NBA is guys jacking up threes, I don't think I like the future. I miss the inside post stuff of yesteryear.

Well, the future is the present. This is how the game is played these days, and frankly, for the past few years.

The post game will always exist, but it takes a ton of skill to develop a repertoire of moves and inside touch. Plus teams have really become advanced at how to double-team and then rotate and recover on the ensuing kick-out. It's still valuable, but it's tough making it your bread and butter offense as opposed to something you use to expose mismatches.

The old formula seemed to be an inside out game, Shaq and Kobe, Duncan and Parker. I see how versatility is big today, but I don't see how the inside-out game is irrelevant today. I see how a guy like Towns brings a lot of versatility, which is kind of why I lean toward him. But admit it, Golden State could never get away with this small lineup against a guy like Okafor. They're lucky enough to have Bogut who can step in, but that forces them to change up their offense. Mosgov can't really get his own shot. And really, there aren't many guys who can anymore down low. A guy like Okafor might really force a lot of teams to adjust how they defend.

Basketball will always be about adjusting to talent. If a guy is dominant in the low post, teams will have to adjust. I hope for the sake of the game that Okafor is so good that teams do have to adjust. The real reason the old formula is less present is that there really hasn't been a true low post talent in a long time.

Okafor against small ball teams sounds disastrous for our team defense.

SameOldDrew wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

TRKO wrote:If the future of the NBA is guys jacking up threes, I don't think I like the future. I miss the inside post stuff of yesteryear.

Well, the future is the present. This is how the game is played these days, and frankly, for the past few years.

The post game will always exist, but it takes a ton of skill to develop a repertoire of moves and inside touch. Plus teams have really become advanced at how to double-team and then rotate and recover on the ensuing kick-out. It's still valuable, but it's tough making it your bread and butter offense as opposed to something you use to expose mismatches.

The old formula seemed to be an inside out game, Shaq and Kobe, Duncan and Parker. I see how versatility is big today, but I don't see how the inside-out game is irrelevant today. I think it's really helpful to have a big who can create shots for himself in the post. I see how a guy like Towns brings a lot of versatility (including some efficiency in the post), which is kind of why I lean toward him. But admit it, Golden State could never get away with this small lineup against a guy like Okafor. He's just too good at creating shots for himself down low. I'm not sure Towns has a good enough ability to create his own shot down low to force them out of it. Golden State is lucky enough to have Bogut who can step in, but that forces them to change up their offense. Mosgov can't really get his own shot. And really, there aren't many guys who can anymore down low. A guy like Okafor might really force a lot of teams to adjust how they defend, probably forcing the other team to put a big out there to defend who is not as good offensively as Okafor. If Towns could develop that low post game, he'd be great because he can also step outside and defend those stretch 5s. But these small lineups we're seeing in the NBA make me wonder if a guy like Okafor couldn't really hurt some teams. Look how Big Al is getting better, maybe because defenses don't know how to deal with guys like that anymore. And Okafor looks better than Big Al in the low post. Ugh, I can't decide!!!

Edit: I edited this post so there's more in there than what doper quoted.

To me when I look at your hypothetical if GS had to deal with a true low post scorer they are built for that too they have plenty of bigs including Festus and Bogut who you have already mentioned plus Speights who may give a guy like Okafor problems because he can hit jumpers. Honestly the reason GS has gone small is because the Cavs bigs have hurt them just about as much as a true post scorer might. Look at the rebounding of TT and Mosgov plus Mosgov has killed the Warriors getting easy buckets playing off teammates.

Let's look at your point which I think is good and something a lot of us have considered in one sense or another. To consider a post presence like Okafor the guy to look at is Lebron and what he has done pretty much this entire series going one on one and especially a lot of times just killing players in the post.

One other thing that hit me last night was imagine where this series would be if GS hadn't basically sold out that offseason and got IGGY. I was one that sort of questioned that not because he isn't a good player but because it just seemed odd to pay that much money for a guy they didn't seem to need all that badly. That's looking pretty smart right now almost just based on his defense on Lebron not that he has stopped him or anything but he has clearly been the only GS player to make him work for it on almost every possession.

SameOldNudityDrew wrote:

Q12543 wrote:

TRKO wrote:If the future of the NBA is guys jacking up threes, I don't think I like the future. I miss the inside post stuff of yesteryear.

Well, the future is the present. This is how the game is played these days, and frankly, for the past few years.

The post game will always exist, but it takes a ton of skill to develop a repertoire of moves and inside touch. Plus teams have really become advanced at how to double-team and then rotate and recover on the ensuing kick-out. It's still valuable, but it's tough making it your bread and butter offense as opposed to something you use to expose mismatches.

The old formula seemed to be an inside out game, Shaq and Kobe, Duncan and Parker. I see how versatility is big today, but I don't see how the inside-out game is irrelevant today. I think it's really helpful to have a big who can create shots for himself in the post. I see how a guy like Towns brings a lot of versatility (including some efficiency in the post), which is kind of why I lean toward him. But admit it, Golden State could never get away with this small lineup against a guy like Okafor. He's just too good at creating shots for himself down low. I'm not sure Towns has a good enough ability to create his own shot down low to force them out of it. Golden State is lucky enough to have Bogut who can step in, but that forces them to change up their offense. Mosgov can't really get his own shot. And really, there aren't many guys who can anymore down low. A guy like Okafor might really force a lot of teams to adjust how they defend, probably forcing the other team to put a big out there to defend who is not as good offensively as Okafor. If Towns could develop that low post game, he'd be great because he can also step outside and defend those stretch 5s. But these small lineups we're seeing in the NBA make me wonder if a guy like Okafor couldn't really hurt some teams. Look how Big Al is getting better, maybe because defenses don't know how to deal with guys like that anymore. And Okafor looks better than Big Al in the low post. Ugh, I can't decide!!!

Edit: I edited this post so there's more in there than what doper quoted.

Drew, the "old formula" of inside-out basketball still does apply and can be successful. It's just that there are many other ways to be successful in a league where hand-checking is illegal and teams have finally figured out the value of the 3-point shot. My point with Flip is that he probably overvalues inside post play, when in fact many teams can be successful without having a big offensive post presence.

As for Okafor against small-ball, keep in mind that it works both ways. He'd be the guy being pulled out on the perimeter as Draymond (who I assume he'd be guarding) is setting high screens for Steph Curry. Golden State would gladly exchange all of the open 3's they would get by exploiting Okafor on the perimeter for the post-up 2's he'd be getting on the other end.

It seems like whenever a team goes small, it's almost always the case that the other team can't fully exploit it and they have to go small too. What I really like about Towns is that not only can he potentially be a low-post mismatch when the other team goes small, but he can also potentially hang with their smaller lineup defensively, thus you don't have to pull him in these situations!

Good points, guys. And part of what makes Golden State so good is that they have Bogut to put out there. But I'm not sure teams would benefit from playing small against Okafor.

Offensively, with somebody like Green on Okafor, you could basically pencil Okafor in for almost 2 points each possession unless the other team is doubling. He's definitely got his weaknesses on the other end, but he's almost unstoppable in the low post against guys his own size, so imagine what he'll do when he's got 4 or 5 inches and 40 pounds. If they do double, Okafor's a pretty decent passer and with his height, could probably easily find the open shooter, or at least start swinging it to him ahead of the help. Somebody pointed out Mozgov and Thompson as an example of how going small against bigs can help. But those guys absolutely cannot create their own shots down low. That's why Golden State can get away with it. They can't get good shots even against smaller defenders.

The question is defensively, as you guys point out. Would a team really get the kind of quality shots to offset the easy offensive points Okafor would get on the other end if Okafor had to guard a stretch 4 like Green? Maybe, but I'm not so sure. Just because Okafor doesn't have much lateral quickness doesn't mean that a guy like Green would be just getting wide open catch and shoot 3s every trip. Sometimes they could run some pick action and try to spring guys for shots, but at least some of those would have to be off the dribble (a bad shot), and some will still be contested (also not an easy shot). And not all stretch 4s can actually stretch all the way out to the 3 point line (actually, Green is pretty unique in that regard). So whoever Okafor is guarding might have more chances to take shots off the dribble, but depending on his range, they could more likely be long 2s. And off the dribble. Clearly that's not a great shot.

And here's where Okafor might actually HELP defensively. If he is good enough offensively in the post to offset the potential liabilities against smaller lineups, he'll force other teams to play a true center big enough to defend him--and very few of those guys are that good offensively. By forcing the other team to play a true 5 with his (actually elite) low-post skills, Okafor can effectively force another team to play a true center with a much weaker offensive game than his. That's actually good defense . . . in a sense.

And here's the other thing: low post scorers like Okafor can basically create their own high-percentage shots. You just need to get them the ball in the post. It's nice we have Ricky (when healthy) to make plays, but as somebody mentioned LeBron above, watching him work is a reminder how valuable it is to have a guy you can trust to get a shot.

I still kind of lean toward Towns because of his all-around package and fit with us, but Okafor's extremely rare offensive skill could be extremely effective in a league that seems to be moving in a different direction.