Seven thoughts on New York’s worst defensive sequence yet

New York Knicks November 20, 2013 Leave a comment

So far, the New York Knicks’ season hasn’t gone so well. A new low was reached last night, summarizing the first 10 games of their season. Check out this defense:

My thoughts:

1) AMAR‘E WHY?!?!      

2) Josh Smith‘s pass was initially a shot then passed in midair, so that’s a slight buzzkill. I’ve seen players on offense get mixed up on passes that were initially shots, especially whoever’s posting up to which they’ll turn around as if to get the rebound.

But I’ve never saw a defender do that until now, and it’s awesome.

3) What is Andrea Bargnani doing? Instead of defending the rim, he sticks with Andre Drummond, who’s no threat whatsoever anywhere outside five feet. Bargnani knows he’s seven feet tall, the center for the Knicks, and that Peyton Siva is a foot shorter than him, right? It’s a less obvious mistake, but comedy nonetheless.

4) To go along with #2, J.R. Smith and Bargnani basically did the opposite of what I thought would happen. Smith’s guarding Kyle Singler, the guy supposed to stretch the floor for Detroit, but whatevs! He contests Siva’s layup when it really should’ve been Bargnani.

5) But really, just hack Drummond and get him to the line no matter the situation, as long as there’s over two minutes left in the game. He only took five free throws last night, which blows my mind. On the bright side, Drummond upped his free throw percentage to 17.6 percent. So there’s that.

6) Mike Woodson‘s expression doesn’t change. Neither does anyone’s on the bench. That is, except for Carmelo Anthony, whose reaction is priceless.

7) Time for a players-only meeting.

A recent history of kicks to the face

Boredom November 19, 2013 Leave a comment

In case you missed it, Chris Paul got a shin sandwich from Tony Allen last night:  

Searching through YouTube (unfortunately or fortunately, depending on how you view it) led to only a few more instances where this has happened. What I found though showed different variations of how a face becomes full of sneakers.

The Ninja Closeout 

Bruce Bowen kicking Wally Szczerbiak in the face is arguably the most popular of them all, which is pretty impressive since it happened in 2002. There was no YouTube or Twitter, but 24-hour coverage of sports existed. That’s all it took for Bowen’s reputation as a chippy defender to take off.  

The “Big Boot“ 

Tyson Chandler gives a big boot to Damion James in a 2011 pre-season game: 

With the running start, this had to be just as painful as Bowen’s or Allen’s, not to mention Chandler’s shoes are probably a few sizes larger than a perimeter defender’s.

Accidentally On Purpose Whoopsy Daisy

Tony Parker gives Shane Battier a little extra after drawing a blocking foul: 

Whether it was on purpose or not, Parker acting dazed after the kick brought me back to the days of my freshman dorm, where my roommate’s alarm went off every five minutes for an hour straight. This happened every morning before class at 8 a.m., that is until one day I couldn’t take it any more and flung a pen at him. I still remember the “thunk” it made when it ricocheted off his head, making it sound way more painful that I intended. Regardless, I proceeded to act like I was asleep. It was terrific. I never heard his alarm go off more than once ever again. Good times, good times.

Honorable mentions: Mike Miller getting a face full of Danny Green‘s shoe during a loose ball in the same Finals, and Kevin Love stepping on Luis Scola‘s face.)

The Helpless Prop

This happened way too often in college, where a player after a pickup basketball game would be so overconfident in his leaping ability that he’d try and dunk over someone. 99 percent of the time it led to the prop getting a face full of crotch, a knee to the midsection, or a foot dangling in the wrong place in mid-air.

Matt Bonner was a victim of the latter during a slam dunk contest, though at least he was prepared for it:  

Which variation will be created next?

Since 2003, over 3/4 of teams under .500 on November 18 miss the playoffs (continued)

2014 NBA Season, Boredom, Stats November 19, 2013 Leave a comment

Yesterday I worked through a little boredom, looking at how often teams miss the playoffs after starting out under .500 through November 18, yesterday’s date.

The result was higher than I thought, with 76.7 percent finishing in the lottery since 2003. I decided to expand on that statistic by looking at the rest of the months of the season and how often teams can overcome not just a sluggish start but an extra underwhelming month or two or four. Here are the results while skipping the lockout-shortened 2012 season, though I moved the day from December/January/February/March 18 to 19 just to keep up with the current date thing. I don’t know. I’m weird:

Under .500 through December 19: 28 teams out of a possible 143 still made the playoffs (19.6 percent).

Under .500 through January 19: 25/117 (21.4 percent).

Under.500 through February 19: 21/125 (16.8 percent).

Under .500 through March 19: 14/140 (10 percent).

As you can see, the likelihood declines as the season enters the dog days of basketball, and even further after the trade deadline. The percentages are a little misleading though when, since 2003, the Eastern Conference has had nine teams make the playoffs with a record under .500. We’ll more than likely see a couple teams do that again this year. Finish with less than 41 wins in the West though and you’re toast.

No more than five teams under .500 in any month have gone on to make the playoffs. For March 19, it shrunk to three teams. That could change this year, though we’re still four months away from seeing if that holds up.

Four months away still! This season is going to last forever.

Since 2003, over 3/4 of teams under .500 on November 18 miss the playoffs

2014 NBA Season, Boredom, NBA Playoffs, Stats November 18, 2013 1 Comment

If your favorite team is off to a bad start, you can look that stat in the headline in two different ways:

  • Since 2003, 76.7 percent of teams that are under .500 coming into November 18 have missed the playoffs, failing to put the pieces together in another season of letdowns.
  • Since 2003, 23.3 percent have come back to make the playoffs and win their fans back with five months of great basketball. The first three weeks? Well, that was just a flesh wound.

A total of 30 teams out of 129 have come back to contend. You might think most of those came from the East since we’re in an era where the West has been loaded, but only 16 were from the inferior conference. And they’re not all teams who just barely make the postseason. Two defending champions, the Shaq-led ’03 Lakers and ’07 Heat, started out flat. Others like the ’07 Suns, ’07 Bulls, and ’11 Grizzlies were pesky outs.

Here’s the complete list. I left out the lockout-shortened 2012 season:

2003 (4 out of 13 teams): Los Angeles Lakers (3-7), Portland (4-6), Utah (4-7), Minnesota (5-6)

2004 (2/11): New Jersey (5-6), New York (3-7)

2005 (4/12): New Jersey (2-6), Chicago (0-6), Denver (3-5), Memphis (3-5)

2006 (3/14): Chicago (3-5), Los Angeles Lakers (4-5), Sacramento (4-5)

2007 (5/14): Toronto (2-7), Chicago (3-6), Miami (4-5), Washington (4-5), Phoenix (3-6)

2008 (2/14): New Jersey (3-6), Washington (4-5)

2009 (2/12): Chicago (5-6), Dallas (4-7)

2010 (2/14): Charlotte (3-8), San Antonio (4-5)

2011 (3/13): New York (4-8), Philadelphia (2-10), Memphis (4-8)

2013 (3/12): Indiana (4-7), Denver (4-6), Houston (4-6) 

2014 (???/15): 

Who will make the list this year?

So far, 15 teams are under .500: (deep breath) Philadelphia, Boston, Toronto, New York, Brooklyn, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, Orlando, Washington, New Orleans, Sacramento, Los Angeles Lakers, Utah, and Denver. No more than five and no less than two have made the playoffs. If we’re going straight by the math over the last decade, we can pick three or four.

I’ll pick four and they’re all coming from the East. Out in the West, the most likely under .500 candidates to surge back are the Lakers and Pelicans yet they’ll have to overtake Memphis, who sits in tenth place and in time will pass ninth-place Phoenix. Basically, nobody under .500 from the West will come back this year, though Kobe Bryant‘s return and Anthony Davis‘ monster sophomore season at least made me think about it. Oh well. There are still nine teams from the East to choose from.

Every team in the Atlantic Division is under .500, which is embarrassing but one has to win and get the fourth seed by default. I’d expect New York and Brooklyn to limp into the finish line, maybe seeing them battle in the first round of the playoffs. At the very least, they both get in. The East is just too terrible for them not to.

From there I’ll go with Detroit, who didn’t sign Josh Smith just to tank the season away. I already wrote a little about their frontcourt woes while wondering why nobody is fouling Andre Drummond, but I expect the team to play better as the season goes on. I mean, they can’t be much worse defensively, right? If they somehow are, Greg Monroe can be moved for a piece that’s a better fit, one that’s good enough to put Detroit in the playoffs. I’d like to think of them being a pesky out for a title contender, at least pushing the series to five games.

That leaves one more team, and it gets painful to pick and choose who will get destroyed by Miami or Indiana, but I’ll go with Washington. They can make a move or two before the deadline with whatever Trevor Ariza will attract, but could (and probably will) also fire Randy Wittman and hopefully gain wins down the line with a coach that, you know, can get the job done with John Wall, Bradley Beal, and Marcin ‘Too Hot To’ Gortat.

Toronto can make moves too, especially with Rudy Gay and DeMar DeRozan, but a trade will more often than one to push themselves into the lottery. As for Cleveland, they seem to be a mess led by Kyrie Irving, Dion Waiters, and Anderson Varejao. Somehow, they can’t score with those three guys. Cleveland was a tough choice though since they too are primed for a trade down the road.

The East in general is a crap shoot, but it wasn’t expected to be this bad out of the gates. Right now if the conference were a Myspace account, Orlando, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Charlotte would be in the East’s top eight, along with Miami and the like. By the end of the season, they’ll all have grown sour and made room for New York, Brooklyn, Detroit, and Washington.

Hack-A-Drummond could be wakeup call for Detroit

Detroit Pistons November 18, 2013 1 Comment

If there’s a great thing about being a basketball player in a small market, it’s that nobody knows your weaknesses. DeAndre Jordan and Dwight Howard play in two of the biggest markets, unlike Andre Drummond who resides in Motor City, which explains why the first two are widely known as terribly free throw shooters and intentionally fouled because of it while Drummond has gone unnoticed. 

Actually, that was a terrible attempt at sarcasm. Also, I have no idea why teams haven’t intentionally fouled Drummond yet. Sure, Howard and Jordan’s shooting woes from the line are discussed more frequently, but Drummond’s percentage has been far worse, down to 16 percent after last night’s loss to the Lakers. That percentage comes from a small sample size, however, since he’s only attempted 1.3 free throws per game.

But there lies what’s so surprising. Why haven’t teams intentionally fouled him? It’s not like Drummond’s an energy guy off the bench; he plays 35.1 minutes per game, right up there with Howard and Jordan. He also logs 7.4 minutes per fourth quarter, according to NBA.com, so the opportunity to put him on the line is there when opponents need to make up ground and quickly. This isn’t meant to rip on Drummond, who’s one of the most intriguing players in the league and uploads some of the best Vines,  among other things, but he has a glaring weakness in his game that teams haven’t taken advantage of. 

Maybe the intentional fouls are coming, but if they could actually be a blessing in disguise for Detroit. This is a reach, but hack-a-Drummond could signal Maurice Cheeks to further stagger the minutes of Detroit’s best three frontcourt players of Drummond, Greg Monroe, and Josh Smith, who play 20 minutes together per game according to NBA.com. They’ve bled points on defense and cramped the spacing on offense no matter who has started in the backcourt, though the Caldwell–Pope and Jennings pairing at the guard positions has yielded solid defensive numbers through two games. It’s also been at the expense of having even an average offense. 

That doesn’t mean Drummond’s free throw shooting makes him unplayable, but when teams are in the penalty and outside of two minutes, they can hack away and grind Detroit’s offense to a halt. It also doesn’t mean Drummonds at fault for the frontcourt’s failures. It would be unfortunate for its split to come at the hands of teams exposing his poor free throw shooting, but if that’s the calling card for Mo Cheeks to search for more efficient frontcourt combos, then it could be for the better.