[ad_1]
Just over two weeks ago, Stephen Curry pushed Montrezl Harrell into the air in a simulated fake game. The Golden State Warriors were beaten in pairs in the second game of their first-round West Conference series against the Los Angeles Clippers. For a moment, Curry, a free throw shooter 90% of his career, had easily three free throws: jump in Harrell, in the air and defenseless, for a shooting foul.
Curry disapproved. He let Harrell pass, swung to his left and threw an open 3-pointer to give Golden State the advantage. He missed. The warriors have lost.
Curry drew criticism, including the following day on the ESPN TV channel, for do not throw his body in Harrell. Many of these same people may also regret the fact that James Harden sometimes abandoned his usual basketball habits in order to make contact, especially with the jackknifing of his legs on a set of 3 pointers that propelled 39 "landing space" in the NBA and spawned a controversy over the officials. These two acts – a shooter in Curry's position throwing himself to the side in an airborne defender, Harden stretching his legs – are not quite the same, but they are cousins.
It would have been interesting to have a frank discussion with the coaches of Golden State after this game of the Clippers on the decision of Curry. At one level, they would probably have liked him to take the free throws.
For years, coaches at Golden State have been trying to convince Curry and Klay Thompson to exploit the fear of their shooting ability – and the connected power of their pumps – fake – in easy points. Once, Steve Kerr froze the video during a film session to highlight a moment when Curry could have made a contact using a fake pump, said Bruce Fraser, assistant coach of the Warriors, season last. "The teams run to [Curry] as if they were afraid of his shooting, "said Fraser.
Kerr even took a tape of Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, master of many fake ones, including a fake two-armed fake pump that almost looks like a faster version of Chandler Parsons' exaggerated faux-pump today. . (Maybe Kerr has personal memories of Abdul-Rauf lighting up the Bulls for 32 points in a Nuggets-Bulls game in February 1996 – one of only 10 Chicago defeats this season.)
Here Nick Young who performs as a bench of warriors, knowing the story of Abdul-Rauf, embarks on the banana:
Even though Curry avoided contact, he could still pump and get into the painting.
"Everyone is so scared of him, I'm still trying to convince him to do even more," Kerr told ESPN late 2017. Curry has leaned a little on it:
Thompson could never resolve to look for collisions, say coaches and executives at Golden State. He considered it as gimmicky. Thompson had confidence in his shot. He did not need free throws.
The Houston Rockets would probably push him harder. Part of what makes Golden State-Houston such an irresistible rivalry lies in the fact that the teams present themselves as ideological opposites deep in the spirit of basketball. These philosophical differences illuminate the ongoing debate on officials, which will fade – along with this series – if Houston does not win the 3rd and 4th home games.
Nor is it a dichotomy between good and evil, though some will frame it that way. It's more old-school versus new-school-we-do-not-know-all-to-do-with. The Warriors are purists of basketball almost at their own expense. Curry did not jump in Harrell, after all. Their motto is "strength in numbers". Even in some huge playoff games, Kerr stretches the rotation to breaking point. He prefers an equal opportunity attack in which everyone sifts, cuts, passes and touches the ball.
"Kerrism", as Ethan Strauss has dubbed The Athletic, has practical strategic goals. It's not just the basketball religion. An extended rotation keeps the players fresh. Touching the attacking ball causes everyone to play a harder defense. Moving the ball from one side to the other forces each opposing defender to expend energy.
And yet: Sometimes it looks a bit like dogma. Anderson Varejao plays in the seventh game of the 2016 NBA Finals (he however did not neglect the fact that he helped to tip the seventh game of the conference finals). The Warriors open the second quarter of a great match with Curry and Kevin Durant on the bench. Golden State refuses to just give the ball to Curry and Durant, or run without stopping between them, until they reach a moment of crisis. Twitter Warriors crack for "Kumbaya Kerr".
Although Curry and Thompson revolutionized the very idea of 3-point shooting, the Kerr Warriors remained true to a style that matches the historical aspect of basketball.
The Rockets do not care about anything. They care about mathematics. The calculation says that Harden's isolation is the most effective thing that they can do, so they do it again and again. The calculation says that Harden isolate in a 3-pointer recessed is the most effective version of this, so Harden now takes and makes more than 3 indent than anyone tried in a normal 3 up to Curry.
They are also short of talent compared to the largest collection of top talent ever assembled. They search all the edges, and there are not many edges beyond Harden that creates points in every way possible.
This is the hour of the playoffs. Do not miss these games.
Thursday (HE hours)
• Raptors at 76ers | 20h | ESPN
Friday
• Bucks at the Celtics | 20h | ESPN
• Nuggets at Blazers | 22:30. | ESPN
Saturday
• Rocket Warriors | 20:30. | ABC
Sunday
• Raptors at 76ers | 15:30. | ABC
Harden and these "landing spaces" 3 are at the heart of what Houston claims to be biased against them in face-to-face matches against Golden State. As Rachel Nichols and I reported on Monday, the Rockets did extensive calculations and concluded that the incorrect calls and the no-calls cost them 18 points last year in the seventh game of the final phase of the Conference. from West.
The NBA told ESPN that it was challenging Houston's methodology. It's just to do it. It's rather Houston-friendly.
The league would no longer comment, and it has not yet publicly contested that the total of missed calls and non-calls during this confrontation has favored Golden State over the last two grounds.
Sources say that such a difference exists. Although missed calls were made in both directions, the gap amounted to about three other final missed calls per game that put the Rockets at a disadvantage. This does not include the "potential infractions" not reported in the gray area, the flags of the NBA during a thorough review and inconclusive judgments.
(The NBA has refused to share this data because it is confidential.) Moreover, such a divergence would inevitably exist, to some extent, in any face-to-face series between two teams – and could swing in the opposite direction at any time. , given the small size of the samples.)
Here are things that the NBA has discovered after years of arbitration data analysis: although they earn tons of free throws, most dominant superstars do not get close to all the calls. that they deserve under the law. Most have a considerable relationship between incorrect non-calls – the ones they deserve but do not receive – and undeserved mistakes. (Cut to Shaq, shaking his head.)
This is inherent to the dominant superstar. Some beloved teams – Pat Riley, Heat, Jerry Sloan & # 39; s Jazz – defended themselves with great physical nonstop, as they knew referees just could not call each foul. If they did, the games would last four hours. Ball-dominant superstars suffer from something like the corollary of that.
A few seasons ago, Harden's foul ratio was probably typical of a dominant ball superstar – or something in the upper limit. This ratio probably increased when Harden pushed back the limits of individual use and took the step back 3 to such high volumes.
For better or for worse, Golden State's egalitarian style mitigates this type of extreme misconduct problem with Durant and Curry. (For the record, Kerr trained these series more urgently.) He started the series from the jump against Houston and was more willing to let Curry and especially cook Durant.) Kerr is of course right that referees Both are missing at every game, especially on readers. It's just that neither one nor the other has as much balloon as Harden.
1 related
Yes the Rockets are victims, they are at least a little victim of their own modernity based on mathematics – their unique dependence on Harden and his step back.
About: Credit Harden for accepting this burden, even if he benefits from it. It's taxing. He is bigger and stronger than Curry and stronger than Durant. He can absorb more shots.
Referees can not call everything. Some of the missed calls against Harden – including a couple in the first game of this series – rob Houston of these new three-shot fouls. A foul of three strokes is more profitable than almost any other result of offensive possession. As Kirk Goldsberry of ESPN put it on a podcast this week, a three-shot foul against Harden produces more points on average than an undisputed dunk Giannis Antetokounmpo.
These potential mistakes, at least in the way Harden produces them, are more or less new in basketball. What is even a "landing space"? Until where does it extend? Until where can Harden jump forward? Until a human being needs to jump ahead – to use his legs for more power – on triple backs, almost no one did it even five years ago? Until where can the Harden defender jump? A team from the Western Conference has asked its players not to advance at all against the decline of Harden, according to the sources of this team, to stay still and raise their arms.
Jay Williams on ESPN gets up! This week, we literally put two strips of masking tape on the floor and jumped between them, like an overgrown rabbit, to illustrate what was or was not a proper jump for jumpers.
If we are reduced to this type of granular analysis – in slow motion, in immaculate studio environments – what are the referees supposed to do during live matches?
Some calls are obvious. Thompson violently invaded Harden 's landing space on two shots while Harden did not advance much – bad missed calls. Harden's kick in the direction of Draymond Green when he attempted to tie the game in the final seconds of the first match was flagrant and abnormal.
Warriors also bend the rules. They do it simply in a way that everyone has accepted as an almost acceptable part of basketball culture. They sometimes place moving screens to free the shooters. They grab the defense when they can get away with it. And damn it, they complain to the referees.
The ways in which Houston follows the rules are new and unknown. The Rockets said the most experienced league officials, those who make up the most playoff teams, are the least likely to inflict Harden three fouls. Tom Haberstroh of NBC Sports wrote Tuesday that Harden had won fewer fouls by three shots per game in the playoffs than in the regular season.
If Curry had flung himself aside in Harrell, some commentators would surely have argued that he had deserved this little something with a real basketball game – a fake dummy. Illegal screens – a tactic used by all teams, but which the Warriors may use more effectively and to help better shooters – are considered cooperative acts. They are a teammate helping others. We bind the physical defense.
The league is still struggling with all that Harden is doing on these 3 steps back, not to mention the shredded subtleties of his driving game. In opposing the game of "pumping and jumping in a defender" – the one that Curry failed to do against Harrell – at Harden's attempts at "landing space", several coaches and leaders offered this distinction: Curry cheats the opponent; Harden deceives the referees. We are closer to real basketball.
These two acts are different. Once again: they are cousins, not of the immediate family. But illegal screens and seizures and catches under the radar could also be referred to as deceptive referees.
All Rockets complaints really go to Harden. They surely know that he will have little sympathy. He has led the league in free throw attempts in six of the last seven seasons. He drives and ends up shooting 3 times in some cases more to make contact than to try to steer the ball into the basket. He has a flop story.
The Rockets also missed 27 consecutive games with a chance to get to the finals of the NBA. Their lack of diversity in their style has hurt them in this game, in previous post-ups, and perhaps hurts them in a vague mathematical way with officials. They may have the right to complain, but they can also adapt.
[ad_2]
Source link