niremetal

What are you talking about? When Crawford comes into the game, it's totally different. Instead of JJ shooting fadeaways with 4 seconds on the clock, Jamal pulls up for a contested jumper with 17 seconds left on the clock. It's totally different! :snowballfight: It is most certainly Woody's "style" of offense. On the Hawks, there is no offensive system in place designed to create ball movement and off-ball movement. Thus, it is up to the individual players to create ball movement and off-ball movement. JJ and Jamal are not point guards; they are scoring wings. So when you put the ball in their hands and ask them to create without an offensive system in place, of course they are going to look to shoot first. That's what shooting guards do. Kobe, Kevin Martin, Michael Redd, D-Wade, Brandon Roy (seriously, go look at a Blazers Edge blog during Blazers games sometime, and it's eerie how similar their critiques of Roy are to those of JJ around here), Ray Allen/Paul Pierce, Vince Carter...etc, etc, etc. The difference is that Wade is the only guy on that list who is asked to initiate the offense on a significant number of possessions while he's in the game (you can add Kobe to that list in the 4th quarter of a close game). And whaddya know? People deride Wade as a ballhog too. Usually, a shooting guard works off the ball when the offensive set begins. But in Atlanta, JJ and Jamal (and formerly Flip) are asked to initiate the offense almost as often as Bibby when they are in the game. When you ask a shooting guard to do that without implementing a motion offense (Triangle, Princeton, flex, etc) of some kind, you shouldn't act surprised when the ball stops on a lot of possessions. In Phoenix, JJ played off the ball when Nash was in the game, and played lead guard when Nash was resting - but he did it in the context of D'Antoni's system that emphasized rapid ball movement and constant off-ball movement to create open shots as early in the clock as possible. JJ was always considered an unselfish player in Phoenix, as D'Antoni himself has said. But in Atlanta, JJ and Jamal are playing in a "system" where neither ball movement OR off-ball movement (much less both) is engrained. In that type of system, you can't ask shooting guards to initiate the offense and expect them to play like Chris Paul.

...and then point and laugh.

I love how AJ sounds like a member of Alvin and the Chipmunks. No matter how many times I watch shows with him, I'm a little surprised when his voice first comes on.

Warn't me, believe it or not.

And I suppose the 50% of the game where we were, you know, playing defense are irrelevant? Because on several of those plays, you could very easily argue that JJ saved us the game. As I said, you have to watch damned selectively to come to the conclusion that Joe was the cause of us almost losing. You also have to willfully ignore the other plays where JJ rotated the ball to his teammates and only took two shots (both on the same possession, neither off an ISO and both good looks, although admittedly from the inefficient mid-range) in the final six minutes. Oh, and on those three (yes, three) plays where JJ went ISO in the fourth? On only one of them did he have a teammate moving meaningfully to get open. And in the end, he only took 4 shots in the quarter and committed one turnover. If you want to selectively zero in on the two-minute stretch where he executed two unsuccessful ISOs (and Crawford missed one ill-advised shot on the possession before) and zero in on those three consecutive bad possessions as the cause of us almost losing...well, that's focusing only on the plays that you want to focus on. Someone else could just as easily focus on the Hawks' defensive lapses during the first 6 minutes of the quarter, virtually none of which can be blamed on JJ if you re-watch the game tape.

I did watch it without emotion, at least with respect to JJ. And I re-watched it on DVR. I actually am not some huge JJ booster. He's no better than my third favorite starter after Horf and Bibby. But he's also the player (along with Marvin) who gets the most flak around here. Tonight it was undeserved. JJ was not hogging the ball in the fourth quarter. He did not almost cost us the game. You only can come to that conclusion if you watch the game looking for plays where Joe messed up. But people remember the plays they want to remember. That's the way it goes, but I'm gonna call BS on it.

I would rather have us play Miami or Chicago and see Orlando have to contend with Toronto or New York. I actually think that we would easily dispatch Toronto, but Orlando is the Big Three team that we have the most trouble with, and Toronto is the second tier team that gives them the most trouble. They lost to Toronto on Wednesday (in Orlando), and won two pretty close games against Toronto in November. Teams that have good-shooting big men that force Dwight out of the perimeter give the Magic trouble, at least on that end of the floor. I just don't want to see us matched up with Charlotte.

He got 8 assists. How the hell is that not trusting his teammates? Tonight, he had only 2 FGAs per assist, which is damned good for a shooting guard. Actually, there are people saying run Joe out of town. Yes, there is room for improvement. There is room for improvement with every damned player in the universe. I get sick of people singling out the players they don't like for criticism even without acknowledging that they are holding that player to a different standard than their favored players. There were 3 ISO-JJs run in the fourth quarter (and, not incidentally, even those might not have been run if we had a coach who actually implemented an offensive system). Three. Joe took 4 shots. Four. He made one turnover. One. And he played remarkable defense on both Pierce and Allen at different points down the stretch. Four shots and one turnover in 21 23 possessions. One assist, and at least 3 possessions where he passed the ball to an open teammate who missed the shot. And people are still saying that JJ's ballhogging and distrusting his teammates almost cost us the game. Marinate on that. Because that is fracking ridiculous.

Yeah, you're right. He took 2 fewer shots than his average, dished out 8 assists, and at least two of his turnovers should have been foul calls. I guess Joe shouldn't shoot at all when he's having a bad game, right? Oh, and just ignore the fact that he played outstanding defense, without which the Celtics would have won as well. The standards that people hold their disfavored players to is truly mind-boggling. We all know how you feel about Joe. In your mind, Joe's not allowed to make up for an off night shooting by taking a couple fewer shots, getting a few more assists, and cranking up the defensive intensity. No, on nights like that, he has to pass the ball EVERY TIME and NEVER turn it over.

His team plays every Sunday in the Spanish League. You can check box scores here: http://www.eurobasket.com/Spain/basketball.asp His profile/stat page is here: http://www.acb.com/jugador.php?id=BHT

3 > 2. That's also real math. 3 > 2 by a greater proportion than 39 > 35. That's also real math. Ok. 3 > 2. I'm done. How you continue to argue this is really beyond me.

Ok, since you mentioned him twice, I just looked up JJ: http://hoopdata.com/player.aspx?name=Joe%20Johnson Here is the ranking of his eFG% by spot on the floor: At rim - 57% <10ft - 55.2% 3pt - 51.0% 10-15ft - 49.2% 15-23ft - 39.0% And here is the ranking of where he scores his points, in descending order: 3pt - 4.8ppg (1.6 x 3) At rim - 4.2ppg (2.1 x 2) <10ft - 3.8ppg (...) 16-23 - 3.6ppg 10-15ft - 1.8ppg And it was the exact same order last year. So if mid-range is the area of the floor where JJ scores the least points and shoots the lowest effective percentage, how exactly does he "kill people" from there? It sounds like that is where JJ is LEAST effective. Thanks for proving my point.

There's a difference between 50% FG% and 50% 2P%. And yes, I would rather have have no preference between a 33% 3FG shooter than a 50% 2P shooter if I were picking blindly and knew nothing about the team's needs. Beyond that, it's case by case. The point of all this is simple: The mid-range jumper is less efficient than the 3 pointer. You called that a lie. And now you're just bobbing, weaving, and generally sounding foolish trying to keep up the argument. Keep LOLing all you want. You have nothing but bluster and your anecdotes about the "good ol' days" to back up your argument that the mid-range jumper isn't the least efficient shot in the game.

It's funny, but for some reason the "View the Full Article" links to a Tweet rather than to the actual article. The direct link is the the bit.ly one.

As if on cue... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703436504574640321755710720.html That's from yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

I love you how say that they are looked down upon as if your opinion is SO obviously right that it is held almost universally. Clearly, it is not. I do not look down on a 33% 3 point shooter. Neither do a lot of people around here. Neither do a lot of the basketball writers and other lay "experts." In fact, I'd wager that neither do most GMs in the league today. And even if I were to grant that most fans "look down on" a 33% 3-point shooter compared to a 50% 2-point shooter (and I don't grant that they do - it doesn't take more than a quick look at the stat sheets to realize that a 50% 2 point shooter is not that impressive; the league average is 49%), that doesn't mean a damned thing. As in all sports, the closer you get to the people in charge of making decisions, the more you realize that the views held by the loudest fans are not necessarily shared by those who actually know what the hell they're talking about.

You explained it perfectly, but Northcyde won't care. Or he'll try to find some way to say that 2+2 is not, in fact, 4.

And the least efficient shot in the game is the mid-range jumper. It's actually more efficient to shoot 25% from deep (you average .75 points per possession) than it is to shoot 35% from mid-range (.7 ppp). And as mrhonline's post showed, Josh is actually shooting 22% from midrange. So yeah. I actually preferred it when he was chucking threes instead of long 2s. At least in those days we got 3 points instead of 2 when he actually managed to hit it.

Heh...it's funny cuz it's true.

Rudy Gay and Rajon Rondo are big drawing cards? Yeah, ok.

I was gonna say...ain't this the wrong week to post that? :snowballfight:

The Hawks actually would not have been able to do the trade of Acie and Speedy for Crawford today due to the fact that Speedy was due for a big annual paycut on July 1 (his contract is frontloaded) while Crawford was due for a big annual pay raise on July 1 (because his contract is backloaded). Today, we’d have had to throw in RandMo's contract to get the deal done. Presumably the Warriors wanted to do the trade before July 1 was for that very reason - they wanted to get the savings from Speedy's imminent paycut (and Crawford's imminent raise). The fact that the Hawks basically ate $900k to ensure the deal got done says something. Again, one would think fact that that fact plus the fact that the Hawks have an increased payroll (thanks to the annual raises for Joe/Josh/Al and the acquisition of Crawford) for the fourth straight year would convince people that the front office has the means and the desire to spend what it takes to win. The Bibby and Crawford trades in particular should put to rest the idea that the Hawks (or its owners) are simply unwilling to spend money if it will improve the team enough to justify the cost. But some people undoubtedly will insist on living in 2006. Now, we obviously could have gone and used the MLE to sign another mediocre free agent. But I seriously don't think anyone here can name a person that we could have signed that would 1) have chosen to play with the Hawks at the MLE over the team he ultimately went with (e.g. we could have offered Sheed the MLE, but no way he comes here over Boston); and 2) would constitute an improvement over whichever current player(s) he was replacing (e.g. we could have spent our MLE on Ime Udoka and/or David Andersen, but they wouldn't get minutes over Mo or Zaza). And we didn't have any cap space, and so couldn't spend more than the MLE this summer. But hey, as I said, I know some people will always insist on living in 2006...

I'm sorry, but did you just use Eddie House as an example of someone who can play D? I think House skipped that letter in grammar school. :snowballfight: But the Celtics do have this guy named Rondo who can play a little D at the PG spot. I'm exaggerating about House. He sometimes gives good effort, but he can't/doesn't move his feet even remotely quick enough to stay in front of speedster PGs.

Mike Bibby Career Stats: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/bibbymi01.html NBA Career Assist Leaders: http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/ast_career.html Looks like the last Hawk to reach the mark was Mookie. Congrats in advance to Bibby - let's hope he gets in done in the first quarter tonight!

Mine: To Whom It May Concern: I am not a conspiracy theorist by any stretch, but I was amazed that the officials in the Hawks-Cavs game both failed to notice that the shot clock did not reset on that critical late game possession AND refused to correct their own error by allowing the Hawks to replay the possession from the time of the mishap. My view is simple: Two years ago, the NBA allowed the Heat to replay the final minute of a game with the Hawks when a scorekeeping error resulted in Shaquille O'Neal being disqualified with 5 fouls. The error last night was even more egregious, because it is even more obvious that the error could have affected the outcome of the game. If you don't allow a re-play of the final 1:57 of the Hawks-Cavs game, you shouldn't bother trying to convince NBA fans that you treat all teams the same. It is the job of the officials, not the players or coaches, to stop the game and correct shot clock mishaps. The Hawks protested the error in a timely fashion, but the officials refused to correct the mistake that they themselves were responsible for. The error occurred on a critical possession. The Hawks may well have lost anyway, but that is not the point. Just as the Heat were allowed to replay the final minute of a game they lost even after the player most directly involved was traded to another team, the NBA should allow the final 1:57 of this game to be re-played. Like the Heat, the Hawks should not be penalized for an officiating/timekeeping error that was in no way their responsibility. This was an objective error, not a subjective error like a missed foul call. It is the NBA's responsibility to correct it. Sincerely, [Niremetal]