Hack a Ben

[Atlantaholic]

19 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Well i see your point but you also left out that we hacked him several times before the last two minutes which is when you do it anyway.  Hiss two missed free throws with 3.5 left and subsequent Cap dunk swung the game from what could have been a 10 point lead to a 6 point lead.   Other than Embiid folding under the pressure those two misses by Simmons were a huge turning point.   

Not to jump in the middle of your discussion but hack a simmons was definitely a strategy we used and it worked for us last night.   

Yup, and beyond that it also took Simmons completely out of the equation mentally. The dude was treating the ball like it was Covid down the stretch. 

[Diesel]

13 minutes ago, Atlantaholic said:

Yup, and beyond that it also took Simmons completely out of the equation mentally. The dude was treating the ball like it was Covid down the stretch. 

What AHF missed is that we didn't employ hac-a-ben in the last 2 minutes because we really didn't have to.   We had employed it since the 2nd qtr.  It was a major part of our comeback strategy and seeing him not want the ball down the stretch was the fruit of it. 

 

[AHF]

1 hour ago, macdaddy said:

Well i see your point but you also left out that we hacked him several times before the last two minutes which is when you do it anyway.  Hiss two missed free throws with 3.5 left and subsequent Cap dunk swung the game from what could have been a 10 point lead to a 6 point lead.   Other than Embiid folding under the pressure those two misses by Simmons were a huge turning point.   

Not to jump in the middle of your discussion but hack a simmons was definitely a strategy we used and it worked for us last night.   

Let me make this clear.

We used hack-a-Ben when we were trying to come back and it worked great.  There is no strategic quandary when you are down and want the minimum amount of time to run off the clock while also keeping your opponent's scoring as low as possible.  The key strategic decision comes up in this context:

• Very little time left in the game
• The other team is trying to make a comeback
• You want the clock to run out
• Ben is on the floor representing a possible empty or limited offensive possession for the other team

The whole thing Diesel and I have been discussing for the last week or so is whether it makes sense in that context to hack Ben.  Hacking Ben with 3:31 second left in the game when we are down 8 is not a strategy discussion.  We want as much time as possible to make this comeback and Ben is a bad FT shooter having a bad game from the line.  That is the last time we fouled him because when he was next on the floor it was with 2 and a half minutes remaining and suddenly we didn't necessarily want that clock to last forever and we weren't willing to gamble on sending him to the line anymore when we were close or had taken the lead.

The whole discussion is not around whether hacking Shaq or Ben or a similar shooter can ever be useful.  I'm fully on board with that.  The key gamble is in the limited context I described above.  Diesel was advocating for us hacking Ben when we were up by a single possession and there was less than a minute on the clock in the prior thread.  So what we did in the second quarter, third quarter and even most of the fourth quarter is a different situation.

That is why I focused on what we did the last 2:29 of the game and especially what we did once we had the lead.  Simmons was on the floor.  We could have chosen to foul him and gotten what is a pretty great (for us) offensive possession for Philly guaranteed but one that carries the risk of stopping the clock, giving an easy look (even if Ben was psyched out for most of the game as was clearly the case), and a potential offensive rebound on a missed ft. 

We faced that choice and we didn't decide to hack Ben.  

[Wretch]

I'm trying to figure out how I managed to miss so much Philadelphia basketball all these years. I guess I just never watched them, but man, I did not know Ben was bad like that.  I knew he didn't shoot 3's, but I had no idea that the man has absolutely no jumpshot.
 

[Thomas]

Our strategy towards Simmons was last night and should be moving forward so reminiscent of Jim Valvano's strategy against Phi Slama Jama. Simmons has a tremendous flaw with being the ball handler. Exploit the hell out of it. 

[Atlantaholic]

4 minutes ago, Wretch said:

I'm trying to figure out how I managed to miss so much Philadelphia basketball all these years. I guess I just never watched them, but man, I did not know Ben was bad like that.  I knew he didn't shoot 3's, but I had no idea that the man has absolutely no jumpshot.
 

Ben is a classic fraud, he has big moments in games that don't matter, but at the end of the day how can you be a PG when you are incapable of shooting the ball from five feet out of the basket? Ben should be turned into a PF, but then his size advantage disappears and he's just John Collins with no jump shot and better passing.

[HawkingAwesome]

6 minutes ago, Wretch said:

I'm trying to figure out how I managed to miss so much Philadelphia basketball all these years. I guess I just never watched them, but man, I did not know Ben was bad like that.  I knew he didn't shoot 3's, but I had no idea that the man has absolutely no jumpshot.
 

yeah he can't hit anything outside of 8ft 

[Spud2nique]

11 minutes ago, Wretch said:

I'm trying to figure out how I managed to miss so much Philadelphia basketball all these years. I guess I just never watched them, but man, I did not know Ben was bad like that.  I knew he didn't shoot 3's, but I had no idea that the man has absolutely no jumpshot.
 

But the real question is, did Okongwu excite you just a little bit last night? 

[Atlantaholic]

5 minutes ago, HawkingAwesome said:

yeah he can't hit anything outside of 8ft 

He's had five years to develop any kind of variability to his game. And has done NOTHING. Hides like a little girl in big moments. All Star. Don't make me laugh. 

[Spud2nique]

Ben is a terrific athlete on the basketball court but not a terrific pure basketball player by any means.

 

[HawkingAwesome]

1 minute ago, Atlantaholic said:

He's had five years to develop any kind of variability to his game. And has done NOTHING. Hides like a little girl in big moments. All Star. Don't make me laugh. 

yeah it's amazing philly gave him all that money to be a none and D guy

[Atlantaholic]

1 minute ago, Spud2nique said:

Ben is a terrific athlete on the basketball court but not a terrific pure basketball player by any means.

 

Terrific athletes are dima a dozen in the NBA. Ben is effective because he is taller than everyone else that plays his position. That's it. That's his edge. 

[HawkingAwesome]

"highly paid Roberson" i'm dead

if i'm ben i'm in the gym right now shooting free throws

[TheNorthCydeRises]

3 hours ago, AHF said:

Not being able to have bad free throw shooters like Capela, Simmons, etc. on the floor down the stretch is a known positive for opponents facing these suspect shooters - sometimes coaches bench these good players and sometimes they don't.  The team defending the bad FT shooter doesn't make a strategic choice about whether to play the FT shooting liability. The strategic question for the team defending that bad FT shooter goes to whether to stop the clock with a hack when that player is on the floor and you are winning.  That didn't happen last night.  In fact, Philly didn't even bench him down the stretch until the final shot.

If your point is that Ben is a bad free throw shooter then we agree.  If your point is that teams should be hacking him when leading Philly by a slim margin in the last minute or so, then last night is not the case for that proposition.

Let's look at the tape:

2:29 left in the game, Simmons is on the floor.  Atlanta trails by 4. 

2:17 Trae nails a floater. 102-104 Philly lead

Hawks consciously don't foul Simmons and play straight up D.

 1:49 Harris misses 

1:26 Trae is fouled and hits 3 FT.  105-104 Hawks lead

Philly makes an offense/defense swap by putting Thybulle in the game but leaves Simmons on the floor.

Hawks consciously don't foul Simmons and play straight up D.

1:13 Harris misses; on stopped ball Thybulle comes back in.  Simmons remains on the floor.

0:52 Gallo hits the fadeaway  107-104 Hawks lead

Philly leaves Simmons on the floor.

Hawks consciously don't foul Simmons and play straight up D.

0:45 Curry misses a 3

0:24 Trae misses a 3

0:21  Philly timeout.  Philly leaves Simmons on the floor.

Hawks consciously don't foul Simmons and play straight up D.

0:10 Gallo fouls Embiid who misses both FT

0:10 Atlanta timeout

0:08 Trae goes to the line to hit 2 109-104 Hawks lead

Only now when shooting a desperation 3 does Philly sub Simmons out.  Korkmaz misses the 3, Curry hits a 2 and game over.

 

So last night was absolutely a case study for whether the Hawks would chose to hack Simmons when the game was close down the stretch and they clearly chose not to do so.  

 

 

In fairness, if they did intentionally foul Simmons with under 2 minutes left, it's 2 shots and ball back to Philly.

Having said that, I'm not a particular fan of Hack a Ben . . ONLY from the standpoint that it racks up fouls on our main guys.

From a strategy standpoint, we have to be careful as to not give them free points unnecessarily.

 

[TheNorthCydeRises]

17 minutes ago, Spud2nique said:

Ben is a terrific athlete on the basketball court but not a terrific pure basketball player by any means.

 

I heard a caller on NBA radio say that very thing, when talking about Ben and Giannis.   They're great athletes, but not great basketball players.

Giannis will at least be in attack mode, going to the rim.  Ben is timid, because he's afraid that if he attacks, he'll get fouled.

[AHF]

11 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

 

In fairness, if they did intentionally foul Simmons with under 2 minutes left, it's 2 shots and ball back to Philly.

Having said that, I'm not a particular fan of Hack a Ben . . ONLY from the standpoint that it racks up fouls on our main guys.

From a strategy standpoint, we have to be careful as to not give them free points unnecessarily.

 

That is only if they make it super obvious.  You can foul someone on any play - especially the moment they touch the ball.  It is only shots and the ball when you are fouling them egregiously off the ball.

But that is exactly what prompted the whole conversation.  Whether we should hack Ben (presumably in a situation where he doesn't get the ball and the shots) with the lead and time running out or just defend them and give them the chance to hit a 3, etc.

[JayBirdHawk]

20 minutes ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

I heard a caller on NBA radio say that very thing, when talking about Ben and Giannis.   They're great athletes, but not great basketball players.

Giannis will at least be in attack mode, going to the rim.  Ben is timid, because he's afraid that if he attacks, he'll get fouled.

...and this is the difference between the two.  Giannis is willing and unafraid to shoot, Ben is a reluctant and afraid to shoot.  If he's your 2nd highest paid player and WILL NOT attempt to even look at the basket in crunch time - he's useless.  His defense is just not good enough to overcome that fatal flaw.

[AHF]

50 minutes ago, Wretch said:

I'm trying to figure out how I managed to miss so much Philadelphia basketball all these years. I guess I just never watched them, but man, I did not know Ben was bad like that.  I knew he didn't shoot 3's, but I had no idea that the man has absolutely no jumpshot.
 

The only thing I'll say in his "defense" is that his prior two playoff runs he shot around 70% and 57.5% from the line rather than the ~33% he is shooting from the line in the playoffs this season.  While 70% is fair and 57.5% is still bad, the impact of shooting 33% is dramatically worse.  

He definitely has no jumper and has gotten a free pass on his limited offensive ability due to Embiid's offensive brilliance, imo.  Simmons can pass, drive to the hoop (when he isn't terrified of being fouled) and defend but like others have said that doesn't add up to the elevated status of his reputation and AS, etc. honors.  Kid is overrated.

[macdaddy]

I think the NBA effectively eliminated the hack strategy under 2 minutes.   Certainly if he was driving for a layup we would have crushed him but we aren't going to risk an off the ball foul because that would certainly give them the ball back.

[AHF]

3 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

I think the NBA effectively eliminated the hack strategy under 2 minutes.   Certainly if he was driving for a layup we would have crushed him but we aren't going to risk an off the ball foul because that would certainly give them the ball back.

This makes sense as long as he didn't touch the ball, set a screen, etc. for the last two and a half minutes on offense.  

But the reality is there were two easy, zero risk opportunities to foul Simmons:

2:06  Simmons receives a pass from Curry.  Could have hacked him with zero risk of getting an off-ball call and didn't try.

0:47 Simmons sets a screen.  Could have run him over and sent him to the line with near zero risk of getting shots and the ball but didn't try.

In addition, Simmons was jousting for rebounding position on several plays during this time which could have been done more aggressively to get a foul but I agree that is risky.

Atlanta played straight up D the entire time with no sign that they desired to hack Ben during this period.