Discussion of The Conclusions One Can Draw from the Miami Series

[LucastheThird]

3 hours ago, Diesel said:

Milwaukee didn't get better.   Philly didn't get better.   Brooklyn.. didn't get better.   Boston... didn't get Better.  Miami didn't get better.  Toronto didn't get better.  NY didn't get better (even though they added different core players). 

These were the same teams and they did the same things.  There were only 2 teams that got better in the East:  Cleveland and Chicago.   Those are the only two teams that had changes in personnel that led to them being better. 

Nobody's counterattacks got better either.  Do you know that for the last 4 years, teams have been trying to surround Trae because he was our guy...  That's nothing new.  Go back and watch what NY and Philly tried to do to us last year.   The thing that stopped them then was JC and Clint with the lobs and the back doors attacking the rim.   Why do you think the PNR was so effective for us???  It keeps teams honest.  They can't bust the PNR if you have players that can attack the basket off ball.   That's JC's job.

Milwaukee - I agree, I think they got worse

Philly - Harden does make them a better team, not sure what was going on with him in the playoffs

Brooklyn - KD, Kyrie and Harden couldn't get much better, only worse (Harden forced his way out)

Boston - New coach bringing new life - everyone on team played better - got Horford back - they got better

Miami - PJ Tucker made them a tougher defensive team - they got better

Toronto - Stagnant 

NY - Worse

 

 

We knew what teams would do to attack us on defense and we never got another dynamic scorer to take the pressure off of Trae in those situations and we didn't change up our attack on offense. 

 

I stand by what I said, we didn't get better and other teams did. 

3 hours ago, sturt said:

WhatchutalkinboutWillis?

Than .621???

Not many.

This is fallacious thinking that is going to lead us into a very dark place if Schlenk's not sober to Real Hawks body of work.

You're no doubt talking about Gumbo Hawks... which will never (*knocks on wood*) grade the State Farm hardwood again.

 

Injuries are apart of the game my friend. We can't just look at our win percentage from when our starting group was healthy and say that's what our record would have been. We had to make a late push to even get in the Play-In Tournament and then got bounced by a better team. 

 

I'm not advocating for blowing the team up, but we do need a second All Star beside Trae and I don't see that player currently on the team. 

[sturt]

  

2 hours ago, LucastheThird said:

Injuries are apart of the game my friend.

Oh, we agree, of course.

 

Where there seems to be a difference is in how ordinary it is that when a team suffers an injury, the replacement for that player isn't even an NBA player. Indeed, I think you'd have to agree and adjust your calculus accordingly that it's not even that often that a starter is otherwise a 3rd stringer... usually there's a back-up to insert into the starting role rather than the back-up's back-up, or in some cases, the back-up's back-up who is normally a SF but having to play PF.

That of course is more precisely reflective of what happened for 22 games and 6 weeks.

 

Begging your indulgence...

 

So it's too broad of a brush to just assess that as "part of the game." It's different for different teams, too. The valid comparison to be made is "how did the team do without any 3rd string or G-leaguers starting vs. how they did with."

Anyone who has ever played the game at any level understands that it's truly a game of the "weakest link." When you've got a player whose talent level is markedly inferior, that's already a problem in itself. When you compound that by the player not having spent any practice time of any significance ever with the team, then you have someone who isn't familiar with defensive rotations, and who isn't necessarily a plug-in on offense either... that's more than any ordinary problem resulting ordinarily from an injury.

It upsets everything. And in the NBA, that has natural consequences to the degree that the other team isn't also starting 3rd string and G-leaguers.

 

Real Hawks... not having to work around that dire situation of Dec 1 - Jan 15... irrefutably performed at a .621 clip. And and and... it's not like there weren't any injuries for the 60 games where they performed at that level. To the contrary there were ordinary injuries virtually the entire season. And yet, they performed at a level equal to Boston and Milwaukee.

 

 

[bleachkit]

3 hours ago, sturt said:

  

Oh, we agree, of course.

 

Where there seems to be a difference is in how ordinary it is that when a team suffers an injury, the replacement for that player isn't even an NBA player. Indeed, I think you'd have to agree and adjust your calculus accordingly that it's not even that often that a starter is otherwise a 3rd stringer... usually there's a back-up to insert into the starting role rather than the back-up's back-up, or in some cases, the back-up's back-up who is normally a SF but having to play PF.

That of course is more precisely reflective of what happened for 22 games and 6 weeks.

 

Begging your indulgence...

 

So it's too broad of a brush to just assess that as "part of the game." It's different for different teams, too. The valid comparison to be made is "how did the team do without any 3rd string or G-leaguers starting vs. how they did with."

Anyone who has ever played the game at any level understands that it's truly a game of the "weakest link." When you've got a player whose talent level is markedly inferior, that's already a problem in itself. When you compound that by the player not having spent any practice time of any significance ever with the team, then you have someone who isn't familiar with defensive rotations, and who isn't necessarily a plug-in on offense either... that's more than any ordinary problem resulting ordinarily from an injury.

It upsets everything. And in the NBA, that has natural consequences to the degree that the other team isn't also starting 3rd string and G-leaguers.

 

Real Hawks... not having to work around that dire situation of Dec 1 - Jan 15... irrefutably performed at a .621 clip. And and and... it's not like there weren't any injuries for the 60 games where they performed at that level. To the contrary there were ordinary injuries virtually the entire season. And yet, they performed at a level equal to Boston and Milwaukee.

 

 

Yet we got completely dominated by the Miami Heat in the playoffs, who completely neutralized Trae. A fact you never seen to mention.

[Diesel]

6 hours ago, LucastheThird said:

 

Injuries are apart of the game my friend. We can't just look at our win percentage from when our starting group was healthy and say that's what our record would have been. We had to make a late push to even get in the Play-In Tournament and then got bounced by a better team. 

Why can't we look at our record when healthy and say.. .that's what we missed out on this season because we were injured?

When Klay and Draymond were injured for the GS Warriors, do you think that the Warriors FO was sitting around saying this team as built can't win... even when we're healthy?

When Klay and Draymond were injured, GS was a lottery team... Their lottery pick isn't even playing and they are back in the finals.   How's that Lucas??  Because their FO didn't based their team's success and future on what the team's record looked like while they were injured.   Their FO realized that their core players were injured and that they were still good even though they took some bad losses while injured.

But when the Hawks have an injured team.. and limp into the playoffs...  and lose... Hawks fans want to get rid of most of the players because we're not good... 

If you were a non-believer before when we made it to the ECF then just say that...  Don't mask it with believing that we are worse off or that the league got better... because none of that is true.

 

 

[LucastheThird]

53 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Why can't we look at our record when healthy and say.. .that's what we missed out on this season because we were injured?

When Klay and Draymond were injured for the GS Warriors, do you think that the Warriors FO was sitting around saying this team as built can't win... even when we're healthy?

When Klay and Draymond were injured, GS was a lottery team... Their lottery pick isn't even playing and they are back in the finals.   How's that Lucas??  Because their FO didn't based their team's success and future on what the team's record looked like while they were injured.   Their FO realized that their core players were injured and that they were still good even though they took some bad losses while injured.

But when the Hawks have an injured team.. and limp into the playoffs...  and lose... Hawks fans want to get rid of most of the players because we're not good... 

If you were a non-believer before when we made it to the ECF then just say that...  Don't mask it with believing that we are worse off or that the league got better... because none of that is true.

 

 

The problem with this thinking is, the Warriors were coming off of Dynasty levels of success when they had their injuries. They have done it for multiple years with their core of Steph, Klay and Draymond. The year before our playoff run, we didn't even make the playoffs. Even when we did make the playoffs, it was as the 5th seed and it took an incredible run from our team to get as far as we did. 

 

We can't compare our one year of success to the Warriors dynasty and say make no changes. 

[Diesel]

10 minutes ago, LucastheThird said:

The problem with this thinking is, the Warriors were coming off of Dynasty levels of success when they had their injuries. They have done it for multiple years with their core of Steph, Klay and Draymond. The year before our playoff run, we didn't even make the playoffs. Even when we did make the playoffs, it was as the 5th seed and it took an incredible run from our team to get as far as we did. 

 

We can't compare our one year of success to the Warriors dynasty and say make no changes. 

Yes we can because Success is success... We were coming off of the most successful run that our franchise has ever made...  When we were uninjured this year, we beat good teams...  (Philly, Boston, Miami, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Chicago, Phoenix, Dallas)... So the success translates...

You're trying to make distinction about things that are the same.

We were both good teams that had key players injured...  

Your flip flopping tells me that you didn't think we were good enough to be in the ECFs.  Just say that instead of heeing and hawing and trying to make invalid distinctions.  

[Diesel]

14 minutes ago, LucastheThird said:

it was as the 5th seed and it took an incredible run from our team to get as far as we did. 

Here's how I know you doubt.. this statement....

Last year, we were 14 and 20 when Lloyd was fired. 

Nate record as our coach last year was 27-11.  That's a 71% winning percentage.  If we won 71% of our games coming down the stretch.... why is the run so "incredible". 

Last year down the stretch = .711 team  = 58 win team (82 games)

This year while healthy = .621 team.  = 51 win team (82 games) 

The numbers suggest that we're better than our record says we are...

But it's sad that your focus is on how bad we are while we're injured...

[LucastheThird]

37 minutes ago, Diesel said:

Yes we can because Success is success... We were coming off of the most successful run that our franchise has ever made...  When we were uninjured this year, we beat good teams...  (Philly, Boston, Miami, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Chicago, Phoenix, Dallas)... So the success translates...

You're trying to make distinction about things that are the same.

We were both good teams that had key players injured...  

Your flip flopping tells me that you didn't think we were good enough to be in the ECFs.  Just say that instead of heeing and hawing and trying to make invalid distinctions.  

Not sure where you are getting any flip flopping from me Diesel. I've been very clear on how I've felt this year. Like most here, I thought that going into the season healthy we would be a top team. We were not a top team at any point this year. We were able to squeak into the playoffs and got beat by a better team. 

 

Realizing the flaws our team has is not the same as thinking we weren't good enough to make the ECF. Where are you getting that? 

 

If we go into the next season with no upgrades to our roster, that is a failure of an offseason and Schlenk should be fired. 

 

You can keep talking about injuries, but remember that Milwaukee was good enough to beat us without Giannis. Their secondary stars were good enough to beat us when their MVP went down, but our secondary stars can't produce when Trae is hobbled or has a bad game. That is what we need and what I have been advocating for all offseason. 

[sturt]

3 hours ago, bleachkit said:

Yet we got completely dominated by the Miami Heat in the playoffs, who completely neutralized Trae. A fact you never seen to mention.

Bleach, that's patently false. Patently.

I don't hold you accountable for seeing every post I post, but when you make that statement, if you're fair, you'd have run a search of my posts first to see if your accusation holds water.

Ordinarily, I think you've been one to try to be fair, so maybe you just didn't get your coffee early enough this morning.

To the contrary, it's routinely been addressed inside of the very same posts where I've rehashed what I just rehashed with @LucastheThird.

Here are some receipts (below). To summarize the thoughts:

(a) when you take away both of your PG's primary lob weapons, that's going to matter on offense (and incidentally @AHF has done an exceptional job of illuminating that in some of his posts);

(b) when you add to that that the opposing team comes into the series with legs that have had a week's rest, and you've had two win-or-go-home games in the four days prior to the series beginning, that's going to matter--and it's to that that I think it's natural to attribute each of our wings having had 4 bad games of the 5;

(c) putting all that aside and assuming a situation where neither a nor b happened, we still only could boast an offense that was (more than) capable to match MIA's... we were incapable of matching MIA's defense by anyone's assessment.

I've made the assertion that it was even highly predictable what happened in the MIA series, and that, before the first play-in game.

 

I'll be watching for your kind apology for the overstep.   And, again if you're fair, your acknowledgement that all of these hold water, and explain the MIA debacle in light of the Real Hawks' .621 season. Thanks, my friend.

 

==========================================================

[sturt]

46 minutes ago, LucastheThird said:

You can keep talking about injuries, but remember that Milwaukee was good enough to beat us without Giannis.

This statement is true, but it's misleading if one avoids also pointing out that we throttled both of the NBA Finals teams in games this season, BOS by 16, GSW by 11.

Our record against each conference's final 4 was 1 game above .500, which short of having a dynastic team, one should expect of a team that is in that upper tier.

Grass is pretty green over here on this side we're standing on.

[bleachkit]

19 minutes ago, sturt said:

Bleach, that's patently false. Patently.

I don't hold you accountable for seeing every post I post, but when you make that statement, if you're fair, you'd have run a search of my posts first to see if your accusation holds water.

Ordinarily, I think you've been one to try to be fair, so maybe you just didn't get your coffee early enough this morning.

To the contrary, it's routinely been addressed inside of the very same posts where I've rehashed what I just rehashed with @LucastheThird.

Here are some receipts (below). To summarize the thoughts:

(a) when you take away both of your PG's primary lob weapons, that's going to matter on offense (and incidentally @AHF has done an exceptional job of illuminating that in some of his posts);

(b) when you add to that that the opposing team comes into the series with legs that have had a week's rest, and you've had two win-or-go-home games in the four days prior to the series beginning, that's going to matter--and it's to that that I think it's natural to attribute each of our wings having had 4 bad games of the 5;

(c) putting all that aside and assuming a situation where neither a nor b happened, we still only could boast an offense that was (more than) capable to match MIA's... we were incapable of matching MIA's defense by anyone's assessment.

I've made the assertion that it was even highly predictable what happened in the MIA series, and that, before the first play-in game.

 

I'll be watching for your kind apology for the overstep.   And, again if you're fair, your acknowledgement that all of these hold water, and explain the MIA debacle in light of the Real Hawks' .621 season. Thanks, my friend.

 

==========================================================

Ah yes, the .621 winning percentage you proudly boast. I'm glad TS is not taking the glass half full perspective on this team. Hopefully, changes are in store. 

[sturt]

5 minutes ago, bleachkit said:

Ah yes, the .621 winning percentage you proudly boast. I'm glad TS is not taking the glass half full perspective on this team. Hopefully, changes are in store. 

Um. I've come to expect better from you than simplistic dismissiveness.

Dismissiveness isn't an argument. It's only dismissiveness. (You're allowed to quote me on that. )

Be intellectually sincere enough to debunk the substance offered. And seriously, I'm scratching my head that you'd be so brazen as to quote my post where I debunked to the nth degree your jab at my Hawks-fan-integrity. You should have the kahunas to at least acknowledge you misspoke and overreached. In my economy, I would anyhow.

Real Hawks .621? Yes.

Real Hawks MIA series debacle explained? Yes.

I'm very comfortable that the cases made are substantive, and of course, lead to a conclusion that isn't popular among some who want a flashy off-season.

[LucastheThird]

36 minutes ago, sturt said:

This statement is true, but it's misleading if one avoids also pointing out that we throttled both of the NBA Finals teams in games this season, BOS by 16, GSW by 11.

Our record against each conference's final 4 was 1 game above .500, which short of having a dynastic team, one should expect of a team that is in that upper tier.

Grass is pretty green over here on this side we're standing on.

We beat GS without Curry by 11. Not the statement win that I would hang my argument on. 

 

We aren't that far off from being a legit title contending team, we just need a legit secondary star next to Trae. I just don't see any of our current players taking that step. We have plenty of 3rd and 4th options and we can package 2 of those guys together for a 2nd option on the team. 

[sturt]

12 minutes ago, LucastheThird said:

We beat GS without Curry by 11. Not the statement win that I would hang my argument on. 

That's fair.

But the other part of my response remains stout... if you're .500 or even a game or two better against the best of both conferences, indeed...

 

12 minutes ago, LucastheThird said:

We aren't that far off

And compelling-er still... we aren't that far off and we aren't a roster of 27 year-olds, but 23 year-olds.

It takes some patience and wisdom, but 23 yr olds tend to not hit their ceiling until 25 or 26.

What you advocate (as do so many) is risky. It's flashy and exciting to get new toys. But it's risky.

If our guys were 3 years older, sure, taking the risk and making big flashy moves would seem necessary.

But this risk is unnecessary.

[bleachkit]

40 minutes ago, sturt said:

Um. I've come to expect better from you than simplistic dismissiveness.

Dismissiveness isn't an argument. It's only dismissiveness. (You're allowed to quote me on that. )

Be intellectually sincere enough to debunk the substance offered. And seriously, I'm scratching my head that you'd be so brazen as to quote my post where I debunked to the nth degree your jab at my Hawks-fan-integrity. You should have the kahunas to at least acknowledge you misspoke and overreached. In my economy, I would anyhow.

Real Hawks .621? Yes.

Real Hawks MIA series debacle explained? Yes.

I'm very comfortable that the cases made are substantive, and of course, lead to a conclusion that isn't popular among some who want a flashy off-season.

We lost a close out game to the Heat and they had no Lowry or Butler. Spo had absolutely no reason to believe the outcome of the series was ever in doubt. Our superstar point guard was utterly neutralized. The best player on the floor for much of the series was a guy that was benched for most of the year. We gave up 30 points to a shooter Spo stuck on the bench the rest of the playoffs. Our being the 8th seed should not matter according to your .621 analysis. We should have gone toe to toe with them. They had significant injuries as well. Instead we were soundly defeated.

[Diesel]

3 hours ago, LucastheThird said:

Not sure where you are getting any flip flopping from me Diesel. I've been very clear on how I've felt this year. Like most here, I thought that going into the season healthy we would be a top team. We were not a top team at any point this year. We were able to squeak into the playoffs and got beat by a better team. 

 

Realizing the flaws our team has is not the same as thinking we weren't good enough to make the ECF. Where are you getting that? 

 

If we go into the next season with no upgrades to our roster, that is a failure of an offseason and Schlenk should be fired. 

 

You can keep talking about injuries, but remember that Milwaukee was good enough to beat us without Giannis. Their secondary stars were good enough to beat us when their MVP went down, but our secondary stars can't produce when Trae is hobbled or has a bad game. That is what we need and what I have been advocating for all offseason. 

First you thought we were a top team.. then you thought we were not a top team.  By action..

Anyway...

Why do you always mention us losing when we're missing key players due to injury???

You mention Milwaukee beating us.. did you forget that Trae got injured in that series??? I would suggest that Trae is far more important to our team than Giannis is to theirs... 

Without Giannis, they still have Middleton, Holiday, Portis, and Twin..  who do we have without Trae?  They still have allstars when Giannis is not on the floor.. what do we have??

This is the flaw in your arguments Lucas.. You can't see the fact that Injury makes a difference??

 

 

[Diesel]

1 hour ago, bleachkit said:

We lost a close out game to the Heat and they had no Lowry or Butler. Spo had absolutely no reason to believe the outcome of the series was ever in doubt. Our superstar point guard was utterly neutralized. The best player on the floor for much of the series was a guy that was benched for most of the year. We gave up 30 points to a shooter Spo stuck on the bench the rest of the playoffs. Our being the 8th seed should not matter according to your .621 analysis. We should have gone toe to toe with them. They had significant injuries as well. Instead we were soundly defeated.

When you can reach on the bench and pull out former All NBA player... to replace Butler... I don't think you lose anything in all honest.  And honestly Vincent played better than Lowry.   Lowry's work on the floor was fouling and flopping for fouls.   Also, our offensive situation didn't get any better?   They were still able to put Bam, Tucker and Stus on Trae and we had no way of scoring...  There was no Lobs.. Gallo is not going up to get a lob.  OO is not fluent in PNR.  And this game that you bring up so often... We were missing CC, JC, and Bogi...  Think about that in terms of our offense...

21.6% of of our offenisve plays go through Bogi

20.5% of our offensive plays go through Collins. 

15.5% of our offense goes through Clint. 

We were missing 57+% of our offense...   Miami triple team Trae from 3/4 court away and forced somebody else to beat them.  Miami didn't have to worry about our offensive game plan because we had no other threats.  The one threat we had was Hunter and he did what he could. 

How did you expect us to compete under those conditions?  You expected Kev to put up 40?  How about OO??  We love OO and all but coming into the playoffs, for the month of April, he was averaging 5.6 ppg, 6.0 rpg in 19.7 mpg.  This was his lowest point production since March of last year... when he was averaging 7.7 mpg.   Lou wasn't playing either.... So who were you expecting to step up?

Kevin, Hunter, and No Knox?

 

 

 

[bleachkit]

19 minutes ago, Diesel said:

When you can reach on the bench and pull out former All NBA player... to replace Butler... I don't think you lose anything in all honest.  And honestly Vincent played better than Lowry.   Lowry's work on the floor was fouling and flopping for fouls.   Also, our offensive situation didn't get any better?   They were still able to put Bam, Tucker and Stus on Trae and we had no way of scoring...  There was no Lobs.. Gallo is not going up to get a lob.  OO is not fluent in PNR.  And this game that you bring up so often... We were missing CC, JC, and Bogi...  Think about that in terms of our offense...

21.6% of of our offenisve plays go through Bogi

20.5% of our offensive plays go through Collins. 

15.5% of our offense goes through Clint. 

We were missing 57+% of our offense...   Miami triple team Trae from 3/4 court away and forced somebody else to beat them.  Miami didn't have to worry about our offensive game plan because we had no other threats.  The one threat we had was Hunter and he did what he could. 

How did you expect us to compete under those conditions?  You expected Kev to put up 40?  How about OO??  We love OO and all but coming into the playoffs, for the month of April, he was averaging 5.6 ppg, 6.0 rpg in 19.7 mpg.  This was his lowest point production since March of last year... when he was averaging 7.7 mpg.   Lou wasn't playing either.... So who were you expecting to step up?

Kevin, Hunter, and No Knox?

 

 

 

JC was playing. Hurt or not he was still playing. You don't get to pretend be doesn't count. The laughable rationalizations we make for the Hawks we would never afford another team in any debate. We got our butts whooped. Full stop. 

[theheroatl]

If you want to side debate John Collins please start another thread. Please post about trade rumors or signings here.

[Sothron]

Seriously, can we keep this is to trade rumors or ask questions of the insiders? This is becoming once again a daily talk thread.