Official Playoff Game Thread: Celtics at Hawks -- GAME 6 (8:30 PM Tip!)

[SalvorMallow]

11 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

I agree that FTs are important, especially in the regular season.  Not trying to ignore them, but I also agree that there importance decreases in the playoffs.  There's no denying that the strategy of trying to draw a foul late in the games don't work for Trae.  Whether it's a general rule or one where he specifically just doesn't get the calls, I don't know.  But whatever the reasoning, it's far better to me if he shoots more efficiently rather than trying to get to the line all the time.  

 

Milwaukee just got knocked out of the playoffs because Giannis couldn't hit his freethrows. We just won game 5 because Trae hit his. No idea how you can say free throws diminish in importance in the playoffs.

[Peoriabird]

Just now, Diesel said:

What if they traded Clint and replaced him with OO.

I proposed a Clint for Isaac's trade.   Defense and scoring off the bench. 

The question is.. Can OO and JC make a natural mix?  JC can work down low and OO can work somewhere other than down low?

We need a 7 footer on the roster period

[Diesel]

2 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

I don't follow.  What is his argument?  Nothing I posted suggests Trae should be traded.  

A lot of the statement made here on HS about Trae are right from the mouth of Skip Bayless or Stephen A. Smith. 

This week, while reporting Game 5,  Stephen A Smith started his trade conversation about Trae Young.  He said that the Hawks want to trade Trae young because he is 3rd from last in the total league in EFG%.

When I saw your argument, i realized that whoever brought it up was just parrotting Stephen A. Smtih. 

 

[Peoriabird]

21 minutes ago, shakes said:

hmm, it's almost like one player lives off of catch and shoot wide open 3s and the other gets his 3s off the dribble with a man closely guarding him.

 

I wonder if JC has a better catch and shoot career percentage than Trae?

Easy solution then have shoot more catch and shoot 3's!!  Isn't this pretty simple?

[REHawksFan]

1 minute ago, Diesel said:

What if they traded Clint and replaced him with OO.

I proposed a Clint for Isaac's trade.   Defense and scoring off the bench. 

The question is.. Can OO and JC make a natural mix?  JC can work down low and OO can work somewhere other than down low?

I actually like the idea of moving on to OO from Clint and playing OO with JC.  I'd want OO to develop his range a little more so that he becomes an actual threat from the perimeter.  And I think Quin seems to be moving that direction anyway.  I'm not sure on Isaac specifically, but I like the concept of it.  

I've been high and low on JC for a while now.  I think I've settled on the idea that he's just blocked with Clint and Murray. We are utilizing JC correctly.  Clint takes his PNR reps and Murray gets more shots in general so there just doesn't seem to be anywhere that JC gets utilized.  But moving off of CC may open that up for him.    

[Diesel]

4 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

if he is the 1st option as is meaning he can't eliminate those poor decision then there will be a cap on how good  the offense regardless of the personnel but if he starts to make better decisions especially late in games, the Hawks offensive potential goes way up!

There's a important bit of the issue that you're not considering.

This year, we ranked 21st in 3pt%.  The only teams lower than us were: 

Lottery and Playin teams.  This speaks to how well we can space the floor and how much space Trae gets from a defender.  If Trae can't get space, his Efficiency goes down.  OK.. That makes sense.

But What happens if you get players who can give Trae Space?

Last year.. with Delon, Bogi, Gallo, Lou, and Kev on the team...

We ranked #2 overall in 3pt%.  The only team better than us were:

 

With More spacers on the floor, Trae was #1 in total points.  #1 in total assists.  He had a higher EFG%.  He had a higher TS%.

The math here is simple...  Don't complicate it. 

 

 

[JeffS17]

10 minutes ago, SalvorMallow said:

Milwaukee just got knocked out of the playoffs because Giannis couldn't hit his freethrows. We just won game 5 because Trae hit his. No idea how you can say free throws diminish in importance in the playoffs.

Obviously one free throw = one point, but what does diminish is the importance of drawing soft fouls, which is what Trae has historically leaned on in the regular season.  Those calls dried up in the post season -- look at how many times he tried to catch a defender running into him and jumped to take a wild shot and either bricked it with no call or had to pass out because there was no whistle.  He didn't get touch fouls driving to the lane that he largely gets in the regular season.  I don't think anyone that watched that series can argue the way he was forced to play changed.

[REHawksFan]

5 minutes ago, SalvorMallow said:

Milwaukee just got knocked out of the playoffs because Giannis couldn't hit his freethrows. We just won game 5 because Trae hit his. No idea how you can say free throws diminish in importance in the playoffs.

I'm not saying FTs aren't important to make.  Of course they are.  I'm saying in the playoffs the refs are less likely to call as many fouls as in the regular season so relying on FTs to increase your scoring is a fools errand, imo.  

Consider this:

• Giannis regular season 12.3 /gm - Playoffs 10.3 (-2)
• Embiid reg season 11.7 / playoffs 8.0 (-3.7)
• Trae reg season 8.8 / playoffs 7.2 (-1.6)
• Butler reg season 8.7 / playoffs 9.6 (+0.9)
• Tatum reg season 8.4 / playoffs 4.8 (-3.6)
• Ja reg season 8.1 / playoffs 5.5 (-3.6)

That's the top 6 players in FTA from the regular season that made the playoffs.  All of them except Butler are down significantly in FTA.  And his are highly skewed by Game 4 where he went to the line 18 times.  Otherwise, he's avg 7.5 which is -1.2.  

The point isn't that FTs don't matter.  It's just that employing a strategy of trying to draw a foul instead of working your actual offense doesn't seem to work in the playoffs like it does in the regular season.  

[Diesel]

8 minutes ago, REHawksFan said:

I actually like the idea of moving on to OO from Clint and playing OO with JC.  I'd want OO to develop his range a little more so that he becomes an actual threat from the perimeter.  And I think Quin seems to be moving that direction anyway.  I'm not sure on Isaac specifically, but I like the concept of it.  

Isaac is not the main point.  The main point is a frontcourt of OO and JC.   Especially if JC can shoot like he shot last night and the game before.  You can trade CC for anybody that makes sense. 

 

 

[Peoriabird]

1 minute ago, Diesel said:

There's a important bit of the issue that you're not considering.

This year, we ranked 21st in 3pt%.  The only teams lower than us were: 

Lottery and Playin teams.  This speaks to how well we can space the floor and how much space Trae gets from a defender.  If Trae can't get space, his Efficiency goes down.  OK.. That makes sense.

But What happens if you get players who can give Trae Space?

Last year.. with Delon, Bogi, Gallo, Lou, and Kev on the team...

We ranked #2 overall in 3pt%.  The only team better than us were:

 

With More spacers on the floor, Trae was #1 in total points.  #1 in total assists.  He had a higher EFG%.  He had a higher TS%.

The math here is simple...  Don't complicate it. 

 

 

Much of that is Trae Young's poor shooting this year  and plus we had those guys last year in the playoff...How did Trae Young fair against the Heat last year with those treasured guys?

[shakes]

13 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Easy solution then have shoot more catch and shoot 3's!!  Isn't this pretty simple?

no one is leaving Trae open for catch and shoot 3s.  Wonder why that is?

 

If you're suggesting that Trae start running hard off the ball to try and get open because he is one of the best catch and shoot shooters in the league, I would agree with you.  But, you're not saying that since you already stated Trae was the worst shooter on the team.

[REHawksFan]

1 minute ago, Peoriabird said:

Much of that is Trae Young's poor shooting this year 

Which is, in part, due to floor spacing and the attention he's gotten.  Do you hear Quin talking about how importing their spacing is after every game?  

Look, I get that you don't particularly like Trae, but it's fairly obvious that there are legitimate reasons for him shooting poorly this year.  IF he's just nothing more than a bad shooter, how did he shoot for high volume last year while also being efficient?  

[Peoriabird]

2 minutes ago, shakes said:

no one is leaving Trae open for catch and shoot 3s.  Wonder why that is?

 

If you're suggesting that Trae start running hard off the ball to try and get open because he is one of the best catch and shoot shooters in the league, I would agree with you.  But, you're not saying that since you already stated Trae was the worst shooter on the team.

That's what his EFG% says...Not me!

[Peoriabird]

1 minute ago, REHawksFan said:

Which is, in part, due to floor spacing and the attention he's gotten.  Do you hear Quin talking about how importing their spacing is after every game?  

Look, I get that you don't particularly like Trae, but it's fairly obvious that there are legitimate reasons for him shooting poorly this year.  IF he's just nothing more than a bad shooter, how did he shoot for high volume last year while also being efficient?  

Did Atlanta have floor spacers last year against Miami?  Did it help or did he perform even worst than this year.  Even if you look at his percentages in the playoffs 2 years ago, they weren't great.

[REHawksFan]

1 minute ago, Peoriabird said:

Did Atlanta have floor spacers last year against Miami?  Did it help or did he perform even worst than this year.  Even if you look at his percentages in the playoffs 2 years ago, they weren't great.

So the 5 games vs Miami last year negate the other 76 he played?  That's not logical.  

[AHF]

5 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

That's what his EFG% says...Not me!

That is literally what you said.  

3 hours ago, Peoriabird said:

He literally is the worst shooter on the team which mean it is the dumbest strategy in all of basketball.  

I pointed out that this is literally wrong.  He doesn't have the worst efg% on the team.  He doesn't have the worst fg% on the team.  He doesn't have the worst 3pt% on the team.  He doesn't have the worst FT%.  He doesn't have the worst TS% on the team.

26 minutes ago, Diesel said:

This week, while reporting Game 5,  Stephen A Smith started his trade conversation about Trae Young.  He said that the Hawks want to trade Trae young because he is 3rd from last in the total league in EFG%.

When I saw your argument, i realized that whoever brought it up was just parrotting Stephen A. Smtih. 

 

While we are being literal, Trae is literally the 424th ranked player out of 539 in EFG% this year.  He has had a terrible year but clearly isn't bottom 3.

[JeffS17]

@Peoriabird is failing to apply any context to his black and white criticism and citations of stats.  It's not worth the effort going back and forth -- it never is.

[shakes]

16 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Did Atlanta have floor spacers last year against Miami?  Did it help or did he perform even worst than this year.  Even if you look at his percentages in the playoffs 2 years ago, they weren't great.

%'s mean very little in the playoffs.  Only thing that matters is Wins and losses.   Defense gets much tougher in teh playoffs so you expect shooting numbers to go down.  Throw in the fact that playoffs are star heavy and you get an even greater workload for your stars which will also lead to lower shooting.

 

So far in 3 playoffs here is how I grade Trae:

Playoffs 1:  Led team to within 2 games of Finals.  Hit several big shots througout.  Grade = A+

PLayoffs 2:   Horrible job, but vs a #1 seed when we were missing 2 key starters.  was just as much a team failure as it was a Trae failure.  Grade = D

playoffs 3:  Once again playing vs a much higher seed and heavy favorite, got off to rough start but then played great and extended the series with epic road performance in game 5.  Grade = A-

 

The guy had one bad playoffs out of 3.   and let's keep in mind that he's NEVER PLAYED IN THE PLAYOFFS VS A LOWER SEED.    In 3 playoffs he's been up against two #1 seeds and two #2 seeds.   Beat one of them.

And he's not even 25 years old.

[AHF]

6 minutes ago, Peoriabird said:

Did Atlanta have floor spacers last year against Miami?  Did it help or did he perform even worst than this year.  Even if you look at his percentages in the playoffs 2 years ago, they weren't great.

No they didn't have floor spacing vs Miami last year.  The bigs were out or broken, Bogi was hurting, Gallo struggled to hit his shot, and Miami sold out on their spacing to crowd Trae.  He had more space this year vs Miami (and Boston) because our bigs were back and they had to play a more honest defense.  

[TheNorthCydeRises]

1 hour ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

 

I would say it's the opposite.  I thought his shot selection, while not bad, was worse in the 2nd half than in the 1st.  He made an effort in that 3rd quarter to not only get his teammates involved more, but to limit some of the quick shots he was talking.  Those shots were falling in the 1st half, but nothing fell in the 2nd half.  He also only had 1 turnover in the 2nd half, until the one at the very end.

And as you noted, almost all of the shots except the drive on Williams, were open and makeable looks.  The three he took off of the tip pass with the shot clock running out, went around the rim and out.

His 1st half shots were a lot wilder, but he was making them.

In that 2nd sentence, I meant to say his shot selection was worse in the 1st half than the 2nd.