Tuesday Bolts – 4.13.10
Frank Hughes of SI with a great piece talking about the Thunder going to the playoffs: ”It is pretty easy to root for the underdog Thunder. At a time that it is only too convenient to complain about the seemingly lackluster attitudes adopted by many haughty and entitled professional athletes, the Thunder embody what we want our pro teams to be. They take their jobs seriously and exude that fleeting and infectious college atmosphere even though they are paid like movie stars. They talk about, and actually put in, hard work, Brooks drilling them diligently even in these late stages of the season. heir public relations staff has been instructed not to promote any players or coaches for individual awards because they believe in winning as a team. Brooks has a clause in his contract that gives him a bonus for getting the team to the playoffs, but not for winning Coach of the Year.”
John Hollinger: By winning, the Blazers banished the Thunder to the No. 8 seed and a first-round matchup against the defending champion Lakers. Of course, in a season full of irony, the Blazers’ most likely reward is a first-round meeting with either Denver or Utah, a pair of teams they’ve beaten just once in eight tries. Portland may have the No. 6 seed clinched before they take the court on Wednesday, as they’ll own it if San Antonio loses to Dallas in a game that starts 2½ hours earlier.
Kelly Dwyer: ”A great game that was close until the final minutes, though Portland seemed in control throughout. And don’t let the Thunder fool you. Oklahoma City play by play man Brian Davis wanted us to keep perspective as the Thunder lost its fourth game in five attempts, and while nobody had OKC fighting for its 50th win in the last week of the regular season in their preseason previews, that doesn’t mean we can’t criticize the Thunder for falling off the rails defensively over the last few weeks of the season.”
Video of James Harden’s monster dunk.
I just feel like saying it again: I couldn’t have been more impressed by the Blazers last night. Nate McMillan has got his guys playing with so much resolve, it’s inspiring. They take one blow and they get back up. We’ve all seen the similarities to the Thunder and the Blazers, but I hope those continue when OKC inevitably gets hit with some adversity.
Be sure to read Blazer’s Edge excellent recap of the game.
Portland Roundball Society with great interview videos and a recap: ”Throughout the first half the Thunder scored at will. They were aggressive, made tough shots and got to the line. Kevin Durant came out on a roll. At the half he had 21, nine of which came at the free throw line. But as the Blazers reemerged to begin the second half, something changed. Perhaps they sensed the moment—that a loss or a trip back to Los Angeles was too much to bear. Down 43-51 at the half, Portland roared out of the gates, scoring the eight straight points to pull even. They focused collectively on Durant.”
Fran Blinebury says Fear the Thunder: ”Just 17 months ago, the Thunder were 1-17 with a rookie coach who’d just been thrown into the deep end of the pool and all they were trying to do was keep their heads above water. Now they’re playing solid defense, riding the talents of the best all-over-the-court big man scorer since Bob McAdoo and doing the backstroke as they float into the playoffs. With nothing to lose and a chance to play loose, it might be time for a little healthy fear of the Thunder.”
The playoff picture is becoming clear.
Nick Collison on OKC getting the Lakers: “We’ll have to play our best basketball,” he said. “You know, you’ve got to run into everybody at some point.”
Say it with me: BEAT L-A! BEAT L-A! BEAT L-A! Clark Matthews made an excellent point last night via Twitter: That chant should start Wednesday night against Memphis with ESPN in the house. Speaking of, Clark would like any reasons you may have to hate the Lakers sent to him at clarkfnmatthews@gmail.com. Do it.
Green’s my favorite but the of offense is to be efficient not just put up points. Green’s a damn good 3 pt shooter when in rhythm but when he is forced to take 3 pt shots (mostly because WE SET ALL OUR PLAYS UP FROM THE 3 PT LINE IN) he starts to waste possessions. I hope Brooks comes back next year with ways to utilize all of our talent and not just Durant because Green finishes so well around the basket but he has to work so hard to get to the rim that he is inclined to take jumpers, especially since he has to work so hard on the defensive side. Krstic needs more attempts inside and we can’t constantly just throw to Durant/Harden/Westbrook/Green at the 3 pt line in an iso and tell them to score. Maybe the Thunder bring in an offensive specialist next year much like Ron Adams?
@Bob
Green’s #’s and production are almost identical, slightly worse actually, than last year. If I told you before the year that Green would score about the same on the same efficiency, rebound worse, etc. would you have been happy? I doubt it.
@Crow
I knew you would be all over the lineups. Winston doesn’t go into which lineups to use, he just talks about which players to rest.
You asked in his comments the same frustration you’ve shared here before, that the Thunder do not vary too far from their normal rotations and lineups enough to gather significant data.
I don’t know if there will be a point where the coaching staff bases the rotation decisions based upon data analysis or not. I find it likely that they will make those decision based upon coaching instincts and priorities.
@Jax Raging Bile Duct
Is that good? Instincts can be deceiving in much the same that Aristotle determined physics based on intuition instead of a process of hypothesis and experimentation. I would hope they are using every morsel of information in order to gain a more complete understanding of the teams’ strengths and weaknesses.
So what do you think is the best for Green? come off the bench? Imo it doesnt matter if he starts or not i just want him to play less than 40 minutes a game. I’d like to give 5 minutes of greens playing time to White or someone else.
Jax I assume Brooks has stayed within the broad parameters of what Presti suggests / recommends or directs, whatever word is most accurate or preferred.
Presti has a army of video guys and a couple of stat guys.
If either or both of Presti and Brooks wanted more in depth lineup experimentation to produce larger data samples and then make better decisions they could do it.
They haven’t. If they starting lineup was great it would be easier to explain but the best you can say it is that is stable and ok, overall. But as I noted before it is far weaker against strong teams than the east or lottery teams in general. Either they know this last point and ignore it or don’t know it. Their show to run.
I’ll be interested in seeing how much they play the starting lineup in the playoffs and what it does. And what the other 11 lineups at Winston’s site I mentioned and largely prefer do.
Presti will take time to assess over the summer. How much input Brooks gets is an interesting question. Both in terms of what gets done and how that relationship develops and how things go when Brooks’ current contract is up.
@Chas
I don’t know if there is an answer to that question. The Thunder keep their own advanced stats, but we don’t know what they are, and we don’t know how they influence decisions.
I am assuming the staff makes their decisions based on instinct and coaching priorities because that’s the way it looks and sounds to me, based on what I see happening, and what I hear Brooks say.
I assume a player gets to start based on some qualitative priorities such as leadership, experience, hard working practice player, ability to listen to the coach and respond to his requests, etc… You know, coaching stuff. Brook’s rotation is set at 9, and he would rather go with 8 than 10. He seems like the kind of coach who will not bench an uninjured player unless that player is causing trouble. He doesn’t alter his lineups due to matchups. Krstic starts, even though his minutes decrease.
I would imagine that Brooks will re-evaluate his starters next season, and that we’ll see that lineup a majority of the time barring injury or trade. He just comes across as old-school, choosing to give his guys a chance rather than change things up. You still see Thabo inbounding the ball for a late game offensive set, even this late in the season, though Harden is usually on the bench.
I have seen Brooks decrease Jeff’s and Russell’s minutes during slumps. I’ve seen him bring Ibaka on slowly but steadily, giving him more and more minutes as the season goes on. I have seen him play small ball or go big depending on what the other team is doing. So he does react and respond and adapt, but it is based on coaching moves and not data analysis.
There was an article on TrueHoop earlier in the year where the King’s players expressed discontent at coach Westphal for constantly yanking the lineups around. They didn’t feel secure or confident, not knowing what to expect, and it effected their preparation. So there is a limit to experimenting with lineups, and that limit is probably very different from team to team. The coach is ultimately the person responsible for defining that limit for his own team. Maybe Brooks has done that already, and the team isn’t ready to see a lot of change. Maybe their youth necessitates that things remain stable so that their confidence is not shaken.
So I guess what I’m getting at is that there is a lot of gray area when it comes to roster decisions and experimentation. If Brooks used data analysis and changed the lineups too often, it may breed inconsistency and malcontent rather than maximize adjusted +/-. Those things are only something that can be known inside the organization.
This season’s starting lineup absolutely sucked last season on raw and Adjusted +/-. It was the choice from day 1 this season and they never budged. It turned out better overall than I expected and better than its worst games (with the caveat of being much weaker against good teams still being significant though); but this was not a data-driven choice initially and it was never given a serious rival.
The choice for the start of next season will either be stay the course or a guess because there isn’t a strong enough data basis to feel very confident in anything else. But I’d still guess that there is something better and there are at least 10 options with the current list of guys and would be others if they acquire any players who will actually significantly crack that 9 man rotation.
@Crow
I imagine the conversations to go something like this:
Stat Guy: The data says to use White more often when we need offense.
Brooks: I don’t think DJ is ready for more minutes yet. I need to see more defensive improvement in practice before I use him in crunch times.
Stat Guy: The data says to use Green off the bench.
Brooks: I don’t like the message that sends to my team. Jeff is a leader, he works very hard, he sets an example, the team looks up to him, he’s a calming influence on the young guys and he does everything I ask him to do as well as he can. I can trust him with this role, and I’m going to stick with him for now.
etc.
I know the team has stat guys. I just think they defer to coach Brooks. Maybe their role increases in the future. It will be interesting to see.
Maybe most or all of the guys not in the current starting lineup are indeed better off the bench and against other bench players a bit more; but I’d say the same would be true of all the starters but Durant.
Think about the best teams in the west or the league and how many Thunder starters other than Durant would bump the other team’s starters if they had that choice or for it to even be truly considered a toss-up. Not many. I’d think 1 or none most places. I can’t think of any top team who would change out 2 or even think much about it.
What I suggest is that they not limit themselves. Don’t limit instincts because some qualities cannot be quantified but lineup pairing may have some truth in them. My feelings are largely the same as yours in that they were afraid to mess with the heads of these guys and are keeping track of crazy statistics that will hopefully help next year when everyone’s a little more mature and ready to listen.
You might be right Jax but how Brooks’ sees it.
But he is playing the 5 guys in the starting lineup who it appears the GM picked for those roles.
Harden might be the biggest test case. Right now I assume Presti and Brooks agree on starting Thabo. If either changed their view eventually, what would happen?
The internal politics is hard to measure, presti/brooks come from very different places in getting their jobs and experience.