Re: 2015 Playoff Thread

[dbrown4]

That was pretty horrific. Glad he came back in the 2nd half. That will just about do it for Houston, I'm afraid. That's about the only way Houston is going to be able to do the impossible...play the game without Curry. And even then, they almost came back without him.

db

P.S. So much for the double sweep!

[tjmakz]

Dwight deserves to be suspended for game 5 for his hit to Bogut's face.
I wonder if the league will do what they should and suspend him?
Curry and Harden have been incredible.
It is a pleasure to watch these marksmen play as well as they have.

[bobheckler]

Dwight deserves to be suspended for game 5 for his hit to Bogut's face.
I wonder if the league will do what they should and suspend him?
Curry and Harden have been incredible.
It is a pleasure to watch these marksmen play as well as they have.

http://cdn2.streamable.com/video/64c2a0e0037211e5b3e9b38af293f50f.webm



bob



.

[sinus007]

TJ,
Agree about DH. It wasn't much different from what JR Knucklehead did to Crowder.
But rest assured the league won't do anything.

AK

[bobheckler]

TJ,
Agree about DH. It wasn't much different from what JR Knucklehead did to Crowder.
But rest assured the league won't do anything.

AK

sinus,

From your mouth to God's ear. No suspension for Howard.

What a bunch of BS.


bob


.

[tjmakz]

TJ,
Agree about DH. It wasn't much different from what JR Knucklehead did to Crowder.
But rest assured the league won't do anything.

AK

sinus,

From your mouth to God's ear.  No suspension for Howard.

What a bunch of BS.


bob


.

Agree 100% Bob.
The NBA blew this one big time.
How was that hit above the shoulders not excessive?
I will be glad to see Dwight to go home with his tail between his legs after game 5.
Don't be surprised for his to get another flagrant out of frustration.

[Sam]

I heard one of the hosts on a talk radio show refer to today's players very unflatteringly in what amounted to a comparison of them with wilting flowers.  He said people think today's players are tough because they try (though admittedly subtly in some cases) to injure one another.  But most of their "toughness" (especially Lebron's according to this guy) amounts to driving to the hoop and crying for a foul.

I'm just reporting what I hear.

Sam

[bobheckler]

So much for the league replay office.  How they could NOT call this a flagrant on Dwight Howard is beyond me.  He OBVIOUSLY lifts his forearm at the last second and jams it, and his elbow, into Iggy's neck.

JVG got it right last night when he said "I don't know what a flagrant foul is anymore".  This isn't called a flagrant, of any kind (if it had, Howard would have been ejected).  Howard's obvious reach-back punch at Bogut isn't called a flagrant 2 but what Horford did is?





Regardless, GSW advances and Howard goes home.  All in all, a fine evening was had by all out here in the golden state.


bob
btw,  I think it's really funny that the person who posted this video to youtube called it "Dwight Howard shoves Andrew Iguadala".  Must be a Rockets fan...


.

[swish]

Sam

The key word here is toughness. Who knows which generation had the toughest players ? But there's one thing for sure. The amount of physical contact of the early years pales in comparison to the present game.

swish

[bobheckler]

Sam

The key word here is toughness. Who knows which generation had the toughest players ? But there's one thing for sure. The amount of physical contact of the early years pales in comparison to the present game.

swish

swish,

Are you saying the amount of physical contact in the early years was more or less than the present game?


bob


.

[swish]

bob

Less. I'm referring specifically to the 50's and 60's as the early years.

swish

[Sam]

Swish,

Yeah, it's true that you can't hit what you can't catch.  But perhaps it might be useful to deal with facts rather than unsupported declarations.

You want physical contact?  I'll give you physical contact.

1. Following are decade-by-decade checkpoints concerning league-wide fouls per game over the entire season.  They range from a high of 27.2 in 1950-51 to a low of 20.7 in 2010-11.  (I also included the 2014-15 season so as to be completely up-to-date....even lower, at 20.2.)  My assumption is that, on every occasion a personal foul occurs, there is physical contact.  I mean, they don't usually issue personals for looking at another player or blowing in his ear, do they?

1950-51 27.2 average personal fouls per game league-wide regular season
1960-61 26.9
1970-71 24.4
1980-81 25.1
1990-91 23.0
2000-01 22.4

The average number of fouls per game PLUMMETED between 1950-51 and 2014-15 from 27.2 to 22.4.  Thus, the amount of physical contact attributable to fouls CAREENED downward by 26% during that half century plus some.  Some fouls are harder than others—then and now.  But you didn't specify hardness.  You made it a point to specify physical contact.

2. Now let's talk about hand checking.  I've always felt that a hand check involved, you know, actual touching, as in physical contact.  Not often a back breaker to be sure, but you didn't specify back breakers.  You specified physical contact.

"1999-00 Rule

• In the backcourt, there is no contact with hands and forearms by defenders. In the frontcourt, there is no contact with hands and forearms by defenders except below the free throw line extended in which case the defender may only use his forearm. In the post, neither the offensive player nor the defender is allowed to dislodge or displace a player who has legally obtained a position. Defender may not use his forearm, shoulder, hip or hand to reroute or hold-up an offensive player going from point A to point B or one who is attempting to come around a legal screen set by another offensive player. Slowing or impeding the progress of the screener by grabbing, clutching, holding “chucking” or “wrapping up” is prohibited."

This rule represents a litany of ways in which today's players are forbidden to make physical contact to make it easier for would-be circus performing offensive players to elude them.

Let's say hand-checking occurred on only one-quarter of the possessions in the 50s and 60s.  Starting in the mid-fifties, let's say there were 180 possessions per game (counting both teams).  Both probably conservative estimates.  That would be 45 more instances of physical contact per game (minus the relatively few that were assessed personal fouls—we don't want to double-count, now.)

3. How about rebounding?  One could claim that guys like Russell, Chamberlain, Thurmond, Petit, Embry, just stood around not touching anyone while letting rebounds bounce before daring to touch them.  But one would be hallucinating.  There's no way you can prove that, rebound-for-rebound, today's players are any tougher than the old guys in boxing out.  As a matter of fact, logic would suggest that players with a HUGELY firmer grasp of the fundamentals than today's players enjoy would play more attention to boxing out.  So, what do the stats say about rebounds available for infighting under the boards?  Well, the stats say that the average number of rebounds per team was at an all-time high from the mid-fifties through the sixties and is at an all-time low in the second decade of the new millenium:

1950-51 49.8
1955-56 60.1 (I deliberately selected the season before Russell arrived post-24-sec.
1960-61 73.3 (Not a typo)
1970-71 53.1
1980-81 43.5
1990-91 43.5
2000-01 43.3
2010-11 41.1
2014-15 43.3

So, the difference between last season and the mid-point of the 50s and 60s era is or a MONSTER DROP of 30 rebounds per game or 30 more opportunities for physical contact in the old days.  That's a decline of 41%.

So what's left?  More screens these days than in the past?  They only mean more physical contact if the alternatives would have been less likely to produce physical contact, which you can't prove.  In fact the overwhelming statistics in the opposite direction (see above) would tend to refute such a premise.

The players of the 50s an 60s didn't just make contact.  They invented contact, just as they invented modern basketball.  Anyone's welcome to refute all that; but it would be advisable to do so with at least some sense of logic, if not compelling statistic, rather than just empty statements.

Sam

[swish]

Sam

 I've got to learn to be more specific. Since the person you quoted used the word toughness I viewed his comment as meaning rougher or more violent. As to your numbers Sam very accurate for sure. The problem is that they don't indicate the hardness of the foul. While I can't come up with any numbers to back my opinion ( fouls are not listed by degree of violence - hardness ) it is my opinion that basketball in the 50's 60's is to basketball of the present as touch football is to tackle football. The best proof that I can offer is to suggest to the board members that they visit me in North Attleboro Ma. and view my tapes of basketball in the 1960's. Stay as long as you wish and lunch is on me. Then you can view first hand why basketball in those days was considered a non contact sport.

swish

[tjmakz]

Sam,

I just don't believe you can look at the number of fouls called or rebounds to prove the physicality of a game. I could post videos of the games in the 50's and 60's and people would be shocked at how non-physical the NBA was back then. There's more contact on a screen and roll 25 feet from the hoop than there was in the lane back 50 years ago.
In all of the videos I have watched, it is almost like a complete non-contact sport.
Yes, they ran and ran. That does not happen today.
But to me, it is not even close how much more grueling and physical NBA is today.

I just pulled a video of the 1960 NBA Finals.
There was almost no contact in the clip.
Virtually no boxing out.
I know you think basketball back then was special, but I don't see how you can think the NBA was anywhere close to being as physical as it is today. But your opinion is your opinion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvrCl12-kKo

[cowens/oldschool]

tj sam

I've also looked for the supposed physical play from the 60's on film and I can't find it, don't see it. I would think is that really it, it looks like such a gentlemans game....seeing how many bad offensive possessions there are in playoff basketball NOW caused by the defensive pressure and contact, its definitely NOT a gentlemans now. In the 80's the contact in the paint was already quite physical, but now the perimeter is also covered so much tighter, as the athletes ON the perimeter are so much faster and more physical than what I remember of the 80's.

cow

[Sam]

TJ and whoever,

In his post to me, Swish set the matter of toughness aside when he said, "Who knows which generation had the toughest players?  I was absolutely NOT trying to use "fouls or number of rebounds to prove the toughness of the game."  Please don't put words in my mouth, especially when I take pains to clarify precisely what I'm talking about.

Swish switched the focus to amount of contact when he said, "But there's one thing for sure. The amount of physical contact of the early years pales in comparison to the present game."  THAT is what I was responding to, and I did so because I knew he was wrong and felt I could support my contentions with tangible proof; and I believe I did that.  Nothing more, nothing less.


On a related matter, I tire so much of hearing about old videos:


• Old videos were made primarily for entertainment purposes, not for historical documentation.  And what entertains?  SCORING.


• Old videos most typically were comprised of highlights—specifically offensive highlights.  I just watched a lengthy Bob Petit video, and there was no tougher player than Bob Petit—then or now.  There are several sequences showing bodies strewn around the court.  (Perhaps they were figments of my imagination.)  But the great majority of the clips were two to three seconds in length and featured the end of scoring plays.  So it's easy for someone watching that video to say: "Oh my, there was no defense in those days; they scored at will; no body contact."  Because the clips don't show (not once, in my recollection) the 80% of each possession when all the offensive and defensive counter-action is doing the ground work.


• Most of the old videos deal with playoffs, and playoffs were generally when the rough stuff subsided in favor of more conservative and finesse play and even some slowdown of the game in the interest of ball protection.


• Then (and I'm not attributing this to you, TJ), there's the old "I saw 60s films" routine that really translates to "I've seen a few highlights and multiplied them by 100 when I talk about my 'vast experience' with that era."


Well, I have between 30 and 40 videos of the 50s and 60s—some highlights, some entire games, some Celtics, some other teams.  And the entire collection of the 30-40 (with the possible exception of one video) don't represent more than two-thirds of what the 50s and 60s were really like.


In the area of physicality, the videos tend to skip over the really rough stuff.  Most teams had "policemen" whose primary task vacillated between instigation and retribution.  Guys like Bob Brannum, Jim Loscutoff, Charlie Share, Tom Meschery, Roughhouse Rudy LaRusso and Wide Wayne Embry.  A lot of those names won't be familiar to a lot of today's fans who know the names of old stars but not necessarily the guys who did the dirty (in all senses of the word) work in the trenches.  If anyone has videos of the 50s and 60s, and they don't include any of the aforementioned guys plying their rough trade; or shots of Bill Sharman hauling off and punching a defender in the mouth on more than one occasion; or Wilt Chamberlain hammering Sam Jones (who had dined at Wilt's house the night before) into the lane, knocking Sam out; or Clyde Lovellette implanting two of Wilt's teeth into the roof of Wilt's mouth (after several failed procedures, Wilt was scheduled to get them removed when he unexpectedly died); or Al Cervi hammering away at Cousy on the sideline trying to goad him into a fight, then I hate to tell you, but your videos are simply not totally representative of what went on.


Those guys (and many others like them) all existed.  They all got paid because they all did their jobs.  Do you think they played their minutes without discharging their primary duties?  Don't you think it's just the slightest bit strange that virtually none of that mayhem made any of your videos?  Do you truly call that being representative?


As one writer says (hey I only report what I read), "..the 60's era ... was a more physical era. There were no sissy flagrant or hand-check fouls during that time. Refs allowed those physical tactics go unpunished because the owners and NBA management believed that blood and violence was what brought people to basketball games back then."

I've said this before, and I'll say it again.  If the players of today indulged in the kind of rough play that characterized the 50s and 60s, Silver's technical foul jailhouse would be overloaded with offenders—and a lot of those fouls are for attitude rather than roughness.  I believe today's fans mistake for roughness all the bodies routinely hitting the deck because the players flop on a huge percentage of shots, looking for fouls.  The charge circle is another invention designed to project today's players from touching and boo boos.  It also attracts flopping by defensive teams—some displays of legitimate toughness, but some pale imitations of toughness.

Today's players soar, and those who don''t play "above the rim" are often disparaged.  But some of the soaring results in an open invitation to injuries.  Is that toughness or stupidity?  Was it smart for a couple of Celtics in recent years to swing on the rim and then incur serious injuries when they dropped?  Injuries do not represent toughness, although playing through injuries can be a form of toughness.  Perhaps I shouldn't contrast the past with the present in that particular form of toughness, because it's so easy it would represent a cheap shot.

Finally, some people talk about toughness; some talk about physicality; and some fluctuate back and forth depending on which looks more like a debate winner.  I've got no gripe with claims that there's more physicality in the league today than there was in the past.  We've talked that one over many times, including how the many advantages enjoyed by today's players would have also improved the physicality of old-time players if they had had the same advantage.

But, when toughness is involved, it's a more subjective matter.  I just want to bring to people's attention the fact that a lot of what may appear to be evidence in favor of greater toughness of today's players is not necessarily conclusive and may, in fact, be quite contra-indicitive.

Sam

[Sloopjohnb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA8l1Jr7jwc

Link to apparently the entire game six of the 1963 finals Boston vs LA, Cousy's last game. No highlight but the whole thing, it runs 1 hour and 22 minutes. Certainly enough material from which we can draw our own conclusions as to the physicality of that game.

[swish]

Sam

Thank you Sam

" I've got no gripe with claims that there's more physicality in the league today than there was in the past. "

And that's the bottom line Sam.

Whoever

[cowens/oldschool]

....alot more

[cowens/oldschool]

its actually borderline out of control, getting to point where you can call a foul on every play, look at all the injuries to young players....

[tjmakz]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA8l1Jr7jwc

Link to apparently the entire game six of the 1963 finals Boston vs LA, Cousy's last game.  No highlight  but the whole thing, it runs 1 hour and 22 minutes.  Certainly enough material from which we can draw our own conclusions as to the physicality of that game.

I am not saying this to bust Sam, but I saw almost no physical play in that video.
This video was a whole game, not just offensive highlights.
The defensive guys do not at all body up against the offensive guys.
There's almost no boxing out.
There's no scrapping, pushing (legal), battling for the ball.
That is common place in today's NBA.
If anyone watches the video that Sloop posted and can show me where there was physical play, I would be open to watching that part again.
Nobody will ever convince me that the NBA back in the 50's and 60's was a physical game.
Every video that I have ever watched usually shows no contact, boxing out or guys in a crouched defensive position.
It is weird to watch the guys back then so nonchalant on defense.

[Sloopjohnb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkD4GRGdCZI

Link to about 20 minutes of game one of 1954 finals between Minneapolis Lakers and Syracuse Nationals.

Lakers had a guard named Meyer "Whitey" Skoog. Gotta love an era when crew-cut blond white guys named "Meyer" played big minutes for a champion.

You can see why Bill Russell tore apart the league three years later.

[Sloopjohnb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkD4GRGdCZI

43 minutes of playoff game between Oscars Royals and Celtics from 1966. Again, mostly unedited game and not highlights.

[Sloopjohnb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkD4GRGdCZI

Mostly unedited 40 plus minutes of game footage in 1964 finals between Boston and Wilt's SF Warriors.

[Sloopjohnb]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wEzEHPZi3w

Looks like footage of '64 Celtic vs Warriors is chopped up. Link to part 2.

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