Why Utah will beat Denver
Part 1: The Dominance of Shaq
I think many of you recall how dominant Shaq was in his prime. Shaq won 120 out of 121 MVP votes as he dominated the league in 2000. It’s a big reason why you collectively voted Utah to the #1 overall seed in the West.
A skilled player at 7’1” and 325 lbs, Shaq was simply too strong and too dominant for anyone too small (aka everyone) to guard him. Shaq is the reason why teams in the era were forced to roster multiple 7-footers at 250+ lbs — the NBA’s frenzied desperation of holding Shaq to an average game of 57 FG% on heavy volume. Hefty 7-footers like Luc Longley, Todd MacCollough, Rasho Nesterovic, Jason Collins, and Matt Geiger were called into service for that task, but ended up looking more like the animal scraps fed to the tigers at the G.W. Zoo than they did professional basketball players when matched up against Diesel. Even bigger guys like Rik Smits could only stay on the floor for 4 minutes per foul committed in the 2000 NBA Finals where Shaq racked up 38ppg on 61.1% shooting. That made DPOY Dikembe Mutombo look good
only surrendering 33ppg on 57 FG% in the following 2001 NBA Finals.
I won’t get into how Shaq averaged a league-leading 29.7ppg and 57.4 FG%. It’s not important to mention the 13.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 3.0 blocks, while only 2.8 turnovers. And you all don’t care about how he averaged a league-leading and historic 30.6 PER, 9.3 BPM, 9.0 VORP, and 18.6 Win Shares, every one of those ranking as top 40 all-time great seasons in their respective statistic. Those are just numbers. What’s important for you all to do is to remember and imagine what a dominating force Shaq was that the NBA could not handle.
So who’s the best option for Denver to throw at Shaq? The 6’10” Boogie Cousins who surrenders at least 50 lbs to The Big Aristotle? The Boogie Cousins who isn’t even good at guarding guys is
own size? Is Denver’s 2001-02 Tim Duncan their best bet? I think that would be troubling for Denver since he wasn’t even the 2001 or 2002 SA Spurs best bet at guarding Shaq in the two playoff series where they couldn't top Shaq's Lakers. If only we could parse out the possessions Duncan guarded Shaq over the years to see how those numbers actually look. If anyone can do that, that’d be huge. I mean hugely helpful, not to be confused with the huge numbers we’d see Shaq have during those times.
I mentioned in another post that Shaq is not only dominant offensively, but also dominant defensively. He was
#2 in DPOY voting in 2000 w/ 21 first choice votes, had an insane DRtg of 95, while leading the league in defensive win shares with 7.0. It’s sometimes hard to remember how springy he was back then, blocking the shots of big men and driving guards alike at a clip of 3 per game. Also worth noting that he finished better than 2000 Gary Payton, who is known as an elite defensive specialist, in just about every single defensive metric or vote that season.
I don't
want to rely too heavily on Shaq to win the Western Conference. It wasn't necessarily my plan coming into the playoffs. It just would be poor management not to in this particular matchup.