It does matter much. The C's don't rebound the ball well enough to get anywhere in the spring. It's not just about center vs. center matchups. It's about overall team defensive rebound rate. And Boston's not close to good enough.
This is a bewildering cherry-picking of stats. We are ahead of OKC and barely behind the Lakers. Are they not going anywhere in the spring either? Oh, and of the top seven DRR teams in the league, four of them are Cleveland, Toronto, New Orleans, and New York. Are those teams temporarily struggling contenders because of their outstanding DRRs?
Speaking of cherry-picking stats... nice work....
OKC has the fourth best offense in the league and two young stars capable of getting their own shots and finishing game-after-game in the playoffs. They are not struggling for offense the way the C's are. They are not struggling for energy, game-to-game.
Boston has the 17th best offense in the league. They need to get out in transition (where they're the second most effective team in the league) to get easy baskets. To do that, they have to rebound.
What's more, Boston's aged players have to work so hard for playoff baskets, they can't afford to be giving up extra offensive rebounds and wearing themselves out on defense. Look what happened to Kevin Garnett after his big game against Miami last spring. He fell apart.
If you think this DRR-Offense thing isn't a major problem, you're kidding yourself.
As to the Lakers, yeah, they're going nowhere until they address their offense. They know that.
You are all over the map trying to justify your point here, but the truth is that defensive rebounding rate doesn't seem to be a number that has much correlation to winning games.
Like most fans and coaches, I hate seeing the opposing team get offensive rebounds, and I'd love to see our team clean that aspect of the game up (which they have done to some degree over the course of their recent streak, by the way), but it's not going to be what makes or breaks us come playoff time.
Topic: The center situation is just ridiculous (Read 15589 times)