Honeymoon Over?

[Fierce1]

Some losses against likely playoff opponents is not such a bad thing in December. Gives Danny & Co. time address some weaknesses and address them for later in the season, when it really counts.

Yeah and the weaknesses have already been obvious, long before these two games. We need a legitimate center and our bench cannot score. Of course, Danny and Brad would rather give up sex than have a quality post game.

The elephant in the room is Danny's sick love affair with finesse small-ball basketball. The center issue has been a problem since Ainge gave away Kendrick Perkins for soft athleticism.

I have to agree with you on this one even if I'm a Danny Ainge fan.

The good thing is Ainge can find a solution this season.

Ainge has the assets to do it.

We'll know in less than 2 months if Ainge will solve the problem or he will once again punt and wait after the season is over to address the issue.

[ozgod]

Some losses against likely playoff opponents is not such a bad thing in December. Gives Danny & Co. time address some weaknesses and address them for later in the season, when it really counts.

Yeah and the weaknesses have already been obvious, long before these two games. We need a legitimate center and our bench cannot score. Of course, Danny and Brad would rather give up sex than have a quality post game.

The elephant in the room is Danny's sick love affair with finesse small-ball basketball. The center issue has been a problem since Ainge gave away Kendrick Perkins for soft athleticism.

To be fair it's not just Danny. I'm sure it has to do with analytics that show that the post-up game in the NBA is pretty much dead, as this article from The Ringer highlighted:

The Post-up Is Deader Than Dead in the NBA
Teams have been steadily fleeing the blocks for years. But this season, the back-to-the-basket game is bordering on extinction.

.
.

But the Nets aren’t the only team leaving the blocks—in the pace-and-space era, the post-up play is disappearing. Only one team this season, Philadelphia, has finished at least 10 percent of its offensive possessions with a post-up, according to Synergy Sports tracking; as recently as 2014, half the league went that high. Meanwhile, 18 teams are below 5 percent in post-up rate; as recently as 2015, not a single team went that low. Even last season, only eight teams did so, meaning the number of low-frequency post-up teams has more than doubled in only a year.



Back in May 2015, as the Warriors romped to their first championship behind a 3-point-happy offense, a host of NBA analysts noticed the post-up game’s disappearance. At Grantland, for instance, Zach Lowe wondered whether the league had “inadvertently killed the back-to-the-basket game” and wrote that “these playoffs read like [post-ups’] obituary.” He might have spoken too soon; the post-up is much deader now than five years ago. Since the 2014-15 season, the leaguewide post-up rate has been cut nearly in half, down to just 4.7 percent of possessions thus far in 2019-20.



This will be the sixth consecutive season with fewer post-ups than the last, and 2019-20 is on pace for the largest post-up drop-off in more than a decade. The reasons for the play’s excision are all tied together, a result of both rule and strategic changes that have encouraged the rise of Moreyball. (Another fun excerpt from that 2015 Lowe column: He wrote that the post-up death “evokes both wi****lness for the past and a fear that the NBA is heading toward a homogeneity in which every team drives for corner 3s, layups, and free throws. What happens if we all play Rocketball?” Welcome to the NBA in 2019!)
Offenses in 2019 are better positioned to work from the perimeter than the post. Relaxed rules on zone defenses have added traffic on the blocks for back-to-the-basket bigs. The rise of stretch 4s—to say nothing of stretch 5s—removes one player with post-up potential from the offense in favor of a shooter. Big men entering the league are less likely to have mastered post footwork. Guards tend to serve as both scorers and distributors—relegating most bigs to roles that facilitate guards’ offense (like setting picks) rather than creating for themselves.

Only seven individual players this season have used at least 25 percent of their possessions from the post (minimum 10 total post-ups): Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, LaMarcus Aldridge, Jonas Valanciunas, Al Horford, Carmelo Anthony (of course!), and Boban Marjanovic. Five seasons ago, 29 players crossed that threshold; 10 seasons ago, 44 did.

The post-up seems to have gone the way of the midrange jumper, squeezed out of the game by more analytically advantageous shots. In an average season, a possession that ends with a post-up yields about 86 points per 100 possessions; according to Synergy, no offense this season scores so inefficiently, even if you remove high-value transition plays and focus on half-court offense alone (because most post-ups come against set defenses).

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/12/2/20991249/post-up-dead-nba-brooklyn-nets-joel-embiid

It's tough for those of us who grew up watching the likes of Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Shaq and Hakeem but it's just not a shot that the analytics geeks encourage these days, with the emphasis on Moreyball and Death Lineups. Unless you're an Embiid of course.

[Somebody]

Some losses against likely playoff opponents is not such a bad thing in December. Gives Danny & Co. time address some weaknesses and address them for later in the season, when it really counts.

Yeah and the weaknesses have already been obvious, long before these two games. We need a legitimate center and our bench cannot score. Of course, Danny and Brad would rather give up sex than have a quality post game.

The elephant in the room is Danny's sick love affair with finesse small-ball basketball. The center issue has been a problem since Ainge gave away Kendrick Perkins for soft athleticism.

To be fair it's not just Danny. I'm sure it has to do with analytics that show that the post-up game in the NBA is pretty much dead, as this article from The Ringer highlighted:

The Post-up Is Deader Than Dead in the NBA
Teams have been steadily fleeing the blocks for years. But this season, the back-to-the-basket game is bordering on extinction.

.
.

But the Nets aren’t the only team leaving the blocks—in the pace-and-space era, the post-up play is disappearing. Only one team this season, Philadelphia, has finished at least 10 percent of its offensive possessions with a post-up, according to Synergy Sports tracking; as recently as 2014, half the league went that high. Meanwhile, 18 teams are below 5 percent in post-up rate; as recently as 2015, not a single team went that low. Even last season, only eight teams did so, meaning the number of low-frequency post-up teams has more than doubled in only a year.



Back in May 2015, as the Warriors romped to their first championship behind a 3-point-happy offense, a host of NBA analysts noticed the post-up game’s disappearance. At Grantland, for instance, Zach Lowe wondered whether the league had “inadvertently killed the back-to-the-basket game” and wrote that “these playoffs read like [post-ups’] obituary.” He might have spoken too soon; the post-up is much deader now than five years ago. Since the 2014-15 season, the leaguewide post-up rate has been cut nearly in half, down to just 4.7 percent of possessions thus far in 2019-20.



This will be the sixth consecutive season with fewer post-ups than the last, and 2019-20 is on pace for the largest post-up drop-off in more than a decade. The reasons for the play’s excision are all tied together, a result of both rule and strategic changes that have encouraged the rise of Moreyball. (Another fun excerpt from that 2015 Lowe column: He wrote that the post-up death “evokes both wi****lness for the past and a fear that the NBA is heading toward a homogeneity in which every team drives for corner 3s, layups, and free throws. What happens if we all play Rocketball?” Welcome to the NBA in 2019!)
Offenses in 2019 are better positioned to work from the perimeter than the post. Relaxed rules on zone defenses have added traffic on the blocks for back-to-the-basket bigs. The rise of stretch 4s—to say nothing of stretch 5s—removes one player with post-up potential from the offense in favor of a shooter. Big men entering the league are less likely to have mastered post footwork. Guards tend to serve as both scorers and distributors—relegating most bigs to roles that facilitate guards’ offense (like setting picks) rather than creating for themselves.

Only seven individual players this season have used at least 25 percent of their possessions from the post (minimum 10 total post-ups): Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, LaMarcus Aldridge, Jonas Valanciunas, Al Horford, Carmelo Anthony (of course!), and Boban Marjanovic. Five seasons ago, 29 players crossed that threshold; 10 seasons ago, 44 did.

The post-up seems to have gone the way of the midrange jumper, squeezed out of the game by more analytically advantageous shots. In an average season, a possession that ends with a post-up yields about 86 points per 100 possessions; according to Synergy, no offense this season scores so inefficiently, even if you remove high-value transition plays and focus on half-court offense alone (because most post-ups come against set defenses).

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/12/2/20991249/post-up-dead-nba-brooklyn-nets-joel-embiid

It's tough for those of us who grew up watching the likes of Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Shaq and Hakeem but it's just not a shot that the analytics geeks encourage these days, with the emphasis on Moreyball and Death Lineups. Unless you're an Embiid of course.

I'm very receptive to statistics, but post ups can be super efficient lol. You just need the second coming of Shaquille O'Neal

[ozgod]

Some losses against likely playoff opponents is not such a bad thing in December. Gives Danny & Co. time address some weaknesses and address them for later in the season, when it really counts.

Yeah and the weaknesses have already been obvious, long before these two games. We need a legitimate center and our bench cannot score. Of course, Danny and Brad would rather give up sex than have a quality post game.

The elephant in the room is Danny's sick love affair with finesse small-ball basketball. The center issue has been a problem since Ainge gave away Kendrick Perkins for soft athleticism.

To be fair it's not just Danny. I'm sure it has to do with analytics that show that the post-up game in the NBA is pretty much dead, as this article from The Ringer highlighted:

The Post-up Is Deader Than Dead in the NBA
Teams have been steadily fleeing the blocks for years. But this season, the back-to-the-basket game is bordering on extinction.

.
.

But the Nets aren’t the only team leaving the blocks—in the pace-and-space era, the post-up play is disappearing. Only one team this season, Philadelphia, has finished at least 10 percent of its offensive possessions with a post-up, according to Synergy Sports tracking; as recently as 2014, half the league went that high. Meanwhile, 18 teams are below 5 percent in post-up rate; as recently as 2015, not a single team went that low. Even last season, only eight teams did so, meaning the number of low-frequency post-up teams has more than doubled in only a year.



Back in May 2015, as the Warriors romped to their first championship behind a 3-point-happy offense, a host of NBA analysts noticed the post-up game’s disappearance. At Grantland, for instance, Zach Lowe wondered whether the league had “inadvertently killed the back-to-the-basket game” and wrote that “these playoffs read like [post-ups’] obituary.” He might have spoken too soon; the post-up is much deader now than five years ago. Since the 2014-15 season, the leaguewide post-up rate has been cut nearly in half, down to just 4.7 percent of possessions thus far in 2019-20.



This will be the sixth consecutive season with fewer post-ups than the last, and 2019-20 is on pace for the largest post-up drop-off in more than a decade. The reasons for the play’s excision are all tied together, a result of both rule and strategic changes that have encouraged the rise of Moreyball. (Another fun excerpt from that 2015 Lowe column: He wrote that the post-up death “evokes both wi****lness for the past and a fear that the NBA is heading toward a homogeneity in which every team drives for corner 3s, layups, and free throws. What happens if we all play Rocketball?” Welcome to the NBA in 2019!)
Offenses in 2019 are better positioned to work from the perimeter than the post. Relaxed rules on zone defenses have added traffic on the blocks for back-to-the-basket bigs. The rise of stretch 4s—to say nothing of stretch 5s—removes one player with post-up potential from the offense in favor of a shooter. Big men entering the league are less likely to have mastered post footwork. Guards tend to serve as both scorers and distributors—relegating most bigs to roles that facilitate guards’ offense (like setting picks) rather than creating for themselves.

Only seven individual players this season have used at least 25 percent of their possessions from the post (minimum 10 total post-ups): Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, LaMarcus Aldridge, Jonas Valanciunas, Al Horford, Carmelo Anthony (of course!), and Boban Marjanovic. Five seasons ago, 29 players crossed that threshold; 10 seasons ago, 44 did.

The post-up seems to have gone the way of the midrange jumper, squeezed out of the game by more analytically advantageous shots. In an average season, a possession that ends with a post-up yields about 86 points per 100 possessions; according to Synergy, no offense this season scores so inefficiently, even if you remove high-value transition plays and focus on half-court offense alone (because most post-ups come against set defenses).

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/12/2/20991249/post-up-dead-nba-brooklyn-nets-joel-embiid

It's tough for those of us who grew up watching the likes of Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Shaq and Hakeem but it's just not a shot that the analytics geeks encourage these days, with the emphasis on Moreyball and Death Lineups. Unless you're an Embiid of course.

I'm very receptive to statistics, but post ups can be super efficient lol. You just need the second coming of Shaquille O'Neal

Yes, all depends who is doing the post up 

[Somebody]

Some losses against likely playoff opponents is not such a bad thing in December. Gives Danny & Co. time address some weaknesses and address them for later in the season, when it really counts.

Yeah and the weaknesses have already been obvious, long before these two games. We need a legitimate center and our bench cannot score. Of course, Danny and Brad would rather give up sex than have a quality post game.

The elephant in the room is Danny's sick love affair with finesse small-ball basketball. The center issue has been a problem since Ainge gave away Kendrick Perkins for soft athleticism.

To be fair it's not just Danny. I'm sure it has to do with analytics that show that the post-up game in the NBA is pretty much dead, as this article from The Ringer highlighted:

The Post-up Is Deader Than Dead in the NBA
Teams have been steadily fleeing the blocks for years. But this season, the back-to-the-basket game is bordering on extinction.

.
.

But the Nets aren’t the only team leaving the blocks—in the pace-and-space era, the post-up play is disappearing. Only one team this season, Philadelphia, has finished at least 10 percent of its offensive possessions with a post-up, according to Synergy Sports tracking; as recently as 2014, half the league went that high. Meanwhile, 18 teams are below 5 percent in post-up rate; as recently as 2015, not a single team went that low. Even last season, only eight teams did so, meaning the number of low-frequency post-up teams has more than doubled in only a year.



Back in May 2015, as the Warriors romped to their first championship behind a 3-point-happy offense, a host of NBA analysts noticed the post-up game’s disappearance. At Grantland, for instance, Zach Lowe wondered whether the league had “inadvertently killed the back-to-the-basket game” and wrote that “these playoffs read like [post-ups’] obituary.” He might have spoken too soon; the post-up is much deader now than five years ago. Since the 2014-15 season, the leaguewide post-up rate has been cut nearly in half, down to just 4.7 percent of possessions thus far in 2019-20.



This will be the sixth consecutive season with fewer post-ups than the last, and 2019-20 is on pace for the largest post-up drop-off in more than a decade. The reasons for the play’s excision are all tied together, a result of both rule and strategic changes that have encouraged the rise of Moreyball. (Another fun excerpt from that 2015 Lowe column: He wrote that the post-up death “evokes both wi****lness for the past and a fear that the NBA is heading toward a homogeneity in which every team drives for corner 3s, layups, and free throws. What happens if we all play Rocketball?” Welcome to the NBA in 2019!)
Offenses in 2019 are better positioned to work from the perimeter than the post. Relaxed rules on zone defenses have added traffic on the blocks for back-to-the-basket bigs. The rise of stretch 4s—to say nothing of stretch 5s—removes one player with post-up potential from the offense in favor of a shooter. Big men entering the league are less likely to have mastered post footwork. Guards tend to serve as both scorers and distributors—relegating most bigs to roles that facilitate guards’ offense (like setting picks) rather than creating for themselves.

Only seven individual players this season have used at least 25 percent of their possessions from the post (minimum 10 total post-ups): Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, LaMarcus Aldridge, Jonas Valanciunas, Al Horford, Carmelo Anthony (of course!), and Boban Marjanovic. Five seasons ago, 29 players crossed that threshold; 10 seasons ago, 44 did.

The post-up seems to have gone the way of the midrange jumper, squeezed out of the game by more analytically advantageous shots. In an average season, a possession that ends with a post-up yields about 86 points per 100 possessions; according to Synergy, no offense this season scores so inefficiently, even if you remove high-value transition plays and focus on half-court offense alone (because most post-ups come against set defenses).

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/12/2/20991249/post-up-dead-nba-brooklyn-nets-joel-embiid

It's tough for those of us who grew up watching the likes of Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Shaq and Hakeem but it's just not a shot that the analytics geeks encourage these days, with the emphasis on Moreyball and Death Lineups. Unless you're an Embiid of course.

I'm very receptive to statistics, but post ups can be super efficient lol. You just need the second coming of Shaquille O'Neal

Yes, all depends who is doing the post up 

And that means the post up isn't dead! We just need the babies of American families to hit the genetic jackpot a few times and have them start playing basketball at a young age

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

It's tough for those of us who grew up watching the likes of Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Shaq and Hakeem but it's just not a shot that the analytics geeks encourage these days, with the emphasis on Moreyball and Death Lineups. Unless you're an Embiid of course.

A lot of analytics geeks also say the midrange jumper is a terrible choice, but that isn't stopping half the league from continuing to shoot it often (including our very own Jayson Tatum).

And I think Kanter looked pretty good in the low post the couple of times he got the ball there last night.

[Sophomore]

It's tough for those of us who grew up watching the likes of Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Shaq and Hakeem but it's just not a shot that the analytics geeks encourage these days, with the emphasis on Moreyball and Death Lineups. Unless you're an Embiid of course.

A lot of analytics geeks also say the midrange jumper is a terrible choice, but that isn't stopping half the league from continuing to shoot it often (including our very own Jayson Tatum).

And I think Kanter looked pretty good in the low post the couple of times he got the ball there last night.

It’s not just analytics. It’s also that when hakeem and the rest were playing the rules were different. When a guy caught the ball in the post, you couldn’t have weak side defenders drop down to a help position on the opposite post and wait there for the big. Same thing for guys guarding strong side at the 3-PT line. You had to stay w/in arms length of your man or do a direct hard double-team. Teams saw that and did a *ton* of iso ball because dumping it in to your best player and letting him go 1 on 1 usually gave you a good chance to score.

Now you can basically play zone, with only a few limits. That help makes iso ball a lot harder to pull off, especially if you’re dumping it in down low. Teams want shooters to space the floor and try more ball movement. This is a pretty good explainer.

 http://www.celticshub.com/2017/09/20/celticshub-whiteboard-illegal-defense-shapes-nba/

[Who]

Some losses against likely playoff opponents is not such a bad thing in December. Gives Danny & Co. time address some weaknesses and address them for later in the season, when it really counts.

Yeah and the weaknesses have already been obvious, long before these two games. We need a legitimate center and our bench cannot score. Of course, Danny and Brad would rather give up sex than have a quality post game.

The elephant in the room is Danny's sick love affair with finesse small-ball basketball. The center issue has been a problem since Ainge gave away Kendrick Perkins for soft athleticism.

To be fair it's not just Danny. I'm sure it has to do with analytics that show that the post-up game in the NBA is pretty much dead, as this article from The Ringer highlighted:

The Post-up Is Deader Than Dead in the NBA
Teams have been steadily fleeing the blocks for years. But this season, the back-to-the-basket game is bordering on extinction.

.
.

But the Nets aren’t the only team leaving the blocks—in the pace-and-space era, the post-up play is disappearing. Only one team this season, Philadelphia, has finished at least 10 percent of its offensive possessions with a post-up, according to Synergy Sports tracking; as recently as 2014, half the league went that high. Meanwhile, 18 teams are below 5 percent in post-up rate; as recently as 2015, not a single team went that low. Even last season, only eight teams did so, meaning the number of low-frequency post-up teams has more than doubled in only a year.



Back in May 2015, as the Warriors romped to their first championship behind a 3-point-happy offense, a host of NBA analysts noticed the post-up game’s disappearance. At Grantland, for instance, Zach Lowe wondered whether the league had “inadvertently killed the back-to-the-basket game” and wrote that “these playoffs read like [post-ups’] obituary.” He might have spoken too soon; the post-up is much deader now than five years ago. Since the 2014-15 season, the leaguewide post-up rate has been cut nearly in half, down to just 4.7 percent of possessions thus far in 2019-20.



This will be the sixth consecutive season with fewer post-ups than the last, and 2019-20 is on pace for the largest post-up drop-off in more than a decade. The reasons for the play’s excision are all tied together, a result of both rule and strategic changes that have encouraged the rise of Moreyball. (Another fun excerpt from that 2015 Lowe column: He wrote that the post-up death “evokes both wi****lness for the past and a fear that the NBA is heading toward a homogeneity in which every team drives for corner 3s, layups, and free throws. What happens if we all play Rocketball?” Welcome to the NBA in 2019!)
Offenses in 2019 are better positioned to work from the perimeter than the post. Relaxed rules on zone defenses have added traffic on the blocks for back-to-the-basket bigs. The rise of stretch 4s—to say nothing of stretch 5s—removes one player with post-up potential from the offense in favor of a shooter. Big men entering the league are less likely to have mastered post footwork. Guards tend to serve as both scorers and distributors—relegating most bigs to roles that facilitate guards’ offense (like setting picks) rather than creating for themselves.

Only seven individual players this season have used at least 25 percent of their possessions from the post (minimum 10 total post-ups): Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis, LaMarcus Aldridge, Jonas Valanciunas, Al Horford, Carmelo Anthony (of course!), and Boban Marjanovic. Five seasons ago, 29 players crossed that threshold; 10 seasons ago, 44 did.

The post-up seems to have gone the way of the midrange jumper, squeezed out of the game by more analytically advantageous shots. In an average season, a possession that ends with a post-up yields about 86 points per 100 possessions; according to Synergy, no offense this season scores so inefficiently, even if you remove high-value transition plays and focus on half-court offense alone (because most post-ups come against set defenses).

https://www.theringer.com/nba/2019/12/2/20991249/post-up-dead-nba-brooklyn-nets-joel-embiid

It's tough for those of us who grew up watching the likes of Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Shaq and Hakeem but it's just not a shot that the analytics geeks encourage these days, with the emphasis on Moreyball and Death Lineups. Unless you're an Embiid of course.

Man, those statistics are sad to read.

[Somebody]

It's tough for those of us who grew up watching the likes of Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Shaq and Hakeem but it's just not a shot that the analytics geeks encourage these days, with the emphasis on Moreyball and Death Lineups. Unless you're an Embiid of course.

A lot of analytics geeks also say the midrange jumper is a terrible choice, but that isn't stopping half the league from continuing to shoot it often (including our very own Jayson Tatum).

And I think Kanter looked pretty good in the low post the couple of times he got the ball there last night.

It’s not just analytics. It’s also that when hakeem and the rest were playing the rules were different. When a guy caught the ball in the post, you couldn’t have weak side defenders drop down to a help position on the opposite post and wait there for the big. Same thing for guys guarding strong side at the 3-PT line. You had to stay w/in arms length of your man or do a direct hard double-team. Teams saw that and did a *ton* of iso ball because dumping it in to your best player and letting him go 1 on 1 usually gave you a good chance to score.

Now you can basically play zone, with only a few limits. That help makes iso ball a lot harder to pull off, especially if you’re dumping it in down low. Teams want shooters to space the floor and try more ball movement. This is a pretty good explainer.

 http://www.celticshub.com/2017/09/20/celticshub-whiteboard-illegal-defense-shapes-nba/

^this. Ilegal defence rules made isolationists much more valuable back then.

[Fafnir]

Not only do the rule changes make it easier to attack post up players, but teams also figured out just how much more valuable a reasonable three point shot is over almost any post up.

Joel Embiid is averaging 1.06 PP on post ups this year. A league average 3 point shot is 1.068. Add in the fact you have to enter the ball into the post which compared to current NBA players ability to just generate pull up 3s in many cases with a simple high screen. If you can generate a somewhat open three with a proficient shooter its just more efficient offense.

That's why all the current players who are good in the post have to be surrounded by shooters, and why having Ben Simmons next to Embiid is holding them both back.

[Vermont Green]

The bench scoring vs. big talent argument is interesting and potentially related.  Imagine if we could start two legitimate bigs and had for example Hayward and Smart coming off the bench.

As to reevaluating our bigs based on one game, I am not convinced.  Kanter is showing signs that he could become a decent starting big but until we have 2 decent starting bigs, it is a weakness.  Not necessarily a fatal flaw but an issue that other teams will exploit.

[rocknrollforyoursoul]

It's tough for those of us who grew up watching the likes of Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Shaq and Hakeem but it's just not a shot that the analytics geeks encourage these days, with the emphasis on Moreyball and Death Lineups. Unless you're an Embiid of course.

A lot of analytics geeks also say the midrange jumper is a terrible choice, but that isn't stopping half the league from continuing to shoot it often (including our very own Jayson Tatum).

And I think Kanter looked pretty good in the low post the couple of times he got the ball there last night.

It’s not just analytics. It’s also that when hakeem and the rest were playing the rules were different. When a guy caught the ball in the post, you couldn’t have weak side defenders drop down to a help position on the opposite post and wait there for the big. Same thing for guys guarding strong side at the 3-PT line. You had to stay w/in arms length of your man or do a direct hard double-team. Teams saw that and did a *ton* of iso ball because dumping it in to your best player and letting him go 1 on 1 usually gave you a good chance to score.

Now you can basically play zone, with only a few limits. That help makes iso ball a lot harder to pull off, especially if you’re dumping it in down low. Teams want shooters to space the floor and try more ball movement. This is a pretty good explainer.

http://www.celticshub.com/2017/09/20/celticshub-whiteboard-illegal-defense-shapes-nba/

Fair points, and thanks to everyone else who contributed good info to this discussion.

One aspect I haven't seen mentioned (though I might've missed it): the fact that post play can often get the opposition in foul trouble early and give your team a lot of trips to the FT line (legit trips to the line, not the James Harden crap).

[satch]

Don't know about a honeymoon but trading Tatum could be good for organization and Tatum. I really like the body language of this years team vs. last years. C's are not that far away. Lets trade him for a need that puts us over the top. I think he wants to go somewhere and be the man. Currently this team is not constructed that way.

[KGs Knee]

It's tough for those of us who grew up watching the likes of Ewing, Robinson, McHale, Shaq and Hakeem but it's just not a shot that the analytics geeks encourage these days, with the emphasis on Moreyball and Death Lineups. Unless you're an Embiid of course.

A lot of analytics geeks also say the midrange jumper is a terrible choice, but that isn't stopping half the league from continuing to shoot it often (including our very own Jayson Tatum).

And I think Kanter looked pretty good in the low post the couple of times he got the ball there last night.

It’s not just analytics. It’s also that when hakeem and the rest were playing the rules were different. When a guy caught the ball in the post, you couldn’t have weak side defenders drop down to a help position on the opposite post and wait there for the big. Same thing for guys guarding strong side at the 3-PT line. You had to stay w/in arms length of your man or do a direct hard double-team. Teams saw that and did a *ton* of iso ball because dumping it in to your best player and letting him go 1 on 1 usually gave you a good chance to score.

Now you can basically play zone, with only a few limits. That help makes iso ball a lot harder to pull off, especially if you’re dumping it in down low. Teams want shooters to space the floor and try more ball movement. This is a pretty good explainer.

 http://www.celticshub.com/2017/09/20/celticshub-whiteboard-illegal-defense-shapes-nba/

The elimination of the illegal defense rule was probably the single worst decision the NBA has ever made.  It's totally changed the game, and not for the better (IMO).  The defacto zone defense that teams play today feels super gimmicky and is a far cry from the man-to-man defense players had to play prior to the rule change.

[tenn_smoothie]

Danny has somewhat turned the team over to the two J's, in a sense, and they failed us miserably in one of our most important games so far this season. I love the idea of those two leading this franchise to a few banners over the next 7-8 years, but sometimes I wonder. Consistency is their problem. Some games they look like future All-NBA players. Then Brown will look lost and almost disinterested for a game or Tatum will, like vs the Sixers, take it upon himself to personally lose the game for us all by himself - bad shots, bad decisions, turnovers. Very frustrating.