A Juggernaut Frontcourt

[toinewalka]

Everyone gives Scal a lot of credit for basketball IQ but I just didn't see that.  It seemed like they had nothing to justify his contract with so they threw that out there.  The unathletic guy must be smart if he's on the team.  The fact is, he packed on pounds coming from NJ and couldn't move anymore.  He was constantly making dumb fould just grabbing players' shirts, and was stepping in to take charges late by 3-4 seconds.  Everyone loved to cheer when he would knock down a three or dunk in garbage time, but the fact remains that his deal was larger than what we just gave Shaq, and he brought nothing but a warm body onto the court.

Addition by subtraction.

[BballTim]

Bballtim,

Shotblockers keep people from attacking the rim.  I think a lot of the so called scorers in the NBA like say LeBron are woeful shooters.  They get a lot of inflated Fg% from dunks and layups.  Bigs should help versus that significantly and if not they can always put him on his back a few times to make him think once or twice about taking it to the rack.

Good shotblockers will even have their wings channel the peeps to them.   Hands up on shots ,  try to stay in front of the ball/man is all we are going to need.  We collapse on any penetration.  Its not that hard to do , its effective and we have adequate personel to execute that.

  I'm not sure what this explanation has to do with how well Shaq will defend the rim.

BTW, I don't recall any of these super wings beating us in the playoffs.  James went down, Wade went down.  I recall the refs beating us.

  Which was my point. You don't recall these super wings (possibly the two best penetraters in the league) beating us, while Cleveland can vividly recall Rondo killing them with his penetration.

[BballTim]

Wrong.  How much scoring you can get out of the center position will be incredibly important against the Heat, because no one's going to outscore them on the wing and very few teams will be able to even equal their firepower at the 4.  Given that Miami's best low-post defender is probably the 6'7'' Udonis Haslem, attacking the Heat inside and forcing the defense to adjust and open things up on the permimeter is going to be essential.

Mike

  If your plan is to let LeBron and Wade have a layup whenever  they get past PP or RA and counter that by outscoring them at the center spot you won't get far.

You can play the greatest team defense in the history of the NBA, defense so intense it makes the Celtics in these past playoffs look like Loyola-Marymount in the late 1980s, but if you don't decisively win the PG and C matchups with the Heat, it will be almost impossible to beat them.

Mike

  First of all, you have no chance whatsoever if you just cede those battles. If you lose the matchups to LeBron and Wade, you won't win the series unless you limit how badly you lose those matchups. If LeBron runs wild you can't counter that by your center outscoring theirs by 7-8 points.

  Secondly, we might stack up better against the Heat than you imagine. KG doesn't necessarily lose out to Bosh. PP and RA might lose the battle, but not necessarily get killed. One of Wade and LeBron will handle the ball and the other might not be that effective. Rondo could come up big in the pg battle, exploiting their lack of interior defense.

 

[MBunge]

Also, you are conveniently disregarding the fact that he averaged 4.6 rebounds in 20 minutes in the NBA finals -- a series you claim we lost because we couldn't rebound. Having Shaq instead of Rasheed for those 20 minutes would have given us about 0.4 extra rebounds. Yes, Shaq seems to be the solution to our problems.

Dude, just stop.

Those numbers are inflated by Sheed getting 8 boards in 36 minutes in game 7.  I suspect that if Shaq had been there for 36 minutes in game 7, he would have also exceeded his rebounding average.  Of course, Shaq would also added 20 or so points in addition.

Mike

[celticsclay]

Also, you are conveniently disregarding the fact that he averaged 4.6 rebounds in 20 minutes in the NBA finals -- a series you claim we lost because we couldn't rebound. Having Shaq instead of Rasheed for those 20 minutes would have given us about 0.4 extra rebounds. Yes, Shaq seems to be the solution to our problems.

Dude, just stop.

Those numbers are inflated by Sheed getting 8 boards in 36 minutes in game 7.  I suspect that if Shaq had been there for 36 minutes in game 7, he would have also exceeded his rebounding average.  Of course, Shaq would also added 20 or so points in addition.

Mike

You guys are in a battle to the finish! For the record I'm pro shaq. I guess we found our new polarizing player to replace tony allen!

[MBunge]

  First of all, you have no chance whatsoever if you just cede those battles. If you lose the matchups to LeBron and Wade, you won't win the series unless you limit how badly you lose those matchups. If LeBron runs wild you can't counter that by your center outscoring theirs by 7-8 points.

Last regular season, Shaq and Jermaine combined to outscore the Heat's current crop of centers by 25.6 to 12.2.  That's 13.4 points, not 7 or 8.

Mike

[GreenEnvy]

Also, you are conveniently disregarding the fact that he averaged 4.6 rebounds in 20 minutes in the NBA finals -- a series you claim we lost because we couldn't rebound. Having Shaq instead of Rasheed for those 20 minutes would have given us about 0.4 extra rebounds. Yes, Shaq seems to be the solution to our problems.

Dude, just stop.

Those numbers are inflated by Sheed getting 8 boards in 36 minutes in game 7.  I suspect that if Shaq had been there for 36 minutes in game 7, he would have also exceeded his rebounding average.  Of course, Shaq would also added 20 or so points in addition.

Mike

You guys are in a battle to the finish! For the record I'm pro shaq. I guess we found our new polarizing player to replace tony allen!

Lol, except we had Tony for like 5 seasons and us fans were still split on him.

Shaq is polarixing right now, but I expect by the All-Star break we will all be united one way or another. I'm pro-Shaq too, I think he will be a fantastic locker room guy, as he is now with his contemporaries, hall-of-famers with one goal in mind, winning. When was the last time he was on a team like that? Ever? He always played alongside at least one player with ulterior motives.

[Spicoli]

And all this doesn't change the fact that championships are won on defense.

Boston held LA to 89 and 83 points the last two games of the Finals and still lost.  There's a point where you simply have to be able to score.

Mike

TP

[kozlodoev]

Also, you are conveniently disregarding the fact that he averaged 4.6 rebounds in 20 minutes in the NBA finals -- a series you claim we lost because we couldn't rebound. Having Shaq instead of Rasheed for those 20 minutes would have given us about 0.4 extra rebounds. Yes, Shaq seems to be the solution to our problems.

Dude, just stop.

Those numbers are inflated by Sheed getting 8 boards in 36 minutes in game 7.  I suspect that if Shaq had been there for 36 minutes in game 7, he would have also exceeded his rebounding average.  Of course, Shaq would also added 20 or so points in addition.

Right, minute-adjusted stats are inflated by playing extended minutes. That just makes perfect sense.

[kozlodoev]

You guys are in a battle to the finish! For the record I'm pro shaq. I guess we found our new polarizing player to replace tony allen!

I don't have a problem with Shaq. I have a problem with users who have no idea how to interpret data.

[Celtics4ever]

Rondo only did well with penetration initially once, teams clogged the middle he vanished.  He didn't have a big game against the Laker bigs.  Two good games against CLE and one against ORL in terms of penetration.  I think Shotblocking held up rather well against his speed.   I am not counting the oodles of transition baskets he got where the bigs are out of the picture.

[GrandTheftRondo]

The O'Neil brothers(sic) last year averaged a combined 26 PPG, 13.6 RPG, 2.8 APG and 2.6 blkspg in a combined 51 minutes per game and .544 FG%

Perk and Sheed, in just over a combined 50 minutes: 19.1/11.7/2.0/2.6

just sayin'

TP to you sir.

[MBunge]

Also, you are conveniently disregarding the fact that he averaged 4.6 rebounds in 20 minutes in the NBA finals -- a series you claim we lost because we couldn't rebound. Having Shaq instead of Rasheed for those 20 minutes would have given us about 0.4 extra rebounds. Yes, Shaq seems to be the solution to our problems.

Dude, just stop.

Those numbers are inflated by Sheed getting 8 boards in 36 minutes in game 7.  I suspect that if Shaq had been there for 36 minutes in game 7, he would have also exceeded his rebounding average.  Of course, Shaq would also added 20 or so points in addition.

Right, minute-adjusted stats are inflated by playing extended minutes. That just makes perfect sense.

Oh, for pete's...

In the first 6 games of the Finals, Sheed played a total of 119 minutes.  He played 36 minutes in game 7, almost one-third the amount of time he had played in the previous 6 games.  When you're dealing with a set of data and you add in an additional data point that is so out of line with everything else, you're going to get a skewed result.

Are you seriously trying to argue that Shaq is not a better rebounder than Sheed?  Seriously?  Even though Shaq's career rebound average is 11 a game while Sheed's is 6.7.  Even though Shaq's rebounding averages in both the regular season and the post season were still significantly higher than Sheed's just this past year?  Seriously?

Mike

[MBunge]

You guys are in a battle to the finish! For the record I'm pro shaq. I guess we found our new polarizing player to replace tony allen!

I don't have a problem with Shaq. I have a problem with users who have no idea how to interpret data.

Somebody who just throws out any and all data that doesn't support his point is not someone who should get snotty about "interpretation".

Mike

[kozlodoev]

Are you seriously trying to argue that Shaq is not a better rebounder than Sheed?

No. I am just trying to argue he's not as bad as you're trying to make him. And therein lies my problem with your posts -- which is something you consistently fail to understand, and therefore trying to have any reasonable argument with you has been mostly a waste of time.