Winning close games is a lot about randomness. Luck.
Its about having a go-to play and go-to player.
We have Pierce and Ray, but the rest of our roster is capable of coming up in the clutch as well.
Miami has no go-to end of game plays, and all of their main players arent clutch. LeBron has hit 1 clutch shot in his entire career.
No, you're wrong. It's mostly about luck.
Last season Cleveland won the same % of close game as Boston and Miami actually won more. Toronto was actually one of the top teams in the NBA winning close games, won 63.2% of them.
There are cases of teams that in consecutive years, with basically the same roster and the same coach, go from being one of the best in winning close games to be one of the worst and then back to be good again. Has happened to the Spurs this past decade: they 11-9 in games decided by five points or fewer in 07/08, 8-11 in 06/07 (when they actually won the championship). The year before, San Antonio went 14-5.
It's mostly about luck. There's a correlation with how good the team is, with the team record, but over/under performance relatively to the expectations is randomness. Not "clutch players" or coaching.
Im sorry but saying that winning close games comes down to "luck" is just plain ignorant.
Legends of this game would laugh in your face if you dare said such a thing out in public.
No clue why Im even having this conversation right now, saying close games are determined by luck has to be the funniest thing I have heard all month.
Sorry if this offends you but your wrong.
Actually the first time I learned this was reading Dean Smith's book that was written in 1980 or 1981. Coaches have known this for decades, that's why before the shot-clock era some guys would try to slow down the pace to the extreme, to play as few possessions as possible and increase their chances of winning games.
Anyway, it seems you don't even try to refute my arguments. It seems you just got enervated and without any good refutation you decided to resort to simply call me ignorant, say people would laugh at my face and some sarcastic remarks. That was it, wasn't it?
Btw, you probably misread what I wrote: besides the overall talent of the team, close games are decided by luck. If it was only by luck, you'd see an even larger variation. Good teams tend to win more close games (even though it happens often that a good team has a negative record on close games, even an awful record), but not at the same % they win non-close games. Why? Exactly because of that randomness.
I'll try to use an analogy that a person like you may be able to understand: imagine you and 4 of your friends are going to play a basketball game against a NBA team, the Celtics. In the 1st scenario, you play a full game. 48 minutes, dozens of possessions. Obviously, you'd have no chance of making it a close game, you'd lose 220-6 or so. If they weren't going for a full-court pressure, you'd slow down the game to make the score as close as possible - limit their chances to score baskets. You'd only shoot in the last couple of seconds of the shot-clock. In a run'n'gun game, they'd probably score more than 300 points if they wanted to. In any case, you'd have no chance of winning the game - even if they missed their first shot for whatever reason and you'd luck into making a half-court desperation shot in your first attempt. It'd be a very temporary advantage.
Now imagine a game, not with 48 minutes, but with only 2 possessions - each team could take a shot/commit a turnover. A 30 seconds game or so. You'd probably lose 99% of those games too. But here you'd have a chance, even if a minuscule one, because lucky/unlucky shots happen.You could hit that 2 pointer from the half-court. And you'd win that game.
Close games are basically games decided in a couple of possessions. A couple of baskets that are made or missed. And in such a short sample, randomness is immense. Bad teams have a much better chance than beating good teams - even you and your friends could luck into it, let alone another NBA team, even if a truly horrible one.
