When the Spurs won their first title TD was the main guy for the Spurs down the stretch in close games. He made a ton of key plays and was a go-to guy when they needed hoops.
Similarly, when the Spurs won their first title KG was the main guy for the Celtics down the stretch in close games. He made a ton of key plays and was a go-to guy when they needed hoops.
I disagree with this. Pierce was much more the go-to guy for the C's.
If you look at their "clutch" scoring in those playoffs from 82games, PP scored a total of 27 points in those late game situations compared to 24 for KG (and 20 for Ray). Pretty close all around.
RE: The "closer" for the 2008 Celtics. You can take it further, though. If you look closely at the 82games.com crunch-time data, you can see HOW those points were scored. To whit, in crunchtime during the 2007-08 playoffs:
KG made 9 of 21 shots, drew 3 shooting fouls, and was fouled twice intentionally at the end of close games. He also had 0 assists and 1 turnover total in those minutes.
Ray made 5 of 15 shots, drew 2 shooting fouls, and was fouled twice intentionally at the end of close games. He also had 3 assists and 1 TO.
Pierce made 1 of 14 shots, drew 3 shooting fouls, and was fouled intentionally 9 times at the end of close games. He also had 4 assists and 6 TOs.
So while Pierce, to his credit, did a great job making those intentional foul shots to close the game, you'd be missing the forest for the trees to think he was the main scorer at crunch time in those playoffs. You can make the case that he was more of the offense initiator than KG, and I can buy that, but when the Celtics actually went to Pierce to shoot at crunch time, he made only 1 out of his 14 shots. If you include the 3 times he got fouled, Pierce generated a bucket 4 times in 17 attempts. Meanwhile, if you include the times he drew fouls, Garnett generated a bucket 12 times in 24 attempts at crunchtime.
I don't care how much people dislike stats, this is a case where it's an open-and-shut case. When the 2007-08 Celtics needed points in crunchtime during their playoff championship run, Garnett was who they went to most often to score and he was also the one that delivered much more consistently. If there were a "closer" for the 2007-08 championship Celtics, it was Garnett or it was nobody.
Can you link the stats?
I'll link to their 82games pages, but you'd have to do a bit of math from there to get the exact numbers I posted. But I can describe how I did it. First, here are the "clutch" player cards for:
KG - http://www.82games.com/0708/playoffs/07BOS9E.HTM
Pierce - http://www.82games.com/0708/playoffs/07BOS6E.HTM
Ray - http://www.82games.com/0708/playoffs/07BOS5E.HTM
If you follow those links you'll find all the info you need to get the numbers I did, but it's not completely straight-forward because 82games.com calculated their main stats per-48 minutes without telling us exactly how many crunch minutes were played. But, here are some of the things you can look at to figure out the exact breakdown:
1) Under the "Free throw shooting and foul drawing" category, they list the actual total values for free throws made, free throws attempted, field goals attempted (including the times a player was fouled when shooting), and 'fouled' which counts how many times the player was fouled while shooting.
2) Similarly, in the "Passing Stats", "Rebounding", "Shot-blocking" and "Turnovers" sub-categories they also give the actual total numbers in there for assists, defensive rebounds, offensive rebounds, shots blocked, and TOs.
3) Once you have the total #s, the per-48 #s and the percentages, all it takes is some algebra to determine any info that I listed that isn't readily spelled out on the page. I just made an Excel spreadsheet to do the math for me.
Interesting. Although, I don't consider the only relevant data to be less than 5 minutes left and no team leading by more than 5 points. Many of these games are won in the first 6 minutes of the 4th quarter, and many of the most important possessions happen when a team is up 6 points, and you need a big point to either pull closer, or open it up.
So, once again, I will go with what my eyes told me, and that was that the ball was in the hands of Pierce, and he was the one who initiated the offense and made things happen down the stretch of games.
KG had some big shots, but they did not run the ball through him the way the Spurs run it through Duncan.
This line of logic just puzzles me. I can't understand it. I know that sometimes people can manipulate stats to say something they don't, but in this case I can't even see how this is controversial.
KG was the leading scorer for the Celtics in the playoffs, slightly over Pierce.
KG was the leading 4th quarter scorer for the Celtics in the playoffs, by a larger margin.
KG was the one taking and making the most buckets down the stretch when the Celtics needed offense in close games, this time by a pretty significant margin.
You say that sometimes the first half of the 4th quarter is more important, but KG was still led the Celtics in 4th quarter scoring outside of the 82games-defined "clutch" time period.
I mean, at some point facts are facts. Pierce is an outstanding player. It doesn't make him any less of an outstanding player that during the championship run KG was the leading scorer both early and late. I mean, it's actually what happened. I don't understand how you can just ignore that.
Oh, and about Duncan, more of the lying stats that you don't believe in, but people have taken a pretty comprehensive look at how both Garnett and Duncan have performed in crunch-time in the 9 years since the data is available. It may not convince you in any way, but for those that are curious:
http://www.backpicks.com/2011/01/10/the-nbas-best-players-in-the-clutch-since-2003/The money quote:
"A criticism often volleyed toward Kevin Garnett is his reluctance to take over games down the stretch. Of course, most bigs are hampered by this. And, with regards to his chief rival, Tim Duncan, KG’s clutch performance is quite similar. He’s nearly identical with TD over the last 8+ seasons, and outperformed him in his 3-year peak. Garnett actually shot it 21% more in his three-year peak (18.0 FGA’s per 36, 618 minute sample) than Duncan did in his (14.9 FGA’s per 36, 473 minute sample)."Garnett isn't crunch-time Jordan, or even Dirk as a scorer. That's not his skill nor his role, and that's fine. But I've never seen any player for which more people just DECIDED what was true about him, and no amount of facts will ever dissuade them from that opinion. Folks have decided that KG isn't clutch, that he isn't a "real" #1 option, and that he can't be the main scorer on a champion. No matter what the actual facts say.
Topic: KG's career = overrated not a franchise player not a true #1 deal with it? (Read 17597 times)