Eastern 2nd Round: Pacers (2) Vs Knicks (3)

[CB Draft Voting]

Round 2: Indiana Pacers (2) V Knicks (3)

Pawnee Pacers Press Conference

New York Knicks Press Conference

GMs should post what their tactics would be, how they feel they'd match up, and how they'd handle their rotations. Note that HCA will be the tie-breaker if voting is tied at the end of Wednesday, August 3rd.

Once this round of the playoffs is over, I'll be merging this with the rest of the Eastern 1st Rd matchups

Note to GMs off playoff teams:
Quote
7. You may not vote for your own team, this is to prevent skewing of overall results by every game theory loving GM from voting themselves in first place.
This rule is a bit unclear it was meant for regular season voting, it doesn't matter in a head to head situation so feel free to list your own team as the winner. If a GM doesn't think his team will win (or fails to vote) boo to him!

Each GM team will still however only get a single vote however, I will count the first ballot I receive.

[Kane3387]

Like the other eastern series I think there are good match-ups here.

Williams V Parker - Williams without a doubt but Parker is no slouch. You're looking at two top 8 PGs. Williams is a top 3 guy but Parker is a very good PG.

Meeks V Lee - I am a big Jodie Meeks fan. I like him more with his sharp shooting and the way he compliments D Will then I like Lee with Parker.

Deng V Gay - I like Gay more personally but I think this is a close and almost even match-up.

Blaire V Randolph - Not even close. Z-Bo.

Duncan V Gasol - My heart tells me Duncan but after what I saw in the playoffs this past year I believe this is a pretty even match-up.

As for the bench. I like the Pacers bench a little more. I think the back up PGs are even. I like Ariza more then Nick Young and would like to see Nocioni get George's minutes. I think Taj Gibson and Chuck Hayes are pretty even, but I like Channing Frye and how he can stretch the defense more then what Turiaf brings. He gave Duncan issues in the WCSF in 2010 because of the way he spread the floor.

In the end I see the Spurs front court matched up against the Grizzlies front court and that's where the Spurs were dominated in the real playoffs. I don't think Deron Williams is that much better then Tony Parker to overcome that. I also like that the Pacers have HCA.

I like the Pacers to win in a tough six game series as of now.

[action781]

I'd love to break this matchup down, but I think Kane just did a pretty good job of it for me!  Haha.  First of all, I'd like to state how I see our minute distribution this series:

Parker (38) / Teague (10)
Ariza (30) / Lee (18)
Gay (40) / George ( 8 )
Z-Bo (40) / Frye ( 8 )
Gasol (38) / Frye (4) / Hayes (4)

Like the other eastern series I think there are good match-ups here.

Williams V Parker - Williams without a doubt but Parker is no slouch. You're looking at two top 8 PGs. Williams is a top 3 guy but Parker is a very good PG.

GC and I could attempt for days to sway people's minds about why we think one is equal or far better than the other, but I think in the end, Kane is pretty spot on right here and most people are probably not going to be far swayed from this general idea.

I could bring up Parker actually (and surprisingly to me!) out-performing D-Will head-to-head over 19 regular season matchups: http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&p1=parketo01&p2=willide01 and then GC will quickly point to the 5 postseason matchups where D-Will has outperformed Parker (bottom of the same link). 

The bottom line:  D-Will is still a little better than Parker. 
The question:  Is it enough to offset the low post pounding the Pacers are going to put on the Knicks?

I'd also like to add in that Jeff Teague showed this postseason that he is a considerably more viable playoff backup pg than Keyon Dooling.

Meeks V Lee - I am a big Jodie Meeks fan. I like him more with his sharp shooting and the way he compliments D Will then I like Lee with Parker.

Deng V Gay - I like Gay more personally but I think this is a close and almost even match-up.

I like to consider all the wings together since they can be interchangeable and sometimes bench players will play a bigger role than starters.

In this series, the Pacers are going to change up their starting lineup a little bit.  We are going to insert Trevor Ariza into the starting lineup.  We think his length, 4" height advantage, and good defensive skills will impact Meeks' shooting ability.  I think Ariza is the better player and will outperform Meeks.

We are going to use C. Lee off the bench as we see him being a better matchup defensively against Nick Young.

Paul George will see a little bit of time as well this series to give us some shooting and scoring ability off the bench.  We just don't want to rely on a youngster for too much.

I think Gay is the better overall player than Deng.  Better in every offensive aspect of the game than Deng and still a darn good defender.  But I won't kill somebody over finding Deng likeable and thinking that this matchup is somewhat even.

Blaire V Randolph - Not even close. Z-Bo.

Duncan V Gasol - My heart tells me Duncan but after what I saw in the playoffs this past year I believe this is a pretty even match-up.

See:  2011 NBA Western Conference Playoffs Round 1.  This matchup already happened.  It wasn't pretty for Blair & Duncan.  This is where I see Pawnee winning this series.

We do have some respect for NYK's bigs in terms of help defense and shot blocking.  So we want to give Frye a good chunk of minutes at the backup 4/5 to spread the floor, allow either Z-Bo or Randolph to work alone down low and also open up the lane for Parker and Gay.  Hayes will be used primarily to guard Duncan if necessary.

[Donoghus]

Best matchup of the 2nd round.

[Gainesville Celtic]

Best matchup of the 2nd round.

I'll be in this thread at 3pm to explain why the Knicks will win this matchup....

[nickagneta]

New York: You have the one true superstar in this series in Deron Williams but he has to go head to head with a PG that most would agree is still a top7-8 PG in this league and a proven playoff winner in Tony Parker. Does this mitigate any real advantage you might have had and swing the series towards the Pacers with their quality and familiarity at the 3,4,and 5 spots?

[Who]

First impression is that Indiana have a pretty large advantage in this matchup.

[nickagneta]

First impression is that Indiana have a pretty large advantage in this matchup.

Kinda thinking the same thing.

[dark_lord]

my vote goes to indy.  much better team and win this series easily, imo

[Who]

I would move Ronny Turiaf into the starting lineup to defend Zach Randolph.

DeJuan Blair can be the backup center and be used against Chuck Hayes.

Taj Gibson vs Channing Frye and some minutes against Z-Bo but Turiaf should do the lion's share against Randolph. Gibson doesn't have the heft, the muscle, to battle Randolph well enough defensively. Turiaf would be the stronger defender in that matchup.

[action781]

I would move Ronny Turiaf into the starting lineup to defend Zach Randolph.

DeJuan Blair can be the backup center and be used against Chuck Hayes.

Taj Gibson vs Channing Frye and some minutes against Z-Bo but Turiaf should do the lion's share against Randolph. Gibson doesn't have the heft, the muscle, to battle Randolph well enough defensively. Turiaf would be the stronger defender in that matchup.

Even with all these matchups, I think my frontcourt still dominates this frontcourt by approx 10-15 points (being modest here) or so on an average night and by even more on some nights like in the video below that will be easy wins (the title says enough if you don't have the 10 min to watch the video):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cZPQgXGoPM

Can NYK's starting pg play (certainly not backup pg) and wing play make up for that huge Pawnee advantage?  I think the H2H matchup link previously posted for Parker vs. D-Will answers that question

[Gainesville Celtic]

Why The Fake NY Knicks are the Greatest Team Ever (and other such hyerbole)

or

Why This isn't MEM vs. SAS, round 2



Overall Philosophy

The Knicks aren't going to try and get cute here, we're generally gonna dance with who brought us...

PG - Williams (40), Dooling (8 )
SG - Meeks (18), N. Young (30)
SF - Deng (40), Bell (8 )
PF - Gibson (28), Blair (20)
C - Duncan (34), Turiaf (14) Duncan (28), Turiaf (20) (thanks for the advice Who)

Turiaf gets some additional minutes against the bigger Pacers frontcourt, Bell will be called on to come in and defend for 4-5 mins/half. Otherwise we'll stick to the plan:


Offense: Deron Williams and Luol Deng run the offense, Duncan is an important and deadly 3rd option, while Nick Young, Jodie Meeks and Raja Bell stretch the floor and don't allow IND to hide Gay's defensive weaknesses.

Defense: We're going to rely on our frontcourt depth to try and negate IND's advantage there. Duncan will play Gasol straight up and Gibson, Blair and Turiaf (and probably even a little Jordan Hill) will do their best to slow Z-Bo. Like the last round with Durant, if we can keep Randolph to 21-25 points we think that we can lock down the other positions.


The conventional wisdom is that since the Pawnee Pacers have the Memphis frontline that played a key role in upsetting Tim Duncan and Tony Parkers' Spurs in the Playoffs that the Pacers will do the same to the Knicks here.

This overlooks 2 critical differences — that we think will be the keys to this series.

1. Rudy Gay makes MEM a worse team -- The 2010-11 Grizzlies were actually better WITHOUT Rudy Gay. Gay wasn't on the floor for a single minute in the upset of the Spurs.

In fact the Grizz played .518 ball WITH Gay (54 games) and had a winning percentage of .642 WITHOUT Gay. He reorients the offense away from Randolph and Gasol, which was MEM's key advantage in the 1st round upset, and was a much worse defender than Battier. So Gay's inclusion here I think actually makes the Pacers a weaker team than if they swapped out Gay for, say, Eric Gordon or Ray Allen and had Ariza (a Battier-like defender) at SF.




2. Tony Parker was a key to the Spurs losing to MEM -- Parker's poor play vs. Memphis was actually one of the key reasons the Spurs lost the series.

Unfortunately, [Parker] couldn't continue the stellar play in the playoffs.   His points per game went up, but so did his turnovers.  He struggled with Memphis' defense and it showed in the Spurs inability to breakdown the Grizz.

source

How bad was Tony? Paker's shooting dropped from 51.9% in the regular season to 46% in the playoffs. His turnovers jumped from 2.6/gm to 3.3 and his assists plummeted from 7.3 to 5.2.

Again, Parker is a talented player, but he has a lower ast/to rate than Conley and a higher Usage rate --- further taking the ball out of Randolph and Gasol's hands.


And what of that frontcourt matchup? Again here's what Pound The Rock had to say about Duncan's play:

The greatest of all time at his position did what few of that ilk are willing to do.  He put his game on the back burner for the betterment of his team.  Duncan's numbers were down, yes, but numbers aren't everything.  Duncan's the anchor of this team and probably will be until he decides to hang 'em up.  The defense was vastly superior when Duncan on the floor.  His quick outlet passes helped the offense become one of the most prolific in the NBA...

Tim's interior defense was great, but he couldn't guard two big men by himself.  Duncan's offense suffered as side effect of his defensive effort.  The lack of consistant offense from Duncan hurt the Spurs ability to stop runs.  Duncan did all he could, in my opinion, he just didn't have a ton of help on the interior.  Timmeh simply isn't the guy who can carry the team by himself any more.

source

This is exactly what we've been saying and we think that while the Pacers still have an advantage in the frontcourt, Taj Gibson, Rony Turiaf and Jordan HIll are better, more active defenders than the corpse of Antonio McDyess, Matt Bonner and the rookie Tiago Splitter.


Position-by-postion breakdown to follow.....

[Gainesville Celtic]

The first of 5 position-by-position looks....

We agree that it's not about who "wins" more positional battles, but think this is a useful way of comparing/contrasting skills & fits.

POINT GUARD - Deron Williams & Tony Parker

Like the other eastern series I think there are good match-ups here.

Williams V Parker - Williams without a doubt but Parker is no slouch. You're looking at two top 8 PGs. Williams is a top 3 guy but Parker is a very good PG.

GC and I could attempt for days to sway people's minds about why we think one is equal or far better than the other, but I think in the end, Kane is pretty spot on right here and most people are probably not going to be far swayed from this general idea.

I could bring up Parker actually (and surprisingly to me!) out-performing D-Will head-to-head over 19 regular season matchups: http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&p1=parketo01&p2=willide01 and then GC will quickly point to the 5 postseason matchups where D-Will has outperformed Parker (bottom of the same link).  

The bottom line:  D-Will is still a little better than Parker.
The question:  Is it enough to offset the low post pounding the Pacers are going to put on the Knicks?

I'd also like to add in that Jeff Teague showed this postseason that he is a considerably more viable playoff backup pg than Keyon Dooling.

We'd argue that not only is Deron Williams MUCH better than Parker (not just a little), but that he's more consistent.

Parker is a dynamic talent but one of the key knocks against him has been that he's inconsistent. See, for example, his combined 13 TOs and 6 assists in the pivotal games 3 & 4 vs. Memphis when the series was tied 1-1.


Also as I mentioned above, I think that Williams is a better fit with these Fake Knicks than Parker is with the Fake Pacers.

This is Williams' team and he'll run the show -- dishing out 10 assts/gm while puttin in 20-25 ppg.

Parker on the other hand has the tendency to dominate the ball -- which on a team like the Spurs isn't a big deal and in fact is encouraged, but with the Pawnee Pacers with Gay, Randolph and Gasol, it's a big red flag b/c unlike Conley he won't be getting those guys the ball as frequently.


Teague and Dooling are afterthoughts -- but Dooling has shown that he's a quality backup for the last 10 years, while Teague showed he's a good NBA PG for exactly 6 games vs. CHI in the playoffs (and then only b/c Hinrich was injured)

[Who]

PG - Williams (40), Dooling (8 )
SG - Meeks (18), N. Young (30)
SF - Deng (40), Bell (8 )
PF - Gibson (28), Blair (20)
C - Duncan (28), Turiaf (20)

You need more minutes for Tim Duncan. He needs to be out there for 35-38 minutes a night against Marc Gasol.

Marc Gasol played 40 minutes a night in the Grizzlies playoff run. You can't afford to put Ronny Turiaf out there against him for that many minutes. It's too large of an advantage for Indiana.

[Gainesville Celtic]

Shooting Guards: (NY) Meeks & Nick Young (PAW) Ariza & Lee

Meeks V Lee - I am a big Jodie Meeks fan. I like him more with his sharp shooting and the way he compliments D Will then I like Lee with Parker.

I like to consider all the wings together since they can be interchangeable and sometimes bench players will play a bigger role than starters.

In this series, the Pacers are going to change up their starting lineup a little bit.  We are going to insert Trevor Ariza into the starting lineup.  We think his length, 4" height advantage, and good defensive skills will impact Meeks' shooting ability.  I think Ariza is the better player and will outperform Meeks.

We are going to use C. Lee off the bench as we see him being a better matchup defensively against Nick Young.

NY - Meeks & Nick Young
PAW - Ariza & Lee

I think our respective shooting guard combos are mirror-images of one another. And each give their team what we need from that position.

Meeks and Young are better fits alongside Deron Willias (as Kane says) and more skilled offensive talents who shoot the ball better

Ariza and Lee are far better defenders, but Ariza in particular took a HUGE step back last year offensivley. Even playing alongside the games 2nd best PG (CP3) he shot an abysmal 39.8% FG and a criminal 30.3% from Three -- though still managed to jack-up 3.6 attempts/game from three.

In comparison, in 3.5 combined attempts Meeks/Young shot 39.2% from downtown.