CRYPTIC SHADE POST EXPLANATION: You see...Gerald Green....not a very good defender. Actually..pretty bad. Actually..pretty awful...although he has been pretty good at times this year. You threw "shade" at our Defense, and if they were really that good....I just thought that THIS was a good time to kindly point out that we used Gerald Green (of all people) in our defensive effort to shut down Melo on this particular night. That is achieved with great help defense. Gerald Green denies the elbow pass to Melo's sweet spot......Bosh cheats behind to make the pass look more difficult.....Knicks are forced to re-set....Melo uses a cross screen on the re-set.......Gerald Green chases him down...Winslow pressures the passer.........Melo catches it outside of his comfort zone with 4 seconds left on the shot clock.......Green is 6'-8" and jumps through the roof..challenges the shot....Whiteside and Bosh crash off their man for the defensive rebound.....= TEAM DEFENSE. CK picked up on it.
Oh I see, you meant team defense all along and just happened to point out Gerald Green and no other Heat defender until now ironically for the hell of it! All makes sense now. And I didn't "throw shade" at your defense, you are just a sensitive man when it comes to 20 games in to the NBA regular season. All Fact.
You call me sensitive, while writing this post in a blubbering crying mess? I hope CK and I didn't make you feel stupid.
I feel ridiculous for assuming with your post that Gerald Green came off the bench and shut down Melo. I shouldve known that you wouldnt post something so ridiculous. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
You should feel ridiculous for thinking that Gerald Green was a designated Melo Stopper off the bench. Here is a freebie. Heat games have gone under 13 of the 15 games. Boston is 4th in PACE at 101.6 poss. per game. They are 20th in Off. Eff. at 100.0 pts. per 100 poss. Miami is #2 in Def. Eff at 94.5 per 100 poss., they are 13th in Offense scoring 101.4. The Over/Under is 192. There is a very simple calculation to figure out the most likely number of possessions to be played. You then assign the average FG% for each team, and 3 pt. attempts, then add up the points. bet it accordingly. Make money. No more lessons.
I think you are smarter than that if you are the gambling man I think you are. Your stats are informative, important, and most importantly FACTORED IN TO THE TOTAL released by Vegas. You think they don't consider these things before releasing a number that will have tons of money on it? You think that information is a secret? That isn't saying you will not be right in any given bet, the goal is to find a hole in the evaluation and HOPE like hell you can gain a small edge. I'm not just some guy on the forum who likes to bet sports, I have been doing it for about 15 years with a much better than average success rate. The area I can't seem to get a feel for and its likely because I find no joy in watching it is CBB. I have logged some monumental losses in my time betting that sport. When and if I bet that it will be tailing someone sometime early 2016. Either way those stats you use are apart of the formula that creates the total number. NOW, I would absolutely trust your opinion on a Heat game total simply because of the degree in which you follow them. It likely gives you a slight edge if you sat down and actually capped it. Betting sports is much easier than it was 10 years ago because we are privy to the same stats thanks to the internet, but you still need to have a natural feel for certain matchups. Take the Ohio State Buckeye football team for example....I watch every snap every game every year so in my mind I have a good feel for their strengths as a team....before the Spartans game last week my plan was that after Ohio State won, I was going to fly out that Monday and pounce on the Michigan game in which the Buckeye's likely would've opened as 6-7 point fav's. I was going to pounce and pounce hard, as I felt the Buckeyes were going to be overvalued due to the stakes of the game, undefeated streak etc. Michigan State either screwed me over or did me a huge favor as that Loss woke up a team that had not showed up all season. Would they have won by 20+ had they not lost the week prior? I don't think so but who knows. I still lost 1k on it by teasing it. Anyways, I appreciate the vine and all but your stat you googled pales in comparison to what you may be able to decipher by watching objectively. If betting sports was as easy as thorough evaluation of numbers?? Stitches would be a zillionare.
Celtics have an interesting team this year. They're trying to build off their defense, much like the Heat - though they aren't nearly as good without Marcus Smart, who's a stud on that end (not sure if he's going tonight). On offense they play fast, really space it out, move it quickly, and attack closeouts to make stuff happen. That last part at times seems to be their main focus. I love watching Isaiah Thomas...but I love watching TJ defend on the ball even better. Nice matchup there, if Spo decides to limit Dragic's defensive responsibilities against him.
The Key is not the number. The Key is the failure in making the number that you happen to find with a statistical analysis. As a rule of thumb, completely crossed styles such as Boston and Miami always make for terrible betting opportunities.
The Jazz almost pulled it off. They had their shots but couldn't get them to drop at the end. It's looking more possible.
I'd be doubling him every time he gets the ball. The time he tried to pass out of it the pass was telegraphed and late. Westbrook's first step is insane...scary good. Losing this game at the line, currently.
He kind of reminds me of Alonzo in the last quarter of his career.. Once the ball is on his hands the movement ends.. Whiteside still has a lot to learn. Anyways this was the best win of our young season. Should give us some nice momentum. Great team growth win, our defense was up to par as usual. Our offensive sets needs a lot of work, very sloppy possessions. Im glad to see Wade attack to win the game. Thats how its done..
That was easily the BEST GAME of the NBA season.....and maybe the best in two seasons. 38 Lead Changes (2nd most in the last TEN YEARS), 12 Ties. No Runs exceeding +5. Wade at his Best, Russ at his Best, Durant hitting big shots. Tough Defense. Goran Dragic plays a GREAT game. Winslow battled Durant. Whiteside was a beast defensively. Fun game.
I disagree about Whiteside passing. They get the ball to him for a reason. It's when he's deep in scoring position posting up, and I take that all day with him. If he weren't making shots that would be one thing. But he has a real soft touch and a very high field goal percentage (60 percent). It's either that, or it's a pick and roll situation and you've got Whiteside on the lob. Either way his role in the offense is such that the ball can stop moving once it goes to Whiteside because you purposefully got the ball to him because he's in position to score. What you don't want is for him to lose that aggression. You got the ball to him because he's in position to score either with a mismatch or because he's so deep in the paint, or both. You start making him think about the pass and he's going to start missing shots. The second reason you don't want him passing is because he's ****ing terrible at it. For every sweet pass he manages to squeeze in, there must be three he flubs that end up turnovers. I don't think that's an exaggeration either because his turnover to assist ratio is like 10:1. The only situations you want Whiteside to start working on his passing more have to do with the rare occasions he gets the ball when he's not already in scoring position. And that's just because he's so bad at passing, again the turnovers start appearing. Right now THE thing for him to worry about is free throws. That's got to be his focus, nearly his entire focus when it comes to things that aren't yet part of his game that he needs to improve. Well, at least offensively. There are things he can work on defensively and he still needs to clean up his high pick and roll.
Justise Winslow may be the best defender on the team already. There were definitely times during the game when Winslow and Green were on the floor together and they still had Green on Durant and I was screaming to get Winslow back on Durant. And that's not just because Green is a bad defender. One particular moment you could tell KD was getting red hot and the Heat still had Green on him even though Winslow was out there...it was maddening. I thought Josh Richardson got some real good quality minutes out there in the 1st/2nd quarters. He looked good using his length and quickness as a defender, and I think he's got some nice potential attacking the basket. When Russell Westbrook had that huge tomahawk dunk on a fast break opportunity, flying as high as he did, I could just tell Tyler Johnson was going to try and get back at him. He didn't even dunk it on Johnson, it's just that these two players are similar and I knew Johnson would want to show that. Sure enough not a minute later Johnson goes super aggressive to the rim and tries the same thing except it wasn't even a fast break, and if he'd not lost the ball on the way up (needs bigger paws) then that would have been one hell of a highlight reel play. Incidentally there are aspects of that Oklahoma City defense that are flat terrible. They don't play very good help defense.
Good thing the Heat won because otherwise that would have exacerbated Hassan's upset at being pulled at the 4 minute mark for the remainder of the game. But it was a smart move. You can't afford the Thunder starting a Hackassan strategy in the 4 to 2 minute area, getting extra possessions. Then when it got down to 2 minutes, Whiteside's skill set wasn't what was needed out on the floor. Even so if not for Wade's heroics I think Hassan walks out of the game pissed off.
[video=twitter;672651088064024576]https://twitter.com/MiamiHEAT/status/672651088064024576[/video] Whoever runs the Heat's official Twitter is awesome.
That's because their fundamentals on the ball are terrible. You can only pressure and force the ball handler baseline so much till the opposing coach uses your own scheme against you. Just look at Dragic' game tonight. He suckered OKC into thinking they had trap opportunities all night....they go to trap...pass comes out...second pass....OKC scrambles.....somebody wide open for a layup. BTW, #2 Defense vs. #2 Offense tonight. The #2 Defense, held the #2 Offense under their season averages in every single category except Rebound Differential... More stats from this game...OKC 50 paint points....Heat? 52. Now for the remarkable stat: Heat...97 points on 95 possessions. Thunder ...95 points on 98 Possessions.
This is not necessarily true. I can remember three specific plays, which happened to be all three of his misses on the night: 1. Whiteside gets a pass on the low block and has two men between him and the basket. He has multiple passes but just throws up a 6 ft lob at the rim. Clank. 2. Gets a pass in transition, takes a step or two in, haphazardly takes a 9 footer when the second pass would have led to an open shot, not that open shots are guarantees in Miami. 3. Gets a pass 16 feet from the rim, sizes up the defender, settles for a contested jumper. These were definitely NOT the right plays to make and two of them were not with established position.
Anyone have any stats on the type of defense a team plays against on a per play or proportional basis? I don't get much time to watch games what with college and the job search but I have to think teams are willing to play a fair amount of zone. We really can't knock down our shots even when open. I like the concept of the Bosh 3-ball from the top of the key but it just couldn't fall down the stretch. Even a guy like McBoberts seemed to have more success putting the ball on the floor. I have to say the 1's played well tonight. Possibly the play of the game was that steal by Dragic in transition. Westbrook was in full crossover mode and had probably figured out what dunk he was going to do. It was at 2:43 left in the 4th quarter after a miss on the other end with the score 91-91. Dragic passed the ball upcourt to Wade who dunked for the lead. It kept OKC from establishing momentum and gave us some cushion against the KD 3 point heroics about a minute later.
No one can get my adrenaline going like dwyane wade does. That game was exhilerating, scary, nail biting..man i love dwyane wade.
There were some possessions where Winslow was guarding that Robeson guy, of all people (I kinda like him as a dirty work type player for them; he just doesn't have much offense). At that point you're just wasting Justise's biggest skill, imo. I get that Spo sees 6'11 KD and maybe thinks Winslow is too small to bother his shot, or he wanted Winslow rather than Green on Ibaka, which happened a few times. So he went with Green on KD, who is at least a closer size matchup. But the way Winslow plays off the ball and the way he gets up in your chest does enough to make a guy any size somewhat uncomfortable. So strong and technically he's just rock-solid. This was the first game where I felt like we really missed Luol Deng. Some lineups we ended up with were just screaming for him. I liked seeing a bit of Richardson as well, though. He has the defense and speed to become a rotation guy going forward. The way he moves around reminds me of Leandro Barbosa a little. Just looks like an NBA athlete who can eventually make an impact. I'd need a couple more hands to count the number of times I've come away from an OKC game thinking that they should be better than they are. Donovan seems like a smart guy who may figure it out eventually, as it's only his first year in the League...but imagine what Spo could do with a roster like theirs with all that length and athleticism and a couple unstoppable scorers.
That game last night proved I've become more a Heat fan than Fins fan. More excited for game 16 of 82 then I've been for any Fins game in years. Maybe the NE game 2 years ago
Cleveland is playing very much like crap IMO, so I would not be surprised if the Heat won. The Heat are too good to not bring your A game against them if you want a win, and even then a win is no lock.
You have to assume the 'history' between the two teams factors into how they play each other. Miami basically took Cleveland's Ferrari for four years, turned it into a drag race champion when Cleveland couldn't, then sent it back (not perfect since there aren't any sentient Ferrari's...that I know about). Chicago always played Miami hard even without D.Rose and even ended the win streak. Can't sleep on what is essentially a rivalry game...unless it's the Dolphins and then you know they'll come out flat.
The point has probably been raised before but Stephen A. brought up a good point about Justise Winslow becoming such a defensive stalwart so early in his career is really allowing Dwyane Wade to manage his energy a lot better. He can spend more energy on offense when it's needed, steals on defense or good defense in important moments, etc. In my opinion, and I haven't seen all of the games this year but I think even with Wade's FG% being down to 43% he's having one of the finest years I've seen him have. And I don't know, maybe you can attribute it to Winslow allowing him to manage his energy better. And I hate to get ahead of myself but Tyler Johnson has the makings of something special as he develops more.
Wade is above that magic PER mark of 20 at 21.0. #2 among all SG's. His Usual spot. The guy is an all-time great. It's what he does. I expect nothing less.
http://www.nba.com/cavaliers/ GO CHECK THIS OUT. Go look for LeBron's video from shootaround. he is wearing a "Miami Winners" Hat.
