doesn't.
Last Thursday night, super-daughter Alissa graduated from high school.
End of an era. Super-brother Pablo, who graduated 10 years earlier, is
the wise older brother in the picture attached above. This is more than
an excuse to attach a picture of two of my three children. It is an
intro to the long-awaited NBA Finals Fake Blog, 2013 edition.
Greg Popovich started with the Spurs in 1994, the year Alissa was born.
Just as most Chicago Cub fans were not alive when the Cubs last won the
pennant, Pop has been coach or GM of the Spurs the entire time Alissa
has been alive. His last head coaching job before the Spurs was with
the Pomona Pitzer Sagehens, when I was the assistant coach at Claremont
McKenna. Pablo, who many of you know, used to come out to practice and
games with me during his "formative years", one of the reasons he became
a terrific player -- from an early age, he saw what the game was
supposed to look like.
Now, the 2013 NBA Finals may in large part turn out to be a battle
between the widely acknowledged best coach in the game vs. the widely
acknowledged best player in the game. You know who they are. This fake
blog is designed to try to point out things that others may not be
saying. "Others" often include the game announcers and other experts,
some of whom offer great commentary, some, not so much.
Two examples of things others don't point out, both of which I have
given before. First, the percentage of offensive rebounds vs. missed
shots is a much more meaningful stat than total rebounds. If both
teams' offensive rebound percentage is the same, total rebounds normally
just measures who shot and defended better. The better rebounding team
can only be determined by what percentage of its own misses it got back
-- and what percentage of the other team's misses it prevented the
offensive team from getting a second chance to score. If a team gets
more than a third of its misses back as offensive boards, it has
rebounded well -- and the converse is true. Just look at the box score
to see how many misses there were -- 45 for 90 means there were 45
misses, all of which were offensive rebounding opportunities. (I have
had many a game where I supplied my team's big guys with many offensive
rebounding "opportunities".) If the offensive team gets 15 or more of
those 45 misses back as offensive rebounds, that is pretty good -- and
the opposing coach is upset with his guys.
Similarly, "points off turnovers" means virtually nothing -- unless it
is a steal that leads immediately to a dunk or open shot. Total
turnovers matter: The team that turns it over has zero chance on
scoring on that possession. Since most teams score about a point per
possession, each turnover generally costs about a point. Put another
way, if Team A has 10 turnovers, and Team B has 15, that is generally
worth about a 5 point swing. Technical fouls and defensive 3 seconds
are worth about a point each too, since normally the team puts a 90%
free throw shooter at the line for the free throw. All those points add
up -- they count just as much as that "clutch" free throw in the last
minute.
The group who gets this fake email range from those who know more about
the game than I do to those who have no clue how they wound up on the
list. Feel free to forward to anyone who you think might enjoy it.
Also, feel free to either comment directly to me, or to the entire
group. However, if you send it to the entire group, remember it is a
bunch of people you don't know -- don't pull a Roy Hibbert and refer to
the media as... well, many of you know what he called them, and though
it started with "mother", it didn't involve Mother's Day.
Also, do me a favor -- don't read these on your cell phone. I spend
more time than I should on these, and probably wouldn't bother if I knew
all of you were reading it on a 2 inch by 3 inch box while waiting for
the elevator. And if you do, you miss the full glory of some cool
attachments -- like this one:
http://fansided.com/2013/05/
en-gets-handshake-from-lebron-
That dunk on Birdman was one of the highlights of the pre-Finals
playoffs, and not only because Chris Anderson, the "Hey, everyone, look
at me" Birdman was dunked on -- but because now everyone who sees that
video does in fact look at him, and just for a moment, can enjoy that he
looks ridiculous for a reason other than just intentionally looks
ridiculous.
Two other highlights of the pre-Finals. First, the Curry Flurry:
Attached is the 2 minute 11 second highlight reel of Stephen Curry's 22
point third quarter against the Nuggets. Great fun -- he might make me
a Warrior fan once the Lakers and Spurs transition to being lousy ( the
Lakers got a jump on it already). Anyway, the Curry Flurry:
http://deadspin.com/steph-
ign=socialflow_deadspin_
ocialflow
Finally, at my Sunday hoops game, I was discussing this play, which I
saw live (on TV). I knew immediately it was a clip all coaches should
show. It starts with all 5 guys touching the ball, none for more than a
second, a perfect last pass from my Man Manu, and then the final guy
"touching" the ball a second time. If you don't want to read the short
article before the clip (and you should), just watch the clip at the
end. You can time the 4 passes from the scoreboard clock -- the ball
goes from the first guy to the fifth guy in about 3 seconds...
http://www.grantland.com/blog/
nard-conundrum-and-why-life-
I will have more to say about the upcoming Finals -- for now just assume
I will be rooting for the age and treachery of the Spurs.
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