NBA and NCAA fastbreaks

Ahhhh yess, the Norman Dale/Hank Iba/Woody Hayes mindset: Defense is good good good. Offense is bad bad bad. Attempting to score is morally deficient. Only playing iron-clad defense is an ethically acceptable way to play the game.

 

Sending in the clown (Ollie) for two Barry-type free throws is good drama.

 

Call me a fossil, but I'll change my mind about this when and only when Don Nelson wins a championship.

 

And they didn't win.

 

Exactly. I completely understand Starman's thinking when it comes the question of what's more fun to watch. But I've watched a helluva lot of basketball in my time, and I can't help but notice that the Doug Moe, Paul Westhead, Mike D'Antoni, Don Nelson run n fun styles have a nasty knack for flaming out in the post-season. "Playing the right way" might be more boring to watch, but it does seem to be the best way to bring home a ring.

 

The hell they didn't. The Riley Knicks era was the best four year stretch the Knicks have had in the last 35 years. They might not've won a championship (although they were only a very close game 7 Finals loss from it), but they did a helluva lot better than that talent would've if Riley had not gone with that half-court brutal ball approach.

 

The lesson of those Knicks, and the various Pistons teams is simple. While in basketball more than any other sport, the way to win titles is to have the best player in the world and surround him with the appropriate minor pieces, if you don't have the dynamic superstar, the next best way to try is the Riley way. And when Jordan was out, and it was up for grabs because there was no great team they came within a couple of Starks jumpers of stealing a title.

 

The 3s on the fastbreak are a huge thing now. James Worthy today would probably just float outside the arc instead of swooping in for the one-handed, straight-armed stuff.

We've had this discussion before, but I will defend D'Antoni in the "coaches who focus on offense haven't won anything" argument. Yeah, he didn't win a title. But in 2005, if Joe Johnson's completely healthy and not coming off a bad facial injury, they might knock off the Spurs. In 2006, without Stoudemire, without Kurt Thomas, they made it to Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals. Their system was a huge reason why. And of course in 2007 the infamous suspensions when the series is tied 2-2. If they beat the Spurs, I think they would have crushed Utah and the Cavs, just like San Antonio did.

I loved the 80s style of play and just last night watched Game 5 of the 1985 Finals. There's definitely a bigger commitment to defense now as far as getting back. But the offensive philosophies have also undoubtedly changed and played a role in the demise of the break. The Lakers, and the Celtics (who weren't exactly filled with thoroughbreds) were constantly looking to attack, even after made baskets. Both teams were famous for fast-break points after opponents' made baskets. and that happened not just because of a lack of defensive awareness - though that's part of it of course - but because they were constantly looking to push it. Today, a shot goes through, the other team walks after it, the point guard slowly brings it up. Or a team gets a rebound, waits for the point guard to get the ball, slowly walks it up.

 

The fact that the D'Antoni Suns might have gotten to the finals if things had fallen differently doesn't change the fact that they never did.

That said, I certainly don't mean to bash D'Antoni. I was really hoping those Suns teams would win a title, it would've been great for the League and gotten a lot of coaches to loosen up if it was proven that a run n gun system could win a ring. But, the fact is, as fun as they were to watch, they always ended up falling to a team like the Spurs playing a system that was more defensive and half-court offense oriented.

And, contrary to common opinion, D'Antoni is hardly the first guy to try that "8 second or less" run n gun type stuff. Doug Moe had a quite similar system with the Spurs and Nuggets throughout the 70s and 80s; Nelson was always trying to run with the Warriors and Mavs the last couple decades; Paul Westhead tried to implement the Loyola Marymount system in Denver in the early 90s (although that was just a one year complete disaster). Those teams were damn fun to watch and often racked up impressive regular season records, but they always seemed to get shut down when defenses tightened up in the playoffs. And teams playing the uglier Brown, Popovich, and Riley type systems are quite often the ones doing the shutting.

 

Stoney, do you think the way the game has been officiated since about 1988 or so has as much to do with the slow down teams having the advantage over the showtime teams?

 

If you're talking about teams from the 90s like the Riley Knicks and Heat, yeah I definately think the officiating helps explain their success. In the 90s the physicality got out of hand, refs let guys beat the hell out of each other underneath, and handcheck the hell out of each other on the perimeter, and Riley always assembled a roster and played a system that took complete advantage of that.

But they cracked down hard on that stuff several years ago to try to open the game up. The officiating today is a lot tighter and more fast break friendly than it was a decade ago. It helps explain why open court specialists like Nash became more valuable in recent years, and why you don't see nearly as many enforcer types like Oakley and Mahorn as you did a decade ago. Yet, despite those changes, you still don't see the fast break as much as you did in the 80s and the D'Antoni style teams still seem to get beat down by the Popovich style teams in the playoffs.