namkcuR said:
Don't rag on Van Gundy. I don't know if what he said is true or not, but it certainly could be. It looked like the refs were calling some games against Yao for sure, VG claimed an insider confirmed it, and then Stern pulled a typical Stern, absolutely refusing to even open his mind for one millionth of a nanosecond to the possibility that maybe just maybe his refs screwed up. I mean come on, aside from the Yao stuff, Finley clearly ran out of bounds and then back in before knocking that ball away in Game 4, the ref clearly saw it, the ref clearly decided not to call it. What the hell is that? The way I see it, VG attempted to call them out, Stern attempted to shut VG up by giving him a ridiculous fine so that he(Stern) could go on smiling that goofy smile of his pretending his refs are the most perfect refs in the world.
And defense wins championships. Period. End of discussion. It's not a cliche that's stuipd and/or overplayed, it's fact. The only teams to win the title in the last 15 years that didn't have one of the best defenses in the league were the Shaq/Kobe Laker teams. 88-89/89-90 Pistons - totally built on D and dirty play. Bulls of the 90s - had a defense that was equally as explosive as their offense. The Rockets of Hakeem and co. were very good defensively. The Spurs of Duncan and Robinson were great defensively. The current Pistons were great defensively. And these recent Spurs and Pistons teams were never really very special offensively, nothing like the Suns or Mavs. They relied on their defense and it won titles. Did you even watch the 03 finals between the Nets and Spurs? That series was almost unwatchable because it was almost entirely a defensive battle, no real offense to speak of. And the Spurs ended up winning it. Defense wins championships. And I'll take the word of pretty much every basketball analyst/commentator/announcer/player/coach I've ever come across in my 15 years of watching the NBA over yours, if you don't mind.
And the idea that the team that wins is always the team that deserved to win is pure BULLSHIT. There is literally a litany of games from the Lakers' 02 and 04 playoff runs that they won but didn't deserve to win. If you know anything about basketball, and I think you do, you know that Shaq got away with everything in LA, I mean even more than he does now. I don't want to get in a big arguement about the Lakers so that's all I'll say about it. But I stand by it.
you're completely missing the point, while at the same time bolstering what i was saying.
good defense helps to win championships... but it does not win it alone. those "dirty" pistons teams of the late 80s had explosive defensive players such as isiah thomas, joe dumars and vinny johnson.
the 90s bulls had dominant offensive players in jordan and scottie pippen, as well as a plethora of great shooting role players, i.e. bj armstrong, john paxson, steve kerr, etc. etc.
the mid 90s rockets had hakeem and kenny the jet smith, along with young explosive players like sam cassell, mario ellie, vernon maxwell & robert horry. the second rockets championship team had clyde drexler.
the first spurs championship team had duncan and robinson... equally as dominant on the offensive end as they were on the defensive end. the second title... the brutal nets-spurs series... turned in the spurs favor based largely on the play of duncan and the offensive spark provided by speedy claxton. tony parker had a sub par series and was getting tooled by kidd. claxton came in and the nets didn't have an answer for him defensively and provided just enough of a boost to allow the spurs to come out on top in 6 games, and got speedy a nice hefty contract that summer. did you watch the sereis?
and vice versa... the lakers. the lakers championship teams of the 80s and late 90s were built around dominant offense. but don't be fooled. a large reason why they in fact won so often was because both teams had dominating big men anchoring the
defense. the entire showtime concept was based around the fast break... you do not run a fast break offense without a good defense. it just doesn't work. fast breaks come off missed shots, rebounds and turn overs... so again... a great offense is often intertwined with a great defense.
so again... the team that can balance all aspects of the game wins championships. this doesn't mean that a team can't be a primarily defensive orientated team, or vice/versa. it simply means that even a great defensive team needs to be able to score in order to win it all, and a great offensive team needs to be able to stop somebody if they want to win. it's not as clear cut as defense wins championships. and i'll take the years of experience as a player and now a coach, learning/studying and living the game, listening to and having conversations with some of the best minds in the game, over the dick vitales, billy packers and greg anthony's of the world, if you don't mind. defense wins championships is a great sound bite. the reality is that it's much more complicated than that.
as for shaq... shaq does get away with a lot of offensive fouls, yes. this is certainly true. but he also gets hammered on every possesion, often without a call, more than any other player in recent memory... probably since the jordan rules defense of the pistons.
the whole deserve to win vs. doesn't deserve to win argument is stupid and invalid because frankly is objective. it's your opinion that the lakers didn't deserve to win that game. there's no fact involved, and there are valid arguments on both sides of the plate. so while i do agree with you that there are times where i am playing/coaching/watching a game that ends up in the lose colomn that i feel my team
deserved to win, i know full well that there have been plenty of times where i've been on the winning side where the team that lost feels that they deserved to win, too. it's all based on opinion. both teams are working hard, both teams put in the practice time, both teams have put out so much blood, sweat and tears along the way that to say the team that deserved to win didn't deserve to do so because they may have caught a few breaks over the course of the game is insulting them. and it's something that, as a coach, i refuse to do.
as for jeff van gundy... i love him. i really do. i've met him on a number of occasions when he was an unknown assistant with the knicks. we both played basketball for the same college, and then later transfered out of that college. i've always looked up to him. but let's look at simple logic here... jeff baisicly said that the nba is making it harder on yao because mark cuban complained.
think about that...
the NBA... david stern... who has been the best marketing commish we've ever seen in any sport... is going to hold back Yao Ming... a guy who has a greater marketing potential than any other player in NBA history... because Mark Cuban... a guy who's been fined more often than any owner in NBA history and has been a constant thorn in stern's side... asked him to?
does that make any sense to you what-so-ever?
the more likely scenario is that a memorendum was sent to officials by the head official to "watch illegal screens," without mentiong specific names. these notes are often sent in the nba, ncaa and even high school. it's not a conspiracy, it's just a "note of emphasis." i could show you a copy of a "note of emphasis" for suffolk county boys high school basketball that i got my hands on.
high school. it occurs all the time... always has occured... will continue to occur at all levels.
what is not occuring is some vast conspiracy against yao ming. and that's baisicly what van gundy was insinuating. coaches always get on refs for bad/missed calls, especially in the playoffs. and they usually either get away with it or get a small, meaningless fine. van gundy took it to the next level. he baisicly accused the league of trying to fix the games. thus why his fine was so high.
if you want to talk hypocrisy, you can talk about how ben wallace got a 5 game suspension for starting a riot and van gundy got a 100,000k fine for just words. now you have an argument.
now i must go to an extended happy hour... i will be more than happy to continue this discusion with you and/or reply to any response tommorow morning.
