Thread: Rondo?
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Old 12-18-2014, 03:18 PM   #147
iggymcfly
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Originally Posted by EricaLubarsky View Post
Are you saying that season stats which include games against some of the WORST teams the NBA has ever fielded mean more than the stats we put out against quality opponents.

Look at us vs. good defenses. We haven't played many, which is why our season stats look so rosy. If you look at just the good defensive teams, you'll see two things. 1) they ARE who we have to beat to get far in the playoffs, and 2) they can make us look bad offensively.

We're a great offensive team when there isn't much opposition. We're a FANTASTIC regular season team as long as we keep playing inferior Eastern teams. I'm not talking about the regular season opponents, though. I'm talking about the big dogs we have to be able to overcome to get out of the first round. Our playoff run WILL include three of the following five teams

Memphis, San Antonio, Clippers, Warriors, and Rockets

I could care less how we play against Philly. It is concerning when our defense is so bad and our offense is so weak against those five teams.
We've played 7 championship contending teams. 6 of those games were on the road and we went 2-5. One of the losses was by 1 in San Antonio and one was by 3 in Houston which suggests that if we'd had an equal home/road split in those games, we'd be right around .500. I don't see why record against West contenders is more meaningful than record against contenders overall, especially with such a small sample. Toronto's just as good as Portland and Houston. And even if you want to quibble on including Chicago, they certainly have an elite defense, so if your hypothesis is that we can't get it done against top defenses, then that performance is still a very useful data point there. And again, playing Chicago on the road is just as tough as playing a top West contender at home. Obviously, if you parse the numbers down enough, you can make them say whatever you want, but I haven't seen any evidence so far that the Mavs offense can't get it done against top teams.
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