ducky23;842506833 said:

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Not sure why people are having so much trouble understanding the strategy.

Joshbalt brought up a good point. You can't foul for an entire quarter or ejse you'd have to use 30+ fouls. But even if you used it for 2/3 of the third quarter it would be hugely advantageous for the cavs

Now let's play through how this would work so we can assuage everyone's fears.

With about 8 mins left to play, you start fouling iggy on every single possession. Even if the cavs only have two team fouls, just go foul someone until you get to five. And once you get to five, go foul iggy.

Yes you will be using a lot of fouls in the quarter. Probably 20+. But you have that many to use. You have six fouls from a combination of miller, Marion, jones, Haywood, Perkins.

The concern that they will play tentative with a lot of fouls is not a concern cause none of these players will play in the 4th q. You stick with your six man rotation in the 4th quarter. So who cares if Marion fouls out?

The concern that it puts the dubs in the bonus is not a concern because you're fouling the entire quarter anyways. If things break right, curry is not going to get a chance to shoot free throws at all in the quarter.

One legitimate concern is if you have to scrap the plan if iggy starts making fts. Cause if you have to scrap the plan, the dubs will be in the bonus. That's fine. Maybe just start fouling iggy when you have 3 or 4 team fouls. You're probably still fouling with 4-6 mins left in the quarter. That would still be a lot of time for rest.

The concern that it puts scrubs on the floor is a slight concern but it's not a deal breaker. I'm fine playing Haywood on offense for six possessions because he's not going to have to play defense on the other end.

the strategy seems drastic and obviously has some risks. But the cavs need to play with nothing to lose. And they absolureky need to find rest for Lebron and co. If they don't, they are going to get run in the fourth quarter.

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Based on FT % of a player, the analytical model defines if a team should use the Hack a player tactics... Sure, you sub in a non key rotation player that can accumulate up fouls and not worry about a key player in foul trouble later in game. But for viewers as well as players, it slows down game and gets teams out of sync. (both teams)


Hopefully the NBA make rules changes for 2015/16 season where the "Hack a no good FT shooting player" gets addressed. Iggy, DeAndre Jordan, Dwight Howard, etc... where if the total fouls reach some value in a given quarter..... the O team gets to pick who will shoot FT... (until the quarter is over, thus, reset each quarter). In case of Iggy and game 6... he has to get past this mental block and be able to hit 50% or higher.. if he can only hit 20%, it is a good tactic to use to keep fouling him (with non core rotation players) so that the average points per GSW possession goes down below the rate they are scoring at.. and/or GSW then has to take off floor for that reason.

go GSW
:gobears:

ducky23;842506833 said:

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Not sure why people are having so much trouble understanding the strategy.

Joshbalt brought up a good point. You can't foul for an entire quarter or ejse you'd have to use 30+ fouls. But even if you used it for 2/3 of the third quarter it would be hugely advantageous for the cavs

Now let's play through how this would work so we can assuage everyone's fears.

With about 8 mins left to play, you start fouling iggy on every single possession. Even if the cavs only have two team fouls, just go foul someone until you get to five. And once you get to five, go foul iggy.

Yes you will be using a lot of fouls in the quarter. Probably 20+. But you have that many to use. You have six fouls from a combination of miller, Marion, jones, Haywood, Perkins.

The concern that they will play tentative with a lot of fouls is not a concern cause none of these players will play in the 4th q. You stick with your six man rotation in the 4th quarter. So who cares if Marion fouls out?

The concern that it puts the dubs in the bonus is not a concern because you're fouling the entire quarter anyways. If things break right, curry is not going to get a chance to shoot free throws at all in the quarter.

One legitimate concern is if you have to scrap the plan if iggy starts making fts. Cause if you have to scrap the plan, the dubs will be in the bonus. That's fine. Maybe just start fouling iggy when you have 3 or 4 team fouls. You're probably still fouling with 4-6 mins left in the quarter. That would still be a lot of time for rest.

The concern that it puts scrubs on the floor is a slight concern but it's not a deal breaker. I'm fine playing Haywood on offense for six possessions because he's not going to have to play defense on the other end.

the strategy seems drastic and obviously has some risks. But the cavs need to play with nothing to lose. And they absolureky need to find rest for Lebron and co. If they don't, they are going to get run in the fourth quarter.

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I think the Warriors have a couple options if they start playing hack-a-Iggy. Tristan is not a good FT shooter and neither are Haywood or Perkins. They could hack them and that would mean more rest up front for the Cavs, but the Cavs players would still need to *play* for about as many meaningful minutes since not a lot of time would be coming off the clock. How many players are the Cavs even dressing? 12? That'd be 42 fouls that their bench can absorb, which might be what's required if both teams hack for 8 minutes. At that point, there are no subs for the Cavs in the 4th and if any of the starters foul out you start getting techs (I think the warriors are all healthy, so would have 1 or 2 players on the bench if they foul the same amount).

The Warriors could also foul Haywood or Perkins if they're on the floor and sub out Iggy for a good FT shooter. Now the Cavs have to foul a good FT shooter, take a timeout or live w/ Haywood/Perkins playing O and D (they're terrible at both; probably enough to more than offset any adv. Cavs get by posting Lebron on Green/Barnes/Klay). If the Cavs go back to their core 6, you put Iggy back in and now the Cavs have to decide if they are going to let any of the core 6 foul in order to hack (or burn another timeout).

The Warriors may also not hack at all since Haywood and Perkins are not great players and the Cavs O with those players may be significantly worse than Iggy FTs; at least enough to dig a deeper hole for the Cavs to climb out of in the 4th. I'm not a huge fan of this unless Iggy is making his FTs since Lebron doesn't have to play Defense and you reduce the number of offensive possessions the Warriors get in the game (your suggestion would remove 2/3 of a quarter's worth of possessions).

My favorite option would be to have Iggy just spend the quarter running away from Perkins and Haywood while the rest of the teams play 4v4. Couldn't be that hard to outrun those guys.


I do think the Cavs should hack at least in the 3rd and maybe towards the end of the 1st or 2nd because they NEED to get Lebron more rest, but I think they have to be a bit more frugal than hacking for 2/3 of the quarter. Maybe with 4-6 mins left in each quarter, they take a timeout and start hacking. Maybe sacrifice 1 or 2 players to the hack strategy a quarter as a way of extending the game, giving the starters a rest, and keeping curry/thompson from shooting/getting in a rhythm. Cavs probably concede some point differential this way (I don't think Iggy misses another 9 in a row), but maybe then Lebron has enough in his legs in the 4th to Greg Jennings the team to a game 7.

gobears;842506837 said:

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Based on FT % of a player, the analytical model defines if a team should use the Hack a player tactics... Sure, you sub in a non key rotation player that can accumulate up fouls and not worry about a key player in foul trouble later in game. But for viewers as well as players, it slows down game and gets teams out of sync. (both teams)


Hopefully the NBA make rules changes for 2015/16 season where the "Hack a no good FT shooting player" gets addressed. Iggy, DeAndre Jordan, Dwight Howard, etc... where if the total fouls reach some value in a given quarter..... the O team gets to pick who will shoot FT... (until the quarter is over, thus, reset each quarter). In case of Iggy and game 6... he has to get past this mental block and be able to hit 50% or higher.. if he can only hit 20%, it is a good tactic to use to keep fouling him (with non core rotation players) so that the average points per GSW possession goes down below the rate they are scoring at.. and/or GSW then has to take off floor for that reason.

go GSW
:gobears:

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I think Silver mentioned that there likely wouldn't be any rule changes coming to address this next season. Silver acknowledges that it's not the most entertaining, but so far it hasn't had an impact on viewership (mostly because so far it's only been really used on a couple of teams). It also doesn't have the support of the owners (at this point), so it doesn't make sense for him to make the rule change at the moment. It sounds like he's open to the idea, but there'd need to be a shift in the data or owner support first.

I'd love for the NBA to address this. I think the argument that players should simply make their FTs is a bit silly and irrelevant. It's boring and is not a selling point for the NBA. As a fan, I'd much rather watch the teams actually run an offense. I also think it's weird to have rules in place that make it advantageous to commit a foul. I can't think of any other sports that have this situation. I think it'd make more sense to let the team that got fouled (away from the ball) have the option of taking the ball in-bounds or having the fouled player shoot FTs. Alternatively, the player who currently has the ball when a foul is committed could be the one who shoots the FTs regardless of where the foul is.

I'm not sure I get this. Why wouldn't Iggy sit every time that Lebron sits? The Warriors have other good offensive options on the bench like Lee or Speights.

BearGeorge;842506850 said:

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I'm not sure I get this. Why wouldn't Iggy sit every time that Lebron sits? The Warriors have other good offensive options on the bench like Lee or Speights.

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He would (and is) but lebron isn't sitting. Point of hacking is to get lebron rest while he's still on the court.

wraptor347;842506847 said:

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My favorite option would be to have Iggy just spend the quarter running away from Perkins and Haywood while the rest of the teams play 4v4. Couldn't be that hard to outrun those guys.

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that would be absolutely priceless.

ducky23;842506897 said:

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that would be absolutely priceless.

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It looked like near the end of the last game they were going to foul Iggy and he was running around to get away and then Green came in and was trying to play oline blocking someone from fouling Iggy. I think at that moment the warriors called timeout.