sycasey said:
SFCityBear said:
sycasey said:
SFCityBear said:
sycasey said:
Yogi Bear said:
sycasey said:
Curry is very good at splitting doubles and getting to the rim, but because of his size he still has problems finishing there.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/curryst01/shooting/2019
65.3% on shots at rim
I'm talking about in this situation (triple teamed with 9 seconds to shoot), not overall.
Curry was not triple-teamed at all. I thought so too, originally, but I found a replay from a better angle and watched it several times. The play began with Curry being guarded man-to-man by Van Vleet. Cousins was positioned at the top of the key, guarded by Ibaka. Curry cut past Cousins, completely losing Van Vleet on the pick. No switch was called, apparently, and Ibaka was slow to react to having to switch. Green was on the sideline, guarded by Sikiam. Curry caught the pass with not a single defender on him, only Van Fleet trying to catch up to him from far behind, and Ibaka running too late to get to Curry and bother his shot. Sikiam stayed with Green the whole time, and did not leave him to help out on guarding Curry, which was not the way it looked when I first watched the game live on TV from a different angle. Green had stepped out of bounds, but Sikiam did not react, when he should have left Green to help guard Curry, which he did not do. Curry was not triple-teamed or double-teamed on the play. In fact he was not guarded at all by anybody, really, and the play was well-executed, along with a little bit of luck that Iguodala's cross-court pass to Green was completed.
The play itself was fine, except that they could have picked a better spot to shoot from, perhaps. Curry took the shot from right where the three point line shortens, giving the shooter only a narrow space to shoot from, backed up against the sideline. The sideline comes into play, forcing the player into the small space, and is almost like having another defender.
I think there was a reasonable expectation (calling the play in the huddle) that the defense would have collapsed on Curry as soon as he tried to cut to the basket or had the ball. It's possible the Raptors screw it up, but that's what they had executed all series on defense, particularly when Klay or KD were not playing.
So I have no issue with the play call.
I have lots of problems with it. Your best shooter in this game was Iguodala. The play the Warriors ran had Iguodala inbounding the ball, so he could not be a decoy to start the play, could not be used to take a shot and it left him nowhere near the basket to rebound. It put maybe your best rebounder,, Green, .and stuck him in the corner, also in no position to rebound. Kerr deferred to Curry on the three, based more on Curry's reputation as a great player, even though Kerr had not been shooting well in that game. In that game, I'd want a play at the basket, Curry along with any one oft the three, Iguodala, Cousins, or Green, on a pick and roll or something, before I'd shoot a long two or a three. I'd be more inclined to go with the hot shooter in the game, if you insist on an outside shot, rather than the shooter who has shot the best in previous games or in the season. You got the play you wanted, I guess. The play was well executed, the defense made a couple mistakes, the great shooter was left open, and the play failed. In the end, it was a lower percentage play than any of the others i mentioned, and I believe in playing percentages.
LOL
Iguodala is streaky, but no one really believes he's the best shooter.
Anyway, I'm done debating this pure hypothetical.
You have a problem with reading comprehension. Go back and read what I wrote. I wrote "your best shooter in this game
WAS Iguodala." That is past tense. You wrote that "no one believes he IS the best shooter. I was of course, looking only at the players available to participate in that last play. Thompson, Looney, and KD were not available.
Iguodala WAS the Warrior's best shooter in that game up to that point, who was still available to play. "Best shooter" is defined by most of us to mean the player with the best shooting percentage. Meanwhile, Curry, who normallly or usuallly IS the Warrior's best shooter, WAS having a very off game for him. He HAD SHOT a horrible 35% floor prior to his last shot, and HAD SHOT an equally horrible 27% on threes, prior to his last shot. Up to that last shot, Iguodala had shot 60% from the floor and 50% on threes. But Cousins and Green also had been shooting much better than Curry. Green at 50%, and Cousins at 44%.
Surely, if you had ever played a lick of basketball on a team, you would know that if a player gets hot, gets in a streak, his teammates and/or his coach will want to get the ball to that hot player and have him shoot until he cools off. And if you had played or watched much basketball, you would know that sometimes your star player, your best shooter can have an off night. And in this game, the choice is guessing whether your star player can get out of his game long slump long enough to make one last shot at the buzzer, or whether the three players who have been shooting all game long better than your star, whether one of them should get the call to shoot the last shot. It is an either/or, it is guess work, and it is what coaches get paid millions to decide. I say Kerr picked wrong on this one. But if he had picked another player, and that player missed, then most fans would question the decision.
I'm sorry to be condescending here, but you had said some things that ticked me off, first by saying "Curry having to pass to one of the other POOR SHOOTERS on the team kind of is what you want to avoid." And second was almost lying about what I wrote, implying that I said Iguodala IS the best shooter, when I did not say that at all. My case is he was the hottest shooter we had, overall in that one game, once Thompson got hurt. If Thompson had been in the game, I'll bet you'd have no argument if Klay took the last shot. My larger point is that it should not have been a three, no matter who took it, based on the odds for success.
SFCityBear
