Bi Gal's Big Season

[Stifle Tower]

You make other teams to adjust when you play either dominating offense or defense. And in playoffs if you rely on your offense to carry you you need to be able to keep it effective while covering defensive weaknesses. Al in high pick-n-roll is a glaring defensive hole. You can't even say the Jazz play solid defense with what we saw last year.

The problem is Jazz have no offense when Al is on the bench.

And I think the Jazz went a long ways towards developing a dominant offense. What was the key weakness last year? NO ONE could hit from outside. The hardest thing SA had to do was avoid getting called for illegal defense. So now the Jazz replace poor outside shooters in Devin, Raja, CJ and Howard with Mo, Marvin and Foye.

Even with the absence of shooters, Utah was 4th in PPG. I see a big improvement in offense and an equally big improvement in perimeter defense with the offseason changes.

 

[zbone]

And I think the Jazz went a long ways towards developing a dominant offense. What was the key weakness last year? NO ONE could hit from outside. The hardest thing SA had to do was avoid getting called for illegal defense. So now the Jazz replace poor outside shooters in Devin, Raja, CJ and Howard with Mo, Marvin and Foye.

That's not the point. You can't win in playoffs with elite offense and poor defense.

 

[Stifle Tower]

That's not the point. You can't win in playoffs with elite offense and poor defense.

Top 10 teams last season in terms of Opponents PPG:

Chicago
Boston
Philadelphia
Miami
Memphis
Atlanta
Orlando
New Orleans
Toronto
Indiana


OK, you got me there with Miami. But none of the BEST teams in the West were great in terms of Opposing PPG: Lakers were 15th, followed by San Antonio and OKC.

BTW, Denver, San Antonio, OKC and Utah were the top 4 scoring teams.

 

[zbone]

Top 10 teams last season in terms of Opponents PPG:

Chicago
Boston
Philadelphia
Miami
Memphis
Atlanta
Orlando
New Orleans
Toronto
Indiana


OK, you got me there with Miami. But none of the BEST teams in the West were great in terms of Opposing PPG: Lakers were 15th, followed by San Antonio and OKC.

BTW, Denver, San Antonio, OKC and Utah were the top 4 scoring teams.

You are doing it wrong. You should check out median Opponents PPG and Own PPG for regular season or (better) playoffs and then see how far from these values teams you are interested in fall. You can rank them by deducting deviation from median Opponents PPG from deviation from median Own PPG:

For example for playoffs:
Median Own PPG: 90.9
Median Opponents PPG: 95

LAL is 94 OWN and 98.2 OPP hence deviation from median is +3.1 and +3.2. Deduct one from another and result is -0.1
SAS is 102 and 96.1 hence deviation is 11.1 and 1.1. Result is 10.

If you rank them all you will get something like:
1. Miami 11.1
2. SAS 10
3. OKC 8.1
4. Indiana 5.5
...
16. Utah -11.9

You have to have either dominant offense and good defense or vice versa. Hope this clarifies.

 

[Saint Cy of JFC]

This thread is about as interesting as watching paint dry.

 

[zbone]

Yup. Someone's got to throw in some cat gifs.

 

[Chris]

It's clear that there are many who dislike Al Jefferson on this board. But, living in Massachusetts, I don't have a good grasp on how Jazz fans in the state of Utah feel about him. It seems when I watch the 18-20 games I get to watch every year (half of which are usually at Utah), I get the sense that the fans in Utah do like him. Can anyone give me an honest assessment of this?

 

[theNBAnerd]

It's clear that there are many who dislike Al Jefferson on this board. But, living in Massachusetts, I don't have a good grasp on how Jazz fans in the state of Utah feel about him. It seems when I watch the 18-20 games I get to watch every year (half of which are usually at Utah), I get the sense that the fans in Utah do like him. Can anyone give me an honest assessment of this?

casual fans whose evaluation of a player goes as far as a box score appreciate al's contribution to a game.

more discerning fans -- whether they are jazzfanz posters or not -- get just as frustrated when he fails to a) defend, ever; b) attack the paint, ever; c) make good decisions, usually.

i know plenty of fans in utah who are not on jazzfanz and still wish al would be gone.

 

[Gyp Rosetti]

we worry about the adjustments Utah has to make because last year they defended the PnR like a bunch of retarded kids.

Uh, I thought retards had crazy strength...ya know, retard strength. We played like a bunch of *******. Retards put us to shame.

 

[Hitman]

more discerning fans -- whether they are jazzfanz posters or not -- get just as frustrated when he fails to a) defend, ever;

Al has the highest block/min of anyone on the team - even better than Favors,and at least double the rate of anyone else.

b) attack the paint, ever;

In addition to being a good scorer on the low block, he also has a good jumpshot.

c) make good decisions, usually.

Al has a better than 2:1 assist:turnover ratio, best out of all centres in the league and better than many of the so-called "creative" players on the team, like Hayward.

Fans who actually understand the game recognise Al's value to the team.

 

[NAOS]

(I'm not going to look this up to confirm...)

Al Jefferson shot a total of 3 free throws against the Spurs. Three.

Which means....

<wait for it...>

he is soft as hell.

 

[orangello]

(I'm not going to look this up to confirm...)

Al Jefferson shot a total of 3 free throws against the Spurs. Three.

Which means....

<wait for it...>

he is soft as hell.

This made me laugh. And then cry. This is all true.

 

[The Midnight]

Yeah he really needs to get a little bit 'nasty' when playing against the likes of Duncan, Garnett, etc. He's just a bit too respectful against these guys and I saw the awe in his eyes going up against Duncan in the playoffs.

He needs to cut that Sh*t out.

I know he's a good Christian and all. But he has to understand that this is a 'game' at the end of the day. It is not real life like when Jesus says "If someone hits you - give him the other cheek as well." It's only a 'game' at the end of the day. Anything that's permissible within the rules of the game is fair game IMO.

A good example is Kevin Durant. He's also a good Christian lad. But does that take away his tenacity? No way. He leaves his heart out there on the floor each time he plays. Both offensively and defensively. Big Al needs to do the same.

 

[billyshelby]

(I'm not going to look this up to confirm...)

Al Jefferson shot a total of 3 free throws against the Spurs. Three.

Which means....

<wait for it...>

he is soft as hell.

Paul had 16. And he was the most useless frontcourt player we had in that series by a mile. Al absolutely needs to get to the line more, but this is pretty silly.

 

[NAOS]

Paul had 16. And he was the most useless frontcourt player we had in that series by a mile. Al absolutely needs to get to the line more, but this is pretty silly.

There's nothing silly about Al shooting only 3 free throws and being generally soft.

Also, I don't think you can add a stat from a different player in order for me to back off this statement. That would be silly.

All due respect.

 

[franklin]

(I'm not going to look this up to confirm...)

Al Jefferson shot a total of 3 free throws against the Spurs. Three.

Which means....

<wait for it...>

he is soft as hell.

Jefferson's game is not prone to shooting calls in this NBull****Aera. I just changed my password to shutthehell up in you & YB's honor. Kisskissbangbang.

 

[billyshelby]

There's nothing silly about Al shooting only 3 free throws and being generally soft.

Also, I don't think you can add a stat from a different player in order for me to back off this statement. That would be silly.

All due respect.

Matt Harpring used to be hard as nails. Pretty terrible basketball player, too. I don't think 'soft' defines Al, I definitely don't think the number of free throws means he was soft, but just to play along -- soft Al was about 100 times better than tough Sap in that series.

 

[NAOS]

Jefferson's game is not prone to shooting calls in this NBull****Aera. I just changed my password to shutthehell up in you & YB's honor. Kisskissbangbang.

His game is perfectly suited for drawing fouls. When his pump fake gets the defender into the air, he needs to draw contact and go for an AND1. Simple as ****. What am I missing?

 

[NAOS]

Matt Harpring used to be hard as nails. Pretty terrible basketball player, too. I don't think 'soft' defines Al, I definitely don't think the number of free throws means he was soft, but just to play along -- soft Al was about 100 times better than tough Sap in that series.

tell me, Billy, how did Wilt Chamberlain perform in that series? Then, tell me how Wilt's performance means dog **** about how Al performed.

All due respect.

 

[billyshelby]

tell me, Billy, how did Wilt Chamberlain perform in that series? Then, tell me how Wilt's performance means dog **** about how Al performed.

All due respect.

My point is that every single aspect of Al's performance in any game gets microanalyzed, and often distorted to make a disingenuous point.

The fact is: Al actually played pretty well in the playoffs. He was one of the only guys who did. I'm only point that out because no one else does. And I only brought Sap into it (who I genuinely love) because the colossal egg he laid never gets mentioned.