Duncan or KG?

[23]

Re: Duncan or KG?

So a couple of KGs former teammates questioned his clutch gene on twitter last night....is this valid?

I remember him with big baskets throughout his career...

Remember the thread I started years and years ago when he was in Minny when because of the article he wrote about this very thing when he used to write for ESPN Page 2

I asked the guys here if they agreed and to my surprise they all felt the exact same way.... I remember him fading away from almost the 3pt line on Gary Payton in crunch time once in the playoffs as well

If Lebron ran from asking for the ball the way he did back then, they'd really be killing him right now

[ewingandoakley]

Re: Duncan or KG?

Duncan has been about the same player for his entire career, so at one point K.G. was better but nowadays Duncan is better. K.G. fluctuated too much over the course of his career where Duncan has consistently been a 20-10 guy his entire career.

[ojandpizza]

I don't know of any point in kGs career where he was any better than Duncan in his prime

[coolcras7]

Re: Duncan or KG?

I don't know of any point in kGs career where he was any better than Duncan in his prime

If the question was who would I go with today, both in their mid to late 30's easy KG. KG can easily get you 20-10 and play defense where as Duncan is no longer that type of player you are lucky of you get double digits with duncan today.

[coolcras7]

Re: Duncan or KG?

Duncan has been about the same player for his entire career, so at one point K.G. was better but nowadays Duncan is better. K.G. fluctuated too much over the course of his career where Duncan has consistently been a 20-10 guy his entire career.

Duncan has not been a 20-10 guy for the last couple of years and is now the 3 option for his team.

[SteelersFreak]

Re: Duncan or KG?

Duncan has not been a 20-10 guy for the last couple of years and is now the 3 option for his team.

And KG is the third option for his team too. What's your point?

[coolcras7]

Re: Duncan or KG?

And KG is the third option for his team too. What's your point?

KG is not the 3 option for the Celtics there is no first option for the Celtics they give it to the player with best chance of scoring it is completely situational and like I said Duncan is not the scorer he use to be.

[SteelersFreak]

Re: Duncan or KG?

KG is not the 3 option for the Celtics there is no first option for the Celtics they give it to the player with best chance of scoring it is completely situational and like I said Duncan is not the scorer he use to be.

And the Spurs don't do the exact same thing?

[coolcras7]

Re: Duncan or KG?

And the Spurs don't do the exact same thing?

No Parker or Ginobili take the last shot 99 percent of the time on the Spurs now.

[SteelersFreak]

Re: Duncan or KG?

No Parker or Ginobili take the last shot 99 percent of the time on the Spurs now.

Not sure if serious...

[iAM-IncReDiBLe-]

What the hell? KG is still a 20-10 guy? Yea he can get it, from time to time.

[Moses Shuttlesworth]

Re: Duncan or KG?

Definitely worth reading about KG's ridiculous impact on the defensive end this postseason:

You HAVE to recognize what Kevin Garnett is doing on defense this postseason.



Garnett has gotten a lot of attention in the second half of the season and these playoffs for his consistently stellar play. Many pundits point out that he's playing center for the first time and doing it well. The 20/10 average through the playoffs has gotten some notice. KG got a bunch of pub the other night for playing so well in the post on offense. And those are all really good things, and I'm glad that folks are noticing.

But seriously. What he's doing on defense is blowing all of that out of the water right now.

I've been hearing for awhile about how Garnett is leading the NBA in postseason +/-. Doc has mentioned it a couple of times, it's been noted a couple of times in passing on Sportscenter. But it wasn't until after Game 3 on Friday that I really looked into it. Here is the post that I saw that caught my eye, from a poster named bs_and_cs on another message board:

The Heat shot 38% with KG on the floor, 85% with KG on the bench....yes you read that right, 85%.

Later that night I saw that corroborated on TV, when NBA TV reported the same numbers (except the Heat actually shot ONLY 84% when KG was on the bench).

Then, last night, it happened again. I was watching NBA TV in the aftermath of the overtime win, and they reported that the Heat had shot about 35% in Game 4 when KG was in the game, but 75% with him on the bench.

So then, I started doing the math...through the two wins, the Celtics were holding the Heat in the mid-upper 30% range with Garnett in the game...but were allowing the Heat to score at roughly an 80% clip with Garnett on the bench. To put it mildly, that seemed like a big difference.

So, I went on over to basketballvalue.com and checked out the results through 17 games...

The Celtics' defense is allowing 89.72 points/100 possessions when Garnett is on the court (the #1 mark in the NBA)
The Celtics' defense is allowing 122.44 points/100 possessions when Garnett is off the court (the absolute worst mark in the NBA)
In short, the Celtics' defense is 32.7 points better with Garnett on the floor this postseason than with him off through 17 games and almost 650 minutes on-court. Not only that, but if you follow that link you'll see that it's Garnett and only Garnett that keys the defense. Sometimes with net on/off team ratings you run into a case where there's just a dominant unit and everyone on that unit has great and similar ratings. Not here. After Garnett, the next best Celtics are:

Avery Bradley (defense 11.1 points better in about 250 minutes before injury)
Marquis Daniels (4.4 points better in 80 minutes)
Mickeal Pietrus (2.37 points better in 323 minutes)

And NO OTHER ROTATION PLAYER IS ABOVE ZERO.

Now, let me put this in context because I know there are some that don't love the +/- approach. The playoffs, by definition, are going to be a smaller sample size than the regular season and sample size is very important with +/- analysis. There aren't any other strong help defensive bigs on the Celtics, which could perhaps make Garnett's influence on the defense larger. And Garnett, as great as he's been on defense, couldn't do it alone if the perimeter players weren't playing their part as well.

But that said.

By the time you reach the conference finals, you're starting to pile up a large enough sample size that it's worth at least paying attention to. The issue that you run into with small sample size is that the noise and variance can be too big. But when one player's marks are so, SO much of an outlier like Garnett's are, the noise doesn't make as much of a difference. Garnett's mark through 17 games is so off the chart that...ok, let's try to get a feel for just how ridiculous Garnett's defensive marks are.

Basketball-reference has +/- data back to 2007, and before that I used to peruse 82games.com regularly for seasons back to 2002. In that decade of seasons, I've never heard of ANYONE having an on/off defensive +/- through at least the Conference Finals as large as Garnett's (the only one even close that I can think of is Ben Wallace in '04, whose on/off was up around 28 I believe).
I've never heard of ANYONE being the difference between a team having the #1 rated defense and the dead-last rated defense in the playoffs.
And I've never heard of ANYONE having an on/off defensive +/- so completely, absurdly larger than his other teammates.
Garnett is having a strong playoffs on offense, as a leader, and as a competitor. But what he's doing on defense would put him in the midst of one of the greatest postseason defensive runs that the NBA has ever seen. Right now, as a fan, I'm much more interested in beating the Heat two more times and seeing the squad bring home #18 not long after. But again...sometimes you just have to take a step back and recognize when you might be witnessing history.

[wwharton]

Re: Duncan or KG?

Definitely worth reading about KG's ridiculous impact on the defensive end this postseason:

And he still gets hammered for offensive brain farts or not embracing the alpha male role at the end of close games. This is what I mean when I say he's a #2 AND that it's not a bad thing. It's just a label... you look at a #1 as the guy you get the ball to end those situations, but it can be argued that what KG DOES do all game, including the end of tight games is more important in the grand scheme of things. All the label says is that he can do A LOT but he still needs someone else for that other role. The jury's still out but the same may be true for LBJ. If it's true that he's just not that #1 guy (based on how I define it) then let him do ALL the other things he does and don't put that pressure on him. Just wanted to give a little clarification for everyone that thinks calling a player a #2 is a huge insult.

I do wonder what having Bosh, even at less than 100% can do to change this. Right now, KG is pretty much playing a one man zone. Bosh would at least make him pay a bit more attention to his assignment which should open things up a little for others.

[coolcras7]

Re: Duncan or KG?

What the hell? KG is still a 20-10 guy? Yea he can get it, from time to time.

He has been doing it all post season, how is that from time to time, KG can be a dominate player but he choices to try to get others involves that is why the people around him have nothing but respect for him he is the ultimate team first guy, it can be frustrating which Doc has said from time to time.

[J_Posse]

He has been doing it all post season, how is that from time to time, KG can be a dominate player but he choices to try to get others involves that is why the people around him have nothing but respect for him he is the ultimate team first guy, it can be frustrating which Doc has said from time to time.

They have virtually identical numbers over the last 4 years. Garnett is playing better, but going against Joel Anthony and Ronny Turiaf, while Duncan faces off against Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka. The Heat not having Bosh also has an effect on the series and Garnett's production.

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