Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 5; and Updates on Correct Fouling

Editorial Notes: A small part of the following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

For this particular part of the Mavericks-Nuggets review, most of the following was written on the same day this Report was posted. This is due to the importance of the fouling topics.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM MAY 5, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets lead the series 2 games to 0.]

Posted by ray_sir_6
Please tell me that was sarcasm. Even the announcers are pointing out the blatantly bad calls. "I could hear that foul from here" when they stole the ball from Terry. This was when they were either tied or within 2pts, so BIG SWAY in momentum courtesy of the refs.

"He made tons of contact, pushed the defender 6ft away." when Carmelo rammed Wright out of the way. And then they T'd up the Mavs coach for complaining.

"I see why Dirk is upset, that was clearing off the Nuggets" when the refs screwed yet another call.

The refs can control the flow of the game with their calls, and they were making the 4th quarter impossible for the Mavs to get going.

Oh, and the charge Damp took in the first half on the fast break wasn't in the protected area. He had both feet in front of it until he was contacted and he put his foot back where his heel was bearing on the line. It's a tit-tat call, but one I rewatched a few times, cause it looked to me that he was well out of the blocking circle....and he was.

I wish there would be more fairness in the calls the refs are making. I was thinking it was going well until the 4th started, and they weren't calling anything on Denver, but the Mavs seemed to be getting called on tit-tat fouls that wouldn't have been called earlier. Like Dampier getting a block on the baseline that they called a foul. It was a bad camera angle, but it didn't show any body contact, and if Damp got part of the hand, is was barely his pinkie, and 99% ball.

All very true.

The refs were horrible in game one and merely bad in game two. In game two they were better than game one, but don't be fooled, they were still bad in game two. Deserving special mention is that the touch fouls against Dallas have been out of control in this series.

The moral of this story is not that most or that even many games are going to be decided by the referees. The moral has to do with when one of the teams has a radical "fouling policy" that by definition the referees are not used to seeing. The moral is that it is possible for referees to be "steamrolled" by a team that is using a lot of intensity, energy and effort to partially camouflage a high fouling policy.

You don't normally have to be worried about and on the lookout for the referees calling a game very unequally. But you have to be worried and on the lookout when you know that your opponent plays fast and loose with the rules and intentionally operates a high fouling rate. So check the fouling rate stat of your opponents, and get ready to force the referees to call the game fairly if you have to, by having your team intentionally start fouling more (and harder) than usual, and/or by complaining up to and including getting a technical or two or three.

Keep in mind that it is a well known "secret" in basketball that getting a second technical (which throws you out of a game) is a long shot, since referees know they will come under a lot of scrutiny if they throw someone out of a game. So you have to be prepared to "use your free technical" by calling the referees out if your team is being steamrolled by the referees due to them having been steamrolled by a high fouling team.

That the Nuggets in 2008-09 operated a high fouling rate defense, and on offense a high "fouls obtained" policy, both of which on purpose, is obvious:

2008-09 DEFENSE: OPPONENT FREE THROWS / FIELD GOALS ATTEMPTED RATIO
--The NBA average in 2008-09 was .236
--The NBA overall average in the last 30 years is .241
--The 30 Championship winners of the last 30 years average .220
--The defensive FT / FGA "safe range," the range that almost all Quest winners are in, is .200 to .240
Denver Nuggets: .259 (6th highest in the NBA)
Dallas Mavericks: .225 (21st highest in the NBA)

2008-09 OFFENSE: FREE THROWS/FIELD GOALS ATTEMPTED RATIO
--The NBA average in 2008-09 was .236
--The NBA overall average in the last 30 years is .241
--The 30 Championship winnters of the last 30 years average .239
--The offensive FT / FGA "safe range," the range that almost all Quest winners are in, is .217 to .257
Denver Nuggets: .290 (highest in the NBA)
Dallas Mavericks: .224 (23rd highest in the NBA)

The prior year, 2007-08, the Nuggets defensive FT / FGA was only .203, which was way below the League average of .231. And this was just barely inside the low end of the safe range. The Nuggets were 26th on this in 2007-08 but then, as we have seen, they were 6th on this in 2008-09. So their policy was reversed, and they went from one extreme to the other. In other words, the Nuggets strategically and intentionally went from being an overweight on skilled defending to one overweight on aggressive and fouling type defending.

For the Nuggets, the two years were a tale of two completely different defenses, which by the way, regardless of which defense is more right and more wrong, is a sign of a franchise that is not sure of what it is doing and/or what it wants to be doing, which of course is a very large down signal with respect to whether that franchise could ever win the Quest.

Offensively, the Nuggets were completely consistent from 2007-08 to 2008-09. Unfortunately, they were consistently wrong! They were both years too much overweighting the importance of driving into the paint and getting fouls. In 2007-08, the Nuggets offensive FT / FGA was .259, second in the NBA whereas, as we have seen, in 2008-09, the Nuggets offensive FT / FGA was .290, the highest in the NBA. Since the Nuggets got a lot of uncontested fast break scores, ones where they could not possibly be fouled, the .290 number is especially extreme and radical. The Nuggets were literally off the deep end.

Folks, this is mostly if not entirely the handiwork of George Karl. Either because he is unable to coach a professional flow type of offense, or because he actually believes that flow offenses with some organization and consistency do more harm than good, he is constantly preaching to his players to drive the ball into the paint. Nuggets players under Karl are under fair warning that if they take as many jump shots as the average NBA player takes, they are subject to loss of playing time on the Nuggets. J.R. Smith in particular had to make radical changes in his playing style to accommodate the Karl demands.

In summary, the Nuggets were outside of the safe ranges three out of four times, and they were barely in the defensive safe range in 2007-08 when, given their lack of offensive quality, they should have fouled more than they did.

DALLAS MAVERICKS
As for Dallas, defensively they were .252 (9th in the NBA) on the FT / FGA in 2007-08 and, as we have seen, .225 (21st) in 2008-09. So they switched in the reverse direction that Denver did. But not only was the Dallas change in the reverse direction, it was much less radical a change than was the Denver change. And Dallas had less radical fouling policies than did Denver both years.

The Mavericks could have been a little less aggressive defensively in 2007-08, but regardless of that relatively minor complaint, it doesn’t seem that the Mavs were off base to any big extent either year.

Offensively, the Dallas Mavericks were .259 (7th in the NBA) on the FT / FGA in 2007-08 and, as we have seen, Dallas was .224 (23rd in the NBA) on the FT / FGA in 2008-09. So offensively, Dallas went from slighly overweight driving into the paint to slightly underweight. Both years, Dallas was in the offensive safe range.

It's interesting to note that from 2007-08 to 2008-09, the Mavericks offensively became less aggressive about driving into the paint, and so they got fewer free throws, whereas defensively, the Mavericks also reduced aggressiveness, in the sense that they fouled the opponent less than the year before. But these were not radical changes and, unlike the Nuggets, the Mavericks were within the safe range offensively both years.

Since I am not a Mavericks expert at this time, I can not exactly evaluate the Mavs' changes from 2007-08 to 2008-09. However, I can say that the Mavericks have been much less radical than the Nuggets have been, both defensively and offensively.

Amazingly, in terms of ranking, the Nuggets have been among either the top six teams or among the bottom six teams in the NBA on BOTH offensive and defensive foul policy BOTH years. So clearly they (incorrectly) think that extreme fouling / getting fouled policies might produce a Championship. Or else they are doing this for marketing reasons, trying to get more fans this way.

By contrast, the Mavericks have avoided the highest or lowest ranking extremes of the NBA both offensively and defensively both years.

CORRECT DEFENSIVE FOULING POLICY: A NUMERICAL UPDATE
The important thing is that if you want to win the Quest, you should avoid a high fouling defense, because although that will get you a few extra regular season wins, and it might possibly get you a few extra playoff wins, you will most definitely be toast should you (fortunately) reach a Conference Final with a high fouling defense.

Specifically, to have any chance at all of winning the Quest, your defensive FT/FGA should NOT be among the eight highest in the NBA, and it MUST be less than .250. On the other hand, unless you have a truly high skill defense, one like the Spurs did when they won several Rings in the last decade, you probably don't want to be among the ten lowest FT/FGA teams either. Therefore, unless your team is very highly skilled defensively, you want your team to be balanced and "middle of the road" with respect to fouling rate.

Numerically, you want your team to be between about .200 and about .240 on defensive FT/FGA. If you are above .240 you are fouling too much and if you are below .200 you are probably not fouling enough. If you are above .250 you have essentially zero chance of winning the Quest for the Ring. If you are below .190, you have zero chance unless you are one of the most skilled defenses in history.

For much more information about this important topic, see this Report. The two paragraphs immediately above is merely an extension of that Report.

CORRECT OFFENSIVE DRIVING INTO THE PAINT POLICY
I am going to quote from my own recent report on this:

Some basketball people simply believe that on offense, the more free throws earned, the better the offense. However, looking at this objectively, there is not anywhere near enough proof that this assertion is always or automatically correct. It is very clear that you should try to avoid being well below average in this, but whether you should be above average depends on your playmaking and shooting.

The reason you should avoid being substantially below the League average on this is simply that any offense, regardless of quality, is easier to defend the more predictable it is. And if you are below average in the free throw versus shot attempt ratio, it means you are not aggressively driving into the paint enough to test the interior defenses enough, which makes your offense too predictable and therefore makes it easier for the opponent to defend your playmaking and shooting.

However, if you are an above average playmaking and/or an above average shooting team, you will be to some extent shooting yourself in the foot and squandering your offensive edge if you overweight driving to the rack for fouls. So, if you have a high quality offense in general, you are advised to keep your offense between a little below average and a little above average in the free throw attempts versus field goal attempts ratio.

Always remember, do NOT attempt to be way above average in free throw attempts versus field goal attempts if you have a high quality offense. And remember the other side of that coin: you can not simply by overweighting driving for fouls achieve a high quality offense. This is actually a dumb mistake. You can't depend on a combination of interior defending lapses, referees calling every foul, and making most of your free throws to make up for a general lack of offensive quality. To have any chance at all to contend for a Ring, you MUST have a high quality offense that is NOT dependent (for scoring) on driving into the paint a lot more than other teams do.

On the other hand, if you have a poor point guard, and/or you have poor playmaking, and/or you have poor shooting, you can make up for one or more of these deficiencies to some extent by overweighting driving into the paint and earning more free throws. The worse the quality of your offense, the more you should resort to driving to the rack and trying to earn free throws more than most teams do. But again, although if you are a medium or lower quality offense overall you can force a better offensive result by overweighting drives to the rack, and although you might possibly win an extra playoff game or two by doing so, you can not and will not become a contender for a Championship just by doing this.

The important thing is to calibrate the overall quality of your "field goal offense" with to what extent you drive the ball into the paint. The higher the quality of your overall and of your field goal offense, the less you should overweight driving into the paint.

OFFENSIVE DRIVING INTO THE PAINT STRATEGY NUMERICALLY (NEW):
If you are a Quest contender overall, you honestly rate the real quality of your offense. In most cases, if you are a serious contender in the Quest, your offensive FT/FGA should be between .217 and .257, and your NBA rank should generally be between #10 and #20. The higher the quality of your point guard and your offensive flow, the lower you should be in that range, (and the lower you should be ranked) and vice versa.

You can NOT expect to gain more than a trivial number of extra regular season wins by overweighting driving into the hoop and by having an offensive FT / FGA higher than .257. So on offense, unlike on defense, you can not substantially change your regular season result, let alone your Championship chances, simply by ramping up the “aggressiveness factor”.

GENERAL SUMMARY
You should avoid being radically high or radically low on either offensive FT / FGA or on defensive FT / FGA. At a bare minimum, you almost always need to avoid being in the top six or the bottom six teams on either. In most cases, you want to be within the numerical ranges indicated above. Exactly where in those ranges you want to be depends on quality assessments of your offense and your defense that have been described.

REAL TIME MONITORING
You can real time monitor the crucial FT / FGA ratios for NBA teams in 2009-10 here. This page is not active yet, but it will presumably become active no later than when the season begins.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 4

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM MAY 4, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by GoNugs
The Nuggets are a sound defensive team. Last time I looked, that was part of the game...no?

Yes, you have one hell of a defensive team. If you think you can win a Championship without any offensive focus or schemes other than the fast break, with your offense based entirely on your defense, then go for it. You have almost unbelievable defensive intensity and speed. So take your best shot. Basing every last thing on defense is way out there on the edge, but it is interesting to watch, and it's like a scientific experiment: how far can a team go if it does this?

All I and others here I think are saying is that the referees had better not be steamrolled by your defense along with the other team! If that happens the game of basketball is damaged.

Imperfect referees? Inevitable. Steamrolled referees? No way. That spoils the game and starts to turn it into football. We want and expect the referees to keep their focus and make sure they keep the rules in mind as they watch the Nuggets' "outstanding and intimidating" defense.

FROM MAY 4, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by longsufferingmavsfan
Hey folks check this play out. Fast Forward to the 1:53 mark of the video, the "FOUL" on Hollins. Tell me thats not a horrible call.

What a joke of a call, but I'm not laughing.

From his statements we know that Rick Carlisle knows exactly what is going on here. This is good. Now if he can figure out the best way to contain the Nuggets defense the Mavs are in business. (Normally you are talking about containing an offense, but in this case the objective is to contain the Broncos' defense. I mean the Nuggets defense.)

So far Coach is saying the Mavs need to increase aggressiveness to close the gap in that area. I agree 100%.

It is a paradox and may not seem logical: why would you want to become more aggressive when the refs are calling more of your fouls than the other teams' fouls? Because think about it: you don't have much to lose! You are already in the hole already in the fouls.

If there ever was a series where you have to "increase aggressiveness" to get fully competitive and to wake up the referees, this is that one you have been waiting for. The objective is to eliminate any excuse the refs have for calling a game unevenly.

FROM MAY 4, 2009, THE DAY AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by joemoeschmoe
If we hadn't been so sloppy (especially in the 4th), we might've been able to win the game despite the officiating disparity.

Yes, the Mavs were very much in this game. A writer for the Denver post claimed that the Nuggets "dismantled" the Mavs in this game, and nothing could be farther from the truth than that. It was not a rout in any way, shape, or form. Kidd's crazy turnovers alone gave the Nuggets roughly 8 points for free.

This means the Mavericks can win this series and that no one should be shocked if they do win it.

FROM MAY 5, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets lead the series 2 games to 0.]

I'll be dangerously honest and admit my primary objective in this game besides rooting for the Mavs was to decide once and for all whether the Nuggets pose any serious threat to the Lakers.

Note: I am NOT a fan of the Lakers, I'm not really a fan of any one team anymore. I'm just a fan of basketball, and of basketball being different from football, that is it.

The Nuggets are winning on the cheap and they are winning without any offensive scheme other than easy, cheap points off fast breaks. This is exactly like a football team relying on its defense to get some stops (yielding better field position) and a turnover or two or three. Then the offense of that football team has very little to do to win the game. Many, many games in football are won this way, maybe as many as 1/3 of them.

Although everyone knows defending is more intense and more important in the playoffs than it is in the regular season, it is not true that Championships or Conference finals have been won to any extent at all by teams doing what the Nuggets are doing. Were the Nuggets to beat both the Mavs and the Lakers, it would truly be a science fiction type of event.

So all the Lakers (or the Mavs, still) have to do is to man up and take care of the ball. This is not as difficult for a team to do as it may seem from watching the Nuggets games lately. The Nuggets have temporarily created an alternate universe here, where basketball is different than in our universe.

So I am confident that even if the Mavs keep turning it over, even if the Mavs keep being heavily victimized by the free points of the fast break, and even if the Mavs keep being hammered by the referees, so they lose this series 4-1 or whatever, that the Lakers will defeat the Nuggets and restore my faith in basketball.

Go Mavs, you have a good, quality team regardless of what happens in this series. Your team looked great for three quarters (again) and then the 4th turned goofy and didn't seem like basketball anymore.

FROM MAY 5, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets lead the series 2 games to 0.]

VERY IMPORTANT BACKGROUND INFORMATION
In this game, game two in Denver, the Mavs and Nugs played almost even through three quarters; it was 86-83 Denver after three. Mavericks superstar Dirk Nowitzki asked for and received extra rest time at the beginning of the 4th quarter.

The problem was that Rick Carlisle installed a small lineup at the start of the 4th, which was promptly routed by the Nuggets due to the Nuggets' relentless driving into the paint, mixed up nicely with a fast breaking attack. The Mavs super small lineup to start the 4th was:

--JJ Barea PG, 6'0"
--Jason Terry PG, 6'2"
--Antoine Wright SG, 6'7"
--Brandon Bass PF, 6'8"
--James Singleton PF, 6'8"

We need to take a time out from our regularly scheduled posting of past writing.

If you are a coach or manager and you are reading this, learn this right here and now: Never, ever ever put a small lineup on the floor in the 4th quarter of a tight game against a hard charging, aggressive, athletic team that is favored to win the game. Never, ever do it; this is an obvious blunder against a team that is relentlessly driving the ball into the paint on offense and is relentlessly fouling on defense. The more aggressive your opponent, the more your opponent is relying on getting fouled on offense and on fouling on defense, the more you MUST NOT late in the game put a small lineup into a close game. Don't ever make a fool of yourself the way Carlisle inadvertently did here.

After Dallas mistakenly inserted the much too small rotation at the start of the 4th, the Nuggets took full advantage. They scored the first nine points of the fourth to take a 95-83 lead. The Nuggets then scored 7 of the next 9 points, and took an insurmountable 102-85 lead with six minutes left in the game. The Mavericks had been demolished by an incredible 16-2 in the first half of the fourth quarter!

The quote and response below refers to the fatal mistake of the too small Mavs lineup that went in at the start of the 4th.

Posted by CadBane
Don't try to be clever, because you're not. Yes, it still only has one, but it also isn't a HUGE liability on D like the lineup sporting JJ Barea and NO center. And it at least gives Kidd a guy to get dunks on (Damp or Hollins).

That lineup was a big mistake, very true. The Nuggets will usually eat alive any team that tries to play small. I have to respect Dirk needing rest, and I don't know enough about the Mavs players to say who should have been in early in the 4th, but there no doubt should have been another big man in there. Having two small point guards in there was an absolute killer.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

iDesktop.tv

Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 3

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Admit it George Karl, there is nothing good you can do if Nowitzki is dropping more than 25. Or if it's Kobe Bryant. Or if it's any power scorer.

Come to reality. Basketball is not football where you can possibly limit a team to a field goal or two in a game. Nor is basketball baseball, where you can get a shutout with great pitching.

So basketball is actually more complicated than the other popular sports, because for one thing, relying only on defense is not an option. I hate to inform the Nuggets of this.

In basketball you can contain the scoring a player such as Mr. N does, but you can not stop it completely. And Mr. N has 4 other players out there with him, and the possession does not end just because he has been shut down on a particular play.

A basketball possession never ends until you miss a shot and the opponent gets the rebound, until your shot is blocked and the opponent gets the ball, until you get fouled and a ref calls the foul, or until you turn the ball over. Possessions do not end simply because the other team is doing some good, intense man to man defending.

So if you are a quality offense, you can do what you can do if and only if you keep stupid shots and turnovers down. No matter how good a defense is, a good offense maintains a lot of clout in a game if it simply keeps the stupid shots and the turnovers down.

The degree of difficulty to keep stupid shots and turnovers down against a really good defense is kind of high. So I realize this is easier said than done, but the great and experienced scorers, point guards, and coaches can get this accomplished. Therefore, this Dallas-Denver series is where the acquisition of Jason Kidd and/or the coaching change by the Mavericks can finally pay off big time.

This is one of the reasons why it usually takes years and years for even great players to win a Championship. They have to learn how, when playing a ferocious, intimidating defense, to avoid taking too many stupid, or "reach" shots, to keep the turnovers down, and to in general prevent that defense from "getting under the skin".

Chris Paul was learning these lessons in the Nuggets-Hornets series.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by DavidDaMonkey
I think you have to earn the respect from the refs in games like this. We drove to the hole alot early on, but then gave up on it. Even if you aren't getting the calls, I think you have to keep attacking. The refs can't ignore it all day.

Mavs have GOT to figure out a way to defend the paint better. That will kill us and wear us down faster than anything. We were hitting some jumpers tonight, but that wont keep up for 7 games and when that falls, we won't have anything else if we play like this.

This is very true. If the refs are going to let a lot of Denver fouls go uncalled, Dallas has to either keep driving to the hoop until the refs can't take the sheer number of missed Denver foul calls anymore, or else they have to get a lot more physical on defense, which will also eventually motivate the refs to take greater control over the game.

Or the Mavs should do both. Doing both would be the best.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by longsufferingmavsfan
Here are my thoughts: ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE REFFING!!!. Dirk and Co were getting pounded with no calls all game long. Any time the Nuggets Drove they either got the layup, got the call or got both. It was infuriating from my standpoint, the Nuggets overall are better than us, they were at home and they got all the calls as well. How exactly were we supposed to win?

But my main concern is : How the Hell are the Nuggets allowed to get away with sooo much contact?!

Well this may be a reach, but my latest theory is that Denver is a football town, but since the Broncos suck, the Colorado Sports Fathers (whoever they are, remember, this is just my wild theory to try to explain how the Nuggets are getting away with this) decided to remake the Nuggets in the football mode.

So at a secret meeting, they decided: "If the real football team sucks, then by God, we'll make the Nuggets a lot more like a football team!" "Nice thinking, Earl!"

Laugh out loud. But there is always some truth in humor, I warn you.

My brother told me years ago that he could not be a basketball fan because he thought the referees took sides, if not on purpose then by accident. I stubbornly didn't agree with him then, but his opinion is worth another look these days.

This Nuggets thing has become like one of those really bad and stupid movies that hardly anyone ever watches.

Tonight's feature: Can a thuggish but well meaning basketball team keep routing teams with a simplistic, but very disruptive style of playing the game? A style which is way out on the far outer fringes of the rules?

I hate bad movies.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME ONE OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game One was won by the Nuggets 109-95.]

Posted by BGMaverick9
I don't really remember cases where refs do a 180 from total blindness to calling it right for a team IN GAME. There were instances where the Mavs weren't even all that aggressive and they were still getting called for chippy fouls.

At what price do you try to force the issue with physical defense on Denver? How do you throw that to your players and still hope the refs don't go overboard? You can try but it's still out of your hands, it's still on the refs.

Your question and explanation is right on point, and this is for the opponent the catch-22 or the horns of the dilemma, or maybe the damned if you do, damned if you don't of this series and of every series that the Nuggets are in this year.

But I keep watching these Nuggets not give a damn about how many fouls they commit, and I keep seeing all their stare downs and sick faces made at the referees after every single foul that is called on them. Every single Nugget, when he is called for a foul, is like: "You are a total loser and wuss for even thinking about calling a foul on me. Just stay out of the way and let me keep running around and being as rough as I damn well please."

I'm not saying the Nuggets don't do a lot of good defending without fouling: they do. But I am saying that the Nuggets are using their athleticism, their speed, their intensity, and even their facial expressions to intimidate the referees a little. And that is all it takes to swing a game sometimes: to scare the referees a little.

So I think the only way the Nuggets can be defeated is to scare the referees a little bit from the other direction.

I keep saying to myself: "No, what the Nuggets are doing is not exactly basketball, this is something a little different here. Yes, the Nuggets have some damned good basketball players, but since when does a franchise have the right to modify the game and expect the referees to go along? Who made the Nuggets' GM Co-Commissioner of the NBA?"

So I want a team to go all out to stop this, even at the risk of a technical and/or flagrant or two or three. I really am that pissed off.

This is what the Nuggets are thinking these days:

(1)They will beat down to submission (which on the court is turnovers and bad shot selection) any team that does not stand up for itself by getting rough and tough in response, up to and including actions that might cause technicals and flagrant fouls and

(2)A team such as Dallas will not have the gumption to do that, for whatever reason, or they won't have the means to do it, because they are like that Quest for the Ring guy, they think basketball should not be made more like football.

I want the Nuggets to be proved wrong as soon as possible; it's much better if the Mavericks can do it than if it has to wait for the Lakers.

Quote:
What are guys told usually or what do you hear:
If you aggressive you'll get rewarded or bailed out with the call. It's not supposed to be a cat and mouse game with the ref, It's not: "well, we are gonna test you, do it x amount times and THEN we'll give it to you."

You are exactly right again; it's not supposed to be a cat and mouse game, but what if in this particular series, against this particular team, it is a cat and mouse game?

Quote:
What you see all the time is a performance like this and coaches and/or players will talk about it in the media and you can usually see a change in the foul dynamics in the next game. If you put the onus on the refs in the game and it didn't work...it seems the next natural step is to do it even more after the game with calling them out. It'll hurt the wallet that way but it doesn't potentially run you the risk of getting ejected.

Yes, this is an excellent alternative thing to do if the Mavericks truly think that the referees will start tossing their players if they up the ante. Marc Cuban is going to have to get his wallet out again, but for an extremely good cause.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 2

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
Here (the Dallas Mavericks forum) most are not worried about K-Mart on Nowitzki, especially since Nowitzki had few problems with him during this year's four regular season games.

But I would warn the Mavericks that if you can't keep Chris Andersen from camping out under the rim all night, you will have problems. Chris Andersen is like K-Mart on an illegal substance. And that reminds me, has anybody checked JR Smith's locker lately? There's no telling what might be in there. Laugh out loud.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
None of those "K-Mart becomes the other hero of Colorado along with Chauncey Billups" things is going to be happening very much with Dirk because he is not a rookie or a 2nd year man.

As the post just above stated, someone at Dirk's level would rather have a really good defender on him than a continual doubling. But he and his Coach (Rick Carlisle) can deal with either.

You know, you can have the best man to man defender on Planet Earth but you can not shut down a power scorer with just that. In football maybe but not in basketball.

And if you trap and double Mr. Nowitzki all night the Mavericks have plenty of other firepower to beat you with.

The Mavericks have a balanced offense and a power scorer, not just a balanced offense only! So do the Cavaliers and the Lakers! The Nuggets should try it sometime.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS

Posted by alby
Dirk Nowitzki vs Kenyon Martin

ENOUGH SAID

Dirk N >>> K-Mart until the four regular season games this year, when it looks more mixed.

I am honestly not worried, because:

(a) Although K-Mart and Chris Andersen might limit Mr N to, at worst, about .400 and 15-20 points in roughly half the games, I am totally sure that won't matter too much due to the rest of the offensive firepower on the Mavericks. Jason Kidd and Rick Carlisle know what to do in this situation. Dallas will lose some games of this type but they could win one or two as well.

(b) In games when Dirk is at or above .500, I know that George Karl will stay with K-Mart on Dirk one on one for way to long. So if Dirk N is on and K-Mart can't keep up, it's almost an automatic Dallas win. When Mr N is totally out of control in a game, or in the series as a whole for that matter, Mr. Karl will not make any adjustments, or maybe its more accurate to say that there are no adjustments that will work in that case, so he and his Nuggets will repeatedly be torched.

I never knew you could do that at basketball-reference until now, nice to know that.

Does God get more of a say than usual in today's game since it's a Sunday? If so, I hope he watches over the Mavericks and helps them reach the promised land as they go in to the house of the devil.

I can't expect the Mavericks to win today, due to the high intensity with which Denver is trying to prove they can get into the Championship with their "defense drives everything including our offense" strategy. The way I see it the Nuggets have gone off the deep end with their defensive obsession and their over reliance on fast break and in transition scores.

If Denver does lose today their confidence will take a huge hit, and they probably will not be able to fully recover.

God, please smite them, if not today then on Tuesday.

Regardless of who wins today, I am confident that Dallas will win this series. Denver's strategies are not reliable enough to ensure they can simply win all 4 home games and take the series that way.

What redemption for the Mavericks it will be when they win this series. They lost the 1-8 to Golden State a couple years ago and now they can make up for that by winning a 6-2 that almost everyone expects them to lose.

FROM MAY 3, 2009, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS

Posted by Five-ofan
The mavs are the older less athletic team in this series after being the younger more athletic team in the last one.

True to a limited extent; but Chauncey Billups and KMart are not spring chickens.

I think that Carlisle has to know not to use JJ Barea in this series. They have the bigs to stop his penetration and there is no one on their roster he can guard. I dont want him getting more than 10-12 minutes a game in this series.

This is very true; the Nuggets think you can stop penetration, that the refs won't call all the fouls, and that the players they are roughing up will miss more free throws than they usually do.

I think the mavs should run a good deal of 4/5 pick and roll with Dirk and either Bass, Singleton or Hollins with Jet and Josh in the corners and Kidd on the wing. I really dont think the Nuggets can stop that play, especially when bass is the other big.

Yes, this is exactly what the Nuggets can be beaten with.

More generally, they can be beaten with the experience and passing of Kidd.

I dont think its that important to try to keep a great defender on Smith. I think hes one of those guys whose either on or not. I dont think wrights good enough to stop him if hes on and if hes not then its not worth wasting a good defender on him. Id prefer to try to let jet match him shot for shot.

I could not agree more. But I would add that if ever JR Smith is hitting almost every single three, you would be forced to put Wright on him no later than halfway through the 3rd quarter.

I think the pg matchup is very interesting. Billups is going from the best possible pg matchup for him to the worst(he could use his size against Paul) Kidd is going from the worst possible matchup to the best. I think this ends up being very close.

[I agreed with a smilie.]

I think the series ends up being decided by who does a better job defensively out of Dirk and Melo. I think everything else matches up fairly evenly so as long as dirk does a better job on Kmart (Kenyon Martin)than Melo (Carmelo Anthony) does on Howard we should win. I expect that to happen.

I'll take Howard in a playoff game over Melo any day of the week. Melo hasn't done much of anything in the playoffs up to and including this very moment.

Don't tell me about how wonderful Melo was in the Hornets series. That series was a waste of time given how the Hornets were the walking wounded. The Hornets would have had at least as good of a chance to compete in the games in that series had they benched all the starters and started the bench!

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Denver Nuggets vs. Dallas Mavericks in May 2009: the Nuggets' Defense Keeps the Mavericks' Offense in the Barn, Part 1

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the early May 2009 second round, West semifinal round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Dallas Mavericks. This content was put on the independent Dallas Mavericks forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM APRIL 30, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
A few random points:

The easy Nuggets win over New Orleans means very little or nothing, because the Hornets were very dinged up. Byron Scott pointed out that only one of the starters (Butler) was healthy. Dallas is the first real test for the Nuggets in the 2009 playoffs.

Billups can beat the Mavs if and only if he is shooting and making threes. Sometimes he doesn't even hardly shoot them, in which case you have to worry about Carmelo Anthony and JR Smith. Billups gets first choice but he can pass off the shooting to Melo and JR if he chooses.

If the refs are not calling Nuggets fouls Dallas may have to get rough on the Nuggets so that the refs pay more attention to the Nuggets' fouls and call more of them. The Nuggets will beat down any team that does not stand up for itself.

Chris Andersen, Dahntay Jones, and Renaldo Balkman, if he ever plays, would be almost nothing on offense were it not for fast breaks. To stop players such as these from scoring, you need to keep the turnovers down. The Hornets made an insane number of turnovers.

To keep turnovers and the Nuggets fast breaks that result from them down, you have to avoid being intimidated and you have to avoid a lot of stupid, contested longer jump shots.

Dahntay Jones is a punk and he will play dirty if he thinks that will help the Nuggets get a win.

But Chris Andersen is more of a miracle pickup for the Nuggets than a punk, and if you don't keep track of him and keep boxing him out from under the rim he will burn you over and over again.

Dahntay Jones is a punk, pure and simple. Oh yeah, I already said that, laugh out loud.

FROM APRIL 30, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS

Posted by sefant77
Jones may be a punk, Paul is the bigger punk and little bitch. He started trash talking to Jones in that embarressing lost and Jones answered and Hornets got their asses kicked to the moon.

I hope and expect that CP3 has learned a valuable lesson. If you are a major star in the NBA there will be times when a defender's only purpose is to get under your skin any way possible. If you are CP3, and you encounter such a player, you say to yourself "What a damn punk" and then prove that you can still, punk or no punk, keep running the team without making a lot of stupid turnovers and without needing to do any trash talking.

But having said that, CP3 was boxed into a corner, because the Nuggets were dominating the paint and the whole damn Hornets team was dinged up. D West was atrocious. Still, I hope he learned the lesson anyway.

FROM APRIL 30, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
This is the 6th season for Carmelo Anthony. This year his overall rating, according to both Hollinger at ESPN's and my own calculations, dropped back to in between what it was on average in the first two years, and what it was on average in the next three. But it was closer to the first two, so it was a substantial decline in the value of Carmelo Anthony to a basketball team this year, following three years at the highest heights of the League.

This year, although his assisting and especially his defensive rebounding were above career averages, his offensive rebounding was down and his accuracy inside the 3-point arc was down substantially. 3-point shooting was improved to what you might call the "almost dangerous from 3-point range" category. Overall shooting effectiveness was down substantially, as Carmelo Anthony dropped out of what I call the "power scorer" category of players.

As for the playoffs, it's a good start for him, but it's way to early to judge for this year, especially since the Hornets were the walking wounded. Looking at the first five years, in all of which the Nuggets were washed out in round 1, and everytime by 4 games to 1, Carmelo Anthony has had only 1 year in which he was in the playoffs about as good as he was during the regular season (2007).

And there was one year in which he was down but not by a large amount (2005). But in 2005, year #2, he wasn't great to begin with. In his first two NBA years, Carmelo Anthony was neither a superstar nor a star. He was a star or superstar, and one of the best 25 players in the League only from 2006 through and including this year.

In the other three playoff years (2004, 2006, and 2008) Melo was, in the playoffs, far worse than he was in the regular season.

In summary, as of this time, except for the Spurs 2007 series, the NBA playoffs have been miserable for Carmelo Anthony. He has not, except for that one single series, been even remotely as good as he has been for Team USA in the Olympics, nor as good as he was for Syracuse University.

In games in which Chauncey Billups can not hit threes, Carmelo Anthony may or may not be able to answer the call. It will be a roll of the dice, since in the playoffs, Melo has been almost as inconsistent and unreliable as JR Smith!

Carmelo Anthony is not even close to being the kind of go to guy that Dirk Nowitzki is. And he is less so this year than in the last three.

There are those, Jim Boheim and myself included, who blame the Nuggets' managers and coaches for the failure to make Carmelo Anthony all that he can be.

FROM APRIL 30, JUST BEFORE THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS

Posted by CadBane
All I'm saying is that most Nuggets fans and NBA analysts (including myself as I watch a lot of Denver games) prefer his current play to his past.

The majority of Nuggets fans you have mentioned, and I too think it is a majority or close to it, do not understand that having a power scorer (like Dirk Nowitzki, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and so on and so forth) and having a balanced, good chemistry offense are not mutually exclusive things. In other words, these Nuggets fans (and of course George Karl) think that having a power scorer means you can not have a good, balanced offense.

Unfortunately for them, they are wrong.

You will not be seeing a Nuggets-Cavaliers Championship this year, as you probably would if they were correct. After all, although they have no power scorer for this year's playoffs, the Nuggets have just about maxed out in terms of balance and chemistry. And their defense is ferocious. So they should be heading for the Championship this very year if they are correct about how to coach Carmelo Anthony.

I hope and expect that this series starting on Sunday shows them that they are wrong, long before the Championship.

Meanwhile, Carmelo Anthony is over there in the corner saying "It's alright with me if you don't ever need me to be able to score 30 or more in a game. Nooo problem man. I'll just spend less time practicing shooting and more time at my barber shop".

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in late April, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========

DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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Correct Team Offensive and Defensive Strategies Regarding Getting Fouled and Fouling

DEFENSIVE QUALITY IN GENERAL
The best team defense is characterized by high effort, high intensity, high energy, and high skill. These characteristics will produce high rankings in any or all of the following key defensive parameters of winning basketball games:

KEY DEFENSIVE PARAMETERS
1. Opponent Effective Field Goal Percentage
2. Opponent Free Throws / Field Goals Attempted
3. Defensive Rebounding Percentage (of available rebounds)
4. Opponent Turnover Percentage (% of opponent possessions ending in turnovers. Turnovers include clock violations)
5. Disruption of Opponent Playmaking (prevention of assists etc.)

NOTES
Number (1) Is the opponent scoring per shot percentage adjusted to weight three-point shots and two-point shots correctly.

Number (2) is, in plain English, a ratio between opponent free throws and opponent field goal attempts.

Number (4) Opponent turnovers, include opponent shot clock violations, which high quality defenses get much more often than do lower quality defenses.

In this report we are focused like a laser on (1) and (2). Of all of the components shown, (1) the effective opponent field goal percentage, is the most important one of all; it is the one most highly correlated with overall defensive quality and results.

(2) is less correlated than (1) with defensive quality in general. But, and this is a big but, (2) is very highly correlated with teams that have the very highest quality defenses, and therefore it is highly correlated with teams that win the Quest. Simply put, if for whatever reason your defense is a high fouling rate one, you will most likely not be winning any Championships, even if you manage to win a few playoff games.

Also, because #(2) can be directly controlled by a team, it can be used to improve performance in the even more important but somewhat less directly controllable #(1).

Other Quest Reports, past and future, have and will deal with (3),(4), and (5).

CORRECT OFFENSIVE STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO EARNING FREE THROWS
Some basketball people simply believe that on offense, the more free throws earned, the better the offense. However, looking at this objectively, there is not anywhere near enough proof that this assertion is always or automatically correct. It is very clear that you should try to avoid being well below average in this, but whether you should be above average depends on your playmaking and shooting.

The reason you should avoid being substantially below the League average on this is simply that any offense, regardless of quality, is easier to defend the more predictable it is. And if you are below average in the free throw versus shot attempt ratio, it means you are not aggressively driving into the paint enough to test the interior defenses enough, which makes your offense too predictable and therefore makes it easier for the opponent to defend your playmaking and shooting.

However, if you are an above average playmaking and/or an above average shooting team, you will be to some extent shooting yourself in the foot and squandering your offensive edge if you overweight driving to the rack for fouls. So, if you have a high quality offense in general, you are advised to keep your offense between a little below average and a little above average in the free throw attempts versus field goal attempts ratio.

Always remember, do NOT attempt to be way above average in free throw attempts versus field goal attempts if you have a high quality offense. And remember the other side of that coin: you can not simply by over weighting driving for fouls achieve a high quality offense. This is actually a dumb mistake. You can't depend on a combination of interior defending lapses, referees calling every foul, and making most of your free throws to make up for a general lack of offensive quality. To have any chance at all to contend for a Ring, you MUST have a high quality offense that is NOT dependent (for scoring) on driving into the paint a lot more than other teams do.

On the other hand, if you have a poor point guard, and/or you have poor playmaking, and/or you have poor shooting, you can make up for one or more of these deficiencies to some extent by over weighting driving into the paint and earning more free throws. The worse the quality of your offense, the more you should resort to driving to the rack and trying to earn free throws more than most teams do. But again, although if you are a medium or lower quality offense overall you can force a better offensive result by over weighting drives to the rack, and although you might possibly win an extra playoff game or two by doing so, you can not and will not become a contender for a Championship just by doing this.

The important thing is to calibrate the overall quality of your "field goal offense" with to what extent you drive the ball into the paint. The higher the quality of your overall and of your field goal offense, the less you should overweight driving into the paint.

CORRECT DEFENSIVE STRATEGY WITH RESPECT TO FOULING AND YIELDING FREE THROWS
Let's first take a time out to make sure everyone is on the same page regarding "defensive quality". Specifically, defensive quality refers to key components of defending, including defensive awareness/recognition, defensive rotation, man to man defending, and pick and roll defending.

Getting back to the specific topic of the day, the accepted theory is that on defense, the fewer free throws by the opponent, the better the defense is. This is the converse of the simple offensive theory regarding free throws discussed above. In other words, the simple theory is that on offense you want to get a lot of free throws while on defense you don't want your opponent to be getting a lot of free throws. (You want a high ratio on offense but a low ratio on defense).

The defensive version of the simple theory is more correct than the offensive version. That is, it is usually the case that the lower the ratio between opponent free throws and opponent field goal attempts you allow, the better your defense is. This is because there is a premium in the Quest for the Ring put on ability to defend energetically, skillfully, and intelligently without fouling. So given the choice between trusting your defending skills to prevent scores and relying much more on aggressive defending up to and including fouling the shooter, it is almost always better for serious Quest contenders to rely more on the energy, skill, and intelligence and less on the aggression and fouling. In other words, the more a team is a true contender in the Quest for the Ring, the more it will see fouling the shooter as a last resort and not a first resort.

If on the other hand you are not even remotely a contending team, and you know that you are below average in defensive quality, there is no reason not to substitute aggression for quality to the extent it is possible to do so. So in this special situation (a team which by definition is far from being competitive in the Quest) you should not worry about how low you might be in the ratio of opponent free throws versus opponent field goal attempts. That is, unlike if you are a contender and/or a high quality defense, don't worry about trying to minimize opponent free throws.

However, be advised that you will automatically lose certain games while doing an aggressive, high fouling defense. Specifically, you will lose a big majority of the games where the referees are calling a "tight" game, and when the referees are ready to call a higher total number of fouls than they normally do. This "automatic loss" problem is one of the reasons why a high fouling strategy is seldom the correct one for a contending team to follow, since even one automatic loss in a playoff series is dangerous.

THE CHOICE BETWEEN FIELD GOAL PERCENTAGE ALLOWED AND FREE THROWS ALLOWED FOR LOWER SKILLED DEFENSIVE TEAMS
The best defenses feature BOTH a low opponent effective field goal percentage and a LOW free throws versus field goals attempted ratio. So true quality defensive teams will never and should never even think in the either or terms discussed in this section.

But what if your defenders are not good enough to provide both of these objectives at the same time? An important and interesting question is: Which is better for a Quest for the Ring contender to try to get, assuming hypothetically that only one or the other is possible: low opponent effective field goal percentage or low opponent free throws versus field goals attempted ratio?

The real question is slightly different, because opponent field goal percentage is not as directly controllable as is the opponent free throw ratio. A defensive squad has almost total control over the latter, actually. Hypothetically, you could insure a ratio of zero if you didn't even try to defend so that you never fouled, and you could insure a ratio of 1 if you intentionally fouled on every single play. The relevant question is: "Exactly how often should we be fouling, compared to the average League rate of fouling"?

Opponent effective field goal percentage is a performance measure that is much more a dependent type of variable. What you end up with is dependent on the particular things you choose to do or not do on defense. In the present discussion, the correct way to frame the choice is: assuming your defense is not good enough overall to have both a low free throws versus shots attempted and a low opponent effective field goal percentage at the same time, should you attempt to minimize opponent free throws by making it top priority to defend well without fouling, or should you do almost the opposite via an intentional high fouling rate strategy?

The fist thing to realize is that between the two, getting the lowest opponent effective field goal percentage possible is more important in the Quest. Moreover, it turns out that it is possible to gain a lower percentage than you would other wise have by intentionally sacrificing your performance in the free throws allowed, by intentionally adopting a high fouling defense.

The demonstration of all this was provided by the 2009 Denver Nuggets, which was a unique type of team that you won't see very often in the NBA: high skill but lacking in direction and overall quality, both on offense and defense actually. This team intentionally used a hard charging, aggressive, high fouling type of defense, and it is clear that the Nuggets reduced the effective field goal percentage of their opponents as a result of all the extra fouling. This happened both due to the general intimidation effect of the Nuggets' defensive strategy, and also due to stops that were actually uncalled fouls.

So the Nuggets "sacrificed" any advantage you can get from low fouling in favor of intentionally using high fouling to indirectly force a reduced opponent effective field goal percentage. This strategy did work to some extent, since the Nuggets were the 8th best defensive team in the NBA, despite the fact that virtually all professional basketball people predicted before the season began that the Nuggets defensively were going to be a well below average team.

On the other hand, although the Nuggets, thanks in part to a long string of lucky breaks, were able to go 10-6 in the playoffs, the Nuggets defense as designed was ultimately not good enough to be a real contender in the Quest for the Ring.

So if your team is defensively not getting it done, you might consider forgetting about trying to limit fouling and you might attempt to get the same reduction in opponent field goal percentage that the Nuggets received from high fouling. Although you can benefit from doing this, don't expect you can win a Championship by doing it, or even to get as close to the Championship game as the Nuggets did. I warn you, the Nuggets needed a string of luck to reach the West Final in 2009, so don't get carried away estimating how much benefit the Nuggets received from the high fouling.

Although the Nuggets chose correctly between the two given their situation, and although the effective field goal percentage of their opponents was lower than it would have been had the Nuggets not been a hard fouling team, the overall Nuggets defensive result was not enough to make them truly comparable with the very best 2009 defenses. Which is not surprising because again, it is much better for a defense to be both a low fouling AND a low effective field goal percentage allowed team.

Another way of looking at what the Nuggets' high fouling accomplished is to say that it was able to transform what would have been, League-wide, an average quality defense into an above average quality one, but not into a way above average one and not into a Championship type of defense.

Specifically, the Nuggets were only the 8th best team defensively in the NBA, whereas the Lakers were 6th. There was a relatively small but critical gap between the two teams. On offense, incidentally, there was almost the same size gap, again in favor of the Lakers.

WHAT IF YOU TRY THE REVERSE OF WHAT THE 2009 NUGGETS DID?
If you do not have high defensive quality but you nevertheless go all out for minimizing ratio of opponent free throws versus opponent shots, and see where the chips fall with respect to opponent effective field goal percentage, you will most likely not be rewarded as much compared to the reverse approach.

Defensively, the 2009 Toronto Raptors are an example of a team the opposite of the 2009 Nuggets. This was a team lacking overall defensive quality that, consciously or not, tried to directly minimize opponent effective field goal percentage while at the same time minimizing fouling and the resulting opponent free throws. While the Raptors were indeed one of the best teams in the NBA with respect to fewest opponent free throws allowed, they were well below average in opponent field goal percentage allowed. The net result of this mix was that the overall Raptors defense was ranked way down at 22nd among the 30 teams, whereas the Nuggets, with the opposite defensive approach with respect to free throws, were the 8th.

Although the Nuggets were going to be better than the Raptors defensively regardless of strategies either team would choose, the Nuggets clearly got more mileage from their defensive strategy mix than did the Raptors. In other words, the Raptors did not have to be as far behind the Nuggets defensively as they were.

SUMMARY OF FOULING STRATEGY
Teams that are overall lower quality than the best defensive teams may not be able to simultaneously achieve a low opponent effective field goal percentage and a low opponent free throw attempt versus field goals attempted ratio. If your team is so limited, there is an advantage in going for the lower opponent field goal percentage indirectly, using a high fouling defense.

Incidentally, high fouling sometimes works not because it should work under the "principals" of basketball, but primarily due to the limitations of referees and to certain human psychological weaknesses. Like life, basketball is not completely fair or logical.

If your overall defensive quality is not truly high, concentrating directly on minimizing opponent effective field goal percentage while simultaneously maintaining a low fouling rate will often not be as successful.

On the other hand, if you are truly serious in the Quest for the Ring and/or you do have high real defensive quality on your team, it is not an either or question. You do not have to and you most definitely should not choose to intentionally have a high fouling rate. Rather, you have what it takes to simultaneously be a low fouling and a low opponent field goal percentage team at the same time.

Virtually all teams that won the Quest more so from defense than from offense were high quality, low fouling teams, low opponent field goal percentage allowed teams. Moreover, among teams that won the Quest more so from offense than defense, rarely if ever would you see the defensive side of those teams intentionally running a high fouling strategy.

The 2009 and the Overall Career George Karl Theme Songs

We decided that a special 2009 theme song was necessary given the surprising and unexpected ten Nuggets playoff wins in 2009.

The song is "I Fought the Law and the Law Won" laugh out loud.

Karl fought the basketball law that forbids completely (or almost completely) ignoring either defense or offense when managing your team. Karl and the Nuggets ignored the importance of having some strategy on offense, and of avoiding having an offense almost completely derived from the defense. The law is not that you have to be equal between the two, but you can not almost totally ignore either one.

Technically, this was the second straight season that Karl and company broke the law, because the prior year, which was 2007-08, they almost totally ignored strategy, confidence building, and other coaching modalities on the defensive side.

In 2008-09, Karl put almost all of his efforts into coaching defense. Thus on his own accord, or under instructions from someone in the Nuggets organization, tested out the radical theory that you could go farther in the playoffs with that "all defense" approach than with a more balanced approach.

Actually, the improbable theory may technically not have been disproven in this specific case, since the Nuggets in fact did go farther in the playoffs than anyone thought.

But on the other hand, as the Lakers and Nuggets locked horns in the 2009 West Final, Karl and all kinds of other grown men claimed that the Nuggets could beat the Lakers, which is obviously false. The Nuggets with their one sided approach to basketball had no chance to defeat the Lakers in the 2009 West Final. So the law actually won, at least ultimately, which it always does except in the immediate aftermath of a revolution.

THE GEORGE KARL 2009 THEME SONG


But since George Karl's career is a very long one by coaching standards, and one year can not change the overall pattern of it. So his overall theme song remains the same:

THE OVERALL GEORGE KARL CAREER THEME SONG




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Site News: Features Moving off the Home Page due to Trimming

FEATURES MOVING OFF THE HOME PAGE
The Quest Webmaster is starting to monitor the total bytes of the home page and, in order to put a cap on how long it takes for the home page to load, we will be limiting the grand total of bytes.

Don't worry, we will still have the most feature loaded basketball home page on the Net, but even we are going to have a home page limit now, so that anyone with a high speed connection will be able to load the page in full in no more than about 20 or 25 seconds (instead of 30 to 35 seconds). Yes, believe it or not, 10 seconds matters on the Internet.

Just as you might go to some kind of lounge to rest after a game, the Quest for the Ring Lounge is where front page items go after awhile, to make way for new stuff.

The Lounge itself is going to fill up eventually. When it does, we will have to make a Lounge #2.

Features retired from the home page can also be moved to the first of several Quest archive pages, which is Quest for the Ring 2.

So we are moving the following items to the Lounge or to Quest for the Ring 2 or perhaps to both.

SAY GOODBYE TO THIS CLASSIC JR SMITH PHOTO (BUT WE MIGHT GET SOFT AND BRING IT BACK)
























SAY GOODBYE TO THIS ONE, LAUGH OUT LOUD GEORGE KARL!
























AND SAY GOODBYE TO THIS GEM


















SORRY FITZ, THERE'S NO ROOM ON THE HOME PAGE FOR THIS PIC OF WHEN YOU (SORT OF) WON SUPER BOWL 43




















THE CELTICS' RING MOVES OUT TOO























TWO IMPORTANT VISITOR FORMS CAN'T FIT ANYMORE
Two forms visitors can use to communicate with Quest without doing an email were moved off the home page to a new Contact Page.

REMOVED FROM THE SIDEBAR
Several items, most notably all the Pandora custom radio stations, were moved out a few weeks ago. Those Pandora stations were moved to the Music Page.

Today we eliminated the links to the live and archived radio broadcasts for most of the NBA teams, due to the fact that these were no longer leading to anything. One of the scourges of the Internet folks, is that links become worthless if the site the link goes to changes things or discontinues features.

Numerous Nuggets oriented sidebar features were moved to the Nuggets News Site, which was upgraded substantially recently, and is more than ever one of the best places on the Internet to go to see what's up with those wayward Nuggets. Specifically, the following features were moved there:

--Main Nuggets Menu, with links to transactions, injuries, depth charts, and so forth
--Nuggets Real Player Ratings (2008-09)
--Latest Nuggets Top Stories
--Nuggets player statistics and advanced player statistics
--Nuggets Big Media Links
--Latest News for Colorado and for numerous Colorado towns
--Useful Links for Colorado Nuggets Fans, including weather, traffic, airport, Pepsi Center, etc.
--Links to Colorado pro teams other than the Nuggets
--Links to Colorado college sports teams and to Colorado minor league teams
--Denver area weather
--Nuggets franchise information, for example, identification of top officials
--A few historical Nuggets pics were moved there also.

All of these features joined the already there up to the minute Nuggets news to form a powerful and popular resource for Nuggets fans.

There are plans for producing a Lakers news site with similar specs.

NBA Player Salaries, Team Payroll Totals, and Team Cap Space Available now and in Future Years

SALARIES AND CAP SPACE MONITOR USER GUIDE
--Parenthesis indicate a player associated with the team but who is NOT going to be playing in 2009-10. Such players' pay (if any) is NOT counted in the "Real-Actual Players Only 2009-10" column (the first numerical column)

--The "TOTALS" line is obviously very important for each team. The total of "Real-Actual Players Only 2009-10" is the actual pay that is going to be paid to the actual players. So this tells you how much money is actually going to be applied to the actual players.

--Players who are injured and may not play some or all of the season are included in the real actual pay column if and only if they have not been waived or put on the inactive reserve status. It is not possible to accurately predict how much a player currently injured will play, so their pay is included in full. If you know that a certain player is not playing due to injury, you can subtract that player's pay to determine the actual, effective real team payroll.

--Another important Total is the second numerical column: Official Salary Cap Accounting. Compare a team's total in this column to 57.7 million dollars and to 69.8 million dollars, which are the NBA salary cap and the NBA luxury tax threshold, respectively. If a team's accounting total is over the 69.8 million dollars luxury tax threshold, it owes the League a tax equal to the amount of the overage.

--A third very important total is the fourth column, called Contracted 2010-11. This indirectly tells you how much financial freedom each team is currently scheduled to have next off season, in 2010.

The 2010 "free agent market" is scheduled to have a bunch of the best players in the NBA in it. So any team that has a lot of "cap space" for the 2010-11 season will be in a strong position to go after these top players. The lower the total you see in the 2010-11 column, the more salary cap space a team will have in 2010. The 2010-11 salary cap will most likely be between 55 and 60 million dollars, so knowing that you can make an estimate of the actual amount of cap space each team will have in 2010. The current Quest for the Ring projection of what the 2010-11 salary cap will be is $56 million dollars, substantially less than other predictions.

--In order to view everything on the worksheet, you must use BOTH the vertical scroll and the horizontal scroll.

--The source of this information, which is current as of August 9, is an Internet site which is strongly believed to be reliable.

Denver Nuggets vs. New Orleans Hornets in April 2009: the Nuggets Finally win a Series, Part Thirteen

Editorial Notes: The following was written during the late April 2009 first round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the New Orleans Hornets. This content was put on the independent New Orleans Hornets forum during the series. It is presented almost exactly as originally written here, with a very few minor additions here and there.

See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.

FROM APRIL 29, FOLLOWING GAME 5, WHICH WAS WON BY THE NUGGETS 107-86, AND AT THIS POINT THE NUGGETS HAD WON THE SERIES 4-1
And don't ever make a prediction of whether the Hornets will win a playoff series in January, when you don't know who the opponent will be and you don't know what the injury situation will be.

Most writers and most fans do predict during the regular season what their teams will do when the playoffs come, but its really silly to predict this when you don't know the opponent and when you don't know the injury situation. Only if you are lucky will both teams be at full strength.

I'll sign off by hoping that the Hornets get the Center position squared away so that they then have the two most important positions taken care of. Then they can go for a ring sometime in the next few years.

Why do I care? Because this year, CP3 was, according to my calculations, the 2nd best player in the NBA, behind only LeBron James. The Nuggets have no one in the top 15 or so. For this and other reasons, I came here thinking the Hornets could beat the Nuggets.

But I didn't know Tyson Chandler was not really up to speed and, apparently, neither did the Hornets' trainers or Tyson Chandler himself know either. Had Tyson Chandler been 100%, it would have been a very different series. At a minimum, I would think the Hornets would have won three games had they not been banged up.

I'll go to the Mavericks board now to point out all the Nuggets' problems, laugh out loud.

FROM APRIL 29, FOLLOWING GAME 5, WHICH WAS WON BY THE NUGGETS 107-86, AND AT THIS POINT THE NUGGETS HAD WON THE SERIES 4-1
As for using the Phil Jackson/Kobe analogy, Phil wrote a book about Kobe's selfishness.

I checked this out. Phil Jackson has written several books, one of which, called "Last Season: a Team in Search of its Soul" was critical of Kobe Bryant.

I have not read the book, but have now read numerous summaries and reviews. Next time I go to the library I'll look for it; the reviews are indicating it's not worth buying. (But you can buy it for little more than shipping charges, apparently.)

Many reviewers report that the supposed criticism of Kobe Bryant is over-hyped. Moreover, this book is about the year Bryant went on trial for rape! Yes, I would hope there is at least a little criticism of Bryant in there.

So this book is about the 2003-04 season, which ended up with the Pistons beating the Lakers in the Championship. Phil Jackson in this book states that he much preferred to coach Shaquille O'Neal to Kobe Bryant. OK, we all have our preferences.

Does Phil Jackson use the word "selfish" to describe Bryant? No, never. He does more or less say that Bryant is a narcissistic type, that he is almost impossible to coach, and that he has a mind of his own when it comes to how the team should be run. But for the record he never uses that "selfish" word, which is a negative word associated with being narcissistic.

It is possible to be narcissistic without being selfish. And everyone is narcissistic to one extent or another. Don't you like yourself? So let's be careful with the word throwing.

I mean Lord Jehovah, Chris Andersen has an illegal drug taking personality and yet he's now one of the best defenders in the NBA. He probably would be in jail right now were it not for the fact that he can afford very powerful attorneys. So much for the idea that a bad personality means you can't be a great player. The Nuggets have become practically chock loaded with players who supposedly have bad personalities but are really good basketball players.

Boo hoo, Phil, poor you having to deal with Kobe Bryant! Hand me a kleenex! I'm not too sympathetic, given how much money you make and given how you went back on your pledge to quit the Lakers and came back to coach Bryant. Coaches need to quit wasting so much time criticising the personalities of their players.

Let Marc Cuban do it, laugh out loud.

But in fairness to NBA coaches, not counting George Karl, the problem of coaches criticising personalities is not a big one. Unlike Phil Jackson, Karl has a long track record of criticising player personalities, and for that matter benching players due to supposed shortcomings with their personalities.

For the record, although I wish Jackson was not so sensitive about Bryant, his faults are nothing compared to George Karl's. Jackson never demanded that Kobe Bryant reduce his scoring and shooting the way George Karl demanded that Carmelo Anthony do so.

Because Jackson is not a lame brain. You can ask a basketball player to do more of something without having to warn him to do less of (a good thing) that he is currently doing.

And these days, Phil Jackson is as happy as a cat curled up near the fireplace that power scorer Kobe Bryant, big ego and all, can make winning basketball games so easy.

FROM APRIL 29, FOLLOWING GAME 5, WHICH WAS WON BY THE NUGGETS 107-86, AND AT THIS POINT THE NUGGETS HAD WON THE SERIES 4-1
It had to happen after I joined most of the Nuggets bloggers in predicting during the season that the Nuggets would lose in round 1 again.

No seriously, we have all been wasting our (and CP3's) time by thinking the Hornets had a chance to win this series.

Quest for the Ring now quotes verbatim an article which in no uncertain terms reports to you that the Hornets were the walking wounded during the series. The Hornets were banged up at the start of the series, and they only got more banged up as the series went along.

The New Orleans Hornets didn't have their big man for their big game.

Tyson Chandler was sidelined for Game 5 against Denver on Wednesday night with a swollen left ankle.

The center has been hampered by the injury all series, averaging just 3.8 points and 5.3 rebounds.

Hornets coach Byron Scott said the ankle wasn't 100 percent heading into the playoffs and that with each game it's only gotten worse.

Chandler missed 15 straight games in the regular season because of the ankle and returned for the season finale.

After discussing the situation with Chandler on Wednesday morning at the team's shootaround, Scott decided to hold him out.

"Just for his health," Scott said.

New Orleans started Hilton Armstrong in his place as the Hornets, down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series, tried to stave off elimination.

Scott didn't rule out Chandler's return should the series be extended.

"If we can get back to New Orleans and get back here, if there is a Game 7, it would probably be a different story," Scott said. "He would actually have some time to rest and heal it a little bit more."

Scott also said All-Star Chris Paul wasn't playing at full strength, either. The dynamic point guard has been bumped around all series, absorbing one collision after another.

Still, Paul is averaging 17.8 points and 10.5 assists in the series.

"He's going to play as hard as he can for as long as he can," Scott said. "We've got a team that out of the five starters now, one is not playing at all and we have one starter that's healthy and that's Rasual Butler. Everybody else is just banged up there."

It's been a tumultuous season for Chandler, who was dealt to Oklahoma City in February, only to have the trade rescinded when he failed a physical.

His production in the playoffs has steadily dwindled as his minutes decreased. He scored seven points in 36 minutes in Game 2, but was held scoreless in 13 minutes in Game 4.

That ultimately led to Scott's decision to rest Chandler.

"Obviously it hurts us, but I thought that each game he got a little worse," Scott said. "We knew that before the series started."

No team can win a playoff series with this quantity of injury problems. Once you get up to three, four, and more injuries, it's not the same team anymore. True, all of the Hornets' injuries were relatively minor. But it was the sheer number of them that did it: the Hornets were nickled and dimed to death.

Given the sheer quantity of minor injuries, it's kind of pointless to complain very much about Byron Scott not taking Chandler out much earlier in the series. This would have been nice, but would have earned the Hornets one more win at the most, and maybe not even that.

And the Nuggets, because they have been so wretched in the playoffs for years and years, were taking no chances, so they poured it on game after game.

Meanwhile, other than an insignificant Carmelo Anthony elbow problem, the Nuggets had no injury problems. This lopsided injury advantage, combined with the way the Nuggets chose to play the game this year, created this rare blowout.

I believe the Mavericks are healthy. And although their defense has been inferior to both the Hornets and the Nuggets, their offense is ahead of that of both the Hornets and Nuggets. So the Mavs will be a good and fair test for the Nuggets' continuing efforts to intimidate and disrupt.

But for the record, in theory the Nuggets should be playing the Rockets or Blazers in round two, rather than the Mavs. This would be the case were the playoffs done strictly based on seeding, instead of based on a combination of seeding and brackets. This is yet another in a long list of lucky breaks for the Nuggets this year. About the only lucky break they have not gotten yet is for Pau Gasol or Kobe Bryant to be injured.

I for one am still not very impressed with the Nuggets. OK, so you can disrupt and beat up on a banged up team. So what?

Yes, you do have some dead wood on your team, but don't be thinking that you have to get rid of every player on your team based on this fluke of a series.

========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in late April, 2009.

--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.

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NEW ORLEANS HORNETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER

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