Finals Discussion

[KingsGM-old]

Not only that, I was up 4 going into the 4th quarter on my home court

damn chokers.

what a identical situation.

deja vu

[NetsGM]

Hey jazz, don't take this the wrong way or anything.

But next year when you're 15-19 or whatever, BLOW UP THE TEAM THIS TIME!


I was 3 points away from finishing this off in 6 games.

*edit*  Oops, nevermind.  FBB does go on a 2-3-2 schedule.  Which means I lost my last 2 games on my home court.

I win game 5 on the jazz home court to go up 3-2, have 2 games at home to close it out, and I don't finish with a title, that's unacceptable

[KingsGM-old]

Billups is really unlike real NBA here. He's a big time chocker. Once again, he costed you the series i belive. 2 points, 5 to's and 1-11 shooting in decisive game 7!

[NetsGM]

Well, he certainly cost me game 7.  Up until that point he was playing fairly well.  3 double-doubles in the series, 4 games of 19 or more scoring.  

For the playoffs he played good.  19 ppg, 8.3 apg, 4.7 rpg, 45% shooting, 44% 3pt, held starting pg's to 42% shooting, 29% from 3 pt.

But yeah, he laid a bigtime stinker in that game 7.  Game 6 as well (shot like shit, but did have 10 assists to 1 to).

[KingsGM-old]

Hey! Only the Nets and the Kings managed 3 wins against the Jazz. Does this mean i have the 3rd best team in the league!?

[JazzGM-old]

What a crazy series. I think it comes back down to matchups as Nets and I had already discussed, for the first 3 games. I put Kirilenko at SG and Hughes at SF. I also put Curran as a backup Center.

Why:

The bulk of the Nets scoring came from Pettit, although I felt that Emeka and Dalembert were the ones deciding games for the Nets. In a surely defensive matchup, I couldn't let Pettit score 30 a game. I knew I wasn't going to beat them inside, my only hope was that Booth would shut down whoever he matched up with.

The bulk of my scoring is spread between two players, Hughes and Kirilenko who were to be facing A defense each. I decided to lock down on Pettit because Battier isn't that much of a scoring threat and any advantage he had over Hughes on the offensive end wouldn't be that much of a factor. I just couldn't let Pettit have more freedom. Because I run my offense through Kirilenko as it is, I didn't have any problem with him playing SG and handling the ball (in the game I did beat the Nets Pettit was playing SF). The one thing I was worried about this series was rebounding, and it showed why as Emeka killed me and Murphy the first 3 games which was a nice move by the Nets.

I put Curran as backup C because I needed more outside threats, I wasn't going to win trying to Challenge the defensive juggernauts inside. This played to my advantage because Curran had a hell of a series

Games 4-7:

I kept my backcourt the same (kirilenko at 2 and hughes at 3) and started Curran's A- defense and put Murphy on the bench.


Why:

I knew I still wasn't going to outrebound the Nets, but I still knew I needed to limit Emeka's scoring after the first three games and there was still the advantage of his C+ outside. I kept Curran backing up Booth to ensure that Murphy still got some minutes for rebounding and hopefully some inside scoring after Curran beat his inside players up a little.

Also through these DC changes, Molina got some minutes for his much needed rebounding, defense, and outside threat. I thought about getting Eschmeyer some minutes for his rebounding and defense, but I didn't feel he was athletic enough for this matchup, and I needed Curran to back up Booth so that Murphy got his minutes.

All and all, if i could have picked a team I would want to trade mine with, it would be the Nets, I have the utmost respect for thier franchise. They're still going to be in the running year after year, With Pettit and Emeka alone, this team will go far. Great series across the board.

[NetsGM]

Dang, I just looked at the stats for the last 4 games.

I shot 41% to their 37%.  37% from 3 to their 28%.  won rebounding by 6 per game.  Pettit with nearly 26 ppg.  Kirilenko shot 36%.  Hughes 38%

How'd I lose?

Over the last 4 games I averaged 18 turnovers/game to their 9.

Damn, I should have put the pace on slow.  I don't know why I didn't think of that.  Daniels wasn't going to turn the ball over, I should have limited my mistakes.

[KingsGM-old]

Jazz: was Kirilenko at 2 against the Kings too?

[JazzGM-old]

nah he was at 3, I kept my DC the same throughout playoffs until i had to adapt to the nets.

[KingsGM-old]

cause that would have been the only explanation for Tmac's subpar series. It's still a mistery to me...

[JazzGM-old]

Hughes does have A- defense and when I first got him he had A defense, so he's not exactly a pushover on the defensive end...not to mention I do trap and press which brings in kirilenko and booth

[KingsGM-old]

But he was pretty unstopable vs you during the regular season. Destroyed the Hughes last time with 52 points. Yet, he only went once for 30 in this series.

[JazzGM-old]

what were your settings against me, or what had you changed in your DC in general in preparation?

[GoldenStateGM]

Well, congratulations to both the Nets and the Jazz.  A classic series, I would have to say, going all the way to game 7.

Looks like for those of us in the West, we have to hope that Antonio Daniels retires at an early age.  My guess is that the reason the Jazz were not a 50 game winner in the regular season was the Schabinger starting experiment.  Daniels appears to be the ultimate chemistry guy...

For those of you in the east...  Good luck  The Nets also appear to have an excellent future, with their best players all being under 26.

We all have some catching up to do...

And I would say the Jazz are likely an official dynasty now...  The funny part about it is, most of us thought they would be the top team in their first year.  Did not work out, rebuilt on the fly, and now a two time champ.  Congratulations!!!!

[JazzGM-old]

Thanks, it's going to be tough to maintain any kind of "dynasty" past next season considering Daniels and Booth are older, but perhaps I have another year. I think I could be greedy and go on a title run again next season, but at the same time I might hurt myself for the longterm outlook of things if i don't start peparing for a post-Booth and post-Daniels era.

Curran's developing nicely but is still a little undersized to be a full-time center and as long as I have Murphy and his contract, it's going to be hard to divide minutes. I do foresee Murphy having a decent TC for some reason though and Curran proved he's a hell of a back-up, but with C potential who knows. I also get tempted on putting Kirilenko at PF because his defensive numbers are better there (but C+ rebounding yuck) and if Beardslee earns a spot then how do i find minutes for everyone?

Shabinger is still a big question mark as a dependable starter, even if he develops more, he's gotta get his TO's down so he better improve his handles, or at least become more of a defensive threat to balance his TO's. I don't need scoring from him, otherwise he's going to get the steve francis treatment and contribute off the bench or get traded.

Meyers really could develop into something with his B potential but needs to be greedier with shots. Because he shoots so well he can put up a lot of points in a little bit of time. To get him to take more shots I'd have to list him as an option and that's just stretching it too far right now.

Beardslee needs one more good TC to be a starter. In his rookie year he was backing up both my 2 and 3 and gave consistent all around game, this year he had less minutes so it was harder to gauge his performance. He did show his old self during playoffs though, but would need to get to at least a B defense again to be a starter.

I was really impressed with Molina in the beginning of the year, however; with his 2nd rounder contract, he probably won't give me an offer to resign him after this next season so I can't necessarily depend on him being there. He'd have to improve his shooting percentage to get more playing time, but his numbers this year are based on me having him jack up threes the first fourth of the year when he was getting most of his playing time.

The good thing though is there's a lot of flexibility with this team, and as long as some players are going up and some players are going down I should still be good with my rotations.