Comments on: It Finally Happened!!!!

By: Ricardo

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:30:50 +0000

"Yes, it IS splitting hairs. It's silly to make one a play a referendum on his entire career. And he did nothing wrong on the play!"

Oh, I agree. But assessing the play in an absolute way, I think Ainge was the (slightly) better choice.

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By: AYC

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 15:38:59 +0000

Yes, it IS splitting hairs. It's silly to make one a play a referendum on his entire career. And he did nothing wrong on the play!

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By: Ricardo

Sun, 10 Apr 2011 21:41:36 +0000

RE: the KJ to person play in game five, 1995 WCSF - This is splitting hairs, but Ainge looked like a slightly better option there. If Horry can recover and contest, Dan Majerle is wide open for the second pass. As it went, Person had to gather the pass from the left side of his body before getting that shot away, which may have hindered his accuracy. (Of course, it was damn close anyway)

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By: Cort

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 23:34:11 +0000

well we can agree to disagree lol.
my view from watching KJ play a lot - and i think most would agree - is that he over-dribbled regularly in an attempt to find himself an opening or shot instead of moving the ball. many times i saw him selfishly monopolize the ball and dribble 15-18 seconds looking for a shot or opening. that just isnt good basketball, especially for a playmaker.
too often people get caught up in the spectacular and equate it with greatness, and KJ was often spectacular. some of his spectacular plays came at the expense of involving his teammates in my opinion. the true point guard needs to sacrifice some of his offense (see john stockton) to stimulate team play and get everyone involved in the offense. if he doesnt people stand around and, no one gets offensive rebounds, the defense can rest and a team is totally dependent on 1 guy making shots. usually that leads to a loss. mullin was not so spectacular or routinely exciting, but was a tremendous player nonetheless. since he had much less quickness and jumping ability compared to KJ, to be as good as he was shows how extremely skilled and savvy he was as a player. of course he was also 5 inches taller than KJ or so, which helps.

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By: Cort

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 23:07:27 +0000

ok but you intimated that since horry was taller, long armed and athletic he would get there to bother him when he wouldnt have with a good pass. i still think it was a poor decision.
heck, i would rather have seen KJ shoot it when i got that close to the hoop. in case you missed it in one previous post, i did say KJ was a very good player. i just dont think he made his teammates better as much as he could have. he was more interested in scoring first and held the ball too long regularly.
that play on youtube is not a prime example of what i mean, but it is somewhat representative of what i am talking about. he over-penetrated and then looked afraid to take a big shot. i also think he could have passed it to barkley for a better shot than they got. KJ had 4 options in one of the biggest plays of his career and chose the worst one, in my estimation. that is hard to do.
1) shoot a short runner over elie 2) pass to ainge 3) pass to barkley 4) pass to person.
look at barkley's reaction after the miss. i see disappointment and disdain for who got the last shot in his face and body language.

those stats were estimates. no matter the touches, KJ had the ball more than twice as much per game in his hands than mullin, probably more like 3-4 times more in terms of actual time.

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By: AYC

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 23:00:32 +0000

By: AYC

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:49:12 +0000

#70, I didn't say Horry was close to Ainge. He was close to KJ, in between KJ and Ainge.

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By: AYC

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:44:38 +0000

#68, now you are just making up imaginary stats. We have a measure of how many possessions a player uses, called usage%. The career usg%'s of Mullin and KJ are nearly identical: 22.2 for Mullin and 22.6 for KJ; meanwhile, Mullin has a career ast% of 16.5%, less than half of KJ's career avg of 38.8%

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By: Cort

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:43:40 +0000

well i did mis-recall how far ainge was on that play since it was totally from memory, but ainge was still far more open, slightly closer and the better guy to pass to on the play. ainge was about 13-15 feet from KJ or less and person was over 20 feet away inthe other direction.
it would have been a lot easier to pass to the right to ainge when KJ was already DRIVING right than to drive all that way in and throw a farther pass BACK out 20 feet or more to person, since it was totally against his body momentum.
plus, ainge was a better more proven clutch shooter. person was a good shooter i know. but id rather have danny shoot that one than person. ainge was further out than i recalled, but he would have been able to step in closer and get it off with a good pass that led him into it. horry wasnt that close to ainge (a good 13-14 feet away with both feet in the lane with his body turned facing toward the basket away from ainge in a position where he couldnt have recovered to get to him with a good pass). elie appeared to be the one actually "guarding" ainge as they came upcourt but he was too far away to recover to bother him too.
person was more closely guarded. ainge was also much more in KJ's field of vision. i dont understand why he would make that backward pass after getting below the dotted line not far from the rim. by the time you make a pass like that, the defense will recover, and they did. you can see person's shot was very well-contested. a made basket would have ended the series and phoenix would likely have won the title.
i still stand by my original point that it was a bad decision that may have cost phoenix a great chance at winning it all. he really kind of over-penetrated if he wasnt going to shoot. in fact he could have shot but seemed unwilling to take the big shot in that case. barkley actually was more open than person too, and would have had a shorter shot.

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By: AYC

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:22:50 +0000

This clip opens with a replay of the offending KJ play you mentioned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI2oBGMYdKs

Ainge didn't have an "open 15-footer" as you claim; he was at the 3pt-line (on KJ's right, not his left) just like Person was. KJ drew 4 defenders, and wisely kicked it out to an open teammate. Why not kick it to Ainge? Because Robert Horry, an athletic, long-armed, defensive stalwart you may have heard of, was between him and Ainge. I'm sure you can find some bad late game decisions by KJ, but this wasn't one of them.

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