This was an idea we had a few weeks back, when I posted the "Last 21 Game" efficiency rating posts both here and at 48 Minutes of Hell. An understated aspect of those posts that I was experimenting with was that I, for the day it was posted, attempted to respond to every twitter question regarding the stats used (or any statistical trend readers wanted to hear about). Probably should've advertised it more.

In a combined sense, I got a lot of great questions from the 48MoH commenters and my twitter followers -- so many, in fact, that I'd like to codify it and make it a feature. As it's memorial day, I have the day off and have a chance to actually spend most of the day sifting through data, and it's a good opportunity to kick this off. To start the discussion, here's a table of team playoff efficiency stats vs regular season efficiency stats.

• • •

A few notes, perhaps to help the questions arise:

• Somewhat impressively, Memphis and Denver finished their first round series with positive efficiency differentials. Given that the Lakers and the Clippers got curbstomped in the second round, it leads one to an interesting question: would Memphis and Denver have been stronger second round foes for the Spurs and the Thunder?

• While everyone waxes poetic about the Spurs offense, and asked how the Spurs would respond to a stout Thunder defense, it's worth noting that the Spurs are also the best defense the Thunder have faced so far as well. In last night's game, I thought the most interesting fact wasn't just the fact that the Spurs offense found itself challenged by the OKC defense -- it was also the OKC offense finding itself shiftless against the best defense that it's faced so far, as well. The only one "better" were the Mavericks, whose defensive rating is a bit misleading -- they haven't been a top 10 defensive team in the last half of the season and their playoff performance matched their second half stats far more than their first half stats.

• The much-ballyhooed slowing of pace that comes with the playoffs has occurred in force, with the playoff-average pace of 91.1 falling all the way to 88.9. The biggest offenders? The Knicks fell from 93.2 possessions per game in the regular season to 86.9 in the playoffs, a difference of 6.3 possessions per game. Also notable were the Nuggets (who fell 3.9 possessions per game) and the Thunder (who have fallen 3.3 possessions per game). The Clippers, Jazz and Spurs have scarcely fallen at all, though -- an indication that the Spurs have in large part succeeded in forcing the tempo. In last night's game, they succeeded in kind, as the game was played at a blistering pace of 95.9.

• • •

QUESTION #1: Do you think the San Antonio adjusts more to the length and athleticism of Oklahoma City in game two? Or do you think they'll have the same struggles they had in the first three quarters? from @NoSwaggT

A little of both. I thought the Spurs offense struggled a bit too much, in game 1. Some of that is very replicable for the Thunder -- they're a better defense than either the Clippers or the Jazz, after all. And they seemed to have done an excellent job scouting the Spurs offense. One of the biggest things Memphis did to drive last year's upset was disrupt the Spurs' passing lanes -- the Thunder were following the Grizzlies' playbook to a T in terms of passing disruption, and it showed in their ability to get the Spurs to revert to an isolation-heavy offense for many stretches of last night's game. So in that sense, the struggles won't be entirely abated.

But there are reasons to think that the Spurs' fourth quarter explosion wasn't a fluke, either. First, the Spurs reverted to the same ball movement that they had success with during the regular season -- by percentage, there were more PnR/cutting plays in the fourth than in the first few quarters. Second, the Spurs absolutely missed a bevy of open shots in the first half that very nearly cost them the game, as well as a remarkably poor transition attack. In the fourth, they hit their open shots and stopped doing the things that weren't working (like transition offense).

Which probably deserves its own notation. While the Thunder's transition defense was about as good as you get, it's hard to imagine the Spurs scoring 0.4 points per transition possession as the series goes on, especially since they averaged an NBA-best 1.24 points per possession in transition during the regular season. Over a full series, the Spurs will shoot a bit better on open threes and won't be so lost in transition. But the Thunder's advantage in the passing lanes and their well-scouted defensive attack won't go away -- the question now is how well Pop adjusts to it. In last year's Memphis series, he didn't do a particularly good job -- this year, though, the personell is better and the Spurs' current defensive attack is much, much better than last. I think they can adjust, but the Thunder aren't going to miss all their open shots on a regular basis either.

• • •

QUESTION #2: How often does Tiago score on pick and rolls? from @_chrisblack

Quite a lot. In 168 possessions as the roll man on the pick and roll, Tiago averages 1.32 points per possession -- he scores 66.7% of the time in those situations, and finishes baskets at a 71% conversion rate on 121 shots. Twelve of Tiago's 28 and -1 baskets came on the pick and roll this year. It's one of the most deadly offensive tools in the Spurs' arsenal, and the chemistry between Manu and Tiago is something to keep an eye on every time they share the court.

• • •

QUESTION #3: Has the east been worse offensively in the playoffs? Or has pace just slowed down and the lower scores happened because of it? from @sstewart1617

Good question. It's not just the pace, nope. In the regular season, the East's 8 playoff teams averaged an offensive rating of 105. Not incredible, but well above average. In the playoffs? Try 98. A decrease of 7 points per 100 possessions, pace-adjusted. If you feel like the East wasn't this unwatchable in the regular season, you'd be right -- it wasn't. The offense we've seen in the east so far has been a special kind of awful.

• • •

QUESTION #4: Does the high mpg that guys like Kobe and LeBron play actually make a difference in their play in the 4th? Or late in a series? from @sstewart1617

I don't have a ton of stats on this, but the eye test would tend to say yes, at least for me. For an example, I'd look at the last two years of titles -- while Kobe played very well for most of the finals, he broke down late in the fourth in several key games of the 2010 finals, with an emphasis on his clunker in game 7 that most people remember but never properly contextualize -- Kobe had played an insane number of minutes the entire playoffs, and was coming off two games of virtuoso performances. He looked exhausted, and by all accounts, he was. Last year's finals have gotten a lot of press, but not necessarily for the reasons they should. LeBron was absolutely worn down by the end of games once he got to the finals -- part of that was the excellent Dallas defense (and their effective "force LeBron to run around" scheme), but part of that was the fact that Spolestra had played him 44 minutes per game in the playoffs up to the finals, then increased his minutes load when they got there. The same was actually true in 2007, when LeBron had the first awful series of his life against the champion 2007 Spurs. Part of it was obviously Bowen, but people rarely understand just how awful Bruce was at guarding LeBron during the regular season. He used to be terrible at it. If LeBron hadn't been completely exhausted by the finals, having played 45 minutes per game in the run-up, it's likely that the 2007 finals would have been at least slightly more competitive than the annihilation they became.

Long story short? If you have good defenders, it's a lot easier to guard a player when they're exhausted and can't get their legs under their shot.

• • •

QUESTION #5: What's OKC's best crunch time lineup? Are they making a mistake by not playing Sefalosha in the 4th? from @steven_lebron

I don't have stats on how OKC's lineups performed at specific times of the game, but it looks unlikely Thabo is part of those lineups. According to Basketball-Value, the only lineup Thabo played in that got more than 20 minutes of burn in the regular season with a +/- better than their season average was a Westbrook-Thabo-Durant-Ibaka-Collison lineup that registered a +11.9 in 21.99 minutes of play -- other than that, he had just two lineups that fit that criterion; one with a negative differential and one representing his time with the starting unit, where the team produced slightly under their season average production. This is backed up by Thabo's stats on 82Games.com, where his clutch stats indicate that the team was markedly worse in the clutch when Thabo was on the floor.

• • •

QUESTION #6: Kawhi Leonard had the worst +/- at -16. This may mean nothing, but what did KL do poorly in game 1? How can he improve? from @TBJ_soldier

He actually didn't do that bad a job defending Durant -- while Jackson did a better job cutting off Durant's shots, he also fouled him on every other possession and gave the Thunder free points at the line. Consider the stats from the game, here. With Kawhi on the floor, Durant shot 47% from the field, to 25% when Kawhi was off the floor. However, he also averaged only 6 FTA per 36 minutes and 6 rebounds per 36 minutes. With Jackson on the floor, Durant averaged 16 FTA per 36 and 12 rebounds -- both of these are obviously well above his season averages. Jackson also held him to 25% shooting, which is incredible. Anyway. Kawhi did a very good job keeping Durant under his usual free throw attempts and provided a very different defensive look on KD. As for what he did poorly? Primarily offense. He averaged 1.05 points per possession in the regular season, with 1.39 off the cut and 1.31 in transition. In game 1, he shot 33% from three, 2-6 from two point range, and turned the ball over twice for an abysmal 0.64 PPP, the 2nd worst total on the team. In game two, he needs to actually make the open shots he missed during the opening salvo and continue playing Durant tough. Also, continue rebounding -- Kawhi was a major part of the Spurs' huge advantage in rebounding percentage during the game, and that may have been the factor that decided the game in the first place.

• • •

QUESTION #7: how many charlotte bobcats from @CardboardGerald

There were 16 players who suited up for the Charlotte Bobcats this season. The number 16 is notable because it is the number that Hall of Fame Power Forward Matt Bonner wore in his first two years with the Charlotte Bobcats. This is the only reason such a number is notable.

• • •

QUESTION #8: Who's played better defense on star guards/forwards, Danny Green or Kahwi Leaonard? from @sstewart1617

Clearly, Danny Green. Kahwi Leaonard is not a person who exists, Sam. ... Okay, for real though. Green's defense has been overall worse than Kawhi's this year, at least in the overall synergy numbers and through +/-. It's arguable that Kawhi has played far more minutes on better players, too, given that Pop has tended to give Kawhi the Bowen-esque assignments without remorse. I'm not sure of the best way to quickly get you an answer on this, so I'd go with my intuition and say that Kawhi probably got harder matchups and played more minutes on star players, meaning that the large gap between him and Danny in the overall numbers would therefore extend to star players as well.

• • •

QUESTION #9: Is Tiago Splitter's cuteness to effectiveness ratio the best in the NBA? from @sstewart1617's wife

Probably not. The "cuteness to effectiveness" ratio is probably a stat that would underrate Tiago. He's simply too effective -- even if you give him 5 or 6 on a 10 point cuteness scale, he's _certainly_got a high number on the effectiveness scale. Compare that to, say, someone like Nick Young (who my friend Monique has a decisive crush on) or someone like Gordon Hayward or George Hill who have high reported cuteness but markedly lower effectiveness. Probably not a very favorable stat for Tiago, all things considered. Sorry.

• • •

QUESTION #10: It wasn't his shooting hand, but is there any statistical correlation between Tiago's hand injury and his sudden drop in FT%? from @calebjsaenz

That's a really good observation. The injury Caleb is referring to occurred in game 2 of the NBA playoffs, where Tiago suffered a sprained left wrist on a freak fall in the first quarter. Splitting Tiago's free throws by pre-injury and post-injury, you get the following split:

• Pre-Injury, Tiago made 125 out of 183 free throws this season -- or, 68.3%.
• Post-Injury, Tiago made 9 out of 28 free throws this season -- or, 32.1%.

• • •

QUESTION #11: Who gains the most from playing small in the WCF, the Spurs or the Thunder? And how did Boston fare against lineups with LeBron playing PF? from Jared Dubin of Hardwood Paroxysm

Jared always asks the tough questions!

Over the whole season, the Spurs had limited-to-none success with true smallball. No lineup with Duncan at C and a non-big at PF that played over 19 minutes in the regular season registered an above-0.500 winning percentage. The same was true for Tiago Splitter, the next most commonly played center on San Antonio's roster. Thunder lineups with Durant at the 4 played significantly better, putting up a net rating of +15.3 in serious minutes and showing themselves to be one of the best possible configurations of the Thunder's roster. Personally, I'm not convinced that this lineup is going to be nearly as effective against San Antonio. The biggest problem the Thunder face against the Spurs -- beyond the obvious defensive problem of keeping San Antonio's league-best offense in check -- is rebounding. I covered extensively in my Thunder/Spurs preview the problems facing the Thunder on the boards, and while Durant is a great rebounder at the four, I'm not sure he can hack it on the boards against the front lines the Spurs will be putting out there in this series. So I think it's a general push, personally.

As for the second question, I've put together a spreadsheet that details every instance of LeBron at the four during the regular season. In about 70 regular season minutes across 4 games against Boston, lineups with LeBron at the four ended up with a net rating of +0.0. Yes, exactly zero. They gave up as many points as they scored (161 both ways). This might sound strange, but it's actually a pretty good result for the Heat -- the Celtics beat the Heat 3/4 times this season, with an average differential of +7.8. For a lineup to have +0.0 when the overall picture is that bleak, that's a reasonably good result. And a good sign that even with Bosh out, the Heat aren't exactly chopped liver if they play the LeBron at the 4 lineup. Especially considering the Celtics are missing Avery Bradley, and may as well be missing Ray Allen at this point.

• • •

QUESTION #12: I'm interested in the Spurs' success relative to possessions per game. Is there a number of possessions per game that seem to treat them unfavorably? That is, say, less than 90 or some such. Is there actually a pace at which they play better or worse, or is that just something we make up? from Timothy Varner of 48 Minutes of Hell

Interesting query. There does seem to be a slight correlation. Per Hoopdata calculations, when the Spurs use over 95 possessions in a game, they're virtually unbeatable -- they're 29-3, with one of the three losses the loss to Portland where Pop sat every starter but Kawhi and didn't give a crap about anything. However, their record is relatively indistinguishable in the super-low ranges to the mid-tier ranges of possessions per game -- to wit, the Spurs are 5-4 at under 91 possessions and 17-9 in games where they use 91-95 possessions. So it appears that slower is better, for Spurs opponents. But it's extremely rare that the Spurs actually allow their opponents to dictate the tempo and force a game to be as slow as that. Still. The relationship is there.

• • •

QUESTION #13: What have the Celtics' most effective defensive lineups been over the course of the postseason, and who has led the Heat's offensive resurgence? from @NickFlynt

Essentially, any lineup starring Kevin Garnett. Lineups with Garnett in them have had a combined defensive rating of 86.9, which is nothing if not bananaphones. No other player on the team is close, with Avery Bradley the only other rotation player with an on-court DRtg under 90. As for the Heat, you might be surprised to hear it, but it's the bench. Ignoring the players who have played less than 100 minutes in the postseason (sorry, Juwan Howard), check out the Heat's rotation players ranked by the Heat's offensive rating with that player on/off the court in the playoffs:

1. Mike Miller; 235 minutes, 113 ORtg on the court, 105 ORtg off the court.
2. Joel Anthony; 257 minutes, 111 ORtg on the court, 106 ORtg off the court.
3. Udonis Haslem; 179 minutes, 110 ORtg on the court, 108 ORtg off the court.
4. LeBron James; 442 minutes, 109 ORtg on the court, 105 ORtg off the court.
5. Chris Bosh; 182 minutes, 109 ORtg on the court, 108 ORtg off the court.
6. Shane Battier; 314 minutes, 109 ORtg on the court, 108 ORtg off the court.
7. Dwyane Wade; 407 minutes, 108 ORtg on the court, 109 ORtg off the court.
8. Mario Chalmers; 369 minutes, 105 ORtg on the court, 116 ORtg off the court.

• • •

QUESTION #14: Are Kevin Garnett's obscene +/- numbers in the playoffs due to his offense, his defense, or both? from @SixerSense

Both. The Celtics have a DRtg (points allowed per 100 possessions) of 87 with him on the floor and 117 with him off the floor. On the other hand, the Celtics have an ORtg (points scored per 100 possessions) of 102 with him on the court and 85 with him off the court. So, basically, they've been a shady-but-decent offensive team with him on the court and a lights out defensive team, as opposed to the worst offense/defense combination in human history with him off the court. Yep.

• • •

QUESTION #15: Do the Spurs want to face Boston or Miami in a theoretical finals matchup? from @TBJ_Soldier

I don't like answering hypotheticals like this, especially given how hard of a series OKC is going to put up to possibly prevent the Spurs from even getting there. However, it has to be Boston. The Celtics are one of the worst offenses to get to a conference finals in the history of the league. Amazing defense or not, they're a one-man team that's relying on a 36 year old Kevin Garnett to do literally everything on the court, game-in and game-out. It would be one of the most mismatched finals ever, possibly even moreso than 2007. In other words: yes, the Spurs would rather have Boston than the team with the reigning MVP and a still-in-his-prime finals MVP from a previous title team.

• • •

QUESTION #16: What box score stats predict winning the best? from @PGPostUp

I'm not a huge fan of the Wages of Wins network, for reasons which are extensively outlined here. But if you want to look at simple regressions of which box score statistics correlate to winning, they've got a relatively detailed body of work on the subject, which can be found in their "about" section. In particular, Arturo Galletti has a nice post on the matter here. I'm more a fan of Dean Oliver's work on the four factors of basketball, which is his attempt at finding the most predictive box score statistics. Another INCREDIBLE resource (and the one I'm most fond of pointing people to) comes from friend of the site Evan Z., whose Advanced Stats Primer is by far the best in class and explains virtually every derivation of the box score statistics that you can use to predict wins. I'd start with Wages, move on to Four Factor stats, and then go through Evan's Primer if you want a step by step journey of increasing complexity into the seedy world of basketball statistics.

• • •

A few notes on the questions, now. I'll answer anything I can, so long as the question involves basketball numbers of some form. Questions about playoff teams are preferred, but not required. I'd prefer if you left the questions in one of the following forms: the comments of this post, sent on twitter (@docrostov), or emailed to our staff email (staff@gothicginobili.com). That way, I don't have to go looking into my Quora account seven weeks into the future only to find I missed a question. (None of you would do that, right?) I hope to do these Q&A sessions a few times a month, as I feel I get a lot of questions on twitter regarding numbers behind basketball and I think this is a great forum to start addressing those. I'll be answering questions until a few hours after MIA-BOS game 1. So ask away, folks.

You may have noticed a bit of a dearth on the posting front this week. Two reasons. First: super busy at work. You know the deal. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, we've been preparing for something we've wanted to do for a long time. We're dropping our very own Gothic Ginobili podcast. Kicking off our inaugural episode, we're covering three main topics: why the East is so boring, finding the perfect pets for NBA players, and previewing the conference finals in the most unrelated and out-there way we could think to do it. Along the way, we're bringing you a Lipton-esque interview with the bloggissist wunderkind (not the pitching wunderkind) Matt Moore, and discussing with him his favorite player and what he likes to watch in the game of basketball. We had a whole lot of fun kicking off what we're hoping will be a bi-weekly feature from now on. We do hope you'll give us a listen, and have some fun yourselves. Normal content resumes tomorrow with... well, probably a long and detailed post about something. You know how we do, readers. -- Aaron

The news broke yesterday. Next week, the Orlando Magic plan to interview Shaquille O'Neal to fill the recently vacated office of ex-General Manager Otis Smith. I don't remember where I was when I heard the news, but I assume I was home. Because I distinctly remember laughing far louder than would've been called for at work. As I thought about it a bit more, though, it began to make more sense. If the Magic are indeed becoming comfortable with a post-Dwight world, it's worth noting that moving on would (necessarily) cement Shaq's status as the greatest player in franchise history for at least 6 or 7 more years. The franchise has had a relatively awful relationship with Shaq since he left. Starting a dialogue through an interview and starting a back-and-forth to bring your greatest player back into the fold isn't the worst idea, from a PR perspective. Certainly, a GM interview with a man that would almost certainly be one of the worst GMs in the league is a weird way to go about it.

But from that standpoint, it makes a lot of sense. After all -- if they do retire his number (which I believe they will), wouldn't it be pretty awkward if Shaq and the Orlando management still had their awkward, angry back-and-forth going? Obviously, if they hire him as GM, we can resume making fun of them. I don't think that's particularly likely, though, given Shaq's relatively lacking abilities as a talent evaluator or as a communicator. We'll see. In any event, realizing that Shaq's GM interview was best understood as a way to mend the fences with a player quite important to the franchise history, I decided to think up a few other people the Magic could tap if they wanted to continue to make amends to all they've wronged. In that spirit, I was going to title this column "three sleeper candidates"... until I realized that describing these brilliant choices as sleepers would simply undersell them. People aren't just sleeping on these guys, they're straight up hibernating on them. Join me, behind the fold.

• • •

CHOICE #1 -- COURTNEY LEE

SIN TO AMEND: Letting him taste title contention his rookie year, then rudely trading him to a dead-end Nets team.

WOULD HE BE A GOOD GM, THOUGH?: ... you know, maybe not as bad as you'd think. Lee is currently 26 years old. Believe it or not, the youngest General Manager in the history of the NBA was hired at age 28, and still manages a team. Who is it? Answer to the trivia question may surprise you: Rick Sund, GM of the Atlanta Hawks. He was first hired as a GM by the 1979 Dallas Mavericks, at the age of 28 -- he had several seasons of abject failure before finally putting together a half-competent Mavericks team in the late 80s that, unfortunately, got their hearts brutally torn out in a tough 7 game series by the Showtime Lakers. Sund hasn't been a fantastic wunderkind of a GM or anything close, but other than Joe Johnson's contract, he hasn't made THAT many terrible decisions. Lee could be similar to that. In the case of Lee, the Magic could do worse. He does have his degree, having stayed four years at Western Kentucky to get a bachelors in sociology with a minor in criminology. Which... okay, that isn't very relevant to being a GM, but since when did your degree matter in the real world? He was a fan favorite in his tenure in Orlando, and there are STILL some Magic fans who wish he hadn't been traded away. Could be some good PR.

BIGGEST OBSTACLE: His short NBA.com bio lists his biggest superstition as -- I quote -- "Walking with a group of people and there is a pole, we all need to walk on the same side of the pole. Don’t split the pole." The big problem? The new Amway Arena has many poles. This could be a big problem for Courtney as a general manager -- he'd probably need to get over that superstition right quick. And while working through your superstitions and fears lead to great stories of personal accomplishment, it might be a locker room distraction. And Dwight doesn't like distractions, guys.

• • •

CHOICE #2 -- LEBRON JAMES

SIN TO AMEND: Callously eliminating the best team of LeBron's career in the Eastern Conference Finals.

WOULD HE BE A GOOD GM, THOUGH?: LeBron is a lot of things. "Effective talent evaluator" is, unfortunately, not one of them. After all, this is the guy that wanted Larry Hughes on the Cavs. But let's be fair -- he has a lot of experience in being wooed in free agency by NBA GMs. If he remembers the pitches that made him the most impressed, he might be able to attract free agent talent to Orlando. Maybe. Then again, he never attracted any talent in Cleveland, so maybe he didn't learn anything after all. On the plus side? He's the best player in the sport and by hiring him as a GM the Heat would by definition be removing him as a player in the league, which weakens a division rival. The Magic would finally have a shot at winning the division again!

BIGGEST OBSTACLE: I'm pretty sure he's making more money as a player than he'd make as a GM, unless DeVos decides to simply split his salary half-and-half with LeBron. That's... probably a problem. Also, LeBron could potentially practice with rookies when evaluating who to draft. What happens if one of those rookies dunks on him? Do the Magic ban them from entering the arena? Wouldn't that be kind of a problem? LeBron as GM simply raises too many questions. And not enough answers. Or headbands, if I'm honest.

• • •

CHOICE #3 -- GRANT HILL

SIN TO AMEND: Grant Hill completely fell apart in Orlando, and ruined a HoF career. Come on, Orlando. Get it together.

WOULD HE BE A GOOD GM, THOUGH?: This may sound crazy, but honestly? I think he'd probably be a pretty good GM. Grant Hill's degree isn't exactly relevant to basketball (History with a minor in Political Science), but he's a very cerebral player whose time in the league has given him a lot of great relationships and experience working with players. He's been on teams that contended for titles, and teams that didn't -- he's got to have some sense by now of which players helped and which players hurt. More importantly, though, he played the last several years in Phoenix on the other end of their brilliant medical staff. Don't you think, as a GM, Hill would try to bring that competitive advantage wherever he went? He knows how brilliant the Phoenix staff was. Combine that with 17 years of NBA experience, crazy talent, and the intelligence to put it all together? He might not be great, but he certainly wouldn't be worse than Otis. Right? Right???

BIGGEST OBSTACLE: Oh, wait. He went to Duke? Gross!

• • •

That's all for today. Join us tomorrow as I write an Outlet piece about how much of a bloody idiot I was to actually pick the Pacers in the Heat series. Seriously, what was I thinking? Anyway. Should be a blast.

To bring our playoff coverage up, we’re bringing our formerly retired series of daily vignettes — titled “The Outlet” — back for the playoffs. “Don’t call it a comeback.” Though, you can call it series 2, as we are in the title. Every day (or, rather, every day we aren’t doing a larger and grander piece), we’ll try to share two or three short vignettes from our collective of writers ruminating on the previous day’s events. Should be a fun time. Today’s Outlet is just one piece strong, featuring a short piece on the current dogfight between the Indiana Pacers and the Miami Heat. As the title indicates, I don't think it's over.

• "It's Not Over Til It's Over." by Aaron McGuire.

Click the jump for today’s take.

• • •

It's Not Over Til It's Over

Aaron McGuire

This may seem somewhat self serving, in a way. Last week, with the series tied 1-1, I published a piece outlining how the Pacers could win the series. That night, the Pacers won. Two days later, the Pacers blew out Miami at home and made me look really, really smart. The Heat proceeded to -- as many expected -- knot the series up at two apiece and regain home court advantage in game 3. Which made me look less markedly less smart. The Heat looked good, with Udonis Haslem coming up with big elbow jumpers in crunch time and the LeBron and Wade duo scorching the Pacers for 70 points, their highest combined playoff total in their 30 playoff games together thus far. LeBron put up a completely unprecedented statline, putting up 40 points and 18 boards with 9 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. Absolutely eldritch. I'm not kidding when I say that's unprecedented -- even if we relax the constraints to something a bit more human, like 37-16-7, it's still only the 3rd game of its brood in the last 17 years. Demonic.

Which isn't to lessen the contributions of his tertiary players -- while LeBron dominated the game in a way that's impossibly rare, Wade shook off an abhorrent 1-8 type first 20 minutes to the tune of a 12-15 second wind, leading most of Twitter to declare that he'd shot up with cortisone during halftime. It came out after the game that, instead, he'd simply had his knee drained earlier in the week -- that makes sense, given that one's body is often late to respond to stress relief like that in a game situation until the player's had a chance to walk on it a bit. And Udonis Haslem had the best game he's had in months. Literally. If you use Game Score (a 1-game representation of John Hollinger's PER metric), Haslem hasn't had a game as good as Sunday's since April 1st, 2012. And keep in mind Haslem did virtually nothing in the game until his 4-5 fourth quarter. It was excellent, and for a quarter, showed Haslem at his best. The Heat were aggressive, assertive, and powerful. They utterly outclassed the Pacers in just about every facet of the second half. The game was a 9-point win, but it felt like more. The rest of the series -- as goes the narrative -- is little more than window-dressing. The Heat have won.

I disagree. The Pacers should still be favored to win this series.

Look. A few things worth noting. The series is 2-2, not 3-3 or 3-2. The Heat are still two wins from wrapping the series up, and judging by how effective the Pacers have been in Miami during the series thus far, it's hard to ascribe some sort of momentous, game-changing home court when the Pacers played the Heat to a 1-1 draw in their first two matchups at home, with Bosh available for half of the Heat's singular home win and a curious set of circumstances conspiring to keep the Pacers' two best players muzzled in crunch time as well. In fact, there are a few key takeaways one can make from the two games the Pacers won and the two games the Heat won. To wit: when the Heat won, LeBron James averaged 36-17-7 on 44 minutes per game. When they lost, he averaged 25-8-4. While the Heat have yet to win comfortably by double digits, let's relax the criteria here a bit. Let's say that in order for the Heat to beat the Pacers, LeBron needs to put up a line of around 30-15-5 in 40 minutes of play (to ensure the lowest possible dip into their shoddy bench). He needs to rebound, with Bosh gone. He needs to score, to help make up for Bosh. And he needs to set the offense up. A bit. How many times in the last decade has a player done that more than once in a single postseason?

Oh. Uh... hm. So, what we're saying is that this relatively pedestrian statistical accomplishment of LeBron's, a mark he's met in two nail-biting wins and come just under in their two losses, is something that's virtually unprecedented in NBA history and can only really be said to be repeated by Tim Duncan's constantly and hilariously underrated 2003 scorched-Earth playoff run? Yes, I think we are. If the Heat are to win this series, they'll need one of two things to happen. The first would be that LeBron simply repeats his virtuoso game 1 and game 4 performances in 2 of the remaining 3 games. LeBron is an amazing player. He is very good at basketball. But he is not immortal. That expectation -- much as the national media would like to claim it's reasonable -- is not. The other possibility? The bench and Wade step up. Wade has one of his godlike, 40-50 point outbursts to carry them to a win in a game where LeBron is pedestrian.

It's also worth noting that, as I keep beating the drum on, this is a very good Indiana team. Roy Hibbert has spent the season shocking all of us and making us look like fools for ever doubting him. The Pacers are +30 with him on the court against the Heat in this series -- they're, conversely, -25 with him off it. George Hill has fit in well, and while I agree with John Hollinger that the hullabaloo over Indiana's "killer depth" is essentially for naught (the Pacers are not deep -- they're merely a 6 man team instead of a 3 man team, and the sooner Vogel realizes that the sooner his team can start actually closing the damn series out), West/Collison/Granger form a trio of solid players fully capable of taking over a game for very short stretches. Paul George has had a disappointing offensive series, but he's been a MONSTER on the defensive end, and other than Wade's game 4, he's absolutely throttled Wade's game and kept the Heat in check.

Furthermore, just as in game 1, the Pacers battled extreme foul trouble in their game 4 loss. Roy Hibbert (whose series +/- I've just mentioned) played barely 12 minutes of the second half, as compared to LeBron's 22. David West only played 15 minutes in the second half, also due to foul trouble. The Pacers led at the half in both games, then lost the lead in a war of attrition, primarily wrought in fouls and the Heat pounding away as Vogel found himself forced to rest his two best players. For a period of almost ten minutes in the second half, foul trouble limited Vogel to a frontcourt including neither Hibbert OR West -- the Heat proceeded to extend the lead from a tied game at 63-63 to a 9 points before the two of them came back in the game. By that point it was simply too late. Haslem was on after Hansbrough and Amundson blew rotation after rotation and gave him the wide open shot. Wade was on fire. LeBron was completely disengaged, but it didn't matter -- the game was in hand.

I don't know if the Pacers win the series. I think they're favored, because I can't see LeBron playing this well for more than one more game. The series now falls to the Heat's supporting cast, and the general ephemera that flip a roughly even series one way or the other. The idea that the Heat lost games 2 and 3 simply because they were "disgracing themselves" is absolutely bollocks. This series is about as even as a 2-2 series can be, and at this point, it's anyone's game. The Heat need to finish it off before LeBron's body wears through. The Pacers have the inertia of youth, energy, and 5 of the best 7 players in the series. Both teams play hard, and will continue to do so -- if the Heat lose this series, it won't be because they've somehow disgraced themselves or the sport. It will be because the Pacers smelled blood and struck. And no, the series isn't over yet. It's a new day, and a 3-game series with a tired LeBron and a streaky Dwyane Wade against a solid, five-man team with a chip on their shoulder and a Batcave in the rafters.

Or, as I like to call it, "exactly what the playoffs are about." Game on, gentlemen.

Today, Chris Ballard dropped one of the greatest profiles I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Twenty-one facts and anecdotes about one Timothy Theodore Duncan, written in Ballard's incomparable form. Beyond Joe Posnanski, I'm not sure there's a man in the business right now with writing as joyous as Ballard's. I don't mean that lightly. The profile stirred a lot of long-standing pride and wonder I've had at Duncan's career. Which got me thinking. In this post, I'll share a perspective you might not be expecting from a Spurs fan. I love Tim Duncan. But after years of sniping at friends for their incomprehensible loathing of Tim's game, I've realized that in my dismay over our difference in opinion, I've been derelict in the imitation of the ideal I defend. At this point, I know where I stand. I know where they stand. I love Tim Duncan -- as a person, as a baller, and as an institution. Many don't like him, or don't care, or find him boring. And at this point? I really couldn't care less if they -- or you -- give a damn.

• • •

Look. I'll be straight with you. Put my bias on the table, once and for all. Tim Duncan is my favorite player. Not simply in the game today, not simply on the Spurs. I've never rooted for a player's success or a player's legacy the way I've rooted for Duncan. I've gotten into an untold number of arguments over where Duncan stands historically. Yes, readers. I think he's the best player of the last decade. Yes, I think he's better than Kobe, and one of the 7 best players to ever play the game. Yes, I realize my opinion (while backed up by statistics, intuition, and results) is remarkably subjective and remarkably skewed. If there's one person in the world I'd stretch my data to accommodate, it's probably Duncan.

But there's something you learn growing up. Or, at least, attempt to learn. Not everyone agrees with you. Perspectives, experiences, and the changing cauldron of perception lead everyone to wildly differing views on... well... pretty much everything. I wasn't always okay with it. Nobody is. Tell me, who here hasn't gotten embroiled in a feckless political debate only to realize 30 minutes too late that your guiding principles are completely different? Who hasn't argued in favor of their favorite sports team to a fan of your greatest rival (to, obviously, no avail)? Who hasn't argued for an issue they feel is a completely done deal, and an open and shut case... only to face a person who is completely and utterly bought in to your opinion's inverse? You get irritated, annoyed, and insistent that you must be right. You call them stupid. You preen and rhetorically claw at their views. You need to argue your case, show them the true way of things. How often does that work out, really?

Realize this. People find the Spurs boring. They've found the Spurs boring for years -- the Spurs have had 15 years to spread their brand to the NBA, and fans simply don't appear to like it very much. Outside of San Antonio, anyway. Because the Spurs have the highest local ratings in the league, and their local TV presence is historically deep -- for ANY team, not just a small market. But outside of San Antonio? No, there are no Duncan jerseys hanging in bars. No Adidas commercials featuring Duncan giving a beluga the high five. Little hype, little fan presence, little love. We as basketball analysts complain, and cry foul. "Watch the games!" we cry. "The crisp passing, the flawless execution -- their offense is sublime! Their defense is beautiful! This team is everything you want to watch!" We pound our fists and cry to the heavens and argue til our faces are beet red. We try in vain to convince our friends and followers that the Spurs aren't boring. That being bored of the Spurs is inherently wrong.

But... why?

I love Tim Duncan. And at this point, I've realized something. It doesn't matter to me whether you do or not. You can find the Spurs boring. I don't. It's a subjective call -- the entire concept of boring depends on what you like to watch. I like beautiful basketball, and value the aesthetics of my team's game. I like watching properly executed offensive sets. I enjoy watching Popovich run his magic. And Duncan, well. I've always thought his defensive dominance is the closest thing to an impressionist painting you can find in the NBA. Watching him move off screens, help off a weak offensive player, front the post -- there's no defensive skill that Duncan couldn't excel in, during his prime, and there wasn't a single player who could consistently outsmart him on the block. Not Shaq, not Dwight, not anyone. As he ages, things fall off -- but the flashes, those moments where Duncan outsmarts his body's age and functions on a higher plane than he should logistically be able to? Those still happen. They're still amazing, and they're still a thing to cherish... to me, at least.

And that's the key. "If you watch basketball like me." Because in the end, there is no platonic ideal for what a fan should value from their team. Many NBAniks would love to think that every fan wants to watch the aesthetically best team. We'd love to think that the quality of the basketball played actually matters to everyone watching. But that's not the case. Never was, and never will be. Fans like what they like. Some like dunks. Some like superstar calls and clutch free throws and disgustingly poor isolations. From an aesthetic perspective -- the one behind fans who run sites with micro-analysis as exacting as the NBA Playbook, or Hardwood Paroxysm, or any of the possession by possession folks at Truehoop -- that may seem absurd. And yes, to some extent, it is. But who are we to say that there's only one right way to watch basketball? Who am I to get mad at you for disagreeing with the way I watch the game? I love basketball because I love the sport. I watch the game to enjoy it, not to lord over other people how without-question superior my manner of watching is to your own. Sometimes, as a Spurs fan, I forget this. I get caught up in the wave of people pounding their fists and yelling at God. "Why don't people understand the Spurs? Why don't people see how beautiful this is? Why don't you appreciate it?"

• • •

As Ballard's piece ends, he asks Duncan why Duncan never lets the public see his lighter side, and the one that his fans have known about all along. Why not let them in and see the kind of man you really are? Don't you care about your legacy? About how people view you? He asks why, and blows it off. "I have no control over that." Ballard says he does, and insists on it. Duncan thinks, ponders, and frowns. "I guess I could. I could be more accessible and be the darling for everybody. I could open up my life and get more endorsements and be out there and be a fan favorite. But why would that help?" A pause. "Why should it?"

And there, in no fewer than four words and a minute of thought, Duncan succinctly realizes and internalizes what Spurs fans and NBA scribes should've realized long ago. Sure. Duncan could show his personality, become more accessible, get more endorsements. The Spurs could play nice to the national media, Pop could tell more jokes, and they could get a few more great commercials in their favor. But none of those things cut to the grain of what Duncan really is -- he's a basketball player, and his on-court style and demeanor would never stray far from the place it's at right now. Ruthless efficiency. Aesthetically strong. Dynamic, strong, powerful. And nothing he says, or shares, is going to change that. If people don't like his game, are they really going to like it all that much more if he spent the time to put a few more bows on it? Would the Spurs be more likeable? Would more people watch?

Appreciate Duncan, if you'd like. I will, forever. If you don't want to? That's OK, too. Because if Duncan hasn't shown enough to make you love him on your own, nothing I say is going to make a damn bit of difference. So as the Spurs continue their "boring", plodding, nationally ignored quest for Duncan's fifth ring, you can think whatever the hell you want. It's subjective. Duncan realizes that nothing he does is really going to change your mind, and he'd be better focused on what actually matters to him. His friends, his family, the game that he loves. At his 1000th game, Tim Duncan was asked how it felt to be at that kind of a milestone. He sighed at the reporter. "I'd rather not be told that. I've played for a long time and I'm getting really old, alright? I'd rather be at my tenth game with a thousand to go." That's Tim Duncan. He doesn't have many games left, and he doesn't really care what you think. Duncan is more focused on enjoying the time he's got left in the game he loves than giving the time of day to those who find him boring. I think that's admirable. And going forward, I'll try to live up to that. Call the Spurs boring, call Duncan a dullard, call Pop a crusty fool. Don't expect me to dissuade you.

Because if you aren't convinced already? Well, there's really no reason for me to try.

On Sunday afternoon, the Miami Heat lost Chris Bosh to a lower abdominal strain. He's almost certainly gone for the series, and most rumblings have it that he's gone until the finals. The problem with an abdominal strain, it's one of the rare injuries that sounds a lot worse than it is -- it's hard to play through, difficult to get past without serious rest, and ruins a player's rhythm. I'll cut to the chase. I think the Heat are in a relatively large amount of trouble right now, and while I'm not quite ready to_ assure_ a Pacers win, I certainly think the series has become -- at worst -- a 40-60 series for the Pacers. Like it or not, they have a huge shot at an upset right now. Despite the Heat's one game already on the ledger. I think Zach Lowe rather effectively summarizes most of the reasons why in his large-as-a-mansion "caveats" section of his Bosh injury rundown, but I think he underrates a few factors. After the jump, I delineate them.

• • •

As a fan who watched LeBron in Cleveland for years, I think most commentators underrate the level to which LeBron despises playing the "big forward" role on the court. He's not in love with playing the point, either -- he generally likes keeping to his natural small forward position and letting the chips fall where they may. But despite being a consistently effective lineup option, LeBron has ALWAYS loathed playing the big forward, starting early in his career when Mike Brown realized how effective it is. And don't front -- it's an extremely effective lineup option if you put the right players around LeBron, and always has been. In his last year in Cleveland, LeBron played almost 300 minutes of "big forward" LeBron. In 200 of those minutes, he shared the floor with Anderson Varejao -- those lineups posted an offensive rating of 120 and a defensive rating of 92, making that two-man pairing (no matter who the Cavs put up with them) arguably the greatest lineup that the LeBron Cavaliers ever put out on the court. Thoroughly dominant.

So... why does he hate it so much? If he's so dominant with it, why is he so reluctant to use it? Primarily his exhaustion level, I'd say. LeBron is an excellent defender, but part of what makes him so good is that he's massively oversized for his position and can simply use his size to smother the shots of smaller players. Against big men, LeBron doesn't quite hold that sort of an overwhelming advantage, and it leads to LeBron having to expend a lot more mental and physical heft trying to stick to his man. It also forces LeBron to -- generally -- get a larger percentage of his offense on post-up plays, something that can wear down a man's knees over time and can weaken a player not used to it. I've thought since watching the evolution of the "Power LeBron" lineup during Mike Brown's 2010 season that LeBron as power forward lineups are inherently doomed over the course of a full year, or prolonged minutes. The more it's used, the less engaged LeBron is using it. And as seasons go on, the lineup's effectiveness wanes until it finally peters to a screeching halt late in the playoffs.

Why? I haven't totally figured it out yet. Whether it's fatigue, distaste, or better scouting, the trend seems true year-in and year-out. I haven't a wealth of evidence to back intuition up, here, and given the current state of lineup examination data I don't know how you could. Last year, I seem to remember Spolestra trying it two or three times in the playoffs -- it had absolutely no impact, and in fact, LeBron tended to do worse using it. Every time Mike Brown broke out the "Power LeBron" lineup in the 2010 playoffs, it seemed to me to get destroyed by the Celtics and even performed poorly against the Vinny Del Negro Bulls. LeBron at the four works very well to start a season, and has sustainable success up until LeBron has played too many minutes at the position. Then the lineup's effectiveness begins to degrade. I'd assume it's from fatigue. I wish I had an easy way to query my database for this sort of thing, but alas -- I don't save lineup data, so I can't. This is the kind of thing I'd love to get confirmation either way on, though. Because the degrading effectiveness of a lineup over a full season seems like it would be an important thing to keep track of.

• • •

ALLOCATING THE BIG MAN MINUTES

It's often said that the true impact of an injury is rarely measured by the 1st or 2nd backup being forced to play a big-league role -- generally, when given the opportunity, a sparsely scouted backup will do a relatively good job patching in over a short absence. The real problem that faces a team that loses one of their top players is when the backup's backup has to become the backup, and a team's depth is tested to its absolute core. The issue that faces Miami going forward, and one that Frank Vogel may be able to leverage to his advantage, is that they're faced with 96 minutes of frontcourt play per game (going against the best frontcourt in the playoffs, mind you) and a grand total of -- besides LeBron -- zero quality players to place in those roles. Udonis Haslem, Joel Anthony, Dexter Pittman, and Ronny Turiaf can patch in the remaining 50 minutes if LeBron and Bosh combine to play 46 of those minutes in a game. That isn't going to kill you.

But take out Bosh's 36-40 and you're left with a serious dearth of lineup options once you're stretching for the backups. Even if you play LeBron -- as Spolestra did in game one -- 20 minutes of large forward a night (which is already far too much, mind you), that leaves you with 76 minutes a game that you'll need to allot to three players haven't ever been called on to play minutes of quite this importance or heft. Effective in short bursts, sure, but they've never been purely scouted or game-planned for to the extent that Vogol will look to do. The Heat can handle replacing Bosh with Haslem. Can they handle replacing Haslem with Turiaf? Or Anthony with Pittman? That's the big question, and the reason that 3rd/4th man injuries can be so harmful on a team with lacking depth, like the Heat. One wonders how the Heat bench (which is already far too thin) will hold up. I'm not bullish.

• • •

THE PACERS ARE A DAMN GOOD TEAM

More than either of these reasons though, there's this. What game 1 established to me was that the Pacers are a team whose margin of error is surprisingly high. The Pacers didn't do anything particularly unsustainable in yesterday's first half, to these eyes -- West and Hibbert did about what everyone was expecting them to do against the Heat's front line, and the Pacers defense did about as well as it did in the regular season. In fact, out of the myriad of factors that swung game one, I'd actually assess most of the luck-based ones in the Heat's favor. The Pacers aren't going to have that many players in foul trouble on a game-to-game basis. Simply aren't. The referees called a very tight game, and Indiana simply didn't adjust very well to that reality. In future games, I'd expect them to adjust a bit better. But the fact remains. Despite their insane foul trouble, the unprecedentedly abysmal showing from their wings, and an anemic bench performance? The Pacers were down to the heat by a single point with four minutes left to play, and down four with just two minutes remaining. Had they gotten the bogus charge call on Barbosa in the first half, they'd have added three to their total and been up until the very last seconds.

On the other end of the ledger, the Heat needed two insane performances from Wade and LeBron to win, as well as the foul trouble and the unexpected shooting slump from the entire Pacer team. Outside of their big three, Miami got 21 points on 21 shots -- including a never-to-happen-again nine points on 4-4 shooting from (of all people!) Joel Anthony. Before the series, most everyone expected a 5-6 game beatdown from the Heat. I admit, after the Knicks series, I did too. But the Heat barely edged past the Pacers at home in game one, even as virtually everything in the game rolled their way. The Pacers may not take game two, but if they can hold homecourt, game one tells me that they can take a game or two in Miami in this series. It won't be easy, and they'll need a few more things to go right than the things that went right on Sunday. But as I said -- their margin of error is far larger than I previously expected. If George Hill, Danny Granger, and Paul George ever combine for 6-of-25 again in this series, yes, they'll probably lose the game. But would you bet on that happening?

• • •

In all, I'm not sure I disagree with Lowe all that much. My initial thought was that I disagreed with him a lot, but that was mainly due to the hyper-confident start. His caveats touch on many of my key points, if only glancingly. The Heat should still be favored to win the series, though if they can, it's very important for them to end this series early. They need the rest, and every extra game this series goes is another chance for LeBron's energy level to fall off badly, as in last year's finals. Smart money would be on the Heat winning the series in a nail-biting 6 or 7. But fatigue, adjustments, and the unexpected strength the Pacers showed in game one has made me a believer. I think this Pacer team can win the series. If I had to assess the probability of various outcomes, I'd do it like so:

• 20% chance the Heat win in 5.
• 10% chance the Heat win in 6.
• 25% chance the Heat win in 7.
• 15% chance the Pacers win in 7.
• 30% chance the Pacers win in 6.

Which, in the end? Makes the series a slightly Miami-leaning coin flip. In the interests of being a contrarian, though, I'll take the dive. Pacers in 6.

Prove me sane, Indiana.

To bring our playoff coverage up, we’re bringing our formerly retired series of daily vignettes — titled “The Outlet” — back for the playoffs. “Don’t call it a comeback.” Though, you can call it series 2, as we are in the title. Every day (or, rather, every day we aren’t doing a larger and grander piece), we’ll try to share two or three short vignettes from our collective of writers ruminating on the previous day’s events. Should be a fun time. Today’s Outlet covers Adam discussing how you simply must make your free throws and Aaron discussing the hilarious breakout of "project" big men in the 2012 Playoffs.

• “You've Got to Make Your Free Throws.” by Adam Koscielak.
• "The Playoffs of the Project." by Aaron McGuire.

Click the jump for today’s two works.

• • •

You've Got to Make Your Free Throws

Adam Koscielak

Recently, in one of the rare weeks of good weather you get in a Polish March, I went to my local basketball court. I was out of shape. After all, the only shots I'd taken were bounces off an X I drew on my wall. So, I started taking a few shots. A few from midrange, a few from beyond the arc. Made some, missed some, and did a hell of a lot better off the dribble for some unknown reason. Then, out of nowhere, I decided to shoot some free throws.

When I do shooting practice, I make mini-deals with myself. I make a nice point system, I make myself string together a few hits, et cetera. When I came to the line, I decided that I'd have to make five in a row just to make sure my form was ok. Hell, I even set up a shot counter on my iPhone to keep stats. I made my first free throw. Then the second. And then I just started missing. A few went long, clanking off the unforgiving rim, so I adjusted. I hit two again, hoping that I could string this into my self-promised five in a row. ... Ha! Nope. I didn't even make 4 in a row that day. In fact, I may have shot more air balls in a row than free throws made in a row.

It was strange, really. I could make the Tim Duncan bank shot without a problem. I could make a running, Steve Nash-style three pointer. Hell, I could even nail a couple of turnaround Js in a row! But I couldn't make a shot I'd easily make as an 8 year old kid. After around 20 minutes, the counter on my iPhone, that I'd tap my scores into every time I'd miss a free throw (not to break a streak, of course) was showing a ghastly percentage. Around 33% on 70 attempts. Yikes. I was alone on the courts, nobody was watching me. Except for myself. And I just kept missing a shot I knew I could make. Missing a shot way easier than the (... international length, ahem) threes I swished, banked, and rimmed in less than a half hour earlier. It was humiliating. More humiliating than missing a wide open layup, really. The rim wasn't bent, I wasn't tired, I just couldn't make it.

And this is how I understood. There are no easy shots when you're over-thinking it. I haven't played basketball since, but I've watched. And the night of May 10th was just the perfect example of how big of a deal free throws can be. After all, a make on one end and a miss on the other in the Bulls game would've changed the outcome, and sent it back to Chicago. One make in the Hawks game would've sent it to overtime. I, alone on a court, couldn't make a 70% of my free throws. How can I expect a guy playing under the basket to make one with 20 thousand people booing him with all their hearts? How can I expect anyone to take that kind of pressure? This is how I began to understand all the big guys in the league, the ones who probably had a rough start to their free throw shooting careers and just never got it out of their heads.

Everyone finds it so easy to say "you got to make your free throws" or laugh at the air balls. The truth is, sometimes mental blocks can kill the best. Derrick Rose is a prime example of that. Andre Iguodala had to think about his son and let his muscle memory make the shots for him. In the end, the time a player takes to make a free throw might as well be a long internal battle, a long line of questions. "What if miss?" "I always miss... What am I doing wrong?" "I pulled it long last time, I should adjust". This is probably why the best free throw shooters (*cough* Steve Nash *cough*) have characteristic routines. It's finding the happy place, taking the mind off the shot... And just drilling it. The problem is, not everyone can. Perhaps what we should be saying instead of "you gotta make 'em" is "just shoot them, no pressure."

Because in the end, it seems like it's all about that.

• • •

The Playoffs of the Project

Aaron McGuire

These playoffs have been pretty interesting, if not always amazing. We find ourselves on the verge of two first-round game sevens, something that's only happened thrice in the ten years we've had ourselves the 7-game first round. While the entire Eastern gauntlet has been historically dismal, we've been (in some sense) blessed -- the only two series to go the full seven have also happened to be the two most entertaining to watch, in contrast to the last time we had two game sevens and one was the historically awful 2009 Heat-Hawks series. And in tonight's bout to conclude the Nuggets vs Lakers thriller, we get a final look into one of the most hilarious and unexpected upsets of the first round. I refer to the trend that this year's playoffs have been defined and fueled not necessarily by the stars, but by the projects.

Consider this. In separate games this year we've seen:

• Reggie Evans take Marc Gasol and Zach Randolph's lunch in a 4th quarter shellacking to steal game 1.

• Glen Davis take Roy Hibbert to town and utterly dominate him en route to their upset game 1 win.

• Boris Diaw outplayed Paul Millsap at both ends of the floor, leading the San Antonio attack.

• JaVale McGee outplay the combined effort of Pau Gasol and Andrew Bynum to force a game 6... in Los Angeles.

• Spencer Hawes -- SPENCER HAWES, GUYS -- completely destroyed Carlos Boozer en route to the shocking Philadelphia upset over a Bulls team that (even without Rose) still destroyed teams throughout the entire regular season.

Absolutely none of those are things that you could've seen coming going into the playoffs. The talk of every commentator prior to the Denver series was that the Denver big men would wilt against the Laker front line -- but after they punted the first two games, the Denver bigs have fought Los Angeles to a draw at worst. Kenneth Faried's coming out party has been extraordinary, but not any more insane than JaVale McGee finally making good on his potential and showing the league exactly what he can give to a team when he has his head on straight. He's been phenomenal, despite being the stirring image of a "project" big. As for the rest?

Davis is a fringe prospect-level big man who has never really been all that much more than a jump-shooting widebody with a lack of defense and a lack of marbles. He still produced excellent numbers throughout the series against the 7'2" Hibbert, and somehow managed to outscore Hibbert in all but one game of the five game series. Boris Diaw -- never a player known for his defensive acuity or real impact -- held the almost-all-star Paul Millsap to a 11.9 playoff PER, and (despite taking 15 shots to Millsap's 54, and playing 45 minutes less than Millsap over 4 games), managed to outscore him once and outrebound him twice. Reggie Evans -- REGGIE FREAKING EVANS -- has thrice in the series outscored Marc Gasol in the 4th quarter of a game, and twice outscored Zach Randolph in that same period. Who saw that coming? Ever? And Spencer Hawes? Look at that picture I began this piece with. Just look at it, preferably for several minutes. It's the only argument I need, Shawn.

We may see a return to form going forward. To a certain extent, we've already returned to the status quo. The Reggie Evans magic ran utterly dry in game 6, and the Randolph-Gasol attack overwhelmed his formerly shutdown defense and surprising offensive attack to pull the Grizzlies into their needed game 7. We could, tonight, see JaVale and Faried finally wilt and allow the Gasol-Bynum duo to go nuclear on the Nuggets and show us why we were fools to count out the Lakers. (I actually think that's going to happen. I'd love to see the Nuggets win, but come on -- they're the Lakers, and all things considered, a team that has the 3 best players in a series rarely loses it -- and the Nuggets have won in LA only once this year. I don't get why everyone is so sure the Lakers are toast.) Spencer Hawes could (potentially) remember that he's Spencer Hawes, and stop making every jumper he takes. And Glen Davis, JaVale McGee, Reggie Evans -- all of them could be gone by the next round. By all accounts, they probably will be.

But if anyone asks me what I remember about this first round, right now, the answer is obvious. It won't be Rose's injury, because I don't like thinking about things that sad. It won't be the dominant attack that the Spurs and the Heat unleashed on their first round fodder. Because their real playoff moment will come later. No. It was a first round dedicated to and in celebration of the "Project." Those few, merry, unheralded big men that carpet-bombed their expectations and dramatically outplayed their betters for several games in a row, and showed the world just how talented they really can be. When they get past their foibles and stop wearing American flag button-downs, of course.

• • •

"Closeout games are actually kind of easy. Teams tend to fold if you come out and play hard in the beginning."

-- Andrew Bynum, prior to Game 5 vs. the 2012 Denver Nuggets

Matchups, matchups, matchups. Like it or not, they're the name of the game in the NBA. If the best team in the sport has an elite wing, you stock up on elite wing defenders. If the best player is a freight train, you break the bank on a conductor. And if the team that's got your goat has the most dominant post presence in the league? You pick up Shaq and pretend he can still guard anyone, of course! It's not a foreign concept to most fans: You make a number of adjustments to your team over the course of the season, and while they're ostensibly made solely for the good of the team, everyone really knows why the adjustments are made. The dirty little secret is that - for teams blessed to be in the sphere of five or six contending teams per conference - the personnel adjustments tend to be little more than an ill-concealed arms race. A juggling of human capital in a usually futile attempt to adjust your team to fit perceived weaknesses in the better teams. Neutralize the strengths of the best team, and perhaps you'll luck your way into the finals! Or so they'd say. I'm going to tell you a story about the biggest arms race in the NBA over the last five years. As most things tend to be when you boil them to their essentials, it's about the Lakers_._

• • •

Andrew Bynum is not a natural player, in my estimation. He's naturally talented, certainly, and his ceiling is incomparable. But he's not a natural at the art of being a player. Bynum is more attuned to more nerdy, systemic things. Cars, computers, engineering. The greatest misunderstanding you could have about Bynum is to assume his talent and natural skill presupposes a love for the game. It doesn't. I've never seen a goofball statement or an interview indicating that Andrew Bynum looks at basketball as anything more than it really is to him -- a job, and a means to make the sort of big money he needs so that he can spend his free time doing the things he actually loves to do. There is nothing wrong with it. And there's no reason an NBA player has to love the game. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, Andrew Bynum doesn't really seem to.

The same goes for Pau Gasol, in a sense. Pau is another naturally sublime talent. His passing is as deft as it could be, his defensive potential (were he to ever put it together) is vast, and his natural rebounding is excellent for a player that couldn't properly box out to save a life. Pau isn't an engineering type, like Bynum -- he's a medical type, and a man who has seriously considered going back to med school after he retires from the sport. Lamar Odom's multiple off-court pursuits require no introduction, and Phil Jackson's interest in the game post-Shaq was always a tad underwhelming. The drive for ten rings, for... gratification? Justification? Jeanie Buss? Probably more point three than anything else. Phil's most visceral love for the game was lost, in my view, with the Kobe-Shaq feud and his break from the Lakers in the mid 2000s.

And then you have Kobe Bean Bryant. The man whose veins run thick with the burnt rubber of melted game-winning shots. The man whose heart was replaced at a young age by a throbbing bright-red-white-and-blue ABA regulation ball. The man who'd stay in the gym forever, if his body would let him. Or so some would say. That's one take on Kobe, and it's perfectly reasonable -- my take is considerably different. I don't think Kobe chose basketball because he necessarily loves the sport for its own sake, or has any intrinsic connection to it that he hasn't developed from familiarity alone. He chose the sport because Kobe needed a means to dominate. He chose basketball because his father played basketball, and the happened to be very good at it. Kobe could just as easily have been a ruthless take-no-prisoners general in the Iraq War. He could have been a remarkably successful corporate litigation lawyer. He could have been a brutishly effective politician, if he'd put his mind to it. Kobe's love of basketball is a love rooted in a self assured semi-narcissistic love of his own image and a love of his own exaltation. He loves basketball because it's the area where he is the best. This isn't a criticism as much, for Kobe -- it's simply an observation that even Kobe, the player on the Lakers who loves the game more than all others, has a different passion for the game than someone like Ricky Rubio or Kenneth Faried. He's different. No value judgment, just... different.

Put it all together, and you come to a perhaps surprising conclusion. The Lakers are a wonderful, talented team; at times, they can be one of the most dominant squads in recent memory, and the 2009 Lakers is one of the best title teams of all time. The run of glory the Lakers have had since the Pau Gasol trade speaks to how excellent they are as a whole unit, and as a team. But if you examine the individual cogs and sprockets that make up that team unit, you realize that as a team, the Lakers really don't like basketball that much. They make a good show of it, of course. Kobe tells the media how fired up they are, and how eager he is to destroy the latest victim. Pau says all the right things. Bynum doesn't, but at least sounds like he cares, generally. But this isn't a matter of caring about a game in a singular sense, as Bynum tends to make it. It's a matter of caring about the game. It's loving the broader structural mores of the game and the tics and idiosyncrasies that make the game so curious.

It's about NOT doing the types of things that these Lakers are prone to do -- the lazy on-court demeanor, simply out-talenting whatever opponent gets thrown their way, the constant "we can flip the switch any time" mentality that Laker fans are so aggravatingly used to. This Laker team has allowed the Nuggets to turn a 1-3 deficit into a 3-3 series with a winner-take-all game 7. They allowed a Yao-less Rockets team to return from the brink and force 7 games of hell. The 2006 Laker collapse against the Suns, the inconceivable folding of the 2011 Lakers to the should-have-been-outclassed Mavericks, the legendary Laker shutdown in the deciding game of the 2008 finals -- the Lakers of recent memory can be more apathetic, lazy, and flat than any truly great team in the history of the sport. They can, more than any other team, simply shut themselves down by not caring. They can lose a game and spend the entire game wishing they'd never stepped on the court, with not a moment of legitimate effort in the contest, and not a single bone to their worried fans.

The thing that it really boils down to is the idea of playing basketball for fun. It's about being able to go out with a few friends, get the pants beaten off you, and still find some enjoyment in the activity just because you got to play basketball. It's about appreciating the game as more than just a means to a paycheck, about loving the game as more than just a way to show off your personal talents. The Lakers are talented, incredible, and scary. But there's no denying the odd truth of the matter: the recent dynasty Lakers are a collective contrapositive to a team that truly adores the game above all else (more or less collectively exhausting all other passions over basketball). The recent dynasty Lakers are perhaps the first great team that truly and honestly didn't care for the game of basketball. The talent is there. The passion? Terribly, horribly lacking.

• • •

I submit to you a theory: the fatal flaw of the Los Angeles Lakers has been considered in this way before, and even if it was an unconscious consideration, their western rivals acted upon it accordingly. For the last five years, Western contenders have been stocking up on players that act counter the Lakers' grandest weakness -- they're bridging a matchup that's eluded them all for years. Their aim? To counter the Lakers' infuriating lack of focus and lack of true passion for the game with players that live and breathe the game. After all, why do you think Sam Presti stockpiled a super-talented recess prep squad in Oklahoma City? Why do you think San Antonio picked up Stephen Jackson, and Patty Mills, and DeJuan Blair? Why do you think that teams like the Nuggets, the Rockets, and the Mavericks have spent years acquiring player after player and coach upon coach who really couldn't be doing anything else with their lives? These teams have been developing more and more players who, all things considered, are as inseparable from the love of basketball as this Laker team is inseparable from frustrating contempt for the game.

The Lakers have spent the last five years owning the Western Conference. General Managers like Presti took note, and realized that if the Thunder -- and the Spurs, and the Nuggets, and the Suns, et cetera -- simply kept stockpiling more and more players that love the game as more than a simple paycheck, they'd eventually have a gigantic advantage over the Lakers. Sure, it'd take a while. Sure, the Lakers would still out-talent the universe for 3 to 4 years while the young kids grew up and the team cultures changed. But one day, perhaps in the middle of a series, the Lakers would wake up and find themselves with less of a talent gap between them and their rivals than ever before, and they'd find the heart of their foe beating with a passion for the game the Lakers neither understand nor care to embody. That day is today. The Lakers may still beat the Nuggets, but they'll enter their second round date with the Thunder having had to expend an extra three games of energy solely because they couldn't prevent the inevitable meltdown in game 5 and met the brick wall of a team that refused to go quietly in game 6.

I began this post with Bynum's now-infamous observation on teams that simply fold. The primary issue with it is that the statement reflected how the Lakers approach games where they're to be closed out, not a developed understanding of the heart of their opposition. With the exception of games 6 and 7 of the 2010 finals, the dynastic Lakers have never been a particularly inspiring closeout team, and a team with grit and hustle is never quite out of the series if they'll push and push at the Laker empire. Bynum observed that his opponent would fold if he'd just show the requisite effort -- he was right, but only if he's facing a man made of mirrors. If Kenneth Faried (the electric rookie whose style of play bleeds basketball in a way few ever have) was to do what Bynum thought he would and simply lie down and take the loss, he wouldn't be Kenneth Faried. He'd be Andrew Bynum, or Pau Gasol. He'd be a member of the team that felt a season slip from their grasp the year before, and spent the capper of the sweep wishing they were anywhere but the court. It seems the Nuggets, to a man, love basketball more than anything -- the Laker collective, on the other hand, loves everything more than basketball.

When it comes right down to it, Kenneth Faried does not fold. Kevin Durant does not fold. Stephen Jackson does not fold. All around the western conference, team after team after team have begun to base their attack on transforming their squads into the starkest opposite of the Lakers' lacking effort. The seed is planted. Perhaps the Lakers embarrass the Nuggets in Game 7 with the dismal march of unconquerable advantage we envisioned during game 1. Perhaps they'll out-talent them, and perhaps Bynum overwhelms the west for a 4th try at the Larry O'Brien. No matter. This series, this playoffs, this year has announced that the clock is ticking. The Laker foes out west have birthed flourishing temples of basketball that grow ever stronger opposite the Laker empire. Through cracks in the purple and gold ceiling of a once-impenetrable fortress begin to drip dollops of hot oil, scalding the flesh that cannot feel, and promising an inevitable and impending resolution to the strange contrapositive history of the indifferent Los Angeles Lakers.

For a more specific look at the surprising Spurs, see today's post at 48 Minutes of Hell.

It was recently brought to my attention that most people aren't quite as ridiculous as I. Let me explain. For much of the season, I've been offhandedly keeping tabs on the overall trends from an offense/defense perspective, through the view of eight-game moving averages, rankings in five-game spans, and a large spreadsheet updated when-I-remember with the latest summary data from Hoopdata. I was asked by my friend -- Tim Varner of 48 Minutes of Hell -- if I'd put together a complete post on the surprising late-season defensive renaissance by the San Antonio Spurs. Compiling my data into an easy-to-share form for the purposes of the post in question led my data to a form where it would be easy to share the whole league picture. Hence, I decided to make a post here about it as well, specifically taking aim at interesting trends (at the most rudimentary, league-wide level) over the last 21 games of the year and sharing the underlying data behind the graphs at 48 Minutes of Hell and the entire ranking. Onward, then.

• • •

DEFENSE AMONG PLAYOFF TEAMS: GAMES 45-66

This table reports the average of each team's defensive efficiency in 5-6 game stretches, labeled in the top row by the last game in the stretch. The final total is their overall average defensive efficiency in the last 21 games of the 2012 season, which makes up roughly a third of our compressed season. There are a few main takeaways from this data, on the rawest level.

• The Lakers have looked OK on defense against the Nuggets, mostly because Denver has missed an insane amount of wide-open shots in the series. But their awful performance on the defensive end to finish the season should go down as one of the most incredible stretches of bad defense put up by a top-5 playoff team. Ever. Denver has their awful injury-riddled 45-50 stretch bringing their average down, Orlando missed Dwight for most of the schneid, and the Mavericks defense was worn down by age as the season concluded. The Lakers? No real excuse. In their last 21 games, the Lakers held opponents to an offensive efficiency under 100 only five times -- that's compared to allowing an offensive efficiency over 110 ten times. For all the talk about tanking, only four teams played worse defense down the stretch: Cleveland, Sacramento, Golden State, and Minnesota. That's right. Even the Bobcats, who lost their last 21 games by an average of 18 points a game, defended better than the Lakers over the last 21 games. Are you starting to realize how insane this is? (The Lakers went 13-8 over this stretch, by the way. Sometimes the world makes no sense.)

• The general sense I've gotten from many on Twitter is shock and awe at how gritty, grimy, and awful the offense in first round has been for games in the Eastern conference. But what were we really expecting? Five of the top six teams that played the best stretch defense are in the east, and of those five, all but Miami succeed by making the game ugly and slowing down the pace. As of late, the only western teams playing above-average playoff defense are the Spurs, Grizzlies, and Thunder. That's it. That's your comprehensive list. Is it any wonder the Western bracket has been more fun to watch, to those who like offense?

• Yes. The Spurs had the best defense in the West over the last 21 games. The numbers aren't here (simply because I haven't added them to this particular spreadsheet yet), but this has extended into the playoffs -- the Spurs have defended very, very well (despite a breakneck-fast pace that makes their opposing point totals seem high) to end the season. This really deserved its own bulletpoint.

OFFENSE AMONG PLAYOFF TEAMS: GAMES 45-66

Second verse, same as the first. Five game offensive efficiency averages, then an overall average over a team's last 21. Three observations, as before:

• Yes, that's Denver way up top, at number two. They closed the season on an underrated hot streak on the offensive end, behind timely April shooting from Danilo Gallinari and Arron Afflalo. That, combined with the Lakers' atrocious defensive performance to close the season, is what led me to pick them as my one upset bid of the first round. Of course, I forgot the the second of two key rules of playoff basketball. First, you never count on the Hawks. Second, you never -- NEVER -- pick post-2002 George Karl to win a series where his team doesn't have an overwhelming talent advantage or home court advantage. Karl's inexcusably odd late-game playbook for the Nuggets as well as his always odd late-game rotation decisions have essentially doomed the Nuggets in this series. They should be up 3-2 right now -- instead, they're down 2-3 and came very close to getting gentleman's swept.

• Reason number 2 why we should have expected the Eastern playoffs to look substantially different than their Western brood is rooted in the respective offense of its component teams. The only eastern offenses that performed at an above-playoff-average rate to close the regular season were the Pacers and the Hawks -- the Pacers don't really have much of an excuse for their ugly showing, but the Hawks are facing the best defense in the playoffs by a country mile. And, as everyone points out, they run one of the least creative offensive playbooks in recent memory -- if there's any team ripe for being shut down by a better defense, it's the can't-trust Hawks. There's a reason for the vast stylistic differences between the Eastern and Western playoffs, and it's not simply a tired narrative about how awful the East is. (Though, to be fair, we're sympathetic to that view here at the Gothic.)

• There were four playoff teams that actually finished the season with negative efficiency differentials in their last 21 games (which, over a full season, would project to a sub-0.500 record). These four teams, along with their closing records:

• The Orlando Magic (103.2 - 106.6 = -3.40) -- 8-13

• The Dallas Mavericks (104.0-105.5 = -1.52) -- 11-10
• The Los Angeles Lakers (108.1 - 108.7 = - 0.57) -- 13-8
• The Philadelphia 76ers (101.4 - 101.7 = -0.29) -- 10-11

To do your own analyses, I've put together a Google Doc that collects the per-game offensive and defensive efficiencies of every given team -- in other words, the raw data behind the rankings, in an easier-to-parse form than the overall totals on HoopData. Using this, you can put together charts for your own team of choice if you'd like to examine a specific team's evolving defense or offensive evolution as the series went on. Once I figure out how to use Tableau, I might add a few more visualizations to this post -- until then, hope the overall picture is sufficient for most of our readers. If you have any questions,

To bring our playoff coverage up, we’re bringing our formerly retired series of daily vignettes — titled “The Outlet” — back for the playoffs. “Don’t call it a comeback.” Though, you can call it series 2, as we are in the title. Every day (or, rather, every day we aren't doing a larger and grander piece), we’ll try to share two or three short vignettes from our collective of writers ruminating on the previous day’s events. Should be a fun time. Today’s Outlet covers the exaltation of Knicks fans in the wake of their first playoff win since 9/11. We were going to have another piece, but I'm on deadline at work and can't finish the second piece until later, so for now we'll stick with a single piece.

• "Dewey Defeats Miami." by Aaron McGuire.

Click the jump for today's piece.

• • •

Dewey Defeats Miami
Aaron McGuire

Governor Thomas Dewey was not a particularly interesting man. The former Governor of New York did not glad-hand, did not preen, and did not excite. Dewey was the youngest Republican nominee in the history of the party, and the first presidential candidate born in the 20th century. To put his positions in shorthand, Dewey liked tax cuts, the death penalty, federal education funding, internationalism, and anti-discriminatory labor laws -- he represented the lighter and liberal wing of the 1940s Republican party, and his ongoing control over the party through the 50s represented a generalized triumph of Roosevelt's New Deal and a victory for casual liberalism over Robert Taft's conservative wing of the party. Dewey's place in political history -- while little-mentioned -- is quite substantial. Without Dewey leading the way, it's possible Nelson Rockefeller, George Romney, and Richard Nixon couldn't have come after him. His impact on the Republican party is vast.

Despite all this? I sincerely doubt all but a few history buffs really know Dewey. Few people could rattle off a succinct view on Dewey's person, like the above paragraph, without the benefit of a Britannica or an encyclopedia. But virtually everyone could name his surname. And thus he lives on, though perhaps not in the way he'd like. Dewey lives on not in his accomplishments, his person, or his creed. He lives on through a silly journalistic snafu, an ebullient President Truman, and a clever photographer who happened to be in the right place at the right time. "Dewey Defeats Truman." It's a timeless photograph -- every history features it prominently, seemingly every American has internalized it, and the headline itself may be the most famous headline in U.S. history. Who Thomas Dewey has long been forgotten by most, but the fact of his presence has not been. And thanks to that photograph, it never will be.

On Sunday, the New York Knicks upset the Miami Heat and pushed their best-of-seven series to a fifth game. Is it premature to say that the Knicks really "defeated" the Heat? Perhaps. In a day, the Heat will likely blow the Knicks out of the water and leave New York's fans dismayed, disjointed, and disillusioned about their future. One game won does not a series make, and as the joy of playing the victor fades away, another lost season lies in its wake. The sadness will likely return. All the headlines, the joy, the exaltation -- all are ephemeral, as sports is in general. But stop short of saying that this moment is fated to be lost in time. Because I don't really think it will be. Keep in mind that the Knicks had lost 13 straight playoff games -- within that 13 they'd suffered two agonizing sweeps, a first round defeat at the hands of Vince Carter (of all people!), and were but a missed shot away from a third straight sweep. My favorite of the various cracker-jack stats on the long wait that Knicks fans suffered through would have to be this; out of the 478 players that played in the league this year, 422 of them began their NBA careers after the streak began. Infamous.

One victory in a gentleman's sweep means little, but when you contextualize the Knicks' now-infamous record and the historic struggles of the franchise, meaning begins to stir. In the grand scheme of things, it's unlikely the facts of the matchup are remembered well. But the ugliness of the series, the drama, the distastefully lacking performance of the New York stars are all as unimportant to the mass consciousness of Knicks fans as the personality and accomplishments of Governor Dewey are to the mass consciousness of the American populace. Just as the Governor lost the race and his place as a truly important figure in history, so too do the Knicks lose their series and their place as a truly important team in history. These dismal Knicks are important not for who they are, but for the moment they gave their fans -- they're important not as a collective team, but as the harbingers of a brighter future and as the motley crew that closed a dark chapter in the history of the franchise.

The New York Knicks have quite a ways to go until this team truly contends. They probably aren't going to win a title with this core. They probably aren't as close as many Knicks fans think, and this win -- in isolation -- doesn't mean they're going to stand a chance against the Heat next year without clever trades and large-scale roster tweaks. But just as the famous photograph has reserved Dewey's name in the hearts of Americans everywhere, this victory offers a short reprieve for Knicks fans. The moment -- fleeting, temporary, and short though it may be -- will live on in Knicks fandom beyond the point where this team is truly remembered or deserving of thought. If I can't fault Americans for remembering Dewey more for a silly photograph than his greater accomplishments, how could I fault Knicks fans for wanting to bask in this one glorious moment?

Perhaps you can. Me? I can't. Congratulations, Knicks fans. Keep your heads high.

• • •

We may add a piece or two to this Outlet later today. Keep an eye on my twitter at @docrostov for any pressing updates.