The casual fan just cares that the Lakers or Knicks are doing well. They are tired of GS. Don't think it has everything to do with the game.
The beauty is in simple computation. 3 > 2 .
Less defense seems like a bad outcome. Tho g league messed around with a 1 shot 2 pt free-throw. Could be something there
I think thats more the effect of increased pace than anything. There are more possessions in the average game than 10 years ago, ergo more shots and points.
It’s clear you never saw the Magic show, or the Alex English led Nuggets, or the Iceman’s Spurs team, or even the Magic team led by Shaq and Penny! They ran and opened up the court WITHOUT launching 41 threes!
Sorry the league doesn’t allow players to play strong defense anymore. I have never seen so many ticky tack and block fouls called in my life of watching the NBA.
So did the 60s Celtics but those teams were brickfests. They didnt launch 3s back in the day because people still played the game like they had before then, with an emphasis on postups and the occasional perimeter creation as the primary generation of offense. With your team has offensive stars on the level of Magic, English, Larry, or Zeke, you can make that junky offensive system look amazing. The worst offensive teams in 2022 is a more nuanced offense than all but the best teams of that era and a major component of that is having a better understanding of where valuable offense can be generated.
Players shoving each other and grappling is not what I would call strong defense. I refer to my earlier point. Defenses today are far more nuanced than 10 years ago let alone the older days. We have so much pre-switching, multi-switching, and positional counterplay going on now that people didn't even imagine back in the day. Anyone remember Mike Brown leaving poor Delonte West 1v1 vs Hedo Turkeyglue for an entire series?
I’m not talking about “shoving and grappling” but what I am talking about is moving your feet, staying in front of your man, knowing how to cut off a player’s strong hand and not getting beat back door 5-6 times a game because you don’t know how to position yourself so you can see your man AND the ball. Players do pre switching now because the majority of NBA players are piss poor on the ball defenders! I refer back to our 2016 title game….Steph Curry did all he could NOT to be switched onto Cryie because he knew his on the ball defense was piss poor. You have very few defenders in the game today that welcome switches onto strong offensive players!
Pre-switching is a response to offenses aggressively match up hunting. There are good and terrible man defenders today, just like there were in the 80s and before. Chuck wasn't stopping anyone. Neither was Magic. They were still good offensive players so you had to keep them out on the floor. If anything, I think we have come to realize that 1v1 man defense is not that big a deal in a lot of situations as you play defense as a team, not an individual. With smart scheming and understanding of player tendencies and positioning on the floor, it becomes possible to man a strong defense even with players who are "weak defenders" like K Love or Steph on the floor. Now, it is still important to have a good PoA defender in your scheme (Smart in Boston, GP2/Draymond in GS, Jrue in Mil etc), but you can excel without your whole lineup being defensive stalwarts due to the superior scheming in the modern game.
Yeah, thats an effect of the math. I am not sure thats a bad thing tho. Ugly midrange isos and postups have been phased out of the game in favor of more offball actions and weak side back screens all of which I think is good. The space is being used far more effectively by the competent teams. Our offense is about as ugly as it gets in the modern NBA, and even that is better than the crap we watched in the late 00s
Team defense has always be a part of the game. That’s what made the Malone/Stockton Jazz teams so good on defense, same with the Bulls, and the Duncan led Spurs! I would never say Chuck was a defensive stopper. But neither is Durant. Hell Harden can’t guard a fire hydrant.
Durant isn't a stopper but he is a legitimate rim protector at the 3 and generates a lot of deflections with those long arms. We saw that with the Hampton Fives lineup. Harden is a major outlier for how lazy he is on D, but he also has carried some of the highest offensive loads in NBA history. Got to give him some credit tho, he is an excellent post defender. Bigs cant back him down for free at all.