I realize this horse I’m beating has long since moved to the great pasture in the sky, but here’s another take from Henry Abbott of TrueHoop:
Studies have shown that, in general, if you want to win now, you play veterans. They know the game best, they play the right way, they have the respect of the referees, and by and large they commit fewer errors. What’s more, they are brand names, institutions you can trust. […]
Veterans are where it’s at in this game. There’s a reason these older players are the ones playing now, at this time of year, when a lot of the younger teams have gone on vacation for the year.
I cherish basketball savvy. I respect experience. I salute the willingness to drag an injured body around the court.
But in the end, it’s a game about running and jumping and diving on the floor for loose balls. And for that stuff, there’s nothing like being young, uninjured, and untired.
He follows with several examples from around the league, but it’s more or less a build up to a discussion of the Sixers-Pistons series, and how the plus/minus leaders in the fourth quarter for both teams over the course of the season consists almost entirely of young players. I’d like to add this caveat: the Zoo Crew played a ton in the fourth this year, including dozens of games in which the starters didn’t play a lick, so Detroit’s rankings don’t necessarily mean anything except that Detroit’s youngsters have consistently built leads and not lost them.
In other words, these guys can be trusted.
Both sides of this debate have gone in circles in the comments this week (I’m actually surprised that sticking with what worked in the regular season is suddenly controversial), but the fact that Henry, an otherwise impartial observer, has noticed and weighed in encourages me that this is actually a worthwhile debate and not (just) the by-product of two long days for frustrated fans to dissect a loss. We’ll see tonight if we’ll have something different to talk about the rest of the week.
I’ve always wondered why hockey uses the +/- rating and baskteball doesn’t. I mean I’ve always considered hockey to be more of a gimmicky game, hence these type of stats, but I think +/- does prove some things and I’m glad to see it being used in reference to this series. I think its an interesting dynamic going on here where the Sixers have decided to play their younger inexperienced guys late in games and as you can see from Henry’s article, they have had amazing results. Younger legs could be a deciding factor in this series as you have to admit, the Pistons do have 4 starters over 30 and they did falter in the latter parts of Game 1.
Since the Sixers traded Korver back in Decemeber, their crunch time 5 has been the Andres, Thad, LouWill and Sammy. Depsite seeing Reggie Evans in Game 1 play in crunch time, that will not be the norm going forward in this series unless he plays out of his head like he did in Game 1. Thad Young is extremely talented (same talent level in HS as Oden and Durant) and is very slick around the basket. I’ve never seen him get rattled. Lou Williams has come a long long long way since his rookie year when he was mid 2nd round pick right out of high school. He’d get schooled by Iverson on a daily basis in practice (ok maybe not daily since AI was not a participant that often) and late last year he finally started playing with confidence. Now he’s there in crunch time hitting big time shots. Dalembert played 2 years in College and just had started learning the game prior to that. Each game he gets smarter and better. Andre Miller is 32 but if it weren’t for him, this team would be no where. He continues to make the big shots at the end of games and almost lulls you to sleep before driving right past you. Andre Iguodala can jump out of the gym and has an extremely competitive spirit, relentless on both ends of the court.
In contrast, the Pistons were a step slower in game 1, missed a lot of shots and seemed to lack a certain fire. I expect Game 2 to be a different story, but I thought Game 1 would go easily to Detroit. Perhaps I’ve overestimated this Pistons team. Perhaps Hamilton is still hurting, is Chauncey injured too? Is Prince fired up? Can McDyess give a better effort? Will Flip get Stuckey more involved? Can Maxiel match his play from Game 1 (history says he’s too inconsistent)? There are many questions lingering for Detroit as we head into game 2, questions that weren’t even considered before Sunday night…….