2019 NBA Finals - (1) Golden State Warriors vs (2) Toronto Raptors (TOR leads 3-2)

[49er pride]

 

[showtime]

I've been absent?  Bro, I wasn't at home for the game.  I went to a party at friend's house who was hosting a party for the game.  Sorry I wasn't at home in front of my computer for the game last night lol.  Also, I'm not a Warriors or Raptors fan, so the outcome of this game or series doesn't impact me, so there's no reason for me to hide or not show up here. 

From what I saw last night, the Raptors should have won that game.  The Warriors went on that 18-0 run, which was insane.  Toronto outplayed them for a large portion of that game, so this is going to be a tough one to swallow.  I'm not sure what Klay Thompson's status is for future games, but he played really well keeping them in the game early.  I'll give Draymond props for playing like he's supposed to and not getting cooked.  And Iggy is so clutch.  My goodness, guy has hit so many big shots in his career.

[ramssuperbowl99]

10 hours ago, N4L said:

A wide open three in today's NBA is not a 'god awful shot'. Iguodala is a career 33% 3PT shooter who was WIDE OPEN. 

Was it a risky shot? sure, it had more risk than if he would have driven the lane, killed another 2-3 seconds and made a higher percentage 2, certainly. That doesnt make it a 'god awful shot', which implies he was bodied up with a hand in his face and had to shoot a fade away jumper or something like that.  He had no one around him, no one running at him, he had time to set his feet in rhythm and hit the same shot he hits 100 times a day in practice. again, he was WIDE OPEN. 

When people say "it was a god awful shot", that's roughly translating to "he needlessly made the Warrior win much more risky than it had to be compared to the other options that were available".

Iggly shot the ball at 7.5 seconds, with no one within roughly 15 feet of him. The ball went in with 5.7 to go. Had he missed, there were 3 Raptors and 1 Warrior in position to get the rebound. So let's do some math.

1. What Iggy did
   Iggy is a 33% 3 point shooter this season and his career. Let's give him an extra 50% bonus for being completely unguarded. That might be high, but let's say he's also clutch, so there's some of that. That's an even 50% chance that 3 is going in (hooray for lazy math), so we can say right away this math is probably generous to Iggy. Let's also say that there was a 75% chance the Raptors get the rebound, since it was a 3:1 advantage under the hoop. Simplistic, but probably not the dumbest thing I've posted this week.
   
   50% of the time - Iggly makes it, the game is over
   37.5% of the time - Iggy misses, the Raptors get the rebound and call timeout, and have ~3.5 seconds left with a chance to get a 2 to tie or a 3 to win.
   12.5% of the time - Iggy misses it, the Warriors get the rebound, and get fouled with 2 free throw shots and a chance to go up 4 with ~3.5 seconds left.
   
   They shoot 82% from the line as a team, so of the 37.5%, that breaks down to (presented in terms of overall probabilities):
   8.4% of the time - Warriors make both, game is over
   3.7% of the time - Warriors make 1/2, 3 pointer ties it.
   0.4% of the time - Warriors miss both, same outcome as an Iggly miss/Raptors rebound
   
   So basically, 58.4% of the time, the make or the Kobe assist effectively ends the game. Of the remaining 42.6%, about 90% of that time, the Raptors only need a 2 to tie it and are in the bonus. They could start fouling and whatnot, so this gets hypothetical and tricky from here, but if you just say the Raptors will always go for the tie and hit 50% for a 2 and 33% for a 3, the Raptors are favorites to tie and force OT 21.2% the moment Iggy decides to shoot.
   
   For the record, as silly as the ESPN win probability thing is, it had the Warriors as 80% to win the moment the 3 pointer went in. Which means despite the clock running down from 20+ seconds to 7 seconds, this lazy bit of math says the Warriors didn't do themselves any favors statistically on that possession.
2. Waiting and just getting fouled
   No one was within 15 feet of Iggy at 7.5 seconds, and no one was sprinting towards him to close out. Everyone was expecting the shot. Let's say he pump fakes instead of shooting it and just stands there, it's going to take at least half a second for people to realize what he's doing and 2 seconds for them to make contact. That takes us to 5 seconds again (so the same time as the 3 going in), and we'll say the rebound takes about another 1.5 seconds, just for consistency to the above.
   
   Iggy is a 71% career FT shooter, and I'll give him no clutch bonus here.
   50.4% of the time - Iggy makes both, the game is over
   41.2% of the time - Iggy makes won. Raptors need a 3 to tie.
   8.4% of the time - Iggy misses both. Raptors need a 2 to tie and 3 to win.
   
   Using the same probability of the Raptors scoring as above, the Raptors tie in regulation 17.9% of the time. That's a 15% decrease from Iggy shooting. The margins are narrow here, so you could argue this to death, but the lazy back of the hand stuff says the math favors doing nothing.
   
   And honestly that passes the smell test here too. The 5th point really doesn't do anything for the odds of the Warriors winning this game. It only becomes relevant in the "Raptors made 3, Warriors get fouled with enough time on the clock for another possible Raptors made 3" scenario, which is super unlikely. The most important point of the 3 is the second one, since a 2 possession game is basically over, but even the first one is a pretty big deal considering you're talking about the odds of making a 3 to win versus a 3 to tie, or making a 2 to tie versus a 3 to tie.
   
   This also doesn't include "waiting and pump faking and seeing if you can get 3 shots", which would have clearly been better.
3. Playing hot potato with Shaun Livingston
   This gets too involved to do math, but when Iggy went to shoot the Raptors crashed the boards and left Livingston open. By waiting for the defense to crash and then finding him or some other open man, the FT% on a foul goes up, the time remaining goes down, and they may have a chance to just kill the game outright by passing the ball around if the foul call is delayed enough, since the Raptors would have been left with nothing but a half court shot had the Warriors been able to kill another second or so.
4. Driving for a 2 and getting a foul call
   This is kind of similar to number 2, except you take on the risk of a charge and you also sacrifice some time on the clock in exchange for the odds of making the bucket and effectively ending the game. There were 2 Raptors crashing the rim, and so I'm just going to call this too difficult to meaningfully predict.

The Warriors were heavily favored to win regardless of what Iggy did there, but I think immediately taking the 3 was the riskiest option. 

[titanrick]

Crazy question:  If Iggy had waited until either someone came at him or the 3 second mark and then heaved a shot as high as he could, would time have expired?  Yes, it would be a shot clock violation but not until the shot hits the court again, right?  Those last two seconds would have run out.  If a shot is in the air as the shot-clock expires, it doesn't freeze the game clock before the shot is complete.

Of course thinking that fast on your feet would be incredibly rare.

[Kip Smithers]

Where’s the guy that doesn’t rate Draymonds 1v1 perimeter defense? Draymond showed a number instances yesterday why he’s best defender in the league. He did well vs Kawhi. 

[ramssuperbowl99]

7 minutes ago, titanrick said:

Crazy question:  If Iggy had waited until either someone came at him or the 3 second mark and then heaved a shot as high as he could, would time have expired?  Yes, it would be a shot clock violation but not until the shot hits the court again, right?  Those last two seconds would have run out.  If a shot is in the air as the shot-clock expires, it doesn't freeze the game clock before the shot is complete.

Of course thinking that fast on your feet would be incredibly rare.

The shot went 1.5ish seconds in the air, so 3 seconds doesn't let the time expire. It would effectively though since Toronto would only have a half court option available. 

I didn't even mention the odds of having him wait 1.5 extra seconds before shooting or anything like that because you can't really predict how the odds change on whether the ball goes in when he's in rhythm or when he's shooting from a frozen position, plus what shot Toronto would get with 3.5 seconds versus 2.5 seconds. You don't even need to get that deep into it to know that Iggy was needlessly risky here, which is the question you'd want to answer.

[Art_Vandalay]

That was a must-win for the Raptors. They're going down in 6 max.

[titanrick]

1 minute ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

The shot went 1.5ish seconds in the air, so 3 seconds doesn't let the time expire. It would effectively though since Toronto would only have a half court option available. 

I didn't even mention the odds of having him wait 1.5 extra seconds before shooting or anything like that because you can't really predict how the odds change on whether the ball goes in when he's in rhythm or when he's shooting from a frozen position, plus what shot Toronto would get with 3.5 seconds versus 2.5 seconds. You don't even need to get that deep into it to know that Iggy was needlessly risky here, which is the question you'd want to answer.

Yes, his normal shot attempt at the basket lasted 1.5 seconds.  I'm wondering if he just throws it as high as he can in the arena without trying to make it.  Would have been a crazy thing to see but if he can get 3 second hang-time, the game is over.  I don't think the shot clock violation is called until the shot hits the court again.

[CKS97]

Golden State is running on fumes at this point.

[ramssuperbowl99]

15 minutes ago, titanrick said:

Yes, his normal shot attempt at the basket lasted 1.5 seconds.  I'm wondering if he just throws it as high as he can in the arena without trying to make it.  Would have been a crazy thing to see but if he can get 3 second hang-time, the game is over.  I don't think the shot clock violation is called until the shot hits the court again.

Oh god I have to do physics. Gross.

yfinal = yintial + v*t + 1/2*a*t1/2

Time up is equal to time down, so we just calculate the acceleration from gravity starting from the highest point, we'll say that's 0. A is gravity so -9.81. t=1.5 seconds. V=0.

11.0 meters or 36 feet for a total time of 3 seconds assuming Iggy is 0 feet tall, so take off a few feet since he gets that extra credit on the downfall. That seems really short, so I probably did that wrong. I ******* hate physics.

[tom cody]

Yeah, the Raptors had to win this game last night.That 18-0 run by the Warriors did them in for sure last night.

[JBURGE]

54 minutes ago, CKS97 said:

Golden State is running on fumes at this point.

So is Kawhi though

[Oregon Ducks]

I don’t get why Bell doesn’t play more. I get he’s limited offensively but at least he can defend and rebound. Jerebko and 28 don’t do anything.

[N4L]

20 minutes ago, Oregon Ducks said:

I don’t get why Bell doesn’t play more. I get he’s limited offensively but at least he can defend and rebound. Jerebko and 28 don’t do anything.

#28 defends better than Bell, gets more rebounds, and hits more shots. McKinnie has a knack for getting rebounds, especially on offense. 

Bell is a better passer and better at setting screens. We need guys to space the floor right now though.

McKinnie is also more consistent. Bell is very volatile. 

[titanrick]

2 hours ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Oh god I have to do physics. Gross.

yfinal = yintial + v*t + 1/2*a*t1/2

Time up is equal to time down, so we just calculate the acceleration from gravity starting from the highest point, we'll say that's 0. A is gravity so -9.81. t=1.5 seconds. V=0.

11.0 meters or 36 feet for a total time of 3 seconds assuming Iggy is 0 feet tall, so take off a few feet since he gets that extra credit on the downfall. That seems really short, so I probably did that wrong. I ******* hate physics.

Not to mention, he's limited by the height of the ceiling in the ScotiaBank Arena.  If he hits that, it's blown dead.  I feel like this could be its own "30 for 30" special.