During the last few minutes of Game 6 of Boston's second-round series with Cleveland, poor Kevin Garnett looked like Forrest Gump right after Jenny pulled her top down in her dorm room. On one play, the ball swung to KG at the foul line; no Cav was within 10 feet of him. Strangely, he panicked, thinking about shooting an open J before realizing, Wait, I'm seven feet tall, that would be dumb, and barreling toward the basket to rush a clumsy jump hook. For a former MVP who makes $22 million a year, it was an astoundingly incompetent sequence.
It also wasn't a surprise. Garnett's crunch-time woes have been the dirty little secret of this storybook Celtics season. Sure, he saved the franchise and made the C's relevant again. He's also the reason they might not win the 2008 championship. Put simply, Garnett shrinks from pressure more times than he comes through.
--Bill Simmons
Since Bill Simmons wrote this article, I've been trying to document the counter examples (you may need to read my game notes in some of the posts). Keep in mind two things: (1) my collection of counter examples is incomplete; (2) my collection includes only big baskets KG has made down the stretch of close games. The collection ignores KG's game-saving steals, blocks, rebounds, and assists, all of which he makes on a semi-regular basis. But you'd have to be an basketball ignoramus to argue that KG performs poorly in crunch time in those areas. In fact, one wonders how wise a choice it is to register a complaint about such a small portion of someone's skill set over such a tiny portion of his playing time.
But we fight fair here, and that means refuting Simmons on his own terms. As with Rondo, we'll follow this more closely going forward.
7 comments:
That's two straight articles on two different celtics clutch play in the fourth. Throw in Ray Ray and Paul for fun.
Now contrast this to the Lakers experience.
Quite a difference, huh?
i dont know why people still pay attention to Bill Simmons. his big egos need to say something stupid (he isnt clever enough to say something smart) trying to get people attention... let him choke alone in his own mess ;)
I guess I'm trying to engage in assisted suicide.
:)
Bill Simmons is one of my favorite sports writers, but I don't think he always does his homework. www.celticshub.com did an indepth analysis of Garnett's "clutchness", and proved that he is indeed a clutch player.
Hmmm. I missed that.
This is what I found:
Finally, we come to KG. His stats in these situations almost exactly mirror his overall numbers. He takes about 3.4 shots per quarter overall and about three shots in each “clutch” fourth quarter–meaning he shoots relatively less often in these situations, since he plays more minutes in the “clutch” than otherwise.
For better or worse, this is KG. He is not going to start jacking up shots or bulling his way to the rim in the fourth quarter. I mean, Eddie House has taken more shots per minute in these 30 fourth quarters than KG (we will cover Eddie’s fondness for his own shot in a later post). For a certain segment of basketball fans, this will always be the knock on KG. I’ve given up trying to figure it out, but I don’t think he cowers from the moment.
http://celticshub.com/2009/03/12/the-celtics-clutch-offense-the-big-three/
celticsblog just did a clutch piece today! haven't read it yet....
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