On verge of being swept, Kenny Atkinson says Cavaliers are ‘analytically’ winning series vs. Knicks
Sometimes it’s better not to say what you think. To keep the quiet part quiet. Because there are times when you say the quiet part out loud and later you end up really wishing you hadn’t.
Kenny Atkinson had one of those moments on Sunday. The Cleveland Cavaliers are down 3-0 in the Eastern Conference finals against the New York Knicks. No team in NBA history has ever come back from such a deficit. You know it. Everyone knows it. Atkinson – who was named NBA Coach of the Year last season – certainly knows that too. Except if you ask him, the Cavs aren’t really down 3-0. If you tilt your head and squint at the right kind of numbers in the right way, Cleveland actually wins the series. I’m paraphrasing. Here’s what Atkinson said during the press briefing on Sunday.
“Analytically… we are two out of three within the planned time frame. [score]” said Atkinson. “I don’t know if you follow that, the expected score. And I know you look confused.
Confused is one way of putting it. Astonished and perplexed might be another. To put things in context, Atkinson’s view was that the Cavs had a good look in the series, and he was overall happy with their process. In Game 3, he said the Cavs shot “well below” what was expected and the Knicks shot “well above.” And that might even be true. Except, as Atkinson seemed to realize as he created an alternate universe in his head, this particular message probably wouldn’t be received well by almost everyone.
“I know no one wants to hear that,” Atkinson said. “[With the] general public, everyone is results-oriented.
An annoying and unfortunate fact. You know what else is results-based? The real NBA Playoffs. The league has this annoying habit of rewarding teams that make live shots and win games by advancing them to the next round. Here on Earth 1, it appears the Knicks are headed to their first NBA Finals since 1999, and there’s nothing Atkinson or the Cavs can do about it. But maybe on Earth 2, Cleveland will win the parallel dimension playoffs and throw a killer parade. They can hang a hypothetical banner and everything.
Atkinson is a brilliant guy. What he said was something far beyond intelligence for a host of reasons. This all sounded like something Doc Rivers said last year. Rivers is a Hall of Famer when it comes to quotes and can’t be missed when it comes to content, which doesn’t always mean what he says necessarily reflects well on him. When it comes to being an NBA head coach, it’s usually best not to make comparisons to him. But here is Atkinson, reminding many of us of the time Rivers was asked about the three times his teams blew 3-1 playoff leads — with the Magic in 2003, then with the Clippers in 2015 and 2020 — and how he said, probably with a straight face, that everyone was thinking about it the wrong way.
“I don’t get enough credit for my three wins,” Rivers said. “I get congratulated for losing. I always say, ‘What if we had lost to Houston in six?’ Nobody cares. One of the things I’m proud of is that we’ve never been swept. Every coach got swept in the playoffs. My teams are successful. Many of them surpass themselves and I am very proud of that. »
If you don’t count all the matches he lost, Rivers won them all. If you look at the expected scores instead of the actual scoreboard, the Cavs beat the Knicks. Same energy.
Unsurprisingly, various social media accounts had fun at Atkinson’s expense. It was to be expected that he would pounce on himself for these comments. What was harder to understand was why he bothered to say it. Maybe he was trying to feel better about the Cavs’ face so far, or maybe it was a message to his players and/or Cavs fans that they could climb back into the series if only their shots started falling. Whatever the motivation, it proved decidedly tone deaf. Not to mention, dreaming of this fantasy world where Cleveland leads the series deliberately denies the reality of how good the Knicks are in the Eastern Conference Finals and the playoffs at large.
The Cavs blew a 22-point lead with less than eight minutes remaining in the first game. It was a historic collapse. The Knicks ended up winning that game in overtime by 11. Then New York won Game 2 by 16 and Game 3 by 13. At no point in the last two games did it look like the Cavs were going to win either. Their largest lead in Game 2 was six points; they never led in the third game. It probably has something to do with all those shots they missed here in the real world. For the series, the Cavs are shooting 42.9% from the floor, 29.4% from 3-point range and a horrible 67.6% from the free throw line.
Compare that to the Knicks, who have won 10 straight playoff games. If Atkinson likes numbers so much, we need to be honest about the ones New York produced. It’s not just that the Knicks shoot well against Cleveland. They crushed it all those playoffs. Through the first three rounds, New York is first in completion percentage, 3-point percentage and defensive rating and second in offensive rating. The Knicks are playing very good basketball when you look at the data that reflects what actually happened on the court.
But as a wise man once said, “People can come up with statistics to prove anything.” Fourteen percent of all people know this. » Or to paraphrase another wise man, analysis will only get you so far – and in cases like this, it would have been better for Atkinson not to rely on them so publicly.
