(12-30-2021, 05:47 AM)burekemde Wrote: I don't believe ML depicts that it is a complete lack of information. In my view, it provides useful information. So does training as well. Any basketball activity provides information for the coaches to evaluate the players, what they are capable of. However, this is far far less information than the information obtained when every team is at full strength and both teams play in a completely different way. So many anomalies happen once squads are not at full strength, and the level of play decreases notably. This is seen all around the NBA at the moment, and you see players performing better than usually dont perform as this when the level of play increases. We see things we would never see in playoff series with teams at full strength. However some things also could be extracted from this that can be translated to more competitive games.One could argue that the key issue with lack of predictive info is not having NBA-quality opposition in these games. (This wasn't so much the case with Sac, but most opponents in this stretch have been at far less than full strength.) It might be a fun frolic to watch our guys do a lot of cool stuff against Portland's deep bench and ten-days, but I don't know how likely it is that they replicate any of that against the likes of Golden State or the Bucks at any normal level of strength.
It's definitely a valuable source of information, but correctly described by ML as far less information than what you get in full strength games. So many things that you can do, that you wont be able to do when the situation changes. The key is extracting the useful information that can work when everyone is back at full strenght and employ this down the road.
As you mention, the important thing is to separate the noise from the meaningful info, and hopefully the Mavs are doing that. Meanwhile, that's not our job as fans, unless it interests us to do so, and we shouldn't be deterred from enjoying whatever entertainment value we may find in this odd season interval.
(12-30-2021, 11:02 AM)KillerLeft Wrote: It's tempting to let the results lead our thinking here, but this was the right play, and I'm not sure it is debatable, really.
I said it in the game thread, but I'll repeat here:
That defensive possession sucked, but the previous offensive possession was far worse. And honestly, the real reason the Mavericks lost this game is the 2nd quarter, where they only managed to score 13 points. That's ridiculous.
Preach it, bro.