Kevin Durant: Defense wasn't better in the 80s/90s, they just got away with flagrant fouls

[FukkaPaidEmail]

Flagrant fouls by todays (softer) standards?

Half the fouls that gets called now in the nba would have nikkas looking at you like if you called it running 3’s or a game of 21 out here .

 

[Remote]

 

[Harry B]

80s and 90s were not the same, earlier years of the 80s had the same scoring average as today

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Teams literally have a wide open 3 every other possession. How are the schemes better?

Are you counting 30 foot shots?

There's no era in NBA history where you can put five shooters on the court and not get open threes. What defenses strive to do is limit those as much as possible, ensure the window is as short as possible, and that the players who do get open are the ones you want shooting. You wouldn't have so many players launching from 30 if 23 foot shots were easy to get.

As opposed to the 80s/90s, when open threes were just as common even though there were only 2-3 shooters on the court at any time and they were only a threat from 22-23 feet. NBA literally had to move the 3pt line in cause open shooters were missing from 23.

You could see even great players like prime Jordan getting left open over and over again, even in critical games.

 

[Joe Sixpack]

I don’t have a problem with what he said at all

 

[duncanthetall]

Being able to clothesline people doesn’t make it a better era defensively. It just means the overall product was dumber and shyttier.

 

[Sauce Dab]

It was a lot of lazy defense in those clips. Folks definitely exaggerate the “tough” defense back in the day.

 

[Remote]

It was a lot of lazy defense in those clips. Folks definitely exaggerate the “tough” defense back in the day.

Many of us have fallen victim to the perception of brutal defense in the late 80s and 1990s.
But the truth is that while the league did allow more flagrant fouling to some degree, defense was not as good as we're often led to believe.

Not every team was the Bad Boy Pistons.

And just because games were low scoring, does not mean that defense was good.

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

A flagrant foul for an accidental elbow is unacceptable. Current NBA has gone too far the other way with reviewing all of these calls, wasting a bunch of time on a review and then handing out a flagrant 5 minutes later when all the guy did was go for a rebound and accidentally hit the other player in the process. Suck it up and play on.

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

Im talking the norm, not an anomaly.

A whole league doing something compared to one player. Basketball discussion on here is fukking hilarious

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

thefuq you talking about? There's fights every damn night still

He means the guys with damn near no skill are gone from the league. Back then every player had a guy where his only job was to start shyt or protect their star player. There's still fights every game but the guys fighting have more actual hockey talent lol

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

Also, why wouldn't the game be more physical in an era where you have 2 and maybe 3 big motherfukkers crowding the paint and jockeying for position. Shaq would get beat on and in turn he'd beat the hell out of people down there too. That's all gone. Most of the 5's are not going to play that style and there's really none of those type of 4's left in the league.

 

[mastermind]

Many of us have fallen victim to the perception of brutal defense in the late 80s and 1990s.
But the truth is that while the league did allow more flagrant fouling to some degree, defense was not as good as we're often led to believe.

Not every team was the Bad Boy Pistons.

And just because games were low scoring, does not mean that defense was good.

The other thing is team defense was not a concept back then.

The 80s Lakers came somewhat close with their fake zone defense but other than that it was one on one. Now you can’t defend effectively without team concepts.

 

[NYC Rebel]

Teams literally have a wide open 3 every other possession. How are the schemes better?

How do you defend a three without giving up spacing?

 

[NYC Rebel]

The other thing is team defense was not a concept back then.

The 80s Lakers came somewhat close with their fake zone defense but other than that it was one on one. Now you can’t defend effectively without team concepts.

Not true. I thought the Celtics double team with Dennis Johnson was the greatest defensive innovation I have ever seen growing up in the 80s.