Kenny Atkinson : “Analytically… we’ve won 2 out of 3”
Analytically hes losing his job
Looks more like spiralling into losing his mind aswell
Lost 2 out of 3 braincells
He is now an orange cat.
Kitty Catkinson
absolute cinema
r/oneorangebraincell
What coaching James Harden does to a mfer
Yeah, this was the worst goddamn thing he could have said.
Where does it fall on a scale of 1 to “I’m just here watching like you guys”
this is way worse, the average person hate stats anyway, no one wants to hear this shit when 0-3 LOL. He’s lost it since putting harden on brunson in game 1, might actually get fired.
he lost it much earlier than that
Classic Jason Kidd
I can’t understand how people don’t have self awareness in moments like this. It’s like it’s scripted
He’s doing such a shit job that there’s people believing that he’s working as an agent for the Knicks. I think I read somewhere he and his family have ties to the city or something.
Honestly, I’m so baffled by his actions (or inactions) that I’m starting to believe it too.
Kenny’s from New York and so is Donovan Mitchell.
Cavs never had a chance when their head coach and superstar were both Knicks sleeper agents 😭
He was also a Knicks assistant. Should’ve led with that lol
He lives on Long Island I believe
That’s a hell of a commute
Helluva ball team
When you are down 3-0 and nobody in history has come back from that deficit you need to go full delusional.
So I’m also a Liverpool fan and this is the kind of bullshit the coach there has been spewing all season. What a surprise, both guys have lost the locker room as their players give piss poor effort on the defensive side.
Can’t believe you guys didn’t get Xabi, but at least you finished in a CL spot???
Dude is really making up imaginary wins. You can’t make this shit up lmao is he genuinely okay?
Is Atkinson the first NBA head coach to employ girl math?
Nah I remember Bud pulling out some “We’ll we’ve actually won most quarters, it’s all good” while we were getting our asses beat by the Heat one time, Atkinson clearly learned this from him.
The series where his brother died? Can he get a pass for saying something stupid?
Nah, this is what happens when steiner math goes bad at sakerfice.
He’s saving his timeouts for after he’s done coaching the Cavs 🧠
Just needs 2 more saved and he gets a free sandwich.
Kenny “Lamppost” Atkinson
Why though? For outperforming in the playoffs and getting back to the ECF for the first time since LeBron?
Fwiw this is a bad quote from him, but i don’t get why someone would see this team’s season and decide that the coach has to be fired
Because coaches are easy to scapegoat for teams not reaching potential. But also the guy clearly is getting out-coached by Mike Brown. Game 1 was a fireable offense IMO with his poor rotations and refusal to call timeouts when we were down 22.
this is quite literally (in my opinion) a fireable offense
Holy knee jerk reaction
Me when I’m coping
CP3 just hit a three to cut the lead to analytically
BANG!!!
IS THIS THE DAGGER?!?
Analytically Bosh didn’t get the rebound
I mean the Pistons won the last series 5-2 if we’re talking Atkinson’s language
me when i’m leaning on lampposts, but then start dry humping them
is he still in the denial phase of grief or has he jumped right into bargaining?
Analytically, i’ve satisfied every woman i’ve been with
Is an analytical victory the 2026 version of a moral victory?
The Cavs are going to rival the 2023 Lakers as the greatest team to ever be swept in a conference finals lol. I don’t know what’s better, this from Atkinson or believing Rui Hachimura was the cheat code to stop Jokic.
We would’ve won if they contested without foulling. Happens to the best of us
We went hard on them dudes
Salute
What can you do, they’re a hell of a ball club. It’s a make or miss league.
I say all this all the time at work and people hate me
At least 2023 Lakers lost most games by single digits. Cavs have lost all of them by double digits so far so analytically, we’re up 2-1 to the Cavs
funnily enough the Wolves copied the Lakers homework next year but KAT did a way better job on Jokic
And Rudy Gobert helps.
The point wasn’t Rui being some incredible on-ball defender. It was the fact that it allowed AD to be a help defender, which is his most valuable asset. It’s the same exact reason Chet isn’t guarding Wemby, yet all you hear on this sub is how Chet is “ducking” him or “scared”. The lack of basketball understanding on a basketball sub is kind of astounding sometimes.
It was the fact people thought Jokic wouldn’t be smart enough to figure out how to expose it. There’s a reason Minnesota and OKC went and got Gobert and Hartenstein after Jokic demolished the West in 2023. Those two teams were built to beat Denver. Funny enough the 2020 Lakers were too but they decided to star hunt
The Browns have enough moral victories for all of Ohio combined, the cavs dont need this
“Browns” and “moral victories” ended with the Watson trade
They’re talking about starting him again too lmao most highly regarded org in all of sports
So glad I jumped to the Lions bandwagon after the trade. They provide a high end level of gut punch losses.
You’ve heard of their older cousin from alabama, the common “hypothetical victory”
It’s giving Celtics “we’ve won 3 out of 4 quarters but still lose” energy of 2023.
Like Sarkisian saying his 2’s and 3’s would go undefeated in the Big 12.
When you have more terrible quotes than wins in the series, that’s really saying something
They could come back and win the series and this would still be true tbf.
Even though we have seen some wild comebacks these playoffs, a 0-3 comeback has never happened before and I doubt this Cavs team does it ool
I don’t think the comeback was his point
Something something drunk man on a lamp post
I consumed 8 beers but threw up 4 so, analytically, I don’t know if you follow that, but that’s like 4 expected beers.
Sir, I asked you to step out of the vehicle.
I got you Kenny. Don’t you worry brother:
- https://jfs.ohio.gov/job-services-and-unemployment/unemployment/unemployment-insurance
Nah fuck unemployment this mf needs to go to the Gulag
I mean final 4 ain’t bad. You guys outperformed your seed
Cause they underperformed the regular season lol
Yeah but they had a legit shot at winning this series and Kenny shit the bed, then refused to take any responsibility for shitting the bed. The lack of accountability is a massive red flag in a HC and tells me that the Cavs need a new voice to lead them
Besides the awful coaching in the first game, I’m not sure how much of this is on coach.
Cavs stars can’t hit shots. Got so many good looks. Knicks can’t miss. Doesn’t seem overly complicated. Harden and Mitchell have always been playoff chokers.
I hope Russian crime lords give Kenny their seed in the Gulag
Oh wait this isn’t nbacj uhhhh I mean “yeah true”
u bum
Only because the pistons couldn’t handle the limelight and shat the bed with a 2-0 lead.
‘Analytically, I got blown by Riley Reid last night’
W taste
Agreed IdeaGlad1134 is a pineapple eating fiend
For him or for Riley
Oh fuck, youre gonna make me come to r/simpsonsshitposting
damn analytically i knew she was cheating on me
How the fuck did we lose to this team
Because your team has no scoring outside Cade, Harris and Robinson. People were asking how tf you guys got the number one seed.
You dont need to create your own shot in the regular season, can just rely on lazy defense to find open looks. Pistons have 0 offensive creation outside of Cade
Bro. Watching this series has me asking the same question after every game. Yall really need to get a reliable 2nd option next to Cade.
I hate to say it after yalls turnaround, but Bickerstaff might be a little overrated as a playoff coach when he needs to out scheme the other coach
Bickerstaff is 16-26 I think in the playoffs for his career. He’s a good coach to help create an identity in the regular season but he is consistently outcoached in the playoffs.
Because Pistons are even worse than Cavs.
Your HC is worse than theirs?
Bickerstaff definitely feels like their version of Mark Jackson
In the sense that he will get them disciplined and playing as a team and then you replace him with an Xs and Os guy to take them to the next level.
Jackson was a special kind of crazy though lol
Because you barely made it to the second round, a Franz injury away not to.
If ya’ll had any consistent scoring/play making outside of Cade, ya’ll win that series easily lol.
Because both teams are frauds
Cavs are the 4 seed and made it to the conference finals. That doesn’t sound fraud-worthy.
What does that even mean
probably just that had we made wide open shots at the rate we normally do, we’d be up 2-1.
to some extent i get it, this is what i say when i go 0-3 in fantasy football while outscoring 90% of the league but just get shit scheduling luck. but man is that a bad look for the head coach to say, especially when analytics has zip point shit to do with fumbling away a 22 pt lead with 8 mins left
Kinda does though. The Knicks got red hot, the Cavs couldn’t buy one. Cleveland had plenty of opportunities to ice that game if they made just one or two extra open looks. Couldn’t hit em. Make or miss league, etc etc.
Sure but Cavs play high variance basketball and have to understand that that means a higher chance of a comeback. For a team with two great scoring/defensive bigs, they should know how to play a different style of ball when needed. If you can’t buy a three but are getting easy dunks… stop shooting threes
To be fair, we didn’t see the question being asked. It’s reasonable to say this if the question is “why do you think you lost those games?”
A possible answer is turn the ball over less. A possible answer is play better defense and limit their shot quality. A possible answer is generate better looks.
What do you say when you are doing those things and the ball simply doesn’t go in the hoop? Or when the otherr team is shooting with magnets? What he is communicating is that they are getting to their efficient shots at a good rate, the Knicks are being limited to less efficient shots at a reasonable quantity. That is good basketball.
If you want an analogy, he is describing a scenario like: You perform perfect defense for 23.8 seconds of a shot clock forcing a player to take a one legged blind contested 3 in the corner while falling out of bounds and it goes in. On the next play, your best shooter misses a wide open 3 (where they shoot 58%). What are you supposed to say to your team about those plays? “Don’t let people take off balance one legged blind three shot clock beaters (a 0.2 ev shot)”? “You shouldn’t have taken that open 3 (a 1.7 ev shot)”? No, you tell them to keep doing what they are doing. Sometimes bad shots go in and good shots fly off the heel.
People do not understand basketball on this subreddit. He is giving a data driven, detailed answer. Would we have preferred that he said “We gotta lock in, we gotta want it more!!!!”?
In terms of the shots taken adjusting for quality of shots and average fg% on those shots for each team respectively, the Cavs/Knicks have an expected ppg. In actuality, the Cavs are dramatically shooting worse and Knicks are shooting better than their typical expected ppg.
In layman’s terms, he’s saying that the Knicks are on a hot streak and the Cavs are in a slump. That the difference between the teams aren’t as big as 3-0 indicates. That they can still come back and win the series.
As Zach Lowe said on his pod today, hang a banner for the shot quality championship.
It’ll go up there with the Celtics.
That’s a fair retort.
Regardless, I was just trying to help out this falling dude because he didn’t understand what Atkinson was saying.
I get it. I do agree with your explanation.
The idea is that sometimes you create good looks but they just don’t fall. So if you’re coaching a team it’s important to differentiate that from when the other team is preventing you from creating good looks. If it’s the former, you stay the course and expect things to turn around eventually. If it’s the latter, you may need to make some changes.
When you regress Mahomes to the mean he’s an average QB.
Please reread, you’ve dramatically misunderstood his point and its resulted in a tortured analogy.
But what if you undress Mahomes?
The Cavs are getting good shots with good shooters. But the shots aren’t going in. The Knicks aren’t necessarily getting better shots, but they are going in more often than they should.
Variance talk stuff. Similar to what we say in Sixers v. Celtics. The Celtics would shoot like 25% from 3P in their losses, which included missing a lot of good looks.
The team that misses too many shots will lose, me a genius
So what you’re saying is we’re winning because orange ball go in basket?
It means “don’t blame me. I coached circles against brown. Blame my bum ass players who choked”.
“If we played most teams the way we played we’d win the series most of the time” which means nothing at all.
i’d honestly love to see the data that supports this lol he sorta invokes expected FG% but was that accounting for shot quality (openness of look, defender etc)? what about the possession battle, they’ve outrebounded us a little i believe but we’ve turned over the ball less. i simply don’t think the “analytics” would actually back up the idea the Cavs have won 2 out of the last 3 in actuality… maybe game 1
Posted this elsewhere in thread. Knicks are an ELITE midrange team (Brunson, Bridges, even KAT/OG). All NBA podcast analyzed their midrange data for the whole season, 36th percentile quality but 90th percentile when you adjust for who is taking the shots. These are “bad shots” but not “bad Knicks shots”
So this is like a coach saying they held SGA to mid range pullups instead of paint shots and 3s which are the least efficient in the league. Without mentioning he’s the most efficient at taking them.
Literally yes
hilarious if true
“we got them right where we want them, playing to their strengths”
I appreciate people responding to bad analytics with good analytics. Because spiritually I agree with Atkinson that if you have good process but bad outcomes that’s important to distinguish, but that relies on you actually having good process.
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No. Absolutely not. What? House analytic teams and outsource analytics companies have extremely sophisticated shot charts that take virtually every variable into account in a multivariate analyis (off the dribble, moving forward, step back, driving left, driving right, what play was it a part of, what direction they turn to set up for the shot, how far away the defender is, how tall the defender is, is the distance closing or static, etc.). For each shot attempt in the game, you assign an expected value to each shot attempt adjusting for the differential of how the defender performs against league average in similar scenarios. Add them up for each shot attempt, adjust for rebounds, and you have an expected point total for each team. He is saying the Knicks are exceeding their expected point total and the Cavs are falling behind in theirs.
SGA would have a different mid range chart than say, Lu Dort, so he would get assigned more expected points in identical scenarios. Of course billion dollar franchises are smart enough to differentiate Amen Thompson taking a 3 from Steph Curry taking a 3.
interesting data, nice comment
I was actually talking to my buddy a couple of years ago and I was like, if the game becomes layups and 3s, defenses will adjust so that wings will run the shooters off the 3 and force a drive, then you’d have either a center to contest at the rim or rotate help from the weak side if they’re running a 5-out lineup (obviously, harder in practice, but the idea is there). And if that’s the case, the midrange all of sudden becomes much more important because that’s what the defense is essentially conceding.
A few weeks later I was listening to a podcast and they discussed the very same thing. And it’s kind of interesting to see it play out with the Knicks who are killing it from midrange and the rim.
This has been in action for quite a while - When Embiid won MVP, he basically did it from the mid-range.
Statistics said that a mid-range shot wasn’t worth taking unless you could hit it 66% of the time, or something, and that’s exactly what Embiid was doing that year.
Shots are only ever bad if you miss them at a rate that hurts your team - Kenny Atkinson is trusting the analytics who say that them jacking up threes compared to the Knicks’ mid-range shots should be winning them the series.
3-point shooting basically closes the gap in games 2⁄3. Cavs shoot 36% on the year from 3, and shot like 23 and 29% in those games. If the Cavs hit 4-6 more threes to be average, that basically closes the point differential. There’s also the Cavs shooting worse than expected from the foul line.
In reality, this is probably fatigue taking the legs out from under the Cavs shooters.
And why are they fatigued? Because they had to push consecutive series to 7 games because they’re a deeply flawed team.
I know him. He (used to be ) me.
This is what hasn’t been talked about. They’ve played every day for almost a month now. They’re gassed.
Sure but that’s against average quality NBA teams vs a conference final team. They would be expected to shoot under their season average
Justin Herbert hypothetically or the Cavs analytically?
Feels more like lakers moral victories
Mr If
We’ve been waiting for Herbert to play like a generational QB for half a decade. He does have generational PR though
What if Herbert >>>
This dude is on a all time run of bad quotes this series.
I like Atkinson in general, but this man is losing his mind.
i honestly can’t tell whats up with him. i haven’t heard him say so much bullshit since he got in cleveland and in the last week he’s said an incredible amount of stupid stuff
It’s crazy because I honestly don’t think Kenny is a bad coach, but he is having legitimately one of the worst series I have ever seen out of someone in a conference finals. The Game 1 choke might’ve actually given him brain damage
i always thought a big mistake from the KD nets was firing this dude
i no longer think that
He’s clueless
its insane people try to glaze that pre-KD Nets team so much. KD made the right choice firing Kenny and trading Jarrett “lights too bright” Allen
KD-Nets win a title if even one of Kyrie/Harden didn’t get injured
If Kenny wants to even coach middle school ball next season, he should stop doing interviews until he hires a PR agent. My god man…read the room.
And what about realistically Kenny?
Realistically we’ve won 1 game if by “realistically” you mean that its realistic that the head coach of a team in the conference finals should know how to take timeouts to stop runs and swap out traffic cone defenders
realistically this series was over at the end of game 1
This is also not true. As an analytics guy, analytics are great but can easily be misused. This statement is true in general but incorrect when you drill down. Knicks are an ELITE midrange team (Brunson, Bridges, even KAT/OG). All NBA analyzed their midrange data for the whole season, 36th percentile quality but 90th percentile when you adjust for who is taking the shots. These are “bad shots” but not “bad Knicks shots”
Yeah, the Knicks have outplayed them in games 2 and 3, the only game that you can make an argument that the Cavs were the better team was game 1, and well, we know how that went…
I mean you can say that, but a fadeaway baseline mid range jumper even with the backboard with a hand up to defend it is just an objectively worse shot than a wide open noone else on the screen 3 point shot and knicks have made more of the former than the cavs have made of the latter, despite i would say higher volume for the cavs.
Yeah, I am not saying there weren’t some tough looks in there even for the Knicks lineup. My point is context neutral eFG stats don’t represent the individual player eFG.
You’re also assuming teams don’t have custom analytics that reflect individual players
He should be fired for the quotes alone
yada yada lamp post
This is an all time quote, Cavaliers will be hated on with this for the rest of life lol.
not sure he’s a member of the organization much longer
i wouldn’t go that far. But it’ll definitely be a meme
I feel bad for him here, honestly.
This is his exit interview with Cleveland and his job interview with the next team and he’s going with winning analytically.
Kenny been hitting that bottle hard
Whole franchise is a joke
tbf they bested 26 other franchises this year
Dont piss me off kenny man
Sometimes you need a balance of pra and analytics. Never go full analytics
dude’s ten hag 2.0
He’s sounding like Arne Slot
I mean I’ve never seen Kenny Atkinson and Arne Slot in the same room. Maybe Kenny is wearing a wig.
If he starts rambling about the Strait of Hormuz and throwing his players under the bus, we’ll know they’re the same person. Just weirdly incapable of taking any sort of personal responsibility or acknowledging that the other team is outplaying you.
This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard
analytically im married to ana de armas.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
Bad move to make yourself into a copy pasta like this for no reason
This dude legit looks like he’s tweaking. He’s giving Adam Gase Jets introductory press conference vibes
I’m more impressed by the team that analytically lost 2 out of 3
I think he’s accepted that he’s not coming back next season
Dude is outsmarting himself.
Bro has been dropping some legendary quotes this series. Up there with Darvin Ham.
What should he say? Yes I could have called a timeout during a big run in game one, sure. That’s on me. Know what’s NOT on me? Our stars playing selfish dogshit ball and quitting like little babies for the last 9 quarters of ball.
Our “superstar” leader? Game2 and 3?
5-17 on threes(about 0.29% lol)
MORE turnovers than assists
total +/- of -30(lol)
HALF the TRB of his season average
And harden lol. The guy could literally be playing with a broken leg in a cast and it wouldn’t impact his “defense”…at all. And some cavs fans were saying “we HAVE to trade away our young all-star point guard because he could be “hunted” on 1v1 matchups on defense by some teams”
lol. Hardens lateral movement and effort make garland look like prime gary payton.
All atkinson is trying to do is deflect all of the criticism from the stars(babies) who have played like ass. Thats it.
This guys hilarious. His interviews are like snl sketches for a coach trying to get fired
how’s this for analytics: 3 is a bigger number than 0, and so is 4
Is he losing his mind? Lmfao
Oh he’s gone, gone
Analytically my wife never left me
I’ve had enough of this guy.
wtf? If you’re gonna get swept at least don’t say shit like this
Larry David if he was an NBA coach
Reminds me of Paul Millsap’s “Internally, we felt like we won the game”
something about drunk lamp posts…
Analytically you’re down 0-3 in the series.
Analytically, you’re down 3-0 coach lol
Analytically, my job is completely safe
The fuck is he talking about
We gotta get this guy some PR training.
Does he not like his job?
Analytics is a lamppost. You can lean on it but it doesn’t get you home.
Analytics “They’re a lamppost to a drunk person”
Analytically I’m married to ice spice
Damn I miss Mike brown
And that, kids, is what we call delusion.
That Josh hart quote about analytics would be fitting in this situation
So 2 analytical victories and 1 Moral victory, Sounds like the Knicks are in trouble then