Latest news with #physicality
National Post
23-05-2025
- Sport
- National Post
Edmonton Oilers' counterpunch better be up to the task against Stars
Special teams can be hit or miss. Sometimes goalies can steal a game. Other times a team can get a lead and then lock the door on defence. Article content Article content This is the playoffs and anything can happen. It's point-counterpoint for head coaches once they get behind the bench to square off in what might as well be a chess battle on ice. Article content But one thing a team can't live without is ever-present physicality. No if they want to keep progressing down their playoff path, at least. Article content Leave that factor out of the equation and the math starts adding up the wrong way. Really fast. Article content After all, there is no point to the whole point-counterpoint thing if the other guys are going to answer back with punch-counterpunch. Article content It doesn't matter how well your power play has been doing if you all of a sudden find yourself lying down, looking up at the other team's penalty kill. Or the other way around, as the case may be. Article content And even if special teams or other areas of your game aren't exactly clipping along as expected, throwing the body around might just open up some much-needed ice to get things back on track. Article content Exhibit No. 1: The Edmonton Oilers went without Evander Kane for the entire regular season, with the intent of getting him surgically repaired and back to full health in time for a big playoff push. Article content And push he has through the first two rounds, looking like a carefree youngster with a spring in his step as he launched into opposing players who have already endured 82 regular-season games and are reaching deeper into the tank to try and last the post-season. Article content Article content 'It's good to feel good, obviously,' said Kane, who was playing through a sports hernia in last year's playoffs, to the point where he had to take a seat three games into the Stanley Cup Final. Article content So, things didn't exactly begin all that smoothly early on against the Dallas Stars in the Western Conference final. The best-of-seven series gives the Edmonton Oilers another chance to push back. Article content There is a reason, after all, they play best-of-seven series. And there's also a reason it's called pushing back. Article content 'Regardless of what the other team's doing in any facet of the game, when it comes to physicality we want to be just as physical as we normally are,' Kane said. 'And I think as the series goes on, I'm sure it will continue to ramp up. You saw it a little bit at the end of the last game, but they're a team that obviously is using their power play to their advantage right now and it won them Game 1.' Article content Of course, there is a fine line when it comes to physicality and pushing the pedal to the metal in the playoffs. Cross it, and you can wind up in the penalty box, which can prove nothing short of a death sentence against a team like Dallas.
National Post
15-05-2025
- Sport
- National Post
B.C. Lions training camp: Can a taskmaster in Buck Pierce toughen up these Leos?
Article content Rourke will get limited snaps Monday, with most of them going to Masoli and Brice. And McEvoy had appreciation for what both bring to the table. Article content 'That's the reason why we brought Jeremiah, and it's just to be a very confident voice at the end of the day,' he said. 'Nathan is still a young quarterback. He's played his 10 games with us, and then got hurt unfortunately. He did the NFL tour … and now he's back. So the reality is, he's a young quarterback. Article content 'And I'm happy for a guy like Chase Brice. He's in a position that it would be easy for someone to come here and see the guys in front of him and just throw up your hands and say, 'I guess it's over. I'm not going to be on this team. And let's move on.' He hasn't done that. He's competed and made us all realize that, 'Hey, we have a guy. This guy's played at a high level.' ' Article content The term 'physicality' was a buzzword for the Lions' front office staff when they talked about this team's identity. They needed a fierceness, an edge that they felt was lacking. Article content The pads were broken out for the first time earlier this week, and linebacker Micah Awe was glad to strap them back on. Article content Article content 'The pads come on, and it's not war, but it's as close as you can get to in sports,' he said Wednesday. 'Football is like the gladiators back in the day … (It's) not necessarily about touchdowns and all these big-time things. It's about tackling, blocking, running — it's all of it. And so is being physical.' Article content But the reality is, it's still camp. Players aren't going full out. They're learning how to play with Pierce's physical mindset, but also being professional about it, which means taking care not to injure or put their teammates in harm's way. Article content That, of course, will change Monday against the Stamps. Article content 'Every team wants to get more physical, but until we go on to the field and play someone else, it's easy to tee off on guys we're not even hitting,' said McEvoy. 'I know we have pads on, but in reality, no one's being taken to the ground. No one's breaking tackles because no one's tackling. So until we play a pre-season game and really get into the regular season, when it really, really means it, that's when we're really going to know how physical our football team is and what type of physicality we have.' Article content A couple dozen names have already been peeled off the Lions' training camp roster. Article content They had to get down to 85 by May 10, and dropped down to 75 by May 13. The final 46-man roster won't be set in stone until the start of the regular season. Article content Despite having 100 bodies to start with, it hasn't been easy for Pierce and Co. to make their choices, nor would he give his opinion on the roster hot spots. Article content 'There are no easy decisions. There's a lot of talent here. (General manager Ryan Rigmaiden and McEvoy) have done a good job of bringing a lot of talent in. The CFL mandates that we've got to be to certain numbers at certain times. And there's competition everywhere, and that's the message. Article content 'I'm not going to single out any specific position — there's competition everywhere. Everybody's competing at a high level. Everybody's putting their best foot forward and understanding that this is what training camp is for. Article content 'Camp, in my mind, is coming together as a team. Finding out about who we are and establishing that foundation for the season. Article content 'It's also about evaluation as well,' he said, looking ahead to Monday. 'That's what the pre-season is; what guys do when they're called upon in those type of moments.' Article content 4. RUNNING AWAY WITH IT Article content James Butler III, who returned to B.C. after two years in Hamilton, is the early front-runner to be the starting running back. He's got an established relationship and chemistry with Rourke, and pointed out his best years were playing with the Canadian pivot. His four-touchdown-in-one-half performance against the Elks in 2022 seems to back that up. Article content Of course, chemistry with Rourke didn't help Quadree Ollison, who was cut earlier this week. The former Jacksonville Jaguar was on the receiving end of Rourke's viral touchdown in the pre-season in 2023. Article content Jason Huntley, who was brought in as a returner, has stuck it out with the running backs as well, and Xander Horvath — a Mike Alstott clone with size, speed and power — is in the mix also. Those three are expected to see heavy rotation against the Stamps. Article content 'I like all our backs in camp right now,' said Pierce. 'James looks really good. He's picking up the verbiage really well. He's got a familiarity with a lot of our calls upfront, some of the O-linemen he's played with already. Article content 'They all bring a little bit of something different … We're in the process of looking at what they do well. It's our job as coaches to identify those things and see how they fit. They're all talented. They all do specific things extremely well. Article content Article content Article content Article content
New York Times
08-05-2025
- Sport
- New York Times
Have these NBA playoffs really been more physical? The numbers may surprise you
I traveled to seven NBA playoff games in five cities over the past two weeks, and if there was one word I heard over and over again in talking with coaches, execs and players, it was' physicality.' Multiple coaches have mentioned physicality during these playoffs; Minnesota's Chris Finch the day after Game 1 against Golden State, Cleveland's Kenny Atkinson following Game 1 against Indiana and Denver's David Adelman after Game 6 against the Clippers are a few that come to mind, and I'm sure those aren't the only ones. However, that's just scratching the surface. Advertisement In moments not meant for public consumption, the wording has been more strident. There's a feeling that too much is being let go, that it's a dangerous recipe for something bad to happen on the court and that the refs need to reel it back in. One thing that has struck me, however, is that the coaches, execs and observers feel a lot more strongly than the players. My admittedly non-comprehensive survey of players has been met with, if not a shoulder shrug, a notion that they don't care about physicality as much as consistency. 'Honestly, I feel like the postseason is always physical,' the Clippers' Norman Powell said after their Game 6 win over Denver. 'They let things slide, they let you play and they let the best of the best win.' 'It's hard to compare,' Minnesota's Rudy Gobert said before Game 5 of the Wolves' first-round series in Los Angeles. 'But (this year) does feel, yeah, it's very physical. I think it's always been about the consistency. … The games have been physical; we can feel the intensity.' Obviously, 'physicality' can have a lot of elements, and not all of them necessarily favor the defense. Is more contact being allowed around the basket? Are officials giving screeners more leeway to throw an extra limb into a defender? Are they allowing defenders to ride ballhandlers up the court or bear-hug cutters? Is it a free-for-all under the glass once a shot goes up? With those questions in mind, two plays from Game 1 of the Cavaliers-Pacers series stood out. The first was this no-call on Jarrett Allen's dunk, where he caught a high elbow to the chest from Myles Turner en route to the rim, fell awkwardly and didn't seem to be himself the rest of the night. The second, more subtle one, was this eight-second violation call against Ty Jerome. It was the first eight-second call I can remember that didn't involve a deflection or a brain cramp. Aaron Nesmith was able to keep a forearm on Jerome and maintain contact as he came up the floor, and Jerome just couldn't get very far. I'm not picking on Indiana; these were just two plays I wrote down in my notes while watching Game 1. I'm sure some plays went against the Pacers that their fans will gladly remind everyone about. I also flagged that Jerome-Nesmith play because I've heard complaints that the level of contact being permitted against dribblers advancing upcourt has been particularly noticeable. Advertisement At any rate, one can imagine all of those elements impacting the game in different ways, but much of the vitriol I've heard is focused on shooting fouls around the basket, or the lack thereof. Yes, shooting fouls are down, and I'll get into that more in a minute. But first, I'll note that it seems an odd tack for the league to take: If it's worried about too many 3-point attempts, allowing more contact in the paint would theoretically make paint 2s harder and thus incentivize more 3-point shots. Alas, that doesn't seem to be how it works in the yin and yang of the NBA, where every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Maybe if paint 2s are tougher to finish, teams have to send less help from the corners, and thus it becomes harder to generate catch-and-shoot 3s. More to the point, the league-wide 3-point rate in the postseason is slightly down from the regular season (41.3 percent of attempts from 42.1 percent entering Wednesday's games), perhaps in part due to the Orlando Magic's draconian efforts to eliminate Boston's 3-point game. But I'm burying the lede a bit, because the 3s are a second-order effect of physicality, and we're looking for the first-order effects. In an average NBA season, slightly more than half the playoff games will be in the first round (there are 15 total series, and we're already done with eight of them), so it's a good time to examine the playoff trend line. We have a few second-round games thrown in for good measure. (All data is entering Wednesday's games.) Here's the thing: I can't really find anything in the numbers to suggest that these playoffs have been any more physical than the last two. Fouls and free throws have both increased from the regular season. Those alone are a bad indicator, as they can be skewed by late-game take fouls (hello, Thunder fans) and hack-a strategies (take a bow, Mitchell Robinson and Steven Adams), both of which are historically more common in the playoffs. Advertisement However, the big picture isn't that different. This postseason doesn't seem unusual. If anything, it's the last three postseasons that are the outlier, compared to everything else that came before it. These last three playoffs have featured much worse 2-point shooting and much lower true shooting percentages compared to the regular season of the same year and stable 3-point rates. That's in stark contrast to the ones before them, which featured more whistles, more 3-point attempts and no decline in offensive efficiency from the regular season. To map out what those differences look like from year to year, I've made the following chart that shows the changes in some of those stats from the regular season to the postseason. Also, to make the complicated task of subtraction easier, I created a new stat called 'THE DIFF,' which is simply the difference between the two numbers. I'm pretty sure this has never been attempted before in the history of mathematics or by any regional television network. As you can see, offense has declined in the playoffs during the last four years, and it might surprise you to learn that's a new phenomenon. From 2015 to 2022, free-throw rates went up, and 2-point percentages held steady in the playoffs, but the last three years have seen it become much harder to convert inside the arc. This season's gap is the biggest on the chart, and, in nominal terms, the 52.5 percent mark on 2s is the lowest since before the pandemic. There's another thing going on here that isn't getting as much attention: Holy Mike Fratello, have these games become slow. The pace factor across the last two postseasons has dipped by over five possessions per game per team, which is even more than the usual 'things slow down in the playoffs' we saw in all the previous postseasons. That, perhaps, solves our 'physicality' problem, or at least the perception of it. Those types of games naturally see more contact than end-to-end transition play — Game 1 of Boston-Orlando had only 90 possessions a side, for instance. Of course it was physical. In today's postseason, as former Grizzlies legend Zach Randolph once proudly declared, 'We in the mud.' That said, playoff games were even slower last season, even with Indiana making the conference finals. You can probably blame some of that on the Dallas Mavericks slamming the brakes to let Luka Dončić cook; they played a league-high 22 playoff games. But the Mavs weren't notably slower than, say, the Knicks, Wolves or Celtics. I'm not on the floor playing, so I'm not going to tell you definitively that the physicality hasn't changed in the 2025 postseason relative to previous ones. All I'm saying is that it's hard to find concrete evidence if you go looking for it. Statistically, these playoffs look virtually identical to the last two, and if you're searching for a turning point, it's in the 2023 playoffs, not this year's. Advertisement Whether the change is officiating, schemes or some combination of the two, it does seem to have had the side effect of likely increasing physicality in recent postseasons. That's because it has slowed the game down considerably and hurt 2-point shooting percentages. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, we'll put off for another day. But it's definitely a thing. (Illustration: Demetrius Robinson / The Athletic; top photos: Ethan Miller, Maddie Meyer, Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu / Getty Images)
