L.A. Clippers Versus Phoenix Preview
Western Conference Finals
#4 L.A. Clippers (47-25) vs. #2 Phoenix (51-31)
Season series: L.A. Clippers, 2-1
Phoenix can win if…Deandre Ayton, Devin Booker, and Chris Paul continue to score so efficiently. Their marksmanship enabled the Suns to eliminate the 2020 NBA Champion Lakers in the first round, and then sweep last year's other Western Conference Finalist, the Denver Nuggets, in the second round.
However, Paul's status for the series is uncertain after the NBA placed him in COVID-19 quarantine. It appears that Paul will miss at least game one, although neither the Suns nor the NBA have definitely ruled him out for Sunday's contest. Paul suffered a shoulder injury during the first round that limited his effectiveness versus the Lakers, but the Suns survived because of their depth, and because the Lakers had their own injury woes that took Anthony Davis out of the lineup and that seemed to limit LeBron James' ability to take over. It will be interesting to see how the Suns respond if Paul is not available for at least part of the Western Conference Finals.
L.A. will win because…the Clippers have demonstrated that they should never be counted out. In the first round versus Dallas they lost the first two games at home before winning the series in seven games. In the second round, they lost the first two games on the road versus the number one seeded Utah Jazz before winning the next four games, including the last two without the services of injured two-time Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard. The Clippers have provided no indication of how long Leonard will be out of action, simply listing him as inactive prior to each of the last two games.
It was reasonable to assume that the Clippers would fall apart without Leonard, but instead they beat Utah in Utah in game five as Paul George authored perhaps the best playoff performance of his career with 37 points and 16 rebounds. George cooled off a bit in game six, but still produced 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. The improbable game six hero was Terance Mann, whose 39 points were more than he had ever scored in a single game in the NBA or college. Mann shot 15-21 from the field, including 7-10 from three point range. The Jazz repeatedly chose to leave him open in order to protect the paint, and Mann made them pay as the Clippers shredded a Jazz defense anchored by Rudy Gobert, a three-time winner of the Defensive Player of the Year award (2018, 2019, 2021). The Clippers overcame a 25 point deficit by draining 14 second half three pointers—setting a franchise record for three pointers made in one half—and scoring 81 second half points en route to pulling off the biggest comeback in a series clinching win in the past 25 years.
The Clippers' second half three point shooting is not sustainable, but the Clippers pose matchup problems for the Suns at both ends of the court.
Other things to consider: I did not predict that Paul would play as well as he played against Denver because he has never played at that level before. I will go out on a limb and predict that he does not play at that level in this series.
It is interesting to observe the media coverage of certain players and coaches. Clippers' Coach Tyronn Lue has already won a championship (Cleveland, 2016) but his rotations and general decision making are often criticized by self-proclaimed experts. While it may be fair to ask why his team has twice fallen behind 2-0 in the playoffs this year, it is undeniable that a poorly coached team would not have bounced back to win those series. Lue defeated Rick Carlisle—a highly respected championship-winning coach—in the first round, and then he defeated Quin Snyder—a highly respected coach of the team with the league's best record in 2021—in the second round. Any other coach who accomplished this would be highly praised, but for some reason the media acts like Lue's teams win despite his coaching instead of because of his coaching.
Can the Clippers reach the NBA Finals without Leonard? In 1999, a lockout-shortened 50 game season, the New York Knicks went 27-23 and then lost the services of leading scorer Patrick Ewing to a season-ending injury during game two of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Knicks won that series versus the Indiana Pacers before succumbing to the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals. Considering Paul George's inconsistent playoff resume and the Clippers' history of postseason disappointments, one would not have expected the Clippers to have a chance against Utah without Leonard, but this team has proven to be quite resilient, and this year's playoffs have provided many unexpected plot twists.
I never expected to write these words even before Leonard's injury, and I definitely did not expect to write these words after Leonard's injury, but L.A. will defeat Phoenix in six games.
Labels: Chris Paul, Deandre Ayton, Devin Booker, Paul George, Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz
posted by David Friedman @ 1:41 AM
Bucks Never Trail, Force Game Seven Versus Nets
The two best words in sports are "Game Seven" and that is what we will have on Saturday when the Milwaukee Bucks visit the Brooklyn Nets to determine which team will advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. The Bucks defeated the Nets 104-89 just two days after falling victim to Kevin Durant's historic, dominant game five performance. It is amusing to watch and listen to commentators overreact to the outcome of each game in a playoff series; the oft-mentioned "momentum" in a playoff series is overrated, because playoff series are decided by matchups, not by the outcome of any particular game--other than game seven, obviously: the game seven winner wins the series 100% of the time! The team that most consistently exploits their matchup advantages will win a seven game series, but very few series will end in sweeps, so it should not be surprising when the inferior team wins one game or even more than one game--and when the teams are evenly matched, it should not be surprising that the series goes the distance, even if some of the games are decided by more than 10 points.
The two main matchup nightmares in this series are two-time regular season MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo and one time regular season MVP/two-time Finals MVP Kevin Durant. In game six, Antetokounmpo scored 30 points, grabbed a game-high 17 rebounds, shot 12-20 from the field, and did not attempt a three pointer. That last statistic may be the most important: few, if any, players can stop Antetokounmpo when he attacks the hoop, and the Nets do not have anyone who can keep Antetokounmpo out of the paint when he is determined to attack. Durant finished with 30 points and 11 rebounds while shooting 15-30 from the field, which is a great performance for just about any other player and a better than average performance even for him--but not quite the masterful level that he reached in game five. The two superstars essentially canceled each other out--albeit with different playing styles--and the difference was that Khris Middleton scored a playoff career-high 38 points while grabbing 10 rebounds, passing for five assists, and swiping five steals. In contrast, only two Nets other than Durant scored in double figures--James Harden (16 points) and Blake Griffin (12 points)--and they combined to score 10 less than Middleton did. Jrue Holiday, who like Middleton has had an up and down series, added 21 points, though he shot just 8-21 from the field (including 1-10 from three point range). Before the series, it was reasonable to assume that over the course of seven games Antetokounmpo and Durant would perform at similar levels and the outcome would be decided by Middelton/Holiday versus Kyrie Irving/James Harden. With Irving out of action due to injury and Harden limited due to injury, the Bucks enjoy matchup advantages, but they must exploit those advantages in order to win.
Many media members love binary narratives--someone has to be the hero and someone has to be the goat--but the reality is rarely that simple. Here, Durant and Antetokounmpo are both all-time great players, but one of them is going to lose in the second round this season and--unless one of them lays an egg in game seven--it cannot honestly be said that either one has played poorly or should be blamed if his team loses. In the 1980s, when Magic beat Bird or Bird beat Magic, intelligent people understood that the "loser" one year had not suddenly become a bum (though there were some overreaction takes back then, too), and regardless of which star is eliminated on Saturday we should not draw sweeping conclusions about that player's skill set, career, and legacy.
Durant is a "made man" in the sense that he is a two-time NBA champion, but unless/until he wins another title some people will assert that his rings are "tainted" because he joined a Warriors team that had already won a title. I don't like the way that Durant has jumped from team to team, but I have enough sense and objectivity to understand that his two rings "count."
Unless/until Antetokounmpo wins a title, he will be criticized as a player who "cannot win the big one." Any great player who does not win a championship early in his career is tagged with that label. Michael Jordan dealt with that, and so did LeBron James. I look at things differently: I look less at whether or not a player has won a ring and more at whether or not he has the necessary skill set and mentality to do so. Antetokounmpo is a seven footer who is a dominant paint scorer, an elite rebounder, an elite defensive player, and an above average passer. It makes no sense to assert that he "cannot win the big one." He cannot win the big one by himself, but no player can or ever has. He needs the right coaching, the right supporting cast, and a little bit of good fortune (almost every championship run features that, in the form of teams faced/avoided, injuries suffered/avoided, and so forth).
Antetokounmpo seems to have a championship-level supporting cast around him, but those guys have at least as much to prove in game seven as he does. Middleton has been great at home but mediocre at best on the road in this series. Holiday is a scorer/playmaker/defender who has seemed out of sorts for much of this series. If Middleton and Holiday disappear in game seven, the Bucks will lose even if Antetokounmpo scores 40 or 50 points.
Middleton in particular has the necessary size, skill set and talent to have a big impact in game seven. Antetokounmpo and Middleton have each had at least one 30 point/10 rebound game in this series. The only other duo in NBA playoff history to accomplish that feat is Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant as their L.A. Lakers defeated the Sacramento Kings 4-3 in the 2002 Western Conference Finals. Think about that for a moment: Antetokounmpo is a dominant paint scorer and rebounder, while Middleton is a sharpshooting wing who can also rebound and defend. With Holiday as a third option, they have the potential to win not just one title but multiple titles. Remember that before O'Neal and Bryant won three straight titles they had to overcome a double digit fourth quarter deficit in game seven of the 2000 Western Conference Finals. If O'Neal and Bryant had lost that game would that have proven that they could never win a title? You can bet that some hot takes to that effect were being written during that fourth quarter but never saw the light of day after the Lakers came back to win that game.
The formula for a Bucks' victory in game seven goes something like this: attack the paint, shoot three pointers judiciously but accurately, limit Durant to 35 points or less without giving up easy shots to his teammates, and get 85-90 points from the Antetokounmpo/Middleton/Holiday trio. In the Bucks' three home wins in this series, they have held the Nets to 83, 96, and 89 points, but in the Bucks' three road losses the Nets have exploded for 115, 125, and 114 points. The Bucks have yet to score 110 points in a game this series, and they will almost certainly lose game seven if they let the Nets score more than 110 points. The Bucks have more size and--assuming Kyrie Irving is not able to play in game seven--a bit more depth than the Nets; it is axiomatic that any playoff team should score in transition whenever possible, because it is so difficult to score against good playoff teams, but in general the Bucks benefit from pounding the Nets in the paint, which will wear down the Nets and take away some of their sharpness on offense.
The formula for a Nets' victory in game seven goes something like this: Durant explodes for 40 points with efficient shooting, at least three other Nets score in double figures (Blake Griffin, Jeff Green, James Harden, or Joe Harris are the most likely candidates), and the Nets score at least 110 points while holding down Middleton and Holiday, and enticing Antetokounmpo to settle for shots outside of the paint.
If both teams play their best game then the Bucks will win a close game. The key question/mystery is whether or not Antetokounmpo's supporting cast can produce something close to their best games on the road in an elimination game. I picked the Bucks before the series began, and I am not one of those "hot take" charlatans who changes his pick as a series progresses. Game seven will be fascinating, though the postgame overreactions--regardless of who wins--will be annoying.
Labels: Brooklyn Nets, Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden, Jrue Holiday, Kevin Durant, Khris Middleton, Milwaukee Bucks
posted by David Friedman @ 12:48 AM
Both Number One Seeds Are on the Brink of Elimination
The best thing about sports is the unscripted drama: you may think that you know what should happen or what will happen, but each player and team has an opportunity to flip that script and create a different outcome. We just saw two examples of this during Wednesday's game fives.
In the first, Eastern Conference number one seed Philadelphia scored 38 first quarter points, built a 26 point second half lead, and then collapsed down the stretch to lose at home 109-106 to the upstart Atlanta Hawks. Joel Embiid finished with 37 points and 13 rebounds, but for the second game in a row he was silent down the stretch as the 76ers crumbled. Atlanta now leads the series 3-2 and can advance to the Eastern Conference Finals with a home win on Friday night.
Then, Western Conference number one seed Utah nailed a franchise playoff record 10 first quarter three pointers and took a 65-60 halftime lead versus the L.A. Clippers, who were without the services of injured two-time Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard. Paul George authored perhaps the best performance of his playoff career, tallying 37 points and 16 rebounds as the Clippers pulled off the improbable upset. If the Jazz have a weakness, it is relying too much on the three point shot. As I have explained many times about various players and teams, the three pointer is a high variance shot: if you shoot 5-20 from three point range in one game and 10-20 from three point range in the next game that works out to a very good overall percentage, but you will almost certainly lose the first game and you may not win the second game. A championship team must be able to fall back on something other than just making a lot of three pointers, such as playing great defense and/or the ability to consistently score in the paint. Against the Clippers in game five, the Jazz shot 20-54 from three point range--a very good long distance shooting percentage of .370 that is just a tick below their .389 regular season three point shooting percentage that ranked fifth in the league--but their blazing 17-30 first half three point shooting fizzled to 3-24 second half three point shooting, and they were not able to score enough from other areas or get enough stops to defeat a lower seeded team missing their best player. L.A. is up 3-2, and the Clippers can reach the Western Conference Finals with a home win on Friday night.
I picked both number one seeds to win in this round, and I picked Utah to make it to the NBA Finals. Both of Wednesday's results surprised me, but Utah's loss is more surprising even though the 76ers squandered a much larger lead. The Jazz are a complete team at both ends of the court, and they are healthy with the exception of Mike Conley, who is a valuable player but should not be an indispensable player--particularly when the Clippers were missing Leonard, who has arguably been the best and most consistent player in the 2021 playoffs (30.4 ppg on .573 field goal shooting, a combination of postseason productivity and accuracy that one would expect from a dominant center like Shaquille O'Neal or Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, not a wing player).
The reason that the 76ers' collapse does not surprise me is that this team was built on a faulty premise, and acquired its two best players--Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons--through fraudulent means. Contrary to the title of a recent book, the 76ers have not tanked to the top (that book belongs in the fiction section, not nonfiction); they intentionally lost for several seasons in a row to acquire a duo that has yet to lead the team past the second round of the playoffs. There is no question that Embiid is a gifted player, but he has spent most of his career struggling to stay in shape and stay healthy (there is perhaps a connection between those two issues). Embiid can fill up a box score, but can he dominate a playoff series against a good team such that his team wins the series? Embiid's overall numbers versus Atlanta look great, but you need a microscope to find the biggest man on the court when the game enters crunch time.
The statistical evidence proves that tanking does not work but the raw numbers do not explain why it does not work. A major reason why tanking does not work is that tanking inevitably involves creating and accepting as normative a losing culture, and that mindset is difficult to break; think about the biblical story of the Hebrew slaves wandering around in the desert for 40 years until the entire generation that had a slave mentality died off: once you have developed a slave mentality or a losing mentality, it is almost impossible to change without just changing the personnel. Embiid and Simmons were both part of the 76ers' infamous "Process." This is different than Isiah Thomas' Detroit Pistons learning to win; the Pistons were always trying to win and they were building the right mindset and habits, but they just needed to add more talent. In contrast, the 76ers were intentionally putting teams on the court that they knew had no chance to win. Look at the 76ers now: they have All-Star/All-NBA caliber talent at multiple positions, yet when its winning time they fold, and that has been a problem for years. Embiid and Simmons spent the early portion of their careers playing in (or watching, when they were injured) games in which each possession was not valued and winning was not the top priority, so when they are thrust into playoff situations when each possession matters a lot and winning is the only priority they are not prepared to succeed.
So why did I pick the 76ers to win this series? I thought that their talent advantage would be enough in this matchup to overcome their mindset deficiencies--and it still may be enough, but I would not give the 76ers much of a chance to beat Brooklyn or Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference Finals; Kevin Durant is such a playoff killer he might be able to take four retired Nets and knock off the weak-minded 76ers!
These 76ers in no way resemble my favorite NBA team of all-time, the 1983 76ers of "The Doctor, Big Mo, Little Mo, Andrew Toney, Iavaroni--no baloney, Sixers all the way." Julius "Dr. J" Erving led the 76ers to three NBA Finals appearances (1977, 1980, 1982) in his first six years with the franchise, but in that era you had to have an All-Star--if not Hall of Fame--center to win a title. Erving did not complain or whine or try to force his way out; he did the best he could every year with the team that he had, and after the 76ers acquired Moses Malone via trade Erving ceded his "office" on the left block for the good of the team as Philadelphia had one of the most dominant seasons ever: 65-17 regular season, record-setting 12-1 playoff run culminating in a 4-0 sweep of the L.A. Lakers, the team of the decade (winners of five NBA titles in the 1980s). Erving's 76ers built a winning culture--they had the best regular season record in the NBA from 1976-83--and after they added the final piece they became perhaps the greatest single season NBA team of all-time.
These 76ers tried to rig the system, and the same thing is true in any sport: you mess with the game, and the game will mess with you.
All of that being said, it is important to remember that neither series is over. The underdogs have the advantage, but if they fail to win at home then the favorites will have the opportunity to close out the series at home. There are still more pages to be written in both unscripted dramas, and that is the best thing about sports.
Labels: Atlanta Hawks, L.A. Clippers, Philadelphia 76ers, Utah Jazz
posted by David Friedman @ 3:36 AM
The 2021 All-NBA Teams Give Full Honors for Part-Time Work
Most people do not receive honors for high performance after showing up to work 75% of the time or less, but this year an international panel of 100 media members decided to bestow All-NBA Team recognition upon several part-time NBA players. The historical standard for MVP winners is to play in at least 85% of the scheduled games, with Bill Walton (1978 NBA regular season MVP winner despite playing in only 58 out of 82 games) as the only exception. A similar standard should be applied to the All-NBA Team (which would equate to 61 games in 2020-21's 72 game season), but six of the 15 members of this season's three All-NBA Teams played 54 games or less: Kyrie Irving (54), Paul George (54), Jimmy Butler (52), Kawhi Leonard (52), Joel Embiid (51), and LeBron James (45).
This is not about which players have had the best careers, or even which players have the best overall skill sets; the All-NBA Team voting should be about which players performed the best and had the most impact during a particular season--and when a player misses a significant portion of the season that player's impact is minimized, regardless of how impressive his statistics are.
Russell Westbrook received the most votes at guard among players who did not make the All-NBA Team. Westbrook averaged 22.2 ppg, 11.7 apg (first in the league), and 11.5 rpg (sixth in the league). It is very unusual for the assist champion to not make the All-NBA Team; the only other assist champions to not make the All-NBA Team since 1989 (when the All-NBA Team expanded from 10 players to 15) are Mark Jackson (1997), Andre Miller (2002), Steve Nash (2011), and Rajon Rondo (2013, 2016). During that time period, 13 assist champions made the All-NBA First Team and 11 assist champions made the All-NBA Second Team. None of the assist leaders since 1989 came close to averaging 11.5 rpg, and only Chris Paul (22.8 ppg in 2009), James Harden (29.1 ppg in 2017), Westbrook (25.4 ppg in 2018, 22.9 ppg in 2019), and LeBron James (25.3 ppg in 2020) averaged more than 22.2 ppg. Westbrook is the first assist leader in this era to average at least 22 ppg and not make the All-NBA Team; Harden and James received First Team honors during their high scoring/assist leading seasons.
Without Westbrook averaging a triple double for an unprecedented fourth time in five seasons, the Washington Wizards--decimated by injuries and COVID-19--would not have been able to go 17-6 down the stretch and qualify for the playoffs. Westbrook not only posted gaudy individual numbers, but he had a significant impact on team success.
If the voters were going to disregard historical precedent regarding games played, then they should have found a place for Donovan Mitchell, the best player on the team with the best record in the NBA. Mitchell only played in 53 games, but he averaged 26.4 ppg, 5.2 apg, and 4.4 rpg for the 52-20 Utah Jazz.
If you value productivity combined with durability, then there is no way you choose Irving over Westbrook for the All-NBA Team this season. If you value winning most of all, then there is no way you choose Irving over Mitchell. Irving is a great player and he is an All-NBA Team caliber player, but he should not have been selected this season.
A close examination of the NBA's top forwards in 2020-21 reveals that many of them failed to play in at least 61 games, but there are at least three highly productive forwards who should have been selected ahead of the part-time players who the media honored.
Jayson Tatum received the most votes at forward among players who did not
make the All-NBA Team. He averaged 26.4 ppg in 64 games while leading an
injury-ravaged Boston team to the seventh seed in the Eastern
Conference. The Celtics' season--concluding with a loss in the first
round of the playoffs--is considered a disappointment after the team
reached the Eastern Conference Finals in three of the previous four
seasons, but Boston's failures are not Tatum's fault.
Zion Williamson averaged 27.0 ppg and 7.2 rpg while shooting .611 from the field. Considering his size and athleticism he should rebound and defend better than he does, but it is difficult to justify leaving him off of the All-NBA Team when he played 61 games and four of the forwards selected ahead of him played 54 games or less.
Khris Middleton received just one Third Team vote at forward, but he averaged 20.4 ppg, 6.0 rpg, and 5.4 apg with shooting splits of .476/.414/.898 while playing in 68 games for a Milwaukee team that finished third in the East.
Bam Adebayo received the most votes at center among players who did not make the All-NBA Team, followed by Clint Capela and Domantas Sabonis. Adebayo averaged 18.7 ppg, 9.0 rpg, and 5.4 apg while shooting .570 from the field in 64 games. Capela scored 15.2 ppg, led the league in rebounding (14.3 rpg), and shot .594 from the field in 63 games. Sabonis scored 20.3 ppg, averaged 12.0 rpg, passed for 6.7 apg, and shot .535 from the field in 62 games. The voters correctly did not select Embiid to the All-NBA Team last season after he played just 51 out of 72 games, and they should have left him off of the All-NBA Team this season after he played just 51 out of 72 games.
I am not "blaming" players for being injured, but I do not think that they should be rewarded for missing games, particularly when there are other players who were highly productive while missing fewer games.
An interesting sidebar note is that many NBA players have contractual clauses linking their compensation to being selected to the All-NBA Team and/or to receiving other honors. It is not an exaggeration to say that media members have significant influence over how millions of dollars will be distributed; I am not sure what the best solution is to change that situation, but there is something wrong with a player's compensation potentially being determined by whether or not a media member likes him (and if you don't think that personal bias affects awards voting then you do not understand human nature and you are willfully ignoring many overt examples of media bias for or against certain players).
Labels: Bam Adebayo, Clint Capela, Domantas Sabonis, Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum, Khris Middleton, Russell Westbrook, Zion Williamson
posted by David Friedman @ 5:40 PM
The NBA's Shot-Specific Shooting Percentage Data is Misleading and Meaningless
It should be obvious that "advanced basketball statistics" are only as accurate, meaningful, and relevant as the underlying data. It is easy to document that the underlying data is often incomplete or just flat out wrong. Charley Rosen has provided many examples of this, and several years ago when I tracked Chris Paul's assists it was apparent that his assist totals are inflated. If the box score numbers are skewed then the "advanced basketball statistics" based on those numbers are also skewed. There is no escaping the reality that statistics only provide part of the picture, and thus there is no substitute for watching games with an intelligent eye that can discern skill set strengths and weaknesses to put the numbers in proper context.
There is so much talk about shooting percentages and shooting efficiency, yet so little understanding of the limitations of those numbers, and of how those numbers should be interpreted. You may have seen the proliferation of statistics purporting to track shooting percentages on very specific shots such as step back three pointers. You may have wondered who compiles those shot-specific shooting percentages and how accurate those numbers are.
It should not be surprising that those numbers are not tracked in any systematic or consistent manner, and consequently they are not accurate:
If you weren't already aware, every shot in the NBA is classified as
some version of a jump shot (catch and shoot), pullup jump shot (off the
dribble), or increasingly, a step back jump shot in the moment by human
scorekeepers. Whenever Steph Curry breaks down his man, steps back, and
launches a shot from 28 feet, it’s an error-prone human that determines
the type of shot Curry took.
Although I have never investigated the inaccuracies in the shot-tracking data, I have
written about the limitations of "advanced basketball statistics":
Phil Birnbaum has worked extensively with baseball statistics but after thoroughly studying "advanced basketball statistics" he concluded that they are not particularly reliable:
You know all those player evaluation
statistics in basketball, like "Wins Produced," "Player Evaluation
Rating," and so forth? I don't think they work. I've been thinking about
it, and I don't think I trust any of them enough put much faith in
their results.
That's the opposite of how I feel about baseball.
For baseball, if the sportswriter consensus is that player A is an
excellent offensive player, but it turns out his OPS is a mediocre .700,
I'm going to trust OPS. But, for basketball, if the sportswriters say a
guy's good, but his "Wins Produced" is just average, I might be
inclined to trust the sportswriters.
I don't think the stats work well enough to be useful.
Nick Collison is a perfect example of what Birnbaum is talking about.
Collison is a plus/minus superstar but does that mean that he is an
All-Star or All-NBA caliber player? No, but it could mean any number of
other things:
1) Collison very effectively fills a limited role on a team that has two
All-NBA players (Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook) plus a third high
quality player (James Harden) who provide scoring and shot creation.
2) Collison is much more effective than other players on his team who
play his position, so when he enters the game his team does better than
it does with him off of the court.
3) Collison is not better than the other power forwards on his team but
he has more of a matchup advantage against the reserve players he
competes against than other Thunder power forwards have against the
opposing power forwards who they face.
4) Collision's gaudy plus/minus numbers merely reflect a lot of noise due to an insufficiently large sample size of minutes.
I figured out more than a decade ago that I am not going to convince "stat gurus" of the errors of their ways: they are practicing a faith-based religion, not evidence-based science, and thus no amount of evidence will convince them that they are ever wrong. I believe that my readers are more open-minded and intelligent than the "stat gurus," and thus able to understand reality when it is presented in a logical, organized manner.
Labels: "advanced basketball statistics", field goal percentage, NBA
posted by David Friedman @ 1:02 AM
Dominant Durant Carries Nets to Pivotal Game Five Win Over Bucks
Kevin Durant played all 48 minutes and led both teams in scoring (49 points), rebounds (17), and assists (10) as the Brooklyn Nets stormed back after trailing by as many as 17 points in the first half (and 16 points at halftime) to outscore the Milwaukee Bucks 71-49 in the second half en route to a stunning 114-108 game five win. Durant joined Oscar Robertson, Charles Barkley, and Luka Doncic on the short list of players who have produced at least 40 points, at least 15 rebounds, and at least 10 assists in a playoff game--and Durant is the first player to have at least 45 points while reaching those rebound and assist totals in a playoff game.
The Nets lead the series 3-2, and can advance to the Eastern Conference Finals with a game six victory in Milwaukee. The Nets were without the services of the injured Kyrie Irving, but Jeff Green poured in 27 points on blistering 8-11 field goal shooting--including 7-8 from three point range--and Blake Griffin chipped in 17 points on 7-11 field goal shooting. James Harden, making his first appearance since a 43 second cameo in game one, showed remarkable durability by playing 46 minutes, but he scored just five points on 1-10 field goal shooting, though he did contribute eight assists and six rebounds offset by four turnovers.
Giannis Antetokounmpo led Milwaukee with 34 points and 12 rebounds and he shot 14-22 from the field in 42 minutes. He did a lot, and yet it could be argued that he should have done more. For one thing, he never matched up with Durant on defense. For all of the talk about P.J. Tucker's heart and toughness and strength, it is obvious that Durant is wearing him out and that Tucker has no answers. Tucker is too short to consistently bother Durant's shot: Durant goes wherever on the court he wants to go, and then he shoots over Tucker. When Durant misses, it cannot honestly be said that Tucker stopped him. Durant just missed--and he did not miss very often during game five. Antetokounmpo is taller than Durant, stronger than Durant, and almost certainly faster than Durant. It is understandable that the Bucks do not want Antetokounmpo to guard Durant for the whole game because that could take away from Antetokounmpo's offense, but Antetokounmpo is a former Defensive Player of the Year, and it is incumbent on him to accept--or demand from the coaching staff--the challenge of guarding Durant on key possessions down the stretch. It is not acceptable for Antetokounmpo to be standing in the corner guarding Joe Harris while Durant hits shot after shot to put the Bucks one loss away from playoff elimination.
During both the halftime show and the postgame show, the TNT studio crew pointed out that the Bucks played--in their words--"stupid" basketball in terms of bad shot selection/failing to identify and exploit mismatches. The halftime comments about those problems foreshadowed Milwaukee's demise. The Nets' offense mainly consisted of giving Durant room to create mayhem--which he consistently did--but the Bucks proved incapable of (1) stopping Durant, (2) trapping him effectively to make someone else beat them by making tough shots (trapping Durant in a way that enables someone else to make a layup or a wide open three is not effective), and (3) exploiting mismatches on offense. No Net can stop Antetokounmpo in the post--and Brook Lopez also enjoys a mismatch advantage in the post--but the Bucks had far too many empty offensive possessions that resulted in bad, low percentage shots. During the postgame show, Charles Barkley singled out a late game possession during which Harden--guarding Antetokounmpo in the post on one good leg--waved off a double team and leaned on Antetokounmpo before Antetokounmpo settled for a turnaround fadeaway shot that he missed. Harden is not a bad post defender--he uses his strength and relatively low center of gravity to his advantage--but that possession had to end in a dunk or a foul on a dunk attempt. Antetokounmpo cannot settle for a fadeaway against an immobile player who is half a foot shorter than he is. That one possession did not decide the outcome of the game, but it is one example of how the Bucks do not exploit their mismatch advantages.
The Nets have one main mismatch advantage, and they wore it (and the Bucks) out by using it: Durant's performance was spellbinding and magnificent. I have been watching NBA basketball for four decades, and I am familiar with the history of the game prior to that. This was not the most significant playoff performance that I have ever seen--that has to be reserved for Finals games, or elimination games in playoff rounds prior to the Finals--but in terms of pure dominance, deadly shooting from all areas of the court, all-around skill set mastery (including rebounding like a center and passing like a point guard), and will to win, this is one of the best playoff performances that I have ever seen. Somewhere around the moment that Durant crossed the 40 point barrier, I thought to myself, "Tonight, Durant is Jordan or Kobe. He is just not going to let the Nets lose." Not long after that, the Nets had a horrible possession during which Harden dribbled out most of the shot clock and did not run any recognizable play; with the shot clock about to expire, he lobbed the ball to Durant, who promptly went to work and buried a three pointer. (Side note: it is hilarious that Harden got an assist on the play after wasting almost the whole possession and then passing to Durant--who had to create his own shot with no "assist" from Harden in any meaningful sense of the word--but that play is just one illustration of why statistics are often misleading, and I will have more to say on that topic in an article that will be posted shortly). Harden deserves some credit for logging so many minutes while nursing an injury, but anyone who ever argues that he is even close to being as valuable as Durant needs to be slapped silly and called goofy; not only is Durant much more valuable based on size, skill set, and mentality, it is tempting to say it was difficult to tell how injured Harden was just based on his numbers: although he has had a couple good performances in game fives with the series tied 2-2, Harden has also had 11 points on 4-10 field goal shooting, nine points on 4-8 field goal shooting, and 19 points on 5-21 field goal shooting. So, five points on 1-10 field goal shooting is not shocking, and he is fortunate that he can now be the third option riding Durant's coattails however far two-time Finals MVP Durant can carry this team.
Labels: Brooklyn Nets, Giannis Antetokounmpo, James Harden, Jeff Green, Kevin Durant, Milwaukee Bucks
posted by David Friedman @ 12:38 AM
Suns' Sweep of Nuggets Looks Inevitable Only in Retrospect
Historical events often look inevitable in retrospect even if the outcome was far from certain as the events happened; there is a whole fiction genre based on the concept of how changing one thing could alter the entire course of history, and the most famous Star Trek episode ("The City on the Edge of Forever") is just one example of this theme.
After the Denver Nuggets defeated Damian Lillard's Portland Trail Blazers in the first round, it seemed plausible that the Nuggets could beat the Phoenix Suns in the second round; other than Chris Paul--who averaged a "triple single" in the first round versus the Lakers while dealing with a shoulder injury--the Suns have little playoff experience. Despite being without All-Star guard Jamal Murray
and his backcourt partner Will Barton, the Nuggets defeated Portland's
much-ballyhooed backcourt featuring Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, so it did not seem unreasonable to suggest that Denver could contain Devin Booker and a hobbled Paul.
We all know what happened: the Suns routed the Nuggets 122-105 in game one, won each of the first three games of the series by at least 14 points, and finished off the sweep with a 125-118 victory yesterday. The Suns' sweep looks inevitable now, but it did not look inevitable before the series began; even those who picked the Suns based on the Suns being the second seeded team and thus having home court advantage versus a Nuggets team missing both starting guards did not predict a sweep, let alone a sweep in which the games were not particularly competitive.
What happened?
Chris Paul had the best playoff series of his career. This was not "vintage Chris Paul"; this was a Chris Paul that we have never seen before, and I did not predict that Paul would play this well against Denver because he has never played this well in the playoffs. This was Paul's 21st playoff series. It is the first time his team ever won in a sweep. He posted his highest field goal percentage for one playoff series (.627), far exceeding his previous career-high (.545 in a 2011 first round loss to the Lakers). This is just the seventh time that Paul shot at least .500 from the field in a playoff series. He shot a career-high .750 from three point range (6-8; he is judicious with his three point shot attempts, which is notable in an era when so many players fire at will from long range); his previous career-high for three point field goal percentage in a playoff series was .474 (2011 versus the Lakers), and this is just the seventh time that Paul shot at least .400 from three point range in a playoff series. Paul has always been an excellent free throw shooter, but this is just the third time that he made every free throw that he attempted during a playoff series, and he had more attempts versus Denver (22) than he did in his two previous perfect series (15 and five). He scored a career-high 25.5 ppg, and he posted his sixth best assists average (10.3 apg). This is the first time that Paul averaged at least 10 apg in a playoff series since 2015.
In the first round of the 2021 playoffs, Paul set playoff career-lows in scoring (9.2 ppg) and rebounding (3.5 rpg) while also posting his second-worst field goal percentage (.386). I don't know if the NBA tracks the biggest increases in ppg and FG% from one series to the next, but Paul's improvements in those categories from the first round to the second round this year probably rank among the best of all-time.
Paul mentioned after game four of the Denver series that critics had written him off. That is true to some extent, but--based on his recent performances and his injury history--there were good, logical reasons to write him off. Undersized, injury-prone point guards do not typically have career-best playoff series at age 36. Paul has been with a different team in each of the past three seasons, and in each of those seasons (including this year, when some touted him as an MVP candidate) both his scoring averages and his assists averages were below his career norms.
It has become chic to refer to Paul as the Suns' MVP. Paul finished fifth in the NBA regular season MVP balloting, and no other Sun received a single MVP vote. Paul is very valuable, and it could be said that he is a difference-maker for the Suns, but that is not the same as saying that he is the best or most valuable player. The Suns' rise began near the end of last season, when they went 8-0 in the "bubble" and narrowly missed qualifying for the playoffs. The addition of Paul prior to his season provided playmaking and leadership. However, the extent to which Paul "makes his teammates better" is somewhat overstated; the concept of "making teammates better" is misleading at best.
A strong case could be made that Devin Booker is the Suns' best and most valuable player. Booker led the team in scoring during the regular season (25.6 ppg), and he has lifted his scoring to 27.9 ppg through the first two rounds of the playoffs. Booker ranked second on the team in assists in both the regular season and thus far in the playoffs, and when Paul was limited by injury during the first round Booker assumed even more of the playmaking responsibilities. Booker's scoring and field goal percentage were both higher in the season prior to Paul's arrival than they were this season, and Booker has averaged at least 22 ppg for five straight seasons, so he established himself as a big-time scorer long before he played with Paul.
Deandre Ayton was the number one overall selection in the draft that included both Luka Doncic and Trae Young, so his high talent level is obvious. Ayton is the first player from that trio to advance to the Conference Finals, though Young still has a chance to take the Hawks that far this year as well. Ayton is a three year veteran who is just 22 years old. His field goal percentage went up this season, but his scoring average went down and his rebounding remained steady.
The Suns defeated the defending champion (albeit injury-riddled) L.A. Lakers in six games in the first round despite Paul ranking sixth on the team in scoring (9.2 ppg) while shooting .386 from the field. Booker averaged 29.7 ppg with shooting splits of .488/429/.938 during that series, and he played 245 minutes compared to Paul's 170 minutes, so Booker created a lot of his offense without Paul even being on the court. Even when Paul was on the court, he was often far away from the action serving as a one-armed decoy while Booker went to work. Ayton averaged 15.8 ppg and 10.7 rpg versus the Lakers while shooting .796 from the field. The Suns won that series with minimal contributions from Paul, so it is difficult to credit the notion that Paul is the team's most valuable player, because we saw that the Suns can "replace" healthy Paul with a 9.2 ppg player and still win a playoff series.
The Suns deserve a lot of credit for how well they are playing and for how thoroughly they dismantled a good Denver team that features Nikola Jokic,
the deserving winner of the 2021 NBA regular season MVP. That being said, there is mounting evidence that the short break between the conclusion of the 2020 "bubble" and the start of the 2020-2021 season has impacted player health and team performance. Three of the four 2020 Conference Finalists lost in the first round of the playoffs (including the two Finalists, the Lakers and the Heat), and the Nuggets got swept in the second round. This is not meant to be an excuse for those four teams, nor is it meant to denigrate the teams that beat them, but it is unusual for all four Conference Finalists to drop off that much the next season. In that sense, it could be said that the Suns were fortunate to face the Lakers and Nuggets on the road to the Western Conference Finals. It will be interesting to see how the Suns fare against the Utah Jazz or L.A. Clippers.
Labels: Chris Paul, Deandre Ayton, Denver Nuggets, Devin Booker, Nikola Jokic, Phoenix Suns
posted by David Friedman @ 9:46 PM
