There's only so much analysis I can do during and immediately after games. Typically, I try to pick one or two things to keep an eye on, plus the rotation charts. Luckily, we now have ways to take a closer look at what happened and try to determine why. Going forward, this series will use the tools available to examine some key facets of the game and gauge how well the Sixers are winning (or losing) certain statistical battles.
The tool I'm using here is
HoopData's advanced box score. There's a wealth of information in there, I highly recommend that site. Let's dive in:
Inside vs. Outside - The long two makes me sick to my stomach. Worst shot in the game. Low likelihood of making the shot, lower likelihood of getting fouled on the attempt. My theory here is there should be some kind of correlation between a team's inside/outside ratio and wins/losses. On offense, taking a high percentage of long twos is a failure. On defense, it's a success. Here are the numbers from last night:
Sixers- At the rim: 12/25 (led by Iguodala 4/6)
- 16-23 feet: 6/20 (led by Turner, 2/5)
- Ratio: 1.25 (higher is better)
Miami- At the rim: 13/23
- 16-23 feet: 5/17
- Ratio: 1.35
This is a new metric, so it's going to take some time to figure out what a good ratio is. We'll keep track as we go. My guess is that the team with the higher ratio will probably win most games, simply because a high number is indicative of good offense and a low number is indicative of good defense, at a high level.
Turner can't play off the ball - Part of evaluating Turner's progression as an off-the-ball shooting guard is seeing how the team functions with him on the floor, in the role. There is also a way to track his progress using stats, though. HoopData tracks his assisted field goals, meaning someone else got the assist on a shot that he made. If he truly is only effective with the ball in his hands, you'd expect most of his made field goals to be unassisted, or off him creating his own shot with the dribble, and possibly freezing out his teammates. Let's look at the numbers:
- Total FG: 7
- Assisted FG: 5
- Percent assisted: 71.5%
- Every jumper made was assisted. Two shots in the lane were not.
- Point of reference: Only 2 of Dwyane Wade's 10 made field goals were assisted. For the Sixers, 2 of Lou's 5 makes were assisted.
Iguodala shoots too many jumpers - This one is pretty straight forward. Iguodala's jumpers vs. attempts in the lane.
- Inside 15 feet: 4/7
- 16+ feet: 1/5
- Jumper percentage: 41.7%
Is 41.7% too high? Maybe, but not absurdly so. This will be an interesting number to keep track of.
High Risk/High Reward - All assists are not created equal, neither are all turnovers. A turnover on a simple pass on the perimeter is painful, because even if the pass was completed, it's not improving your odds of scoring on that possession. A turnover on a backdoor lob is less so, because if it's completed you're talking about drastically increasing the odds of scoring on that possession. It's with this in mind that we're going to track team assists on at-the-rim attempts.
- Total Assists: 24
- Assists at the rim: 6
- Assists in the lane (not at the rim): 7
- Assists on long twos: 6
- Assists on threes: 5
- Turnovers: 16
So 54% of the assists were in the lane, which carries more weight in my book (though you can't discount a kick-out for an open three, either).
Stat of the night - On scheme alone, you have to say the Sixers won this game. Miami had only 15 assists against 16 turnovers. Only 4 of their assists were on hoops in the lane, with 11 coming on long jumpers. They lost the game on isolation plays, which is to be expected when you're playing a team that had literally 5 mismatches when both starting units were on the floor.
Rotation Prediction Redux - Let's take a look at my minute projections and the actual minutes played (in parens).
- Jrue Holiday - 40 minutes (21 minutes, -19)
- Andre Iguodala - 36 minutes (39 minutes, +3)
- Jason Kapono - 18 minutes (13 minutes, -5)
- Elton Brand - 25 minutes (34 minutes, +8)
- Spencer Hawes - 16 minutes (14 minutes, -2)
- Lou Williams -
25 30 minutes (34 minutes, +4)
- Thad Young - 15 minutes (26 minutes, +11)
- Evan Turner - 20 minutes (31 minutes, +11)
- Andres Nocioni - 20 minutes (20 minutes, that's a bingo)
- Marreese Speights - 12 minutes (4 minutes, -8)
- Tony Battie - 8 minutes (0 minutes, -8)
- Darius Songaila - 0 minutes (5 minutes, +5)
Jodie Meeks - 5 minutes
There you have it, the first edition of "Key Indicators." Let me know what you think in the comments, and if you have any suggestions for future installations, please let me know.
You can find this story, and all related coverage of Game 1 on the new
game capsule page. Check it out.
Kate Fagan is kind of twisting the facts around and trying to set the line of "Turner and Jrue can't play together" with her column today.
Jrue definitely had a bad game last night, but she's just flat out wrong when she says he was terrible in the preseason outside of the Toronto game. He played exceptionally well from that point on in the preseason.
It seems the longer she works for one of the philly.com papers the more her writing seems to tow the 'wip' line
Yeah, it's disappointing. The funny thing about last night is that Turner played the point initially, but as the game wore on, he was even playing off the ball when Lou was in the game.
Brian, you mentioned that Iguodala's shot selection last night was fine. I disagree, absolutely HATED the turnaround free throw line jumper, had another one of those I believe even further out and air balled. Glad to see he's trying to eliminate the forced 3's, but DC drilled into him about attacking the basket and he did not do that last night (against a team with Ru Paul on the interior) The starters were incapable of getting to the line, I think a lot of that rests on him.
I actually couldn't have been more disappointed with the shot selection. A lot of his buckets came off hustle plays,fast break, etc. which I can appreciate, and ideally thats probably the way he should score. I just wish he'd make a more concerted effort to attack the damn basket in the half court.
Please don't jump down my throat. These are legit concerns.
Also, didn't Hawes say he worked hard to get in better shape/add weight this off season? Was he joking or something?
I'm not going to jump down your throat, I'm just going to tell you you're dead wrong. I responded to the comment you made on the last post, but I'll repeat it here:
Missed/Forced shots:
1. Missed three early in the first. Open look, missed.
2. Missed jumper, with 2 on the shot clock. Had to take it.
3. Missed jumper, as the clock expired at the end of the first half. Had to take it.
4. 7:35 to go in the third quarter, missed 20-foot jumper with 18 seconds left on the shot clock. Terrible shot.
5. Missed 14-foot jumper, 3 left on the shot clock.
He missed exactly one bad shot last night in 39 minutes. Do you only want him to attempt layups and dunks? Are you going to be happy with any jumper he takes? And would you prefer he just hold onto the ball and take the 24-second violation when he has the ball with no time left on the shot clock?
I want him to get to the line, plain and simple. I can't really comment on the clock issue, there were some 911 shots in there,thats true, but if he's dribbling the air out of the ball for 6 seconds prior trying to break down his man for a contested j, I'm not going to forgive him for putting up shots up against the clock.
I'm not saying he did or didn't, quite frankly, I don't remember.
I think you have this misconception that I absolutely hate him. That's not true. My issue has always been, and will continue to be, that he doesn't have a relentless desire to get himself inside and to get himself FT attempts.
My issue has always been, and will continue to be, that he doesn't have a relentless desire to get himself inside and to get himself FT attempts.
OK, then say, "He didn't get to the line 1 time," that's a legit complaint. Saying his shot selection was poor is just inaccurate. You can say he wasn't aggressive enough and he should've taken more shots, but the shots he did take weren't bad.
You can't tell me he doesn't have a habit of settling for contested jumpers. Last night probably wasn't the best example because its one of the only nights where he doesn't have a size/strength advantage on his man.
He had that habit last season, in an offense that basically demanded he do it. We're talking about a one-game sample size here under Collins, so I'm saying it's kind of a big deal to say he's still doing the same thing when he really wasn't.
fair enough. We'll see what the situation is after a month or 2. If he's even still here
You have to take into account how he got his dunks too though. Weren't about three off O-boards or steals? Those are great and reflective of his overall play, but maybe in the iso situation he's settling a little more. So if you are talking strictly isolation, that number of jumpers will probably higher. He didn't get to the line either. Again, it's one game though, and he did contribute everywhere else. Not like he shot poorly too.
One was off a sweet backdoor cut from Hawes that would of made Eddie Jordan cry if I remember.
The Sixers were +7 in 11 minutes when Turner and Holiday were on the court together...
Bad game to try to make that argument. Most of Jrue's struggles came with Kapono/Iguodala.
http://nba.phillyarena.com/rotations/saved/135/
Why does she jump to so many conclusions and then say Friday will be a more accurate prediction of who the Sixers are?
She was hyping Jrue up in the regular season, now one bad game means he can't play? Wasn't Jrue guarded/guarding an angry D-Wade all night? It's not like that's not a little bit of a challenge.
I think Jrue has shown us that he can catch and shoot the three. If he can do that he can play with anyone. And that's not to mention everything else he can do (namely on-ball defense). It also seems like ET is gonna have an effective mid-range game. Those two should be setting each other up for years.
I also added my minutes predictions to the post above, with a look at how far off I was. Hoping to be able to nail those by January.
Those are nice stats but here are my indicators:
1. The bench outscored the starters 57-30. That's after hearing that the Subs have been whooping the starters all training camp.
2. Wade scores just as many points as our starters combined.
3. The starters do not attempt one free throw all game.
4. The Sixers out-rebound the Heat. ( By only 1 but who would have thought)
5. Evan Turner finally looked likethe #2 pick! (This is not an official stat)
It was really an unbelievable game when you think about it. I never would've guessed the Sixers would have a rebounding advantage, and zero FTA for the entire starting lineup? Unbelievable.
All of the Iguodala isolation talk got me thinking: What is a good percentage of jumpers to shots at the rim for a 2/3 type player like Iguodala? I mean, it's impossible to get to the rim every time and sometimes you have to shoot a jumper if they are just giving it to you. Look at last year's FG percentages with other guards, who isn't a bad comparison when it comes to people debating on if he's settling. Also add in that there's no way Iguodala shoots as many jumpers this year if Collins isn't full of you know what.
Looking throughout his career, Iggy averages about an equal number of long twos and 'at rim' shots. Throw in the threes, it's about 1-2 attempts more per game. I don't really know what that means. Last year kind of skewed from where he was at as well.
OK, so here's the jumper-per-at-rim attempt ratios for some wings:
LBJ: 1.556420233
Joe Johnson: 2.555555556
Brandon Roy: 2.036764706
Gerald Wallace: 0.589552239
AI9 2010: 2.046728972
AI9 2009: 1.528395062
Lower is better, and this includes long twos and threes.
where is this data at anyway?
Pulled it from HoopData's player pages and did some simple math to create the ratio.
Hmmmm, it may have been Jordan then. I actually thought LBJ was a pretty good comparison (on a slightly higher curve) because people get angry when both of them shoot jumpers. I'd like it to be closer to one, but you can't take the jumper completely out of his game, because how would he keep defenses honest.
Another point to the people who feel he settles too much (I'm kind of on the fence to be honest), is that he does make a lot of plays for others by getting into the lane.
Yeah, in early 2009 I wrote a post at Phillyarena about how Iguodala had turned the corner and was no longer settling for jumpers. Then he regressed big time last season.
year Player jump/close shot
2010 Steve Novak 106
2010 Jason Kapono 16.76470588
2010 Kyle Korver 9.769230769
2009 Jason Kapono 7.478873239
2010 Richard Hamilton 5.459459459
2009 Jamal Crawford 3.531914894
2009 J.R. Smith 2.933054393
2009 Kobe Bryant 2.169144981
2010 Danny Granger 2.117808219
2010 Andre Iguodala 2.027027027
2010 Kobe Bryant 1.969465649
2010 Kevin Durant 1.946996466
2010 Brandon Roy 1.920454545
2009 Kevin Durant 1.875
2010 Trevor Ariza 1.608355091
2009 Eric Gordon 1.580924855
2009 Andre Iguodala 1.501094092
2009 Dwyane Wade 1.455445545
2010 Eric Gordon 1.394495413
2009 Brandon Roy 1.295454545
2009 Trevor Ariza 1.088028169
2010 Ronnie Brewer 0.824561404
2009 Ronnie Brewer 0.823399558
2009 Thaddeus Young 0.785447761
2010 Gerald Wallace 0.55354201
2009 Tony Allen 0.392156863
2009 Gerald Wallace 0.384219554
2010 Tony Allen 0.310880829
2009 Renaldo Balkman 0.281045752
2010 Thaddeus Young 0.671232877
2008 Thaddeus Young 0.425531915
John, wanted to review my predictions:
Who will lead the sixers in scoring tonight? Lou (missed by 1 pt)
Who will lead the sixers in rebounding tonight? Brand ***
If he plays, will Speights pass the ball? 4X (unfair 3 minutes)
How many minutes will Evan Turner play (over/under set at 15)? 22 (4th qtr scrub time) ... off, eneded up being 30 min
Who will be most embarrassing on defense? Jrue (Wade has his number)... Probably Thad, but Jrue did struggle mightily.
...overall was pretty good in terms of the predictions.
More importantly, Charlie V. had 4 threes, a steal and a block last night. You were sooooo close to grabbing him in the draft :)
Yeah... I think I'll be OK :) He was going to be the icing on the cake... and I know how much it pained you to draft his lazy ass.
Well then it's not lookin as rosy as it was in the pre-season for Austin Daye
Maybe this should be a separate post... I want to get back to the "hated long 2pt jumpers" discussion.
I agree that long jumpers need to be a last resort, and are not "good offense." But the fact is quality NBA defenses will not routinely give up dunks, lay-ups and uncontested 3's. Especially when you lack low post bigs who demand double teams or pure 3pt jump shooters that defenders cannot afford to leave.
Basically teams can pack it in and switch freely against the Sixers and never double anyone... which results in a lot of late shot clock situations. And while you don't want an offense that shoots long 2pt jumpers by design- you absolutely need players who can at least maximize their efficiency in these settings.
Some guys flat out cannot score when given the ball with 3-8 sec and a prepared defender guarding them. That is where guys who can create space for themselves and can a jumper are valuable. And ideally, this will be part of Turners role- similar to what Kobe is forced to do on the Lakers. It's called bailing out your offense on otherwise stalled possessions. And it is part of what allows top teams to succeed against stingy defenses.
Right now this is what the Sixers have in these late clock situations against a prepared, in position defense... again we are talking an inherently bad situations, and trying to turn lemons into lemon-aid:
Iguodala: typically creates a shot with his fade away jumper. Likely
Lou: Creates stape using a step back jumper. Ocasionally draws a foul with a pump fake or drive. Probably 0.6 pts/poss.
Brand: Uses a power move to the lane or a fade away over the shoulder jumper. The jumper is less efective, while the drive depends on the defender.
Speights: lean back jumper even when covered. Streaky but reasonable efficiency for that setting (0.8 pts/poss)
Thad: Typically a drive or airball. Not the guy you want with the clock ticking down.
Jrue: Theoretically should be able to overpower his man and create a good shot. His potential in these setttings has not been tapped into yet. It also hurts him that the team lacks good shooters for him to kick to on drives.
**Turner: Seems to have the handle, length and guile to create open space and get to where he wants on the floor. At OSU this translated into high percentage midrange jumpers. Last night suggests he could find similar success at the pro level in this role.
If Turner can become your bailout offensive weapon, it would help this team immeasurably. If he can at least create a solid look at the basket it should minimize other teams ability to force T/O's, clock violations and the dreaded run outs off of bad shots.
I do grimace every time Andre takes a jump shot.
Everytime he shoots a three I cringe like someone about to see a car accident.
Basically anytime he shoots a jumper and he's not below the foul line I go "NOOOOOO"
But hey Iggy, keep shooting. I want the team to lose it's first 30 games so they will finally blow it up.
Turner playing well last night was good to see though. He and Thad seemed like the only players trying for awhile.
Turner was obviously impressive scoring-wise last night especially compared to what we saw in the preseason. But it still amazes me the way he rebounds. He seems to create a lot of space when he jumps, but just as importantly he senses when a shot is gonna go up and starts to get position early. I noticed this a few times on offense especially. Even in situations where we didn't get a shot off or there was a foul, Turner started drifting to the middle of the lane to carve out space. Jrue does this occasionally too which is good, but one of them has to remember to get back defensively. That'll come with time. You can see why the two of them led the team in rebounding in the preseason.
And as an aside, was anyone else impressed with the effort Elton Brand gave defending the rim? I'm no Brand fan but I respect that he was trying to protect the basket knowing that he's basically the only one on the court who can. He had a few nice blocks on Bosh (who has looked really soft these first two games, maybe he did get off the roids).
Elton seemed motivated. He was going against a somewhat soft front-court. But lots of teams are weak up front.
I'm certainly hoping he can be a bit more effective out there, since there will be lots of extra rebounds available in Sams absence. And unfortunately, the other young bigs on this team are not exactly worthy of many minutes.
I dig the indicators. Thanks Brian.
Link to Thursday post-practice video interviews from Jrue Holiday and Evan Turner:
http://www.phillyburbs.com/opinions/blogs/intell_blogs/tom_moore.html
He took 31 shots last night to get 28 points, and only shot 4 free throws.
Derrick Rose in Game 1 of the season
Let me translate this into Iguodala-hater speak:
"Holy crap man, did you see Derrick Rose scored 28 points last night! He's so much better than Iggy. smh."
Man you just look for any excuse to defend Iguodala - you know that right - Iguodala lover - why don't you two just move to that state in new england and get married or something and have little adopted mulatto babies :)