First of all, via Imgflip Meme Maker Made it out of Kandahar yesterday. Afghanistan now behind me, I should be home in around a week or two. And then these either get a lot better (with LeaguePass) or worse. I have no idea. But until then, here's another chance for Forensic Fan, where we analyze the game through misinformed opinion, dubious stat exposition and reading the tea leaves of game threads. And we'll take a fresh look at this one by commenting as I walk through the analysis I normally step through when reading about the team. First, the top line shows "Blazers 96, Kings 85". Woohoo! Though I'm glad I didn't get a chance to play in Gramps' Prediction game, b/c I would've picked something like 119-98 and ended up in 23rd place. Next line I see is that LMA was Portland's player of the game with 22pts, 14 reb. While I'd love to see Damian or LMA put up 40, or Nic put up a triple-double or a 5x5 or something, seeing LMA pull 14 boards makes me happy. A quick look at his line showed 10-19 with 4 FTs, so while the points-per-shot is not great, it's definitely take-able. We'll take a look at shot chart later. Anyone else blowing up the box score? Where are some double figures? OK, LMA's 14 boards (12 defensive)...Lopez with a 12/10 double-double himself (6 offensive rebounds!) via Imgflip Meme Maker No other doubles, so I go down the list. Nic with a 12/7/5, so another stat box fill. Wait, there's a single-digit in the "points" column, but Lopez had 12. Did Wes crap the bed? Scrolling across...Damian?! 1-15? ONE FOR FIFTEEN?! There goes his streak of 3 3pointers made every game. 1-15 kind of sucks...who did the Kings have guarding him? Wait, I remember a game like this last year...ORL, another crappy team. This isn't normal, right? Well, in the last decade, 12 players have gone 1-15 or worse. It's kind of an epic list, so I'll write it out in full. Remember as you peruse the list that Lillard's the only one to appear twice. Bosh. Gordon. Captain Jack. Jennings. Lillard (x2). Mark Madsen (?!?). McCants. Andre Miller. AmMo. Quentin Richardson. Jason Terry. Al Thornton. via Imgflip Meme Maker EDIT: That Madsen was on the list made me curious, so I went to verify. Sure enough, that was the only 15 FGA game in his career. In fact, he only had 3 games that even had 10 FGA. Of his 15 shots, 7 attempts (and no makes) were 3 pointers. Then I find the date: April 19. I'm going to go on a limb and say it was the last game of the season for the TimberPups, and they sent Marky Mark on vacation in style. Obviously, this doesn't mean to cut Lillard. He'll be fine. I hope that Lillard's is more of the "Bosh" variety than the "AmMo/Al Thornton" variety. But... Next I do the bench check. Am I going to see KingSpeed anoint someone an All-Star because of a statistically improbable night? Did Leonard further cement his Whipping Boy status? Is Mo one step closer to being run out of town Felton-style? (OK, maybe that was too harsh.) Box score check shows that Stotts went with a 9-man rotation, so there probably wasn't significant garbage time. Robinson had a solid 5/5, Mo did alright, looks like it was pretty darn efficient (25 points on 18 shots, or a great 1.39 PPS)...I wonder if Joel had another impact that didn't make the box scores. 4/1/2 in 15 minutes doesn't scream "MONSTER!!" game, but we know by now that Joel's effectiveness doesn't exactly fill box scores. (Speaking of Mo, I've come up with a new stat. I'm going to do a "Coin Ratio" of Mo as the season progresses. You take a ratio of dimes to shots, and hope it's a quarter or above. So if he drops 3 dimes and takes 10 shots, his Coin Ratio 0.30 (30 cents)...above a quarter, and probably a good day. 1 dime on 10 shots, 0.10, probably not a good day. We'll see) Today, Mo's Coin Ratio was a stellar 1.00. That means the bench probably did alright for itself, as he's the main distributor on the second unit, and if he's taking less shots he's missing less shots, and if he's dropping more dimes others are scoring more. Quick check of the Kings' bench shows....wow. We were actually outscored 36-25. Then again, the Kings played 103 minutes of bench players vs. our 64. So point-per-minute---Our 0.39 ratio from our bench players against their 0.34. If the bench can hold their own per minute, we'll be just fine. If they're outscoring the opponent's bench, wowee. Looking at quarter-by-quarter, though, I'm wondering if the start of the 4th was a big Kings' run, b/c being up 15 going into the 4th should've gotten someone deep off of the bench into the game. Hm. On to the Kings. Boogie Cousins had himself another night. (Sorry, guys, no double-up picture of Mrs. Cousins tonight) 33/12 (on 24 shots in only 31 minutes!). I don't know what it is about POR, but the combination of our frontcourt leads him to look like an All-Star every time he plays us. Random analysis, to see if I can glean anything useful to the board. LMA's shot chart update shows that, of his 19 shots, 6 were in the paint (4 made), 2 were 10-15 feet (1 made), and 11 were 16-23 feet (5 made). You know, you're not supposed to just trash on the opponents, so in honor of the Kings emptying their bench (only Chuck Hayes had less than 9 minutes), I was going to go with a "Good Job, Good Effort" meme. But I decided that I'll hold onto that for a more appropriate time later. In this case, I found things that could be helpful in dealing with anyone who happens to try like the Kings have been trying this season: So, "I liked the way you attempted to use the 3 to get back into the game, even though only Ben McLemore was making any. Clearly you took your time on this, Sacramento. Thank you for giving your best!" Speaking of giving bests, I hope you enjoyed this effort. And for the Blazers? The season motto continues for the 4-2 team waiting for the Pistons to show up: Good guys win! Bad guys lose!
Great take brother! I will tell you that Aldridge was on a mission down low. When Lillard was goose egging, they really sunk in the paint and forced us to take outside shots. Fortunately Aldridge and Co made them when they needed to. I love your shot vs dime analogy. Use it more often!
Brian, I noticed that you used box score data to interpret the game flow, even though the actual play-by-play is available. Clearly you took your time on this. Thank you for giving your best.
You really try. My motto is, "Always do your best." My other motto is, "You only go around once in life, so give it all the gusto you can. Miller Beer."
Nice writeup! One question I have, if we are looking at points per shot shouldn't free throw attempts be included? If two player each have 10 FGA and 15 points but one of them took 8 FT's and the other 0 FT's their points per shot would be the same? I would think the player with 0 FT's is actually far more efficient. Getting two FT attempts doesn't increase your FGA but it did use a teams possession.
That would then be "points per possession" rather than "points per shot". Generally, the advanced stats people multiply FTA by 0.44 to calculate possessions used. But then we'd also probably want to factor turnovers in as well, since that's still a possession used.
