Welcome back to Forensic Fan – Game Two. I’ve been told that with a slightly newer audience, there are some that don’t quite get what Forensic Fan is or why I do it. It started last year when I was in Afghanistan and had no access to Blazers content other than box scores and basketball-reference.com. So I tried doing a reconstruction of what could have happened using nothing but what I could find there and what might be gleaned from it. This isn’t “what I saw from Press Row”, check out SlyPokerDog’s “Dog in the Arena” for that kind of analysis. It’s not a post-game recap. It’s (hopefully) another way of digging out what happened to our team on any given night. Enjoy, Rip City. Alright, from the top: Kings 103. Blazers 94. Forensic Fan after these types of games are always tough. Much internet ink will be spilled, I’m sure, on how this happened. Effort, rotations, intangibles—things that don’t show up in the box score. Lots of sadness and anger and second-guessing. That’s not what we do here. Let’s parse away the things that do pop up…and hopefully in a manner that puts the Rip into "Get a Grip". From the top, it looks like Portland was consistent in scoring…24 in each of the first two quarters, and 23 in each of the last two. The problem, of course, is that 41% shooting and 23 or 24 ppq are consistently “not good”. Like, consistently “Milwaukee Bucks on a bad day.” Like, consistently “If I let K*be shoot 83 times a game I might get 94”. The game was tied at half and at the end of the third quarter, and it looks like the Kings went off in the 4th, winning the quarter (and the game) by 9 with a 32-23 finishing effort. The Kings’ 4th quarter shot chart is pretty fascinating. 10 shots in the paint, 7 mid-range and 3 3’s. They consistently attacked the basket, got a bunch (14 for the game!) of second- and third-chance opportunities, and Rudy Gay took advantage. (To be fair, a 5-point Clear Path Play didn't help matters). By the time the Blazers started to bomb away on a comeback effort, the ship had already sailed. (no clever Titanic pic. Too soon) Players of the game breakdown: For the second game in a row, an opposing All-Star lit up the Blazers for a big game. Rudy Gay followed Russell Westbrook’s 38 on Wednesday with a cool 40 of his own. Unlike RW, however, he was taking his shots within the flow of the offense and just plain being efficient. 40 points on 19 shots (2.1 points per shot) is elite efficiency, helped by 3-4 from 3 and 11-13 on free throws. Other Monster games: No Monster Games ™ from the Blazers. No starter shot over 50% or had more than 6 rebounds or assists. Except, uh, Dame’s team-leading 7 rebounds. Seriously. Points per shot: Based on the last section you know this is going to be ugly. Damian led the way with 20 on 13 shots, helped immensely because the only 4 shots he made were 3s and he got to the line more than any other Blazer. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. LaMarcus had a respectable 22 on 18 shots, helped by 8 FTs he earned taking it into the paint, but the other 8 Blazers who played combined for two more free throws than I shot last night. That’s usually not good. LaMarcus also regressed on his trend of moving away from the hoop: 2 shots in the paint, 2 from 3 (YES!) and 14 long jumpers. I counted 3 shots in the paint where he got FTs instead of a FGA, but that ratio is not one for success. Not when you're 5-14 on those long J's (35%). Combine Wesley inside the 3-point line last night with Dame outside, and you have a player who shot 10-15 for 33 points (which is still not at the level of Rudy. Wow). However, the opposite effect gives you a guy who went 1-18 for 3 points. Guh. Anyway, too much time on this… Last year I introduced the concept of “Coin Ratio” as a barometer for point guard play: specifically, the ratio of “dimes” to shots attempted. Since Coach Stotts likes using his PGs as “scoring” PGs, I try to set up similar players as metrics of the stat. Chris Paul’s career Coin Ratio is about .75, or 75 cents in the parlance. Magic was in the 80s. Steve Nash in the MVP years was in the 90 cent range. Brandon Jennings is in the 40 cent range. For his career, Damian is as well. Last night, he was even worse than usual—2 assists versus 13 shots, for a grisly Coin Ratio of 15 cents. You can’t even get a gumball for that anymore. Portland had 28 shots in the paint, and scored 36 points off of them. Not super by any stretch, but compared to the 14 points they scored on 29 non-3-pointers they took outside the paint, it was a gold mine. For those of you who don’t like word problem-style analysis: In paint: 18-28, 36 points, 1.28 points per shot. (In addition to the bulk of the 19 FTAs they earned) 3-pointers: 9-26, 27 points, 1.04 points per shot. 2s outside the paint: 7-29, 14 points, .47 points per shot. Rebounding edge: SAC, 49-38. Have to say, this was probably the biggest surprise of the night. Yes, Cousins can be a beast on the boards, and any team with Reggie Evans will get some scrap rebounds, but come on, guys. Bench. Once again, Chris, uh… I don’t know what more to say, other than a cautionary “it’s early?” He’s been just about everything we’d hoped for from a backup big. Efficient again today (6-10 FG, 12 pts, 0 TO), ability to go inside and outside, can play with both Lopez and Aldridge, decent defense, doesn’t foul cheaply, highest +/- on the team. I have the gut feeling that 21 minutes is getting about to the limit of his point of diminishing returns—especially with Robinson rotting away on the bench—but as for now I can’t imagine a better 2-game debut. The only thing you can complain about with Steve Blake, however, is that until the 3rd quarter he hadn’t made a shot since April 16, and it hadn’t been close. His 5-assist-to-7-shot Coin Ratio (71 cents) was outstanding for a backup, and he got off the schneid with 2 3-pointers in the second half. He still seemed tentative a couple times in the 4th, when he had a wide-open look and hesitated before passing off to another shooter, but his play has been steady. While he’s earned the 21 mpg he’s been getting, I’m not sure I love the Dame/Blake/CJ trifecta that was trotted out for a few minutes in the 3rd, but I guess games like SAC are ones that you should feel comfortable experimenting a bit. (No clever "exploding beaker" pic--too soon.) As mentioned, CJ got into the game for 10 minutes and was a miss away from the dreaded “10 billion” stat line (10 minutes, 0-1 FG, 0-0 FT, 0 Reb, 0 Ast, 0 Blk, 0 Stl, 0 TO)—a sign that you’re on the court but not doing a whole heckuva lot. Freeland and Wright looked respectable in their limited minutes, but were a combined 1-3 for 3 points. Robinson, Crabbe and Barton earned the dreaded DNP-CD, earning our first throwback “sad bench” of the year. So how’d the first road test of the season go? And what about our chances for winning the Division, Coach? See you Sunday after Golden State. Go Blazers.
Aldridge's shot selection is cause for concern. For each of the past 4 years, he has gone farther away from the paint and his efficiency has gone down. Since he then goes to the line even less, his production per shot just isn't very high. When he is hitting, it's great but he is fading away which takes him away from rebound opportunities and his ball handling away from the basket does nothing to put pressure on the defense going to the hoop.
Great job BFW. I think the rebounding may be one of the more telling stats in how they relate to the intangibles that dont show up in the box score. Meaning the rebounds and specifically the offense rebounds that were due to lack of effort or more clearly put, boxing out. I saw multiple times where we had the man advantage for available rebounders (3-1, 3-2, 2-1) and they still got the board. Unacceptable. A simple box out from even one of those Blazers gives us an easy rebound. Im not sure how many 2nd chance points the Kings had but I wonder how that number relates to the amount they won by. I know they had 4 more offensive rebounds. By the way we are 27th in Reb% and looking we are that low in DREB% and about the middle of pack in OREB% http://stats.nba.com/league/team/#!/advanced/ There is really no reason this team should be getting out rebounded. Especially with the addition of Kaman who by the way is averaging 6 reb/gm off the bench. So this is on the starters Lopez is at 8/gm and LMA is at 3.5/gm. Time for him to look in the mirror and give the pissed off speech. I also noticed that they shot 16 more free throws than we did.
Nice Brian, and I know this: we had better come out of the locker room with some energy on Sunday vs. Golden State.
