There was an interesting thread today from Rosenthal which asked if the Bulls' offense was good enough to win a championship. I think most of us our concerned with a slightly different reshaping of the question: Can a team with the best defense in the league, the best rebounding in the league, that makes few mistakes, and has a good closer win a championship, despite a mediocre offense. The Bulls are 18th in league in turnovers with 14.4 a game. Minnesota is last in the league with 17.0 per game which makes sense with the youth on their roster. Detroit is first with 12.7 per game, which is strange. All of the other teams in front of the Bulls are playoff teams, or in playoff contention, besides the Cavs. So it looks like good teams commit less turnovers on the whole but that doesn't mean their is a strong causal link between committing less turnovers and winning. Good teams are not necessarily good because they commit less turnovers. Both Orlando and Boston, the Bulls' toughest competition in the East are behind the Bulls with the 22d and 23d most turovers. First off some raw stats. Below is a listing of how the Bulls fair by how many turnovers they commit: 7 to 10 turnovers: 10 wins, 0 losses (point differential +11.1) 11 to 12 turnovers: 9 wins, 6 losses (point differential +7.47) 13 to 14 turnovers: 8 wins, 4 losses (point differential +5.67) 15 to 16 turnovers: 11 wins, 5 losses (point differential +3.44) 17 to 21 turnovers: 7 wins, 3 losses (point differential +4.3) Average turnovers during Bulls 45 wins: 13.4 Average turnovers during Bulls 18 losses: 14.4 Per month: Oct, Nov 14.73333333 Dec 15.1875 Jan 11.8125 Feb 13 Mar 13.6 Turnovers in five games before Noah's return: 11.8 Turnovers in five games after Noah's return: 14.6 Turnovers in last three games: 13 Turnovers in five games before Boozer's return: 13.4 Turnovers in five games after Boozer's return: 15.4 Turnovers in second five games after Boozer's return: 15.6 Turnovers in third five games after Boozer's return: 15.6 Turnovers in fourth five games after Boozer's return: 12.6 Some random thoughts in no particular order: * The Bulls have only committed ten turnovers or less in ten games (all wins). The ten games are all from the recent past. In the 18 games before Noah came back the Bulls committed ten turnovers or less 8 times. During the 18 game stretch the Bulls only committed 11.2 turnovers per game, which would put them first in the league if they could sustain the pace. The final two times the Bulls committed less than ten turnovers were the last two games, vs. New Orleans and @ Charlotte. * The games with ten turnovers or less include some tough games (v. Miami, @ Memphis, @ Utah, vs San Antonio) so it's not accurate to say that the Bulls can only protect the ball against teams that don't play strong defense. * It looks like the Bulls should be able to control their turnovers, when you look at the last two notes combined. Before Noah's return the Bulls put together a string of good games against tough competition, and they appear have to returned to that trend. * Changes in the starting lineup are jarring. The number of turnovers jumped two per game when the Bulls were implementing Boozer into the starting lineup, and the Bulls continued to struggle while Kurt Thomas was finding his role. The Bulls' turnovers jumped again when Noah returned, although his reintegration appears to have gone much more quickly if the past two games are any indication. * I understand why Hollinger and so many other stat geeks lurve looking at point differential instead of wins and losses. Some of it's because point differential provides more information than record on how a team is playing. That being said, I think a lot of it is just laziness. You get a beautiful clean line connecting turnovers and losses when you use point differential but it's not completely accurate. For one, it may be the case that the Bulls commit more turnovers when they're playing close games since their record is pretty darn good even when the commit more than 17 turnovers.
The Bulls, following the beat down of the Hawks, are now 11-0 in games where they've committed ten turnovers or less. They've also put together a three game streak of ten or less turnovers (New Orleans, Bobcats, Hawks).
I thought I'd bump a follow up on this post because we've been seeing a lot of these comments lately: "Tonight, I think my turnovers hurt the game," [Rose] said. "Plain and simple ... no way I was supposed to turn that ball over in that clutch situation, and I did. I put that on me, man." The numbers seem to be holding up relatively well. vs Utah W 118-100 (12 TOs) vs Washington W 98-79 (11 TOs) @ New Jersey W 84-73 (11 TOs) @ Indiana L 115-108 OT (13 TOs)
