2011 Finals - Mia vs Dal

[Mike G]

Dirk shot 41.6% (not very good) for the series, including 36.8% from three (good, not great, and below his season average). He made up for it at the line, ... In short, all he did was shoot a lot in a not very efficient manner and get a good number of defensive boards. I don't see any reason to say that Dirk had a good series in an absolute sense, although I guess you could argue about how he did compared to his teammates.

He wasn't competing against his teammates, so it makes good sense to compare him to the opponent.
He had a TS% of .537, while Miami shot .524. Several Mavs shot better and less frequently.

It's hard to imagine anyone but Dirk getting the series mvp. Wade can't get it, any more than LeBron could get season MVP.
Like LeBron in this series, Dirk drew extra defensive attention. Both guys passed out of double teams, and Dallas' secondary scorers were better.

In the season, Miami held opponents to .023 lower than average TS%.
In the playoffs, they held Philly to .047 under their season TS%.
Then they held Boston just .008 under their normal shooting.
They held the Bulls to .078 under their season TS%.
In the Finals, Dirk was .063 below his season TS%. But Dallas was actually .007 better than in the season.

It seems the Heat overplayed Rose, and it worked -- no one else stepped up.
They overloaded on Dirk, and a bunch of guns opened up: Terry, Barea, Stevenson

[xkonk]

He wasn't competing against his teammates, so it makes good sense to compare him to the opponent.
They overloaded on Dirk, and a bunch of guns opened up: Terry, Barea, Stevenson

You seemed skeptical that Dirk was not the best player on his team. So it makes sense to compare him to his teammates.

[bbstats]

I think Dirk was champ for most of the playoffs and was clutch in a few games, but the players who had the most overall positive impact this series seem to be Terry and Kidd...

[Bobbofitos]

Counterpart? Does this mean that if 2 of the best players in a series happen to play the same position, they can't both be great? One has to be lousy, or both have to be mediocre? That might explain why Kidd was great vs Westbrook 'horrible'.

Mike, greatness is relative. In a given series, if 2 players are scoring on each other at will, for sure both are having great offensive performances. But doesn't some of the blame in allowing their matchup reduce said greatness? I think it's totally feasible for a near zero-sum output for 2 players facing off against one another. Shawn Marion had a great series in part because the expectation of [LBJ] vs [Marion] was supposed to be a landslide, but it wasn't; LeBron "won" the matchup, but not as much as expected. ie., Marion played better.

[Statman]

Counterpart? Does this mean that if 2 of the best players in a series happen to play the same position, they can't both be great? One has to be lousy, or both have to be mediocre? That might explain why Kidd was great vs Westbrook 'horrible'.

Mike, greatness is relative. In a given series, if 2 players are scoring on each other at will, for sure both are having great offensive performances. But doesn't some of the blame in allowing their matchup reduce said greatness? I think it's totally feasible for a near zero-sum output for 2 players facing off against one another. Shawn Marion had a great series in part because the expectation of [LBJ] vs [Marion] was supposed to be a landslide, but it wasn't; LeBron "won" the matchup, but not as much as expected. ie., Marion played better.

OK - I'm totally confused. It seems to me (and I guess MikeG) that WARP seems to have Dirk AND Bosh rated WAY low (compared to my perceptions watching the games AND compared to my metrics). Wouldn't they be each other's counterpart? WARP had Bosh in like a dead heat (no pun intended) for the WORST player in the entire series (with Peja - who truly was horrible) - wouldn't Dirk's metric be aided by by Bosh's supposed horrible performance (holding his counterpart down)? Same with Bosh - if Dirk wasn't really very good - how did Bosh end up looking SO BAD according to WARP?

BTW - I hate the concept of trying to establish a specific counterpart. It seems like a lot of kinda unneeded work that could really skew results in an unattractive way - especially in today's game when there is so much switching matchups (heck, Kidd guarded LBJ many times this last series). How bad would Bill Russell's ratings look in so many of those finals with Wilt, Kareem, et all as the counterpart? God help the rating for the poor suckers assigned as MJ's counterpart in all those past series.

[Statman]

Here's my playoff & finals ratings (last post):

http://sonicscentral.com/apbrmetrics/vi ... ?f=2&t=229

I'll repost my Finals ratings/rankings - adding the WARP & eWins rankings for each player also:

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Rk WARP eWin Player        Tm  Mn/g Pt/g R/g A/g S/g B/g T/g  TS% Rating
 1     1    1 Dwyane Wade   MIA 39.0 26.5 7.0 5.2 1.5 1.5 2.5 0.600 156
 2     7    4 Jason Terry   DAL 32.5 18.0 2.0 3.2 1.3 0.0 1.3 0.593 121
 3     5    2 Dirk Nowitzki DAL 40.3 26.0 9.7 2.0 0.7 0.7 2.8 0.527 121
 4     8    6 D. Stevenson  DAL 17.2  7.0 1.5 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.2 0.808 107
 5     2    5 T. Chandler   DAL 37.3  9.7 8.8 0.7 1.2 1.2 0.5 0.604 104
 6     9    3 LeBron James  MIA 43.7 17.8 7.2 6.8 1.7 0.5 4.0 0.535 100
 7     3    7 M. Chalmers   MIA 29.0 11.8 2.7 3.5 1.5 0.0 1.7 0.607 100
 8     6    8 Shawn Marion  DAL 35.7 13.7 6.3 2.3 0.8 0.7 2.3 0.516 100
 9     4   10 Jason Kidd    DAL 37.3  7.7 4.5 6.3 1.2 0.8 3.5 0.575  99
10   20    9 Chris Bosh    MIA 39.3 18.5 7.3 1.0 0.3 0.5 2.2 0.489  92
11   15   11 Jose Barea    DAL 21.3  8.8 2.2 3.2 0.5 0.0 1.5 0.453  91
12   12   13 Eddie House   MIA 12.5  4.5 2.0 0.5 1.0 0.0 0.5 0.500  81
13   17   15 Ian Mahinmi   DAL  9.0  3.0 1.7 0.0 0.3 0.0 0.0 0.600  80
14   13   17 B. Haywood    DAL  8.7  1.7 2.3 0.0 0.3 1.0 0.3 0.417  80
15   14   18 Udonis Haslem MIA 29.3  6.7 5.2 0.7 0.5 0.5 0.8 0.471  80
16   10   12 Mike Bibby    MIA 17.4  3.8 1.4 1.0 1.4 0.2 0.6 0.475  73
17   11   14 Juwan Howard  MIA  5.8  1.8 1.2 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.2 0.563  73
18   18   16 Mike Miller   MIA 15.7  3.5 2.8 0.8 0.8 0.2 0.7 0.457  71
19   19   21 Joel Anthony  MIA 20.7  1.3 3.5 0.3 0.2 1.2 0.2 0.286  64
20   16   19 B. Cardinal   DAL  6.0  1.4 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.0 0.6 0.875  37
21   21   20 P. Stojakovic DAL  6.5  0.5 0.8 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 0.200   0

A couple other things I noticed that I don't think have been mentioned:

WARP has Chandler as easily the #2 player - well ahead of Dirk & Terry. There HAS to be some kinda issue where maybe he is getting a massive amount of credit for Joel Anthony just being plain horrible as an offensive player.

Mentioned before - but I gotta mention it again - WARP has Chalmers ahead of Dirk & Terry? Chalmers getting too much credit for Kidd never shooting?

I watched every minute of this series - I am a U of A alumn - and it kills me to admit that Mike Bibby was horrible (as he was ALL playoffs). How could ANY metric have him ranked WELL AHEAD of Bosh AND Barea?

That being said - JET repped U of A quite nicely in leading (along with Dirk & the rest) my Mavs to the promised land.

[Mike G]

I think Dirk was champ for most of the playoffs and was clutch in a few games, but the players who had the most overall positive impact this series seem to be Terry and Kidd...

Terry was indeed phenomenal, but not for the first 4 games. He was shooting .500 eff%, Kidd .444 . At that time, the Mavs were lucky to be 2-2.

You might notice "impact" when a player who has been doing nothing suddenly starts to do something, and then you remember: "he can do this". Over games 2 thru 4, Kidd totaled 15 points and 13 turnovers.

Shawn Marion had a great series in part because the expectation of [LBJ] vs [Marion] was supposed to be a landslide, but it wasn't; LeBron "won" the matchup, but not as much as expected. ie., Marion played better.

Marion played better than expected, or he played better than LeBron?

In the opening post, note that Marion had played well (not great) vs Por and Okl, weak vs LA. I had him projected to get .058 eW/G at 32 mpg. He averaged .065 eW/G in 36 mpg. Right on the money. He did cover LeBron some of the time, and he'd had some pretty strong matchups in earlier rounds, as well.

The mvp Nowitzki got at least 21 points in every game. (Only series in which he did that.) Consistency matters.
Thanks to his bad first half in the 6th game, the Mavs didn't finish the Heat as they did the Lakers.

Here are their Game Scores for the Finals:

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Mavs       gm1   Gm2   gm3   Gm4   Gm5   Gm6
Marion    14.9  17.4   5.2  10.3   4.4   7.9
Chandler   7.6  11.9  10.6  17.4  13.0   5.5
Nowitzki  17.4  14.0  27.8   9.9  22.1   8.1
Kidd       7.7   3.8   9.3    .2  15.5  11.7
Terry      5.4  12.9  10.4  12.4  18.8  20.7
Barea      -.9   1.7  -2.3   5.2  14.8  12.4
Stevenson  5.2   8.5   3.7   7.7   1.8   7.7

Terry had 5 games >10.0 ( 4 for Dirk). And the Mavs' success exactly follows his GmSc line.
Looks like Terry was the Man in G6, Chandler in G4, Marion in G2, Dirk in the other 3 -- only one of which was a win.

[Mike G]

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Rk WARP eWin Player        Tm  Mn/g Pt/g R/g A/g S/g B/g T/g  TS% Rating
 1     1    1 Dwyane Wade   MIA 39.0 26.5 7.0 5.2 1.5 1.5 2.5 0.600 156
 2     7    4 Jason Terry   DAL 32.5 18.0 2.0 3.2 1.3 0.0 1.3 0.593 121
 3     5    2 Dirk Nowitzki DAL 40.3 26.0 9.7 2.0 0.7 0.7 2.8 0.527 121
 4     8    6 D. Stevenson  DAL 17.2  7.0 1.5 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.2 0.808 107
 ...

Statman Dan, your Rating is a per-minute thing, is it not?
If you weight by minutes played, Stevenson probably doesn't rank ahead of LeBron, Marion, etc ?

[Mike G]

.. How bad would Bill Russell's ratings look in so many of those finals with Wilt, Kareem, et all as the counterpart? ...

Kareem never managed to score a single point on Russell.

[Bobbofitos]

How bad would Bill Russell's ratings look in so many of those finals with Wilt, Kareem, et all as the counterpart? God help the rating for the poor suckers assigned as MJ's counterpart in all those past series.

That's why you either adjust ex post series, or understand the numbers with context. So I can say player M was responsible for + or - N points, but in a given O series, was matched up against player P, who had a Q rating. On the whole, that N rating sheds a new light and actually has deeper meaning. (As in, wow, throughout the Mavs-Heat series, pundits expected LeBron to "win" his matchup by about 12 points over 6 games, but instead Marion played him to nearly a draw, with LBJ only getting the better by 2 points - perhaps that was why the series went as it did?*)

*Numbers made up, but points stands.

[Bobbofitos]

I thought Wade was the series MVP. He was phenomenal. Tyson had the greatest Mav impact, followed by Terry/Dirk. The Heat just had a lot of negative players (in that series) surrounding Wade.

[Statman]

Code: Select all

Rk WARP eWin Player        Tm  Mn/g Pt/g R/g A/g S/g B/g T/g  TS% Rating
 1     1    1 Dwyane Wade   MIA 39.0 26.5 7.0 5.2 1.5 1.5 2.5 0.600 156
 2     7    4 Jason Terry   DAL 32.5 18.0 2.0 3.2 1.3 0.0 1.3 0.593 121
 3     5    2 Dirk Nowitzki DAL 40.3 26.0 9.7 2.0 0.7 0.7 2.8 0.527 121
 4     8    6 D. Stevenson  DAL 17.2  7.0 1.5 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.2 0.808 107
 ...

Statman Dan, your Rating is a per-minute thing, is it not?
If you weight by minutes played, Stevenson probably doesn't rank ahead of LeBron, Marion, etc ?

The rating is scaled down or up toward team average relative to rating & minutes played & team minutes distribution. If we completely ignore the PT adjustment (purely per minute rating then) - Wade is a 184, Terry 135, Dirk 127, Stevenson 123, Anthony 42, Peja -11.

Now if I did say a VORP thingy similar to you guys (using 85 as "replacement player" level) - he'd be 9th just barely behind Chalmers but ahead of Bosh because his minutes were quite low compaired to the big minute guys. I'm not a big VORP type guy - partly because one gets weird results on the OTHER end of the spectrum (low rated guys with tons of minutes) - making guys like Bruce Bowen look infinitely worse because of their low production/big minutes than guys that even never play. This is a big reason why WARP seems to show Bosh being horrible this series (Peja level horrible) - it sees his production as being below replacement over extended minutes. Any rating that sees Bosh having a much worse series than, say, Anthony just looks very suspect to me.

Anyway - my rating isn't purely per minute like PER - you will never see a low minute guy with a crazy high rating (or a high minute guy with a crazy low rating). Stevenson's 107 just means he was 7% better than the average 2011 finals player - despite having great per minute stats. If it was strictly per minute - my rating would see him as being 23% "more productive" than the average 2011 finals player.

[Statman]

.. How bad would Bill Russell's ratings look in so many of those finals with Wilt, Kareem, et all as the counterpart? ...

Kareem never managed to score a single point on Russell.

I was testing you - you passed.

[Mike G]

I thought Wade was the series MVP. He was phenomenal. Tyson had the greatest Mav impact, followed by Terry/Dirk. .

Are we now promoting "greatest impact" as a distinction from "most valuable", which is also different from "best player"?
Jason Terry had 4 good-to-great games, and Dallas won them all. Two of Dirk's 3 best games were losses. Does that make Dirk less valuable and/or less impactful?

I'm more curious how Tyson Chandler was the top Mav (in impact). I thought his great accomplishment was going 37 minutes a game; but I don't recall any heroic moments.
Dirk was just as good a rebounder and more than twice the scorer. What did Chandler do that make up for a 16 PPG difference? He got one block per 32 minutes.

.. The Heat just had a lot of negative players (in that series) surrounding Wade

Which players were these, and what source do you have? Just watching the games?
I'm always curious about assessments of players being "negative". When I get a negative (eW) reading for a key player, I suspect some tweaking may be in order.

[Bobbofitos]

Sorry it has taken several days to get back to you:

I thought Wade was the series MVP. He was phenomenal. Tyson had the greatest Mav impact, followed by Terry/Dirk. .

Are we now promoting "greatest impact" as a distinction from "most valuable", which is also different from "best player"?
Jason Terry had 4 good-to-great games, and Dallas won them all. Two of Dirk's 3 best games were losses. Does that make Dirk less valuable and/or less impactful?

To me there is no distinction. Wade was simply the most valuable, therefore, had the greatest impact. (In terms of game to game win % as well as series expectancy)

I'm more curious how Tyson Chandler was the top Mav (in impact). I thought his great accomplishment was going 37 minutes a game; but I don't recall any heroic moments.
Dirk was just as good a rebounder and more than twice the scorer. What did Chandler do that make up for a 16 PPG difference? He got one block per 32 minutes.

His greatest contribution was his offensive boarding. Miami centers rebounded very poorly and Tyson got a bunch of those available boards. He had 24 offensive rebounds in 223 minutes. Dirk had 2 in 241 minutes.

.. The Heat just had a lot of negative players (in that series) surrounding Wade

Which players were these, and what source do you have? Just watching the games?
I'm always curious about assessments of players being "negative". When I get a negative (eW) reading for a key player, I suspect some tweaking may be in order.

My mistake in the wording. Negative meaning non-positive contributor, in other words, less than their counterparts. To boot, it seems like every Miami counterpart outperformed their contributions in the series, making whatever they did "negative".