2020 playoffs

[eminence]

I'll have the Bucks as heavy favorites to come out of the East, I think the toll of Boston/Toronto having to play one another the round prior is often underrated. Which side of the bracket gets IND and which gets PHI could wind up having some weight.

[Crow]

If a team is going to beat the Lakers, the W-L data indicates it is more likely to be a team with a good defense, including shot defense. In the west, that would be the Clippers and possibly the Jazz. The top eastern teams are well-suited to bring the defense.

More broadly, in terms of punishing relative weaknesses, it may need be very helpful for opponents to put pressure on the rim, force turnovers, not foul and limit opponent 3pt shooting. Clippers, Raptors, Bucks and Jazz all are elite at one but only really one. That might not be enough. But that is only part of the total equation. There are also Laker strengths and I]moment strengths and weaknesses.

[shadow]

I was able to get Bucks to win the East at -165. They were as high as -200 at BetOnline when I made the bet. William Hill in Vegas had them at -235 as of 6/18.

[Crow]

Clippers don't have a major team type W-L profile weakness.

Didn't especially hammer average to weak teams. That issue could still affect their seeding but goes away after that.

[Crow]

Celtics 5-5 after All-Star break. Meh with and without Kemba in that time. Offense and defense both down a bit compared to before AS. Kemba with bad shooting in all of last 10 games. What version of Kemba do they get after layoff? As mentioned before Tatum was off in March too. Plenty to wonder about.

[Mike G]

LeBron had his worst game of the season, according to GameScore; yet the Lakers won game 2 vs Por by 23 points.
This game featured his worst TO% (33.6), 4th worst TS% (.421), 3rd lowest eFG% (.364), 6th weakest Ast% (34.2), and unsurprisingly, his worst single-game O-Rtg (78) of the year.

It would be the 6th lowest playoff GmSc (6.2) of his career, and the only Win among his worst 10.
In 241 playoff games, he's had 10 worse ORtg, 20 worse eFG% and TS% -- but never a worse TO%.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... -advanced/

[rlee]

Basketball Intelligence: Today's Best NBA Reporting And Analysis: http://basketballintelligence.net/2020/ ... s-8-21-20/

[Mike G]

There's quite a difference in the evaluation of some players in the 'advanced' stats at b-r.com
BPM isn't appearing as yet, after just 2 games per team. I've taken the liberty of 'converting' PER to a per-48 minute number on the same scale as Win Shares per 48.
PER48 = (PER-5.75)/92.5
Here are players that WS likes a lot more than PER:

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Player           Tm   PER   PER48   WS/48  ew48
P.J. Tucker     HOU   17.2   .124   .250   .068
Dwight Howard   LAL   15.2   .102   .228   .088
Wesley Matthews MIL   13.3   .082   .192   .058
Fred VanVleet   TOR   26.4   .223   .329   .270
Kyle Kuzma      LAL    9.6   .042   .138   .049

K Caldwell-Pope LAL    6.4   .007   .103   .014
Danuel House    HOU   17.2   .124   .218   .119
Jaylen Brown    BOS   31.0   .273   .363   .236
Danny Green     LAL    3.5  -.024   .059   .016
Serge Ibaka     TOR   20.2   .156   .238   .156

Player           Tm   PER   PER48   WS/48  ew48
Bam Adebayo     MIA   19.6   .150   .230   .175
OG Anunoby      TOR   10.3   .049   .129   .036
Kyle Lowry      TOR   16.7   .118   .197   .163
Derrick Jones   MIA   13.3   .082   .159   .024
Jayson Tatum    BOS   37.1   .339   .411   .324
James Harden    HOU   31.6   .279   .349   .385

I threw in my own eWins rate, also converted to per-48 (not to be confused with PER-48!) for fun.

And here are some whose PER is much better -- or less bad -- than their WS/48:

Code: Select all

Player            Tm    PER : per48   WS/48    ew48
Dennis Schröder  OKC     .6   -.056   -.202   -.058
Furkan Korkmaz   PHI   -2.5   -.089   -.217   -.078
Caris LeVert     BRK   10.8    .055   -.072    .110
T.J. McConnell   IND    4.3   -.016   -.124   -.002
Donte DiVincenzo MIL    9.1    .036   -.068    .099

Tobias Harris    PHI   13.4    .083   -.019    .088
Josh Richardson  PHI   13.3    .082   -.020    .064
Antetokounmpo    MIL   22.0    .176    .077    .324
Joel Embiid      PHI   28.9    .250    .153    .234
Nikola Jokić     DEN   28.3    .244    .147    .201

Player            Tm    PER : per48   WS/48    ew48
Doug McDermott   IND     .1   -.061   -.151   -.069
CJ McCollum      POR    4.6   -.012   -.093    .041
T.J. Warren      IND   14.7    .097    .017    .098
Al Horford       PHI    7.4    .018   -.061   -.004
Chris Paul       OKC   14.7    .097    .019    .117
Paul George      LAC   12.0    .068   -.005    .099

[rlee]

Basketball Intelligence: Today's Best NBA Reporting And Analysis: http://basketballintelligence.net/2020/ ... s-8-22-20/

[rlee]

Basketball Intelligence: Today's Best NBA Reporting And Analysis: http://basketballintelligence.net/2020/ ... s-8-23-20/

[Mike G]

Jeff Green is one of 4 Houston players going 36 mpg in the playoffs. He comes off the bench and is called a Center for the first time in his career.
Here are some of his career playoff numbers:

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. yr    tm   G    mpg   TS%    ORt   DRt   GmSc
2010   OKC   6   37.3   .451    97   109   11.5
2011   Bos   9   19.2   .542    95   106    3.9
2013   Bos   6   43.0   .582   103   103   12.2
2015   Mem  11   27.1   .410    84   108    4.8
2016   LAC   6   26.4   .535   109   109    7.1
2018   Cle  22   23.8   .524   105   114    5.3
10-18  tot  60   27.2   .504    99   108    6.0
2020   Hou   3   36.0   .763   137   108   16.6

https://www.basketball-reference.com/pl ... -playoffs/
He has the 2 best playoff games (by Game Score) of his career this year, in 3 played. Age 34.

[Mike G]

Converting BPM and PER to a player 'wins' metric -- averaged along with Win Shares and eWins -- unimaginatively labeled 4W, the playoff leaders after 3 games:

Code: Select all

4W     thru 3 games     tm   mpg   WS    pW    bW    eW
.81  Donovan Mitchell  Uta   35   .93   .83   .77   .70
.73   James Harden     Hou   36   .74   .63   .65   .91
.68   Anthony Davis    LAL   36   .69   .62   .69   .73
.66   Kawhi Leonard    LAC   39   .62   .69   .62   .73
.66   Fred VanVleet    Tor   38   .83   .55   .68   .59

.65   G Antetokounmpo  Mil   32   .55   .58   .58   .87
.58   Jayson Tatum     Bos   35   .60   .52   .55   .63
.48   LeBron James     LAL   34   .39   .42   .48   .65
.48   Jaylen Brown     Bos   36   .58   .43   .45   .46
.48   Joel Embiid      Phl   36   .38   .51   .45   .56

4W     thru 3 games     tm   mpg   WS    pW    bW    eW
.46   Luka Dončić      Dal   32   .35   .47   .44   .59
.45   Damian Lillard   Por   39   .40   .41   .50   .46
.44   Jeff Green       Hou   36   .52   .38   .44   .40
.43   Rudy Gobert      Uta   36   .54   .52   .27   .40
.43   Kemba Walker     Bos   32   .46   .41   .38   .47

.43  Shai G-Alexander  OKC   40   .47   .39   .47   .40
.42   Malcolm Brogdon  Ind   40   .40   .46   .42   .41
.41 Kristaps Porziņģis Dal   31   .44   .42   .36   .42
.40   Jimmy Butler     Mia   37   .40   .42   .32   .46
.40   Nikola Vučević   Orl   36   .25   .42   .39   .52

4W     thru 3 games     tm   mpg   WS    pW    bW    eW
.36   Bam Adebayo      Mia   34   .43   .33   .30   .39
.36   Marcus Morris    LAC   33   .39   .31   .43   .29
.35   Serge Ibaka      Tor   25   .49   .34   .27   .32
.35   Nikola Jokić     Den   35   .21   .46   .36   .37
.35  Danilo Gallinari  OKC   35   .40   .35   .32   .32

.35   Kyle Lowry       Tor   37   .48   .27   .29   .35
.32   Goran Dragić     Mia   34   .30   .33   .26   .39
.29   Jamal Murray     Den   33   .20   .38   .29   .28
.28   Joe Ingles       Uta   33   .39   .27   .28   .21
.28   Pascal Siakam    Tor   34   .34   .26   .17   .36

A few players are credited with twice as many 'wins' in one stat vs another.

[Crow]

What are the simple or minutes weighted average ratings for these players by metric? And how do the averages compare? Avg absolute differences from blended average by player?

I am generally for blends but would rather have PIPM in the blend than winshares or PER. PIPM available at winsadded.com.

Happy for Jeff Green at this point of career. Will watch to see how he does against a different playoffs opponent, assuming he gets that opportunity.

[Mike G]

Each of these metrics is scaled to .100 wins/48 min. being average, in the context of their competition. Wins are then just metric*minutes/48

i looked at that pipm site. The 4 worst playoff pipm are Blazers -- Melo, McCollum, Dame, and Trent.
Sorting by team, I see all Blazers are negative. How do they compete?

I just use b-r.com, because the stats are all on one line. No need to combine a bunch of inputs and sort by player.

[Crow]

The Blazers are 12th of 16 on net rating at -8 pts / 100p and those players have individual plus minuses around that or worse. So PIPM isn't doing something unusual. What it does that the other metrics don't do is measure shot defense while on the court instead of one measure for all (regardless of on / off) or no shot defense at all.