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I'm sure Mike G will start his own eWins thread (at the appropriate time?) and others may start their own individual series threads. This is simply for overarching views, thoughts, etc. on any and all of the series that are going on now.

Boston-Atlanta
1. Thought Jason Collins was possibly the best Atlanta player on the floor. It astounds me how a player who is so incapable of filling up ANY part of the conventional box score (except personal fouls) can have a positive outcome on a game, and yet, Collins does. It seemed to me that KG caught the ball just inside the arc ~nearly every time Collins was on him, and yet backed Ivan Johnson under the hoop when Collins was out. Collins rotated well (drew 1+ charge, committed several key fouls, prevented some inside shots). Did enough offensively (mainly, KG, for some reason, didn't leave him) to not be a negative.
2. Rondo killed the Celtics. Ignore the obvious double technical at the end, since the Win EV was pretty low anyway (although certainly moved the arrow to "99%") but his defense left a lot to be desired. It seems like he's taking a page out of the Monta Ellis school of gambling, where he'd rather dive into a passing lane rather than cover a 3pt shooter. Gave wide open looks to both Hinrich and Teague, and unfortunately, made the Celtics pay. (In the 1st ad 4th Q) Rondo is an amazing penetrator, but loves to kick it to slightly contested midrange shooters, which pretty much nullifies the positives of the drive itself. I'd like to look into his effect on eFG on/off, but that's more a testament to his assist whoring than anything else.
3. Was amazed that Larry Drew used a 10 man rotation. I would never consider giving Jannero Pargo or Willie Green a single minute of postseason action, but the Cs were unable to capitalize - thanks to a tantalizing stretch which saw (in a crucial game 1, 1st quarter, no less) Dooling, Pavlovic, Steisma, AND Pietrus. On the floor. at the same time.
4. Who played worse - Paul Pierce or Joe Johnson? I didn't think either was guarded particularly well, which is weird. Both just missed a ton of shots that they normally make some non zero % of the time. Whenever the Cs made a run, PP generally prevented them from closing the gap, and whenever Atlanta was poised to blow it open some more, JJ prevented them from doing that, too.

The Celts were without Ray Allen.

Mike G wrote:The Celts were without Ray Allen.

This is true... My understanding of ankle bone spurs is that he probably wont play much this post season. Probably wont be effective when he does play, and this is a similar, if not exact, injury that he had when he came over from the Sonics. Is this response to my astonishment that Doc had 4 2nd unit guys out there at once? If so, it's not so much that these guys got burn - that's fine - it's more that they were out there at the same time.

I think you've made a couple of basic errors in analysis here.

1. FWIW Collins blows. Perhaps he plays KG himself better but the Hawks D doesn't look better with him out there. He's really slow so the more he crowds his guy the more exposed the rim is (not that complicated IMHO). If KG drags him out good for the Cs. Although Rondo being a worthless shooter makes this strategy worthwhile for the hawks I suppose. Either way he's literally only useful against bangers and bad teams.

2. Sigh... Slightly less valuable penetration > what the rest of the Cs were giving them (Hint: Nothing). Not his fault Allen isn't playing.

3. Rotations shorten in the playoffs. Shocker.

4. Making or missing shots is only one part of value, JJ is incredibly important to the hawks offense clearly and even the most basic eyeball test should see that. Teague is still a substandard creator, whereas Johnson does everything reasonably well. The shots will fall overall, your observation is entirely based on short term variance.

Ray Allen seems to be one of those players who get a lot of minutes for a good team, with less than spectacular numbers: Apparently he's important on both ends of the floor, or vital on one and good at the other.
Last year he led the team with 2900 minutes at age 35. This team has much experience together, as does their coach, so being without Allen can be expected to yield some disarray on offense or defense, or both.

... the Cs were unable to capitalize - thanks to a tantalizing stretch which saw (in a crucial game 1, 1st quarter, no less) Dooling, Pavlovic, Steisma, AND Pietrus. On the floor. at the same time.

The Celts were +4 in 6 minutes of Dooling. Net zero between these 4.
All the starters were -5 or worse.

Hawks were -15 in 10 minutes of Willie Green! He replaced Joe Johnson, who was +24.

chilloutbro wrote:I think you've made a couple of basic errors in analysis here.

Observations =/= analysis, fwiw. Observations are what leads to analysis. This is just for general fodder which could then lead toward constructive analysis. So whatever I say should not reflect deeper analysis/digging through the numbers/word is god type thought.

1. FWIW Collins blows. Perhaps he plays KG himself better but the Hawks D doesn't look better with him out there. He's really slow so the more he crowds his guy the more exposed the rim is (not that complicated IMHO). If KG drags him out good for the Cs. Although Rondo being a worthless shooter makes this strategy worthwhile for the hawks I suppose. Either way he's literally only useful against bangers and bad teams.

Again, would take more digging within the numbers, but his actual +/- was spectacular in game 1... We need to wait and see - literally - about the rest of the series. My hunch is that he's the key figure for Atlanta. I could be wrong.

2. Sigh... Slightly less valuable penetration > what the rest of the Cs were giving them (Hint: Nothing). Not his fault Allen isn't playing.

But were the rest of the Cs giving them nothing because of the low-value penetration? Chicken and egg here, but at least we'll get 1 full game of [no Rondo] with which to draw some conclusions. My hunch, here, is that the Cs won't really miss him that much.

3. Rotations shorten in the playoffs. Shocker.

Except for the Hawks they didn't shorten, which is why I was surprised. They played 10 men. The Celtics played 9 men.

4. Making or missing shots is only one part of value, JJ is incredibly important to the hawks offense clearly and even the most basic eyeball test should see that. Teague is still a substandard creator, whereas Johnson does everything reasonably well. The shots will fall overall, your observation is entirely based on short term variance.

No kidding. ALL of these observations are based on the short term, ie. this specific game. It will extend to the following game and eventual series. It wasn't meant to be "both of these players are bad", but on the contrary - both took shots that they normally make a reasonable %. And this specific game the % was pathetically low.

"No kidding. ALL of these observations are based on the short term, ie. this specific game."

Truth. Philosophy of sports analysis shall be directed to some other thread.

For Orlando, Ryan Anderson and Hedo Turkoglu were terrible in last year's playoffs, and they're terrible through 3 games this year.
Anderson in particular. Last year his TS% fell .162 for the playoffs, and this year it's down .114.
His rebound% lost about 25% in last year's playoffs, and it's currently down 38% from the season.
PER down from 21.2 to 6.0, after 19 to 8 last year.
Just epic collapses, one after another. Hedo's slides are nearly as dramatic.

I had noticed the dramatic fall-off of Anderson in the playoffs in the past. It could / "should" cost him a lot of money. Unless, someone gambles that he eventually figures it out.

Maybe I'm the only person in the world who thinks this is weird, or maybe nobody even notices, but:
I've been tracking pythagorean equivalent wins for each playoff series, from game 2 onward.
After 3 games between Mia and NYK, the avg score was 97-77; pyth wins were 2.87 - 0.13
After 4 games, with avg score 94.5 - 80, pyth wins favored Miami by 3.61 - 0.39
So in that 4th game -- won by the Knicks -- Mia gained .74 pWins and NY gained just .26
If that 2-point NY victory had been figured separately, the pWins would be NY .58 - .42 Mia
The "error" in the cumulative pWins is about .32 per team, relative to the single game.

Is it an error if both (single game and cumulative) derivations are valid?
In eWins, the error/difference is just .20, but that also seems significant -- of something.

After 3 games, Bos had outscored Atl by 1.3 ppg, and pW were 1.66 - 1.34
After a 101-79 G4 win by Bos, pW have gone to 2.94 - 1.06
Bos thus gained 1.28 pW, while Atl had -0.28
For that one game, pW would be .96 - .04 (pW cannot be negative)
In this case, eWins increased by .89 and .11 , for Bos and Atl.

Looks like some good games last night that would not have been played if opening-round series were still best-of-5.

Dear Chicago Bulls, please play Taj Gibson 30 minutes a night, if his ankle allows it.
(I'm actually a Philly fan but I don't think I'd enjoy watching Philly getting destroyed by the C's)
I'd also like to see more Brewer in favor of Hamilton

I don't really understand why the Nuggets are playing Afflalo that many minutes and why they actually let him try to create shots... and as much as I don't like McGee, Miller is probably the perfect guy to pair him with, creating a 2nd Lob City

Why are the Lakers playing Jordan Hill? What happenend to McRoberts?

J.E. wrote:Dear Chicago Bulls, please play Taj Gibson 30 minutes a night, if his ankle allows it.
(I'm actually a Philly fan but I don't think I'd enjoy watching Philly getting destroyed by the C's)

As a Bulls fan I agree with that.

J.E. wrote: I'd also like to see more Brewer in favor of Hamilton

That is really not possible, because the Bulls need more playmaking and outside shooting right now. And Hamilton is indeed better at both than Brewer. It is unfortunate, because I would like to see Brewer also more than Hamilton, but the point guard situation of the Bulls is really not that great. Increasing Lucas' minutes while reducing Watson's might be useful, but afterall Lucas is also not really consistent enough and can only shine in a few minutes or when he is "on" in some games. Thibs seems to have found a way to see when it is better going with Lucas, but sometimes we have to accept the normal variance of the performances of the players.

J.E. wrote: Why are the Lakers playing Jordan Hill? What happenend to McRoberts?

That is something I also really like to know. Maybe Brown thinks that Hill at C is better than McRoberts at C, but I really have no idea.

What happened to Nikola Vucevic, the Sixers' rookie?
He started 8 straight games late in the year, and he played 26 minutes in their final game. But he hasn't appeared in the playoffs.

At this point, average playoff offensive efficiency is the lowest since the Pistons won the title in 2004. It is down by more in the playoffs compared to the previous season than the regular season difference. eFG% is down, offensive rebounding is down, fouls called are down. The defense ruled the first round.