Food for Thought: A Courtside Perspective of the Rockets-Mavs Game

I don't want to eat and think! Go back to your candyland, optimist!












and thanks for the post

 

Nice report and I'm happy you had good seats. But they must have been on the opposite end of the court from where Dallas applied the pressure for Houston's collapse. Let me help you with benefit of watching a recorded version.

In the final 4:30, it was the Hayes matchup against Dirk that Dallas went to 2 straight to start their run. Dirk scored both times and forced the Rockets to put Battier on him. Battier fouled him. The Mavericks, like any smart team, take advantage of mismatches. Dirk was ISO'd and they had good shooters spread at the arc. Three straight possessions and the intangible guys give up 3 straight scores.

It was Dirk who guarded Hayes in the low block when the Rockets had the ball inside of 4:30. Because Hayes is such an offensive liability, Dirk (at 7 feet tall) basically played Centerfield and clogged the middle of the paint.
It's Hayes lack of any shot beyond 5 feet that allowed this and forced Yao further away from the basket and McGrady to kick out to the standstill shooting Alston and Battier. Something not obvious in real-time.

Further, the Mavs could stick their worst and slowest oncourt defender (Stackhouse) on Battier since he can't and/or won't get his own shot.

At some point, any reasonable person ought to question the value of statistic wherein a player on a losing team goes 1 for 3 but his intangible plus/minus yields a figure of + 18. Meanwhile, a player on the winning team was 8 for 16 and scored 18 points and was only PLUS 1.. That player was Dirk...his 14 rebounds was 1 more than Hayes.

My conclusion from long ago was it's more about the talent to create mismates and not about intangibles.

 

good point. but why can't we create some mismatches?

too bad, besides tmac, we don't have other players who has ability to use a mismatch to score for rox in the last couple min of a game, especially PG position. the ball starts from pg's hands. if a big man comes out and does p&r, the pg should be able to create mismatches, either score or drew other defenders away from other players so the pg can dish out to score.

 

we remain VERY VERY predictable why? b/c adelman is still using JVG's freaking plays down the stretch.

i guess adelman still has zero confidencei n them to run his offense (which they did in the 3rd and built a big lead) in crucial times and depend on plays they know from before.

pick and roll, pick and roll, pick and roll, for god sakes. if he wants to be JVG, then he'll get fired.

 

Chuck did indeed give up 2 baskets to Dirk. It happens. How many baskets did Dirk score on Chuck all game? I'm going back over the game tape, and I'll get back to you on that.

But get your facts straight. On the third time down, Chuck was matched up against Dirk again. Rockets doubled, and the Mavs missed a contested three in the corner (good job by Rafer), but T-Mac mishandled the defensive rebound and the Mavs recovered the ball. Battier ended up on Dirk due to that, not because of the previous two possessions as you implied. And Battier didn't give up a score either. He made a terrific defensive play which resulted in a fast break for us going the other way. You said that you're watching a recorded version, so I can only presume you're purposely distorting the facts to make a point. Not sure why.

Oh, that's what allowed it? Tell me, how many times did Yao score on a post up when Chuck wasn't in the game?

Here's the breakdown, though I'm sure you remember it all very well with your remarkable ability to track everything that goes on during a game in your head:

Code:

[b]With Chuck (1st 12:00-2:10)[/b]
8 points - 4 free throws, and a 2-3 from field (jumpers)

[b]Without Chuck (1st 2:10 - 2nd 6:43):[/b]
2 points - Yao: 1-2 (offensive rebounded Mike's miss) 

[b]With Chuck (2nd 3:20 - 3rd 2:03):[/b]
14 points: 6-7 (4 layups/dunks, 2 jumpers)

[b]Without Chuck (3rd 0:27 - 4th 4:48)[/b]
3 points: 1-4 (layup from T-Mac penetration and dish)

[b]With Chuck (4th 4:48 - 4th 1:09)[/b]
1 point (flagrant free throw)

[b]Without Chuck (4th 1:39 - 0:00)[/b]
2 points (1-2, missed jumper, weakly contested layup with 20 seconds left)

In other words, Yao was 8-10 from the field and scored 23 of his 30 points with Chuck in the game. When Mr. Offensive Liability was gone, Yao was 3-8 without a single score off a post up.

Now, in those final minutes, there were 3 instances where Alston/Battier took a three pointer before Chuck checked out. The first one, Yao wasn't even a post up option. The second one, as soon as Yao was fronted, the Rockets reversed the ball to a T-Mac at top of the key for a pick and roll with Chuck. That resulted in a three pointer. And the third time, it was a pick and roll with Yao late in the shot clock. Any decent team defense is going to send a help defender into the paint on that play regardless. Chuck situated himself for offensive rebounding purposes, which is perfectly fine. T-Mac elected to drive into the paint with the clock winding down and he gave Battier (who was 3-5 up to that point on the threes) a great three point look. It just didn't fall, but that's a high percentage shot generated from that play.

Reasonable people will recognized that there's much, much more to the game of basketball then points and rebounds. Reasonable people won't compare the rebounding totals of two players who played a differing amount of minutes and act like it means something. Reasonable people wouldn't claim that when a team outscores another by 18 points with a player in the game, and gets outscored by 22 when the player isn't the game, that the player was a liability. And reasonable people shouldn't have to resort to distorting facts about the game either. Particularly when that reasonable person acts like his observations are more accurate than recorded evidence.

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Either you're purposely being dishonest, or your observations aren't as accurate as you make them out to be.

You argue based on "intangibles" as much as anyone. You try to point out all the intangible ways in which Battier and Hayes hurt the team (e.g. somehow Hayes's presence on the court somehow hindered Yao and our offense in the final minutes), while turning a blind eye to the intangible ways in which they help the team.

 

i take it back, from that video, tmac drove A LOT down the stretch at least, but he kept passing for 3pt shots when he should have taken it up for a finish or possible foul. u can't depend on jumpshots down the stretch. tmac might have gotten those calls b/c the defenders were up in the air.

guess he ddn't want contact on that elbow.

 

The problem we have is that we have players in the starting lineup that all they have is intangibles (Hayes and Battier).
Teams that go beyond the first round need to have players that show up with numbers!

 

What numbers? How do you evaluate a player's "numbers"?

There's a book called Basketball on Paper, written by Dean Oliver. That guy knows more about interpreting "numbers" in basketball then pretty much anyone else.

Based on his "numbers", which rely solely on box score stats and not +/-, Chuck measures out to be a very good player. In fact, based on those numbers, one person from the APBRmetrics board determined that Chuck's true value in terms of salary is that of an 8 million dollar player.

If you want to go by numbers, why not trust the guys (you know, people like Dean Oliver or Daryl Morey) who understand how to interpret them the best? Otherwise, if you want to insist that value can't be captured by numbers, then don't contradict yourself by discounting the intangibles as well. You guys can't have it both ways.

 

If Chuck is such a commodity, why teams did not try to get him when he was a free agent in the summer?
If he affects the game so much, teams will be trying to get him and we should try to trade him for a real player like Artest.

 

Being dunked on is not soft. Ducking out is soft.

 

While a lot of NBA people appreciate the things he does far more than your typical fan, traditional modes of thinking about the game (over emphasis on "glory stats" and media reputation) still persist amongst many executives. That drives down his market value.

I'm not saying Chuck is worth 8 million a year. My point there was just to illustrate that numbers can tell you a lot of different things, depending on how you interpret them. I think people definitely underrate his "numbers" by just focusing on points/assists while not appreciating the value of a guy who forces far more turnovers than he commits, rebounds, and is efficient. He's getting about 2 million a year from us, and I'm convinced that's a bargain price.

 

I captured all of Dirk's offensive plays in this game. He didn't register an assist against us, so this pretty much covers it I think. Let me know if I missed anything.

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Final stats:

Code:

[B]matchup         Att    Points      Eff[/B]
Dirk vs Chuck   4-8    9 points    1.13
Dirk vs Scola   2-2    4 points    2.00
Dirk vs Shane   2-4    3 points    0.75 
Dirk vs T-Mac   1-2    2 points    1.00

For the season, Dirk's Eff (points scored per used possession) is 1.15.

 

Yea, and thats why he's been so far in the playoffs huh, Oh, How about this? What kind of shot did he take in game 7 of the 2005 playoffs? Oh wait, his lazy ass was beaten down by 40.....