One of the cool features with this new basketball site, HoopData, is the Shot Locations and Opp. Shot Locations data: http://hoopdata.com/oteamshotlocs.aspx But what I was interested in was shot locations data with specific players on the floor. Using basketball geek's PBP data, this is attainable in a fairly straightforward way. Actually, his PBP data provides X-Y coordinates for all shot attempts, so using a little math one can deduce both the distance from the basket and the angle at which the shot was taken. For right now, I'll just consider distance. Below, I show opponent shooting stats for the current season (again, through 12/5) with various front-court combinations. There are 4 primary PF/C combinations that Adelman has used in his rotation thus far -- in order of minutes played: Luis-Chuck (392 min), Carl-David (236 min), Luis-Carl (165 min), Carl-Chuck (77 min). First, a look a the PF/C rotation which I had posted earlier in another thread: Below, FGA% is the percentage of field goal attempts at the specified range, while FG% is simply FGM/FGA for the specified range. Some comments: While opponents are shooting only 35.8% on threes against the Rockets this year, when the above combinations are the floor opponents shoot 38.4%. Amazingly, opponents have shot only 2 for 26 otherwise, thus driving the overall % to 35.8%. It might just be a fluke, but it was just something strange I wanted to point out. Best interior defense in terms of FG% allowed on close shots (within 5 feet) was with Luis and Chuck. Let's keep in mind that, as starters, they are also playing most of their minutes alongside Ariza and Battier. Another factor could be that the starting group is better at denying fast break layups. The defense with Luis and Carl on the floor is pretty bad; something we observed last year. Notice how opponents shoot more combined 3s and inside shots with that combination, and how the opponent FG% is generally higher. From the rotation chart, you can see that Luis and Carl are most likely to be on the floor at the end of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd quarters. Could this be attributed to a general team weakness in "finishing quarters strong"?
Was it only in the game where Luis was hurt that we saw Chuck and David on the court at the same time? I can't think of any other time. For some reason that combination intrigues me. One question for you. How do you see the breakdown on that site of the combos you show here?
If you're referring to HoopData.com, they don't show the breakdowns by player combos. I didn't use HoopData at all for that post, just the play-by-play spreadsheets at basketballgeek.com.
Ah! That would be why. For some reason I misunderstood and thought there was something I was missing at the hoopdata site. thanks
Have to be really careful here....not only sample size issues but also that the consideration that there are biases at what points of each game each player plays and that will naturally determine which opponents will be in the game. For example - the starters will probably have a higher 3 point shooting an dplay in Q1 & Q3. Still, I'm amazed at the level of analysis you do get down in to.
Player stats in 7 seconds or less min FGM FGA 3PM 3PA fouled tov ast 3pt-ast A Brooks 659 19 45 7 17 17 16 19 1 T Ariza 777 35 57 7 20 11 9 14 2 S Battier 643 2 5 0 2 6 4 6 3 L Scola 580 15 18 0 0 16 7 6 2 C Hayes 480 1 2 0 0 1 0 5 0 K Lowry 483 8 21 0 4 22 11 30 6 C Landry 518 15 19 0 0 11 5 0 0 C Budinger 366 19 36 3 10 4 2 3 0 D Andersen 272 2 3 0 0 9 1 1 0 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- total 117 208 17 53 117 57 84 14 A few comments This confirms how good Lowry is on the break -- 30 "early" assists, including 6 to 3-pointers, lead the team by far. Draws a ton of fouls. Not the greatest finisher, however. Ariza's got nearly twice as many field goals in early offense as anyone else. But, per minute, Chase has him beat. Earlier in the year, there was an article on how Landry needed to improve in running the floor in the transition. Looks like he's got it. He's got the same number of early offense made field goals as Luis, playing less minutes. Of course, it helps to be partnered with Kyle Lowry. Shane and Chuck ... not a big part of the "early offense" attack. Only 17 for 53 on "early offense" 3-pointers. That's 32%. I'm a little surprised its so low. Perhaps, given the results in the first post in this thread (missed shots for Rockets lead to very high efficiency possessions by the opponent), the Rockets should consider cutting them down?
A offensive possession is not nessarily followed by a defensive possession. For instance, getting an offensive rebound after missing a shot. I'm a bit confused, but how do you count possession as aboe-mentioned situation?
Getting an offensive rebound after missing a shot is extending the possession, not creating a new one. Possessions will alternate between teams, except for possibly between quarters. And no, I'm not Ryan.
Ok, I see. Actually, when you mention a possession ended in a missing shot or a free throw, it is followed by a defensive reboud by the other team. Still, another question. Do you regard offensive foul as a defensive stop, which actually put an end to opp's possession? I think it's counted as a personal foul in Box Score. Great analysis!
I've updated these stats, through the Cavs game. I also made an important modification, filtering out plays in the last 5 seconds of each quarter. Some of these plays could technically have come in the first 7 seconds of a possession, but because these shots are typically contested shots taken after a deadball, or long 3-point heaves, I figured its best to leave them out. Below, in my view, is a good representation of the production of each player (and the team) in fast break situations or perhaps on "quick hitting" plays after a timeout. MIN PTS FGM FGA 3PM 3PA fouled FTM FTA AST 3PAST TOV OFOUL Aaron Brooks 696 73 21 42 8 17 17 23 27 22 1 16 3 Trevor Ariza 822 96 37 55 8 19 13 14 17 13 3 8 1 Shane Battier 681 10 2 6 1 4 7 5 6 6 3 3 0 Luis Scola 605 45 17 20 0 0 18 11 12 6 2 6 0 Chuck Hayes 504 3 1 2 0 0 3 1 2 8 1 1 1 Kyle Lowry 502 41 8 17 0 0 24 25 29 31 7 9 2 Carl Landry 547 41 16 19 0 0 12 9 10 0 0 6 3 Chase Budinger 375 42 19 36 3 9 5 1 6 4 0 2 0 David Andersen 287 7 2 3 0 0 9 3 4 1 0 1 1 total 1013 363 124 202 20 49 111 95 118 91 17 54 12 And also per 48 minutes: MIN PTS FGM FGA 3PM 3PA fouled FTM FTA AST 3PAST TOV OFOUL TS% Aaron Brooks 696 5.0 1.4 2.9 0.6 1.2 1.2 1.6 1.9 1.5 0.1 1.1 0.2 67.7% Trevor Ariza 822 5.6 2.2 3.2 0.5 1.1 0.8 0.8 1.0 0.8 0.2 0.5 0.1 76.8% Shane Battier 681 0.7 0.1 0.4 0.1 0.3 0.5 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.0 57.9% Luis Scola 605 3.6 1.3 1.6 0.0 0.0 1.4 0.9 1.0 0.5 0.2 0.5 0.0 89.0% Chuck Hayes 504 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.1 0.2 0.8 0.1 0.1 0.1 52.1% Kyle Lowry 502 3.9 0.8 1.6 0.0 0.0 2.3 2.4 2.8 3.0 0.7 0.9 0.2 68.9% Carl Landry 547 3.6 1.4 1.7 0.0 0.0 1.1 0.8 0.9 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.3 87.6% Chase Budinger 375 5.4 2.4 4.6 0.4 1.2 0.6 0.1 0.8 0.5 0.0 0.3 0.0 54.3% David Andersen 287 1.2 0.3 0.5 0.0 0.0 1.5 0.5 0.7 0.2 0.0 0.2 0.2 73.5% total 1013 17.2 5.9 9.6 0.9 2.3 5.3 4.5 5.6 4.3 0.8 2.6 0.6 71.5% Again, these stats were derived from the play by plays provided at Basketball Geek. For comparison, based on 72 games last year the Rockets scored 10.9 points per 48 minutes in the first 7 seconds of possessions (again, not including end of the quarter). While Ariza and Budinger lead the team this year in points per 48 minutes in under 7 seconds, last year it was Von Wafer and Kyle Lowry with 5.1 and 4.6 points per 48 minutes, respectively. Any ideas for further investigation would be greatly appreciated, and I'll update with whatever results I can get in this thread.
Fascinating stuff. If I read that right, Scola has some pretty outstanding numbers during those situations. Lowry with 30 assists! Great to see some of the things one thought they'd noticed verified with the analysis.
Surprising to me is all the dimes Ariza has on the 7 secs or less. He is usually the finisher on the break(hence his high FG%). Another surprise is Brooks shooting so many FTs. I wonder how much of that is due to being in a situation where the other team has to foul and Brooks gets the inbound?
I don't think it's any surprise that as the years of Jeff "Transition D is priority #1" Van Gundy fade away, transition d gets worse. Couple that with no Yao working the post and the boards(and guys spotting/standing around waiting for him) and it gets even more apparent.
Since this thread is alive again (thanks Deck), I'll update with something else I've looked at recently. In recent Rockets broadcasts, we've heard that Lowry is the best in the league at increasing the pace of the game. With that in mind, I wanted to see gauge how each player picks up the pace when they enter the game. The metric I consider here is time per possession (in seconds). Consider the following table: Each cell has a corresponding "row" player and "column" player. Consider the (Brooks, Lowry) where the value is -1.6. This means that the time per possession Brooks and Lowry are on the floor together is 1.6 seconds less than when Brooks is on the floor without Lowry. Similarly, the (Brooks, Battier) cell tells us that possessions are 1.5 seconds longer when Brooks shares the floor with Battier versus without Battier. Another metric we could consider is time to first shot/drawn foul/turnover per possession. Because the Rockets are particularly good at offensive rebounding, time per possession may not be the best indicator of how quickly they get into their offense. Here are the results based on this metric: So, each column can be said to describe the impact on pace by the "column player" when joining the player on the corresponding row. Two things are readily apparent. Lowry does indeed appear to pick up the pace more than any other player. But another thing is Battier looks to slow the game down more than any other player.
