I've been thumbing through some articles since your post intrigued me. I think what I failed to account for mostly was that GS is the BEST cutting/slashing team in the playoffs and how they generate easy baskets at or near the rim where it can skew the base numbers to me at least when not looking deeper. You are right. GS and Boston are both very good at converting their midrange shots even when they may not take as many as I would have presumed at least among playoff teams. Made me want to see the charts for game 1, but I couldnt figure out how to modify that entry in the charts you provided. It "feels" like GS took and made more midrange shots in game 1 too, but alas maybe Im wrong yet again. https://www.nba.com/news/nba-finals-numbers-preview-key-stats-that-could-define-series That particular article I posted was older, but the premise to their offense being a bastardized triangle/motion/flex type offense that almost needs midrange shots to keep everything else going is where I was trying to get at. Game 2 it seemed like Steph was initiating a lot more from the PNR that would open up every other level and make Boston scramble and play out of sorts defensively. They were loading up trying to stop the 3 ball, but GS just took what was given even when they missed. Same with the Boston v Milwaukee series and watching Tatum and Giannis go blow for blow and how drives and 3's DO open up the midrange for players that can take advantage. I dont advocate any player take a large volume of 2's unless its part of their package. Most players today seem to only want to shoot 3's and go to the rim which is a sound strategy mathematically, but in game theory it may no be the best when playing do or die games. Banchero is not at the 50% threshold for midrange shooting, but its a staple of his overall package. He's not "bad" at it especially when its setting up so many other counter moves and helping team movement in general. Its a necessary evil if you want to win a championship I guess is the TLDR version.
GS game 1 shot chart: https://www.nba.com/stats/events/?C...eamID=1610612744&flag=3&sct=plot§ion=game If you want to see a team's or player's shot chart, go to the box score and click on the number of field goal attempts of that team/player. The great thing about NBA.com is that a video of every shot plays automatically and in order. The length of each clip is also long enough to show the play develop, so you get a rapid fire view of each team's offense in just a few minutes. In game 1, GS shot 7-14 from midrange and 19-45 from three. Boston shot 5-10 from midrange and 21-41 from three. Per your link they take 13% and 12% of their shots from midrange, respectively. That's very low volume and I don't see the midrange opening up the three or drives or vice versa. Curry doesn't operate the PNR like Stockton, GS doesn't really run the PNR at all. All of Kevon Looney's baskets last night came on non-screening cuts. The typical way GS utilizes picks is Curry gets a pick from 25 feet or beyond and pulls up if the switching defender doesn't fully commit. Curry took eight pull up or step back threes last night, he took one step back two. The article you posted is four years old and very outdated. It talks about the number of Shawn Livingston's midrange attempts! GS is a very different team now. In the 17/18 season KD alone took 673 midrange jumpers. This season, GS as a team took 1,020 midrange shots in total, down 45% from the 17/18 season. They had 905 pullup threes this year alone and 2,240 catch and shoot threes.
I actually missed Lonzo Ball in 2017 as a freshman All-Amercian as well; he was drafted below Markelle Fultz in the 2017 draft, and I do think that if any other team other than the Lakers was at #2 that year, he could have fallen past Tatum as well. I don't really feel that we should be using All-American teams as the be-all, end-all, and they're a pretty poor indicator of future success in the league. I think that it's a much better predictor of draft stock, especially for young guys. It's totally understandable why any individual prospect doesn't make the team, based on the composition of the rest of their roster, coaching, or just the fact that they're being drafted based on physical projection, rather than current production. However, I do feel that those drafts where there is not a consensus #1 usually correspond with those years where there is not a dominant freshman in college ball. Ant was far from a lock at #1, and was probably helped by the two other guys in contention either playing even less than him (Wiseman), or playing overseas (Ball). Obviously Tatum was not a consensus #1, since he was passed over twice. Ja was a first teamer as a sophomore, although not unanimously. All three of Jabari/Chet/Paolo were very productive this year, but none of them quite separated themselves from the pack based solely on what they did on the court, which sort of tracks with the idea right now that you can probably find at least a few teams who would take each one #1 overall, based on individual preference.
Wow you just changed the game for me thanks. Really cool feature from NBA.com and im surprised I didnt know about it until today. I guess I need to switch up to a sativa during my game viewing or take better notes. So just to be clear on my end what is the designation for a midrange shot when totaling up the sum? Outside of the free throw line/restricted area? Is there a clear data point for when these figures kick in? Surely GS shot more than 59 shots in game 1? Volume wise you are correct as the data I pulled leading into the finals showed that both GS&BOS were 10/11th in volume while maintaining good efficiency with those shots but still Im not getting a cut and dry baseline for "midrange shot". This last game Curry was busting the drop coverage for wide open jumpers, but it sure seemed to me that he was operating from the PNR outside the arc mainly to open his game vs finding his rollers there. I guess Im a sucker for old school ball and see things that arent there. I think the midrange game is a lost art and teams that can incorporate it will always find themselves in the mix vs just living and dying by the 3. Respect - thanks for the recap and explanation.
The shot chart linked shows GS took 88 shots in game 1 (39-88). Basketball-reference.com and NBA.com show shot totals between 10 feet to the 3pt line, the former breaking it down between 10-16 feet and 16 feet to 3pt. I personally consider midrange shots to be the area between the paint and the 3pt line, but that's not how the sites show them. So some shots I consider runners are counted as midrange shots. Keep in mind that only 16 teams make the postseason, so GS and Boston's 10th and 11th postseason rankings from midrange put them in the lower half of attempts.
I guess we should be all in on ...... Jabari?? I see a marker for 10-16 feet and then another from 16 out to the 3 as classification for "midrange" shooting at bball reference and even has a "average distance" stat. (sorry my remedial ass couldnt post the graph just scroll down to the shooting portion). It actually looks like Tatum and Jaylen Brown are the midrange masters? https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2022.html https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/GSW/2022.html
I do not want Jabari; can't finish around the rim, no handle, can't create his own shot. He is a really good shooter and has nice defense, but at 6'10", all those other traits are concerning.
If Tatum and Celts win it all, the the top 3 will flip. I fully expect Banchero goes #1 or #2 if this happens. Especially if Tatum is critical to win in final game.
I have a question. Switchable defense has always had an important function. As a direct result of the Warriors however, much more emphasis has been placed on defenders who can switch. People are of the mindset that you need switchable defense to win a championship and they are correct considering you'll probably have to go through the Warriors in the finals. The Warriors have been in 6 of the last 8 finals matches having won 3 with one more tbd. The Toronto Raptors had success against the Warriors thanks to switchable defense. The other two championships however I'm not sure it was the case. The Lakers were not a switchable defense by definition. They won a championship against a switchable defense quite easily. What good was switchable defense against the 21'st ranked 3 point shooting team in the league? All that does is allow the larger slower players in AD and Lebron to attack the matchups they want. How did it work out for Phoenix switching guards onto Giannis? It seems to me that everyone is trying to identify defensive players that can win a championship. What I'm really hearing is, what players do we need to beat Steph Curry. Considering the Warriors have been to the finals pretty much the whole decade, this makes sense. More and more teams are trying to mimic the Warriors but there is only one Steph Curry. Many of the best up and coming stars are larger and slower than curry and able to attack downhill in a way curry cant. Some of these stars who have gone on to win a championship are still learning how to shoot. Luka is a jumbo guard who lacks elite athleticism. Giannis jumper is a work in progress why would you switch a smaller player onto him? Jimmy Butler isn't the fastest player or the best shooter why give him a mismatch to work against? Kevin Durant was tested as the 3rd slowest player in the entire league behind Al Horford and Deandre Jordan. Why would you allow him to shoot over a guard repeatedly. These stars hunt matchups. Speaking of Boston and switchable defense, how is it that Al Horford is on the floor as a starter and in crunch time when he's literally one of the slowest players in the entire league? And he’s not even playing center. I'm not going to argue the merits of switchable defense. I think it is a very important component to a team's overall scheme. Having said all this, why is it that we as Rockets fans are putting such an emphasis on this at all costs? By the time any of our prospects reach the age of 25, Steph Curry will have been retired by then. All I know is things always go in waves and nothing is ever a constant. No one has the off-ball movement the Warriors have. Switchable defense was not exactly ideal against any team that won a chip in the last decade outside of the Warriors. The Warriors started the trend of going small because they had the personnel to exploit it. The Rockets tried to do the same thing with Harden and the results were not great. The only reason bigs couldn't dominate small Warriors lineups was because of Draymond's defensive prowess, but most importantly Steph Curry abusing the matchup on the other end. We are seeing more and more very skilled star bigs. Steph Curry isn't going to play forever and he'll be gone by the time the Rockets have their window. I can't help but think things, as they always do, will change. This is why I was so in favor of drafting Sengun. Todays rule's are seldom tomorrow's rules and Sengun is a player for tomorrow. I don’t know if it’s smart to project players to fit in systems of today when in their primes, those systems and what we deem important could very well have changed. If history had taught us anything, change is inevitable.
Because switch is designed to counter the guard centric era of NBA. Just because Steph is one of the best guards in this era does not mean he is the only guard who can take advantage of NBA's lax rules vs contact with ball handlers. Long positionless switchable 3-D players are the best counters to ball handlers and scorers, of any size. Giannis struggles vs physical switchable 2 way players, especially the guys with low powerful center of gravity. Just as Steph and Jimmy struggle with longer defenders.
Because switching has proven to be generally more effective than playing picks straight up on a per-possession basis. This FiveThirtyEight article shows that over the last decade or so, switching has been either neutral or slightly better league-wide during the entire regular season. It's a bit like passing on first down, or going for it consistently on fourth-and-short in American Football. The analytics simply say it makes sense, and teams have been steadily adapting to take advantage of new information. Here's the thing, having an analytics edge now is getting increasingly more difficult. It's one thing to just say more FTs and 3PTA will give you more points on average, it's a totally different thing to sit down with Synergy stats and Second Spectrum player tracking and figure out how fast an individual player can close out, play the passing lanes, and disrupt the timing of the offense. Having switchable defenders also allows you to play pseudo-zones, allowing weak defenders to hide in the corner, or allow for key help defenders like Robert Williams to guard an area of the court, rather than be pulled out of his spot by being chained to one specific man. Zach Lowe had a good article on the 2018 Rockets vs. the Jazz, that showed how Houston was so good with CP3 that they could even pull off switches in the post and in kickouts, allowing your key defenders like Tucker and Moute to always be at the point of attack. Switching is no longer just for a ball screen-and-roll, there are little wrinkles that happen all across a defense, and having defenders who are capable of pulling this stuff off just gives you more options and tools to craft your scheme. In the regular season, you don't have time to set up individual gameplans on a nightly basis. Choosing to implement some kind of hybrid defense that requires players to mix up their coverages seems like more trouble than its worth. It seems far better to implement a system, get your players used to playing in a certain way, and accepting that sometimes the opponent will have mismatches. Better to have them make the instinctual read and just get beat occasionally, than to have everyone up in their own heads trying to execute a certain defensive play call every time down the court. Going with the cross-sport comparison, in the NFL, the nickel defense is an essential component to any defensive scheme, simply because of how good the QBs and WRs are, how fast the elite TEs are, and how no cornerback can realistically guard 1-on-1 any more without help. Was this a reaction to Tom Brady and the Patriots? Probably, but it has also held up well against the rest of the league. I think the switchable defense in the NBA is here to stay, and guys who can't fit into that will be an increasingly endangered species.
The ability to switch becomes even more heightened in the postseason because you face the best offensive teams and the best 1v1 players. This goes to the core of why 2 way superstars are so coveted. If you are a 1 way player, then that player has to be one of the best to have ever played and/or protected by 4 plus defenders.
What narrative? That I was wrong? LOL you're so quick to want to bully, haze or shame someone! My poor data processing led to a bias that was proven wrong. Not ashamed to admit that at all and I wont continue to defend an incorrect position now that im educated on the matter. A tribe grows great when there is a sharing of information not when some lord over others and I appreciated @MrButtocks for taking time out of his day to do my research for me and show me how to navigate and extract the specific data in question. THATS how you help people "be better" admitting mistakes and having self awareness is a sign of MORE knowledge .. not less. It did make me go look up the Jalen Green "hunch" I had and bam another whammy - in my mind Jalen Green was unlocked post all star break with the midrange shot since his % was so high among tweets and different articles I could remember, but it was at such low volume that I cant confidently feel like its a big part of his game even if he's great at it. I hope he uses it more to satisfy my fan stylistic preference is the furthest I could go with it. After all that I'll still die on the hill that midrange shooting will separate good from great teams and in last shot possessions could be the difference maker, but HAVE to admit that its a 3 point era and as much as I want the inside the arc game to be what it was - It wont be coming back en masse and I was also surprised that 42% is the NBA average on midrange shots, but still 50% seems to be the accepted point where it makes those shots worthy. .
*** Paolo Banchero Propaganda Hour*** Paolo looks GREAT! Really impressed with how he's applied himself to working out and getting ready.
