Lenovo: T. McGrady, R. Alston, S. Battier, Yao, C. Hayes

Good post Yetti

 

Not to make any excuses, but how many times have the rockets had to play the fastbreaking Sun's off of a back to back and the Sun's are just waiting for them.

 

Good analysis. However, this could not convince me. How about we only look at how many wins for a team? That is pure number too, and should be a better measurement than the Lenovo number. To be honest, we are not top three yet.

 

You seem to equate Western teams = better teams. Who is tougher, Detroit or New Orleans?

The reality is, we've played poorer against even the mediocre Western teams even compared to the better (both in their own conference and to the non-elite Western) team. We're 1-3 v. Dallas, 2-2 v. SA, 0-3 v. Phoenix, total 3-8.

We're 23-21 vs. the West overall. 20-13 vs. the West minus the Big 3. We're 1-2 against the Jazz, so make it 19-11 vs. the West minus the Top 4. Relative to the East, we've struggled more against mediocre Western teams than the East as a whole, as I'm sure you deduced from the 24-6 record vs. the 19-11 record. Heck, we're 13-3 against Eastern Conference Playoff Teams.

Do you really think the competition of the East is inferior to Western teams seeded 6 and lower? There are 6 EC teams with better records than the 6th seed in the West.

I have no clue why we're struggling so much in conference...I do know, outside of Phoenix, Dallas, San Antonio, it's not because of superior quality of teams. Maybe it's lack of focus, maybe it's the seemingly inordinate number of long western road trips and back to backs in conference.

What I do know, is you once again made a sweeping, overly simplistic generalization.

 

If you can give me a list of 5-man units you're interested in, I can pull up their +/- numbers in various situations. Just specify the 5-man unit and the criteria you're interested in.

Here's the breakdown for our starting unit for the season, by quarter:

Code:

         [B]min   TmPts     OppPts     off/48    def/48    net/48[/B]    
overall  446    975       717       104.9      77.2     +27.8 
Q1       220    486       321       106.0      70.0     +36.0   
Q2        22     41        43        90.3      94.7      -4.4   
Q3       193    427       328       106.0      81.5     +24.6   
Q4         9     19        19       104.2     104.2      +0.0
OT         2      2         6        46.1     138.2     -92.2

I also applied the technique I described earlier to try to filter out the "blow out" portion of games (here, I set it to a margin greater than 10).

Code:

         [B]min    +/-    net48
[/B]overall  328   +166    +24.3 
Q1       201   +132    +31.4
Q2        18     -2     -5.3
Q3        98    +40    +19.6
Q4         9     +0     +0.0
OT         2     -4    -92.2

The numbers aren't very different, it turns out. It appears that this group actually tends to expand on its margin after going up by more than 10 points. That's the sign of a very strong team.

The puzzling thing that stands out is how few minutes this starting group has gotten in the second and fourth quarter. To illustrate, here are the games in which our starters have played at all in the fourth quarter:

Code:

                         [B]starters                other units
date     opp     min    +/-   Q4min   Q4+/-     +/-    Q4+/-[/B]
11/05   @NOK     15.8    +8     2.5    +0       -14     -5
11/28    MIN     15.8    +6     2.5    +7        +1     -7
03/05   @CLE     14.6    -6     0.3    -1        +0     +6
03/22    DET     16.8   +18     0.3    +0       -12    -11  
03/28   @LAC     19.2   +12     2.0    +0        -7     -4
03/30   @LAL     24.8    +0     0.3    -3        +3     -5
04/01    UTA     21.6    +4     0.9    -3        -7     -2

That's 7 games for the entire season! Notice the +/- of our starting group is good in most of these games, and generally, better than that of the other units. Still, the starting group never gets more than a few minutes in fourth quarter crunch time, and even that has been extremely rare.

It's simple. Our starters should play more in the 4th quarter. "But Luther Head is a big shot maker in the fourth quarter!" Screw that. Our starting 5 gives us our best chance to win. They dominate in the quarters (1st and 3rd) they actually have played consistent minutes.

 

what s the meaning of this ranking? is it very funny? we lost the game with the five but they ranked No.1? .......Jesus.

 

The number is straightforward. It says our starters have outscored the opposition by 259 points over the course of the season That they've done so in limited minutes together is very impressive. They should be playing more in the fourth quarter, when it really counts. See above post for details.

 

To be fair, this isn't quite as bad as it looks. How many games have the starting 5 started together? Yao was out for ~40 games, TMac missed a few games before that with his back, and I think Hayes missed a couple before that with his bump in with Shaq. Throw in some of the games when Chuck has 5 fouls in the 3rd (didn't he even foul out a couple times in the 3rd), and the games when all 5 starters are available (not injured, fouled out, or ejected like Rafer was once), is probably somewhere around 25-30 -- and even with a few of those few of those, we had the game in hand at the end of the 3rd, like the games TMac sits out the entire 4th (if you want to test, maybe filter for games VSpan and/or Novak play ). They still should have been in down the stretch of more than 7 games though.

I do agree though -- we need to play the dominant unit more together. I was screaming for Trucky to come back in when Millsap (and Boozer and Okur) was killing us on the boards late in the 4th of the Utah game.

One question--
1. Can you calculate the same +/- stuff for what unit we DO play the most in the 4th quarter? (Would it be possible to look at this only for games when all 5 starters are healthy or maybe easier to see just for the dates when Yao has been available)

 

7 out of 25-30, and the most they've played together in the fourth in any one game is 2 1/2 minutes. Overall, just 9 minutes for the season. That's ridiculous, considering all the breakdowns we've had. They are easily our best defensive lineup, and it's our defense that has been terrible down the stretch. This is something JVG should recognize immediately.

I can't know for sure which lineup plays the most in the 4th without doing an exhaustive search. Any guesses what that lineup would be?

I'm thinking its one of these:
Rafer, Head, McGrady, Battier, Yao
Rafer, McGrady, Battier, Howard, Yao
Head, McGrady, Battier, Howard, Yao

I'll check on their numbers in games where our five starters were available and post it later today.

 

I calculated the by quarter breakdowns for the above lineups in all games Yao and Tracy played in, not including the games Chuck missed in November.

Code:

[I]Rafer, Head, McGrady, Battier, Yao[/I]
        [B]min    TmPts    OppPts    off/48    def/48    net/48[/B]
        77.5    166      147       102.8     91.0     +11.8
Q1      0.03      0        0           0        0        +0
Q2      20.5     51       34       119.7     79.8     +39.9
Q3      5.8      14       10       115.2     82.3     +32.9
Q4      51.2    101      103        94.7     96.5      -1.9 
[I]
Rafer, McGrady, Battier, Howard, Yao[/I]
        [B]min    TmPts    OppPts    off/48    def/48    net/48[/B]
        55.9    132      110       113.2     94.3     +18.9
Q1      10.0     26       17       124.8     81.6     +43.2
Q2       9.4     18       15        92.2     76.9     +15.4
Q3      16.5     45       26       130.6     75.5     +55.2
Q4      17.2     33       49        92.4    137.1     -44.8
[I]
Head, McGrady, Battier, Howard, Yao[/I]
       [B] min    TmPts    OppPts    off/48    def/48    net/48[/B]
        29.1    55        67       90.8     110.6     -19.8
Q1         0     0         0        -         -         -
Q2       6.7    11        17       78.4     121.2     -42.8
Q3       0.8     1         0       61.3       0.0     +61.3
Q4      21.6    43        50       95.7     111.3     -15.6

There's no indication that these lineup performed poorly in the third, though there isn't any proof that they're equally as effective as our starting group either.

I'm thinking we should use our starters more in the fourth, but there would still be a dropoff due to fatigue, and already playing with a big lead.

One interesting thing is our Yao and Tracy together have a higher +/- in the fourth when Battier isn't on the floor (+3 in 39 minutes) than when he is on the floor (-23 in 125 minutes). I'm a big Battier fan, but the numbers do show that he becomes less efficient in the fourth quarter. Perhaps I'm reading too much into that, but maybe that's something to think about.