More than half into the season, with 36-17 record, we are currently standing as third in West conference, which is great. We have enough sample size now to look into the data with W/L split. This way, we could see whether there is any trend correlate with W or L record, and hopefully give us some hint on where we could improve for the next half of the season. Again, data are from NBA.com. And definition of the the terms used could be found here: http://stats.nba.com/glossary.html I basically take the number from NBA.com and regrouped them a little bit. I will try to summarize what I see here: 1. shooting The team score roughly 10 point less and give up roughly 10 point more in losing games, suggest the problem is in both offense and defense. The team shoot worst in losing games compare to winning games. Especially the 3pt shot. Even FT% is decreased in losing games. 2. Shot selection In lossing games, team average more FGA in both 2pt shot and 3pt shot, but decreased the FTA Significant drop in fast break points (FBPs). Slightly increased 3pt FGA over 2pt FGA in lossing games. 3. AST/TOV Team have less assists in losing games More shots made were unassisted, suggested a less unselfish playing style in losing games. TOV is not as bad, we even have slightly higher TOV in winning games. Even though a slightly lower TOV and TOV ratio in losing games, opponent are getting more points off TOVs in losing games, suggesting weaker defense in those games. 4. Rebounds Thought we are averaging comparable offensive rebounds, percentage wise is not as good in losing games. It is most likely due to our lower FG% generates a lot more opportunity for offensive rebounds. Opposite is true with defensive rebound numbers. Though the number dropped, the percentage is not as bad, thanks for opponent team shot with higher percentage in our losing games. 5. Defense Other defensive parameters like blocks, steals, force TO etc. are relatively stable in both winning and losing games. Opponent shooting better FG% in our losing game, both 2pt and 3pt, suggested in those games, the defensive intensity is not there, and we are giving out easier shots to our opponents.
To be fair, I think this would be consistent with the vast majority of teams, the only indicator I took from this was the FGA rate in wins or losses, besides that not a whole lot to take from this
It actually is fun to look for individual player FG% with W/L split. And I was quite surprised with some of the numbers. Half of our major rotation player have average 3FG% lower than 27% in losing games. Wow. And James Harden with 25% 3FG% is shocking. Parsons and Casspi are the only two player with okay 3FG% in those games. James Harden, Beverley, and Garcia in losing games are averaging FG% in 30s, and they are ~ 10% lower than their shooting in winning games. Everybody shoot a bit less efficient in losing games than winning games, only Parsons, Casspi and Jeremy have less than 5% drop in FG% and 3FG%, all others has 8-15% drop, which are pretty big difference. Everyone except for Jeremy, TJ and Garcia increased their FGA a little bit even their FG% dropped significantly. (Parsons got a pass here). Both James and Dwight dropped their FTA in losing games quite a bit, Jeremy too. Only Parsons increased his FTA, but his FT% somehow dropped from not good in winning games to bad in losing games. (Not sure what happened to our shooters free throughs, Parsons and Casspi.) Beverley is the only one has significant playing time difference in winning games vs. losing games. He played significant longer times in losing games, a good 7 min difference. He is 13-1 W-L if he is playing 30 min or less, and 6-8 when he is playing 34 min or more. Hmmm, maybe we should sit Beverley more.:grin:
If we look at the shot distribution of 2pt and 3pt shots, the whole team have a slight shift of shooting more of 3 pt and less 2 pts shots. Consider our team don't shot too much mid-range shots, that's pretty much telling the team are less aggressive in terms of attacking the basket, but settling to shooting 3s. Unfortunately, the team also shots 3s with horrible 3FG% in losing games. On the other hand, when you look at the basket made, for players who normally don't create for themselves, like TJ and Casspi, in those lossing games, they suddenly increased dramatically on the unassisted shot %. Whereas for player who do play making and create, like Parsons and Beverley, they dropped % of unassisted 2pt shots, but increased unassisted 3 pt shots. These are the trends that goes away from team ball, but more individual iso ball. Not sure what is it, our PF TJ and streach 4 Casspi in losing games all dropped their fast break points significantly. Not sure it is by design or what. (Maybe they were asked to crash the board instead of leak out in fast break? or they are just not running the floor?).
Assist Ratio is the number of assists a player averages per 100 possessions used. Tends to favor players who rarely shoot the ball. Highlights players with passing disposition.= (AST * 100) / (FGA + (FTA * 0.44) + AST + TO). In this team, Parsons and James are all average around 18, and Brooks and Beverley are average at 20, whereas Jeremy has the highest assist ratio among all the rotation players in Rockets. However, in games we are losing, more players tend to pass less, and play less of a team ball, thus average a lower assist ratio there. In thise team, other than James and Jeremy, other major play makers somehow all end up with lower assist ratio, that's why in those losing games, the team looks more selfish, yet in winning games, the team are sharing the ball better. In this table, there is one more term of %AST, which indicated the The percentage of team assists by a player when this player is on the floor. And James somehow has pretty strong reverse correlation in his %AST with win/lose split. Basically, in those games, Jeremy, Beverley, Parsons collectively decreased their %AST, and they concentrated to James Harden, who take on more in play making and contributed to almost 40% of the assists when he is on the floor. To me, it looks like James is trying to do too much in those games, maybe he should trust his teammates a little bit more.....
Thanks for the effort and analysis. Shooting more fga and 3pta in losses and less fta is one of the important things, this team relies on jumpshots too much and needs to force its way into the paint way more. Seems they even get more desperate when about to lose and jack up more outside shots instead of searching for high efficiency opportunities or points from the FT line. This definitely needs to be addressed.
Seeing the home/away splits might be interesting. There are only 8 teams that have winning away records in the NBA right now. There is a well documented long term bias by the refs against the visiting team. Thus less foul shots on the road. I would assume the hostile crowd, unfamiliar surroundings, the difficulty of traveling, etc all play a part in degraded road performance.
It tells you something that it doesn't tell you much. That is, there are some "culprits" many have been suggesting about our losses are actually not true. For example, turnover is not a problem. Rebounding is not a problem. Or maybe they are a problem in some losses and not a problem in others and they average out.
I would suggest using pace-adjusted stats for this. You may end up with the same conclusions, but its better for making comparisons.
so the players must be cooking the numbers to cope with the agenda. oh wait........ or your teacher failed to educate you how to distinguish between fact and opinion
I tried to highlight things that has big changes. And for D12 and TJ's ft%, I think we all know that, thus did not further talk about it. Parsons' FT% was a surprise to me, as I did not realize his FT% is like that. And obviously I think that has room to improve.
One thing I took away (mostly because it supports what I've always been saying ) is that our TO problem is overblown. Lots of great teams (like OKC) have high TO rates and are doing fine It also really comes down to what kind of TO it is -- highlighted even more here with TOs being lower in losing games, but more fastbreak points generated for the opposing side off the TOs in losing games...
