I watched the last play several times and would like to add a bit of my observation. I think the last gameplan was supposed to set a free space for TMac by TWO screens. First was Battier's screen which apparently failed. The second one should be set up by Yao and Rafer (or JL??? The Rockets player that initiated from the upper-end baseline). The second one failed too as JL didn't free the lane for TMac after he threw the ball to Yao and end up a mess on that spot. TMac managed to dribble to the baseline but Kirilenko was right in front of him when he was trying to took that baseline 3 pointer. Although TMac had already jumped while Kirilenko's both feet were still root on the floor, AK47's blocking ability must have affected TMac's decision hence he decided to look for a 2nd chance. We can easily claim TMac made a bad decision behind the TV but the guy has already tried his best. He didn't defer the last shot to Yao, he immediately ran to the next free space after he passed the ball to Yao and took the shot eventually. It is natural to think that the initial shooting spot was no longer valid if the screens didn't work out properly and one of the best shot blocker in the league was standing in front of you. With all being said, our defence collapsed in the last couple of minutes was the core reason to the lost, not Rafer's 3pt miss or TMac's last shot. Just my 2 cents. And Kim, I enjoy your recap and analysis but still trying to get use to your abbreviations. Thanks for sharing.
It was on the play where Memut Okur missed a 3pter. The Jazz Ran: PnR (T-Mac screws up) Kirilenko post up vs T-Mac (Yao screws up) PnR (T-Mac tries, but he's too slow) Backscreen for Harpring (JHo too slow) PnR leading to Okur's missed 3 (Hayes screwed up) On that play (the 3rd PnR in the last 5 plays) T-Mac finally gets his rotation right and was in position to take a charge on Boozer. So the scenario was T-Mac guarding Boozer down low on the rt block, Yao showing hard and double teaming Derron Williams with Rafer up high, and Hayes a few steps back of Okur from the 3pt line, and Battier zoning the left side where Harpring and Kirilenko are. Now the hard show on the PnR by Yao made it so that a Williams pass to Boozer would be very difficult...add to that a great rotation by T-Mac (finally T-Mac got one right). So the easiest pass was to Okur behind the line. This is where Hayes went wrong. Hayes was too far off of Okur. Hayes needs to be on Okur to make that 3pt try a well guarded shot, or to force Derron to a) make a tough pass to the corner to Kirilenko (this type of pass is what T-Mac is great at b/c of his height and jumping, but Williams is short and is being guarded by Rafer AND Yao), or b) back it up which would allow time for Yao to recover against Boozer down low, and then send T-Mac back to Kirilenko on the corner. Hayes doubled his mistake of leaving Okur wide open by doing the following: Once Okur started his shooting motion, Battier was on the left side guarding Harpring (with Kirilenko open in the corner). Battier was like "oh crap, Chuck you're not supposed to leave Okur wide open, so Battier rushes Okur to contest the 3. Personally, while I admire Battier's heart, I think it was too late and didn't have an effect on the miss. I could be wrong, and Battier might have caused the miss, but just my opinion that it was too late. But the problem was after Battier abandoned his post to contest Okur's shot, Hayes realizes his huge mistake in leaving Okur open and reacts way way way too late. So I already stated that Battier was late in my opinion. After Battier already rushes Okur, Hayes takes a major brain fart and decides to rush Okur anyways. Okur could have taken 3 jumpers before Hayes ever got there. Now here's the problem. Once Battier abandoned Matt Harpring on the left side to try to cover up Hayes' mistake, Hayes should have realized what was going on and stay in the paint and box out Harpring. Hayes shouldn't have been that deep in the paint in the 1st place, but once you make that mistake, and you see that your teammate is covering for you, you have to cover his back too. Hayes 2 mistakes (leaving Okur open and not staying back to box out Harpring) lead to a situation where once the shot was missed by Okur the rebounders below were: T-Mac boxing out Boozer, Harpring uncovered, and Kirilenko crashing from the corner and Yao crashing from the key. It was 2 on 3 rebounding in favor of the offense. Hayes made a valiant effort to get the board after his 2 mistakes, but ended up knocking it out of bounds b/c Harpring had position. If Hayes had stayed on Okur, Battier would have been boxing out Harpring. If Hayes had stayed in the paint to box out Harpring, we would have got the rebound too. Basically Hayes made himself useless on that play and the Rockets were playing 4 on 5 basketball. Sad thing is after the offensive rebound, the next possession the Jazz ran PnR again (4th time in last 6 possessions), and the Rockets played great defense (Battier was in great position) but got totally screwed by a bogus blocking call when replays indicate it was a charge. So if Hayes would have done his job, that situation would have never come up.
Wow. This is cool. Keep it up Kim! Hopefully you can break down some of our winning sequences in the playoffs.
Gotcha! Thanks for the breakdown. I am going to watch the segments again with your analysis (because it rocks) and see if I notice what you do! Seriously dude... if I owned a team...
Thanks, the link in my first post has some info, but I'll go ahead and put it here. Player Names are abbreviated to their initials, while the rest of the stuff can be found below. Glossary Types of Shots CnS - Catch and Shoot FuJ - Face up Jumper (holds, then rises for shot) PuJ - Pull up Jumper (involves at least 1 dribble) Fade J - Fadeaway Jumper SJ - Spinning Jumper (cw/clockwise or ccw/counter clockwise) Floater - shot released moving forward, usually 1 handed Layup Dunk Hook Alleyoop - rate the quality of pass and quality of situation (ex 2 on 0 fast break is HQ) Plays Terminology PnR - Pick and Rolls PnF - Pick and Fades (PleftFrt is Pick left Fade right) P - just plain pick oba - off ball action Shot Created: Not all assists means that the player created that shot. To me, shots created is more important than assists. If Yao is doubled down low and kicks it out to the open man, who swings it because the defense is rotating and the next guy nails an open 3pter, the creation of the shot is credited to Yao, which is a truer indicator than the who the assist goes to. Fouls: Recovering D, Straight D, Help D, Rotating D Usually occur on Low Q shots, but sometimes a Mid Q, rarely High Q Transition Defense: Just because the shot was taken quickly (like under 10 seconds) doesn't mean it was a transition situation, because if all 5 defenders are set, then it's half court defense. Also, sometimes up to 15 seconds has run off the game clock between buckets because ref is holding the ball or something, but it was still a transition basket because everyone on D was standing around and not set when the bucket is scored. Quality of Shot: Low Quality, Medium Quality, High Quality HQ is easy to tell because it is unblockable and wide open. Most LQ shots are easy to tell because the defender is straight up and tight on the offensive player. Determining the main difference between a LQ and MQ shot depends mostly on verticality of the defender. The further back a defender is, the more room there is to shoot and the easier it is to see the basket. The end result will usually show a defender being slanted as he is challenging the shot. That is MQ. MQ shots are blockable, especially if the defender is quick and has good reach. LQ shots are blocked at a higher ratio than MQ shots. In my opinion, a star player is someone who makes LQ shots and creates MQ and HQ shots for his teammates. Also tracking quality is just for the sake of statistical tracking. It might be better to get a ton of LQ shots inside, or it might not. The stats will show. Shooting Zones: Blue - Inside Shots Yellow - Close Range Red - Mid Range Wood - Long Range Numbered Shooting Zones:
So, while everyone was piling on Rafer after the game on Sunday night, it turns out that we really can't blame him for anything other than missing one potential GW 3 pointer? Well there you have it. Our favorite goat, daily taken to the slaughterhouse by a horde of fans led by our great leader.
He also couldn't keep Deron Williams in front of him. D Will didn't need any screens to get by Rafer(according to Kim). He also had a couple of defensive breakdowns, as did some of his teammates. Not to mention he was 2-10 from the field(worst out of his teammates). It was more than just one missed field goal at the end of the game. Once again, he is not the only person to blame. BTW great analysis Kim. I wish I had the time and a DVR to analyze some of this stuff more in depth.
Rafer defensively was okay. He got schooled twice, but both times the team backed him up (Jho and Yao). His PnR defense wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good, but I can't blame him for bad team defense. Down the stretch, T-Mac made to huge rotation errors, as well as Yao, JHo and Hayes, while Rafer was somewhat mistake free defensively. That's the thing with Rafer: solid average defense. He makes a great steal here and there but he also gets called for a fair share of reach-in fouls on those steal attempts. He will try hard as heck to keep his man in front of him, but he's not going to lock down the Tony Parkers of the world for 48 minutes, but not many can. Offensively, Rafer missed all game, but come crunch time, he's been better than most (remember those crunch time shooting threads?). Point is, that 3pt shot was an open shot...a good shot from where he's 37% (better in crunch time and better when wide open). I've already detailed the other options of that play. Rafer could have passed it to Yao, but T-Mac could have done so too. Ultimately, Yao is only 31% from zone 3, and a zone 3 Yao shot over Boozer to tie isn't that much better than a zone 11 open set shot by Rafer to win. The best shot would have been a pass to Yao by T-Mac, then a quick swing for an open corner 3 by Battier (where he is 49%) to win. Rafer could have made that pass to Yao too, but I don't blame him, as I don't blame T-Mac either. Was it the best shot? No, but not a bad shot.
