... i would rather take a W, thank you. if this right choice of his results to an L, i am not pretty sure that would be a right choice for the rox organization who wants to finally get into the playoffs
Unfortunately OP relies on scores for 48 minutes and does not use team +/- in the last five minutes of games. It is the OP who uses 48-minute scores as a point of departure. How do you think the 20 "close" games are determined? By looking at the scores after 43 minutes of play. The first 43 minutes of the game determine OP's entire inquiry. Without the first 43 minutes, OP's project does not exist.
Fine Run the same analysis with Beverly and remove Douglas from the discussion since he is no longer an option.
Looking at P.Beverly separately, in close games of under 7 points, he has played in the final five minutes only 4 times. Of those four times he's played, he won once and lost 3 times. Of the four times he's played he played twice with Lin and twice without as the only PG. When he played with Lin and Harden he was 1 for 1. When Beverly was the only PG in the final 5 minutes of close games the Rockets lost both times. Here are his stats (for the final 5 minutes of the four games he played): -1.5 (plus/minus) 0.5 assists 0.75 points Here are his stats for the final 5 minutes of the two games alone with Harden when they lost to Sacramento and Yesterday to Dallas. -3.5 (plus/minus) 1 assist 0 points
I posted the original post and let me clarify that what I did was laboriously look over the "play by play" for the last 5 minutes of twenty close games. I noted the +/-, the assists, and points score from 5:00 to the end of game for Lin, Douglas, and Beverly. Thus that make it more digestible for you?
I have just demonstrated that Harden, Parsons, Asik, and Delfino all have better +/- with Beverley on the floor than with Lin on the floor, and those are facts. Maybe you had better calculate everyone else's +/- in the last 5 minutes. So Lin scores how much more than Beverley/Douglas? A couple points? 1) What's everyone else's +/-? 2) Assuming everyone else's +/- remains the same (highly doubtful), then in how many games would Lin's point differential have changed the outcome of the game? Why are you including Douglas?
Would you agree with me that in the final five minutes of close games that all NBA teams will play their best players/starters? Then consider that the per 36 min stats you posted are all created by taking the minutes Beverly played with the other players and multiplying up to 36 minutes. So for example if Beverly played 18 minutes with Harden every game they would multiply that by two to get 36 min stats. Now for a player like Lin who is a starter he tends to play more minutes with Harden and also plays against starters of other teams. In contrast, Beverly generally plays with Harden (and others) at the end of the first and third quarters, beginning of second and 4th quarters when the opposing teams are usually playing their bench rotations. So if you take the stats of Harden playing with Beverly playing against weaker opponents it is very likely that Harden's (as well as others) stats will be higher than their average stats. Have you often seen Lin in the game playing against the bench rotation of opposing teams? So what's clear to me is that by playing better in the last five minutes of close games, Lin shows he play well even against the best opposing teams and against the most difficult conditions. Which in part is why I chose the last 5 minutes to analyze, and also in part because there is conflicting opinion whether Lin should be finishing games.
