Good job. Basically Tmac shot 6-19, along with 2 to, 9 assists, and 3 steals. As you observed, he has only 4 bad defensive plays. For 13 missed shots and 2 to, you count it for only 3 bad (excluding 4 defensive plays) and 7 neutral. Excluding 2 turnovers, there is only 1 bad for 13 misses? Do I get you right? Here is my 2c: 1. Offensively: I want Tmac to do one thing better. When the ball is not through him, he should not stand there. Instead, he should increase his off-ball movement. 2. Defensively: he switches too slow and too lazy, and his help defense should improve. Anyway appreciate your efforts.
Shots: 1) Drive to hoop, beat Granger, G fouled TMac on way to wide open hoop, non-shooting foul (2 good) 2) Hit 3 pointer (4 good) 3) Drive to hoop, foul (made both) (5 good) 4) Took long 3 pointer (1 Bad) 5) Long jumpshot (2 Bad) 6) Drive to hoop, miss tough shot, Yao dunk (10 good) THIS SHOULD BE NEUTRAL 7) Drove around screen, drove to the hoop, made 5 foot shot (11 good) 8) 18 foot jumpshot, missed (3 Bad) 9) Drove to hoop, missed difficult layup (neutral) 10) Came off of pick, open jumpshot miss (neutral 11) Missed shot in traffic 4 feet out, possible foul (5 bad) 12) 3 pointer (20 good) 13) Missed open 3 pointer (neutral) 14) 3 pointer (22 good) 15) Made jumpshot (24 good) 16) 20 foot miss (6 bad 17) Drove to hoop, fouled (made 2 ft’s) (25 good) 18) Open jumpshot, miss (neutral) 19) Open 3 pt miss (neutral)
Keep in mind that your data is severely skewed in tmac's favor. If he makes a good pass that a teammate misses, you cound that as a good play. But you dont penalize him for not passing to open teammates. Also, hockey assists shouldnt even be factored into your analysis. Why is this a good play? Should be a bad shot (contested shot that he missed) 1 Bad Good play 1 Good Shouldnt be listed since AB is the one who would've made the assist had Yao made it. But since you listed it, i'd count it as neutral. 1 neutral 2 Good 2 bad 3 Good According to your criteria, this should be considered a bad shot. 3 Bad 2 Neutral 4 bad 3 neutral Should be neutral since it wouldnt have been an assist. 4 neutral 4 good 5 good By your definitions, this is a bad play due to the turnover. 5 bad 6 good I ended up watching most of the 2nd period so I commented on those plays. I also commented on some of the other plays that you rated based on the descriptions you gave. I started with the first play I saw in the game that was on your list and I continued from there (so please dont think i purposely selected items that I would rate differently than you) In your analysis of the sample i selected, you had 9 good plays, 4 neutral, and 2 bad. In my analysis of the same sample, i counted 6 good, 5 bad, and 4 neutral What do you think?
I thought he did a better job of taking less hard shots and trying to play in the system more. The major reason he seemed to suck out there at times was just because his shot has left him right now. Once he gets that back the rox are gonna be good.
wekko- Breaking down each of your disagreements without quoting (too long) I don't consider driving to the hoop and going for a foul/layup a bad shot. Also, I changed that one to neutral and you called it bad. Don't think that's bad, that's being aggressive and not settling for jumpers I clearly said that the hockey assists should count b/c the double team on Tmac caused the shooter to be open. Two men double TMac--->he passes to AB, while Battier's (or whoever made it) defender has to slide to defend AB--->AB passes to a wide open Battier...created by the double TMac drew Driving to the hoop and missing the layup was a good shot. If you watched it, he had to swing it to the other side, and it was a shot he can make. Again, not a long jumpshot He was fouled on the turnover. He was poked in the eye inside midcourt and dropped the ball. That is a bad call and not his fault
Then you need to add a designation for it. Based on your good/bad/neutral rankings, layups that are contested and missed should be considered bad. "Bad plays: long and covered jumpshots, turnovers, bad shots" They would be considered bad shots. The point is, your rewarding Tmac for someone else's assist. Using your logic, you can say that since Tmac almost always commands a double team, any rocket basket should be considered a good play on Tmac's part. Under no circumstance should you reward Tmac for missing a shot. From what I saw, instead of even trying to get back on defense, he tried to sell the foul to the ref by writhing around on the ground. One could actually make an argument that it was a bad play on his part b/c he was essentially giving the pacers 2 free points. Its a good thing battier made a heads-up play and fouled the guy going for the layup. But I agree, he was fouled. But no matter what we think, the fact of the matter is that it gets recorded as a turnover. And according to your breakdown, turnovers are bad. Remember, the point is to look at the plays objectively.
The problem is that T-Mac is handling the ball too much. Look at his line: 6 of 19 and 9 assists. If he was playing in the system like Adelman intended at the beginning of the year his assists would be down and his points/shot percentage would be up. The idea was that the ball comes out of his hands so that he doesn't have to be a playmaker and create his own offense. Then he can be the beneficiary of the offense, getting open shots from 12 to 15 feet away. He's got to give up the rock and let Alston run the offense, terrifying as that thought might be. Or is it just coincidence that Alston's play goes down the toilet whenever T-Mac's in the game?
his last 4 assists in the 4th quarter (last 5 minutes actually) were on screens and rolling to the basket. he wasn't holding the ball at all (except for the last play for the TO but that was a designed play). so i think you didn't watch the game too closely. he was in the offense for the most part. tmac will never run the offense completely b/c he's so good that u want to run separate plays for him sometimes. the same case applies to yao. if he has single coverage, u think we would run the offense or exploid the mismatch and just isolate him? but for the most part, tmac ran the offense. he's still integrating himself but i see himself getting better. had he make his shots (which came primarily from the offense), he would have had a great game. but he's getting there.
You are missing my point. My point of the analysis was to see whether or not, when Tracy was on the court, he had a positive or negative impact on the team. When a 6'7 player drives to the hoop for a layup, and someone contests it, it is NOT a bad shot. You draw a foul, make it half the time or miss it half the time. It's a good shot. If he misses, and he did, I consider it not hurting the team. Therefore it is neutral. A bad shot is a covered 18 foot jumper, which a lot of people accuse him of doing all the time. No, using my logic, the double team that Tmac commanded caused a double team which led to a man being open to shoot. He doesn't get an assist, but he helped create the open look and it should be considered a GOOD play. Of course the other player deserves credit as well. It's like if Yao gets doubled in the post by Rafer's defender, kicks it to Rafer (Battier's defender slides over to cover an open Rafer) and he kicks it to a wide open Shane , then YAO was the reason why Shane ended up being open. Yao has a positive impact on the play, correct? It's a good play. Players that draw double teams and can pass out of them create open shots on offense. I made it neutral, man. It was not a bad shot to take. If Yao gets hammered on both arms in the post and drops the ball, causing a steal, and there is no whistle, you really blame him and say it was a bad play on his part? No, it's a blown call and not the fault of the player. It's a blown call by a ref...especially something as blatant as poking someone in the face
Wow, great analysis. I have to say I called him MacLazy today for his droopy and lazy stance around the court. Maybe that's the perception thing - he looked lethargic, hence I thought he didn't care. Or maybe he didn't care, but did pretty well anyway.
Whatever. Call me a hater, I don't care. Not to take anything away from you, cause you're obviously put a lot of work in this, but one game doesn't mean anything. My biggest problem with him is that I have no idea if the same T-Mac will show up the next game. Or will it be the one who disrupts the ball movement and couldn't care less about defense? His effort can be very good one game and drop to nonexistent the next and then go back up to great (or it can swing over multiple game periods, there doesn't seem to be any pattern). A single game's play-by-play won't show that obviously.
I thought he looked really good in the first quarter, like he was looking to pass first and then shoot, maybe too much so. He even had one basket off an assist from Yao where he cut hard without the ball to get an open look. But every game where you see him with a line like only 6 of 19 (around 30%) and a ton of assists is, to my mind, him playing the old JvG style. At the start of the season Adelman was talking about running the offense so that T-Mac handles the ball less and gets the ball in a position where he has an open look and can shoot or drive immediately. That's not iso basketball, and while running an iso play for T-Mac is fine occasionally that's not how the majority of possessions should work out. He's not a selfish guy, but rolling to the basket and dishing is not what I expected when I was listening to Adelman in the pre-season press conferences. Again, once the new system is actually in place I would expect his scoring totals/accuracy to go up and his assists to go down. Look, what worries me is that way back when Adelman came in and said "We're going to do things this way". The All Star break is right around the corner and the Rockets still aren't doing things that way. They're running out of season. How much longer are they going to take to get it together?
So according to your logic, if he attempts 30 contested layups and misses all of them, he's taken 30 good shots. Come on man...I understand you're trying to guage tmac's impact on the game, but based on your standards, you're making it almost impossible for him to have a bad game. And actually, a missed layup DOES hurt the team. I said: "The point is, your rewarding Tmac for someone else's assist. Using your logic, you can say that since Tmac almost always commands a double team, any rocket basket should be considered a good play on Tmac's part. " It looks like my earlier analysis of your logic was on the money. Actually, its hard to tell if someone gets poked in the face. You have to realize how fast these players move. And add that to the fact that when you're poked in the eye, you have a delayed reaction. So its not like the refs see an immediate cause-and-effect relationship between getting poked and then writing on the floor a few seconds later.
that's why u don't look at stats. in the JVG system, 75% of his assists come from passing TO THE PERIMETER for 3pt shots. in this system, he passes to the INTERIOR for easier shots. the 3 landry baskets and yao's sole basket in the 4th came from tmac curling around screens DIRECTLY into the paint. that's what u call movement and when he does that, the big men will double him and u saw the results. what do u expect tmac to do in this offense? the screens are a major part of adelman's offense (what he did for stojakovic). but tmac can use those screens either for jumpshots or curl to the paint. another major play for him from adelman is to iso him at the triple threat. and u still get the pick and roll. tmac is slowly cutting more. he'll get there eventually. but the screens/isos are a mjaor part of the adelman's offense for tmac. outside of the jazz's game, the last 5 games that tmac has played, our offensive efficiency has been very good. 106 pts tonight, 48% shooting, 25 assists. and that's with tmac AND yao struggling. i don't think u could see that in a jvg-led offense. the only thing i fault tmac tonight is his defensive intensity could have been much better.
If Lebron or Kobe or Wade or AI drive to the hoop to try to score, it is a good play. I said it was neutral and I stand by it. People still miss GOOD shots. Sorry, but on your assist argument it shows that you haven't played team basketball before. You just don't get it. Getting doubled CREATES the opening and is part of why the person gets an open shot. If he is doubled and two quick passes create an open shot, it's partly due to him. Also, he did get poked. I rewound it. You can disagree with me, but I stand by what I said and I don't give a crap enough to keep going round and round with you. I was bored, I did the analysis and posted it. Go argue with someone else about how you think TMac sucks.
T-Mac's driving to the basket and passing out after the defense collapses on him. That's fine and good, but the result is that while he racks up the assists he only goes 6 of 19. Way back when in the pre-season Adelman said it was going to be different. Remember? He talked about using T-Mac as a beneficiary of the offense, rather than as a creator. Once that happens his assist numbers are going to drop, because he's going to have an open look at the basket and he won't need to pass out. But the good part is that his scoring and accuracy should go up. That's the exact opposite of what we saw tonight.
So what I expect T-Mac to do in this offense is give the ball up and let the PG's handle it. Then when he gets the pass if he's not open he needs to pass again immediately and move without the basketball. Yeah, occasionally he can try and beat his defender one on one but the majority of the time he should be playing within the system.
