http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?page=Smackdown-09 Of the 8 "stat geek" participants, interestingly enough only former Blazer employee Jeffrey Ma picked the Rockets (in 6 games). [rquoter] Jeffrey Ma, let's remember, has worked for the Blazers. He's friendly with all kinds of people in the organization. But he's the dissenter here, the one expert picking the Rockets: "This one is the toughest for me," he explains. "While I want badly for the Blazers to win this one, I still think they are a year away. This team is 10 deep and their second team outplays their first team at times, but that depth means less in the playoffs with no back-to-back games. I just think this is the toughest matchup for the Blazers (except, obviously, the Lakers). I hope I'm wrong, though." Kevin Pelton echoes several experts when he says this is the closest of all the first-round series, by the numbers. "Only home-court advantage," he says, "makes this favor the Blazers. If the Rockets had won their finale to finish third, I'd have picked both teams to win. A series of wave-inducing blowouts at the Rose Garden (eight by 15-plus points since the All-Star break) have padded the league's fifth-best point differential. But Houston is right behind and was the only underdog to win the regular-season series. Two of those three games were decided by five points or fewer. This series should be thrilling." Sandy Weil trusted his numbers, but not without some trepidation. "Something in me wants to pick against the model and take the Rockets. But the model predicts the Blazers, and the Blazers seem just a little bit better on a bunch of metrics. About the only things I can find that Houston outperforms Portland at are free-throw shooting and defensive field goal shooting on 2s. Those are important factors, for sure. It seems like this battle will be decided under the boards, especially under the Houston backboard."[/rquoter] It makes me wonder how Daryl Morey would call this series if he was an impartial observer.
Ma is actually still involved with the Blazers, if I recall. He assists in statistical analysis of games and players but more importantly prospects, and I believe Portland/Kevin Pritchard works with him and his company a great deal around draft time. Jeffrey Ma is the man who the movie "21"/book "Bringing Down The House" is based on... MIT graduate who, along with some friends, took millions from Vegas.
What sort of broken statistically analysis are they using if it predicts the team we pretty much swept this season to beat us in a 7 game series. I guess its forumla is to calculate the team with the highest number of high 1st round draft picks.
I guess, for some bizarre reason, they decided to take into account the 160 Blazers/Rockets games this season in which we did not beat them at home.
I wish I could put money down on this game. Online sportsbooks are too much of a hassle and I don't live in New Jersey or Nevada. Most lines I see Rockets at +115. Considering I believe Rockets are 70% to win the series, I could've made a killing.
The Blazers are lethal on the offensive glass with all their length and athleticism. I agree with Weil's comment: It seems like this battle will be decided under the boards, especially under the Houston backboard We are a very good defensive rebounding team but the Blazers are the best offensive rebounding team. How that battle plays out will be huge, especially at the end of close games. The need for defensive rebounding (or preventing offensive rebounds) is yet another argument in favor of Lowry getting more minutes, especially late in games.
Using my own methods, I simulated the series on NBA 2K9. Unfortunately, the game predicted that the Blazers would win in a sweep. Fortunately, the game also predicted the Jazz to sweep the Lakers, so I think we can throw out the results.
His statement and your analysis aren't congruent. We're talking about maximizing Rockets defensive rebounds and minimizing Portland offensive rebounds. Those both happen on Portland's end, not ours. So either he misspoke or he was referring to something different entirely.
In addition to being the best offensive rebounding team in the league, the Blazers were also the best in games decided by 3 points or less (9-1). There is likely a relationship between their ability to grab offensive boards and win close games. They seemed to be especially good at getting second chance opportunities in crunch time, which is a scary reminder of an infamous playoff game against the Jazz. Great offensive rebounding = More second chance opportunities for clutch players like Roy and Fernandez among others = Huge advantage late in close games
Are you sure he doesn't mean the basket we are defending when he says "the Houston backboard?" I think you've got it backwards.
While I can't be 100% sure what he's saying, I consider the goal I'm shooting on to be my goal. In turn, I consider that to be my backboard as well. That's the logical way of looking at it.
An example: In the NFL, when a team (let's say the Texans) has the ball on their own 20, you would say "the ball is on the Houston 20." Football is not basketball and I'm not 100% sure that I'm right but I do think he's talking about the basket the Rockets are defending.
LOL...who knows? My point was that I think the guy misspoke in the article, or was at least a little vague. Your point was correct, so I hope you didn't think I was arguing that. It's most definitely about keeping the Blazers off the offensive glass, which is something we haven't really done this year against them. Especially in Portland where they had a 16-5 advantage in that area. Not good.
This is how I see it. We aren't the type of team that will runaway with games, especially in a playoff setting. We just don't have the offensive consistency to do that regularly. I believe we have the lowest raw FG% of any of the 16 playoff teams and we don't play at a fast pace. I haven't checked lately but those two things were the case a week or two ago. Plus, it's the playoffs where every team is pretty good, meaning the games should naturally be more competitive, in general. This means there will likely be several close games in this series, decided by a few points. Not a guarantee, just likely. In close games, the Blazers were the best in the league during the regular season. The playoffs are different, especially for a young team, but it's not something that can be dismissed at this point. There will likely be situations where the Blazers are down a couple of points or up a couple of points with not much time left in the game. They will miss a shot on one of those late possessions and there will be a rebound to be had... Who gets the rebound? Winning the rebounding battle in scenarios like that may play a huge role in this series. The Rockets simply need to be smart, box out and outhustle the Blazers more often than not in those situations. We won't "out-athleticize" them or "out-length" them. This includes our guards as much as our bigs which is why I suggested that this rebounding battle is yet another reason why Lowry needs to be on the court over Brooks late in games.
The offensive glass disadvantage killed us against the Jazz. Deke can help on the defensive end with his rebounding but honestly on rare occasions he and perhaps Luis might get some on the offensive glass though that isn't going to be a big factor.It will be mostly up to Yao to get offensive rebounds,which is going to be a tough job.
