With the game tied and 9 seconds left, everyone and their mother knows that Kobe Bean Bryant will be getting the basketball.  So how was he able to get free for a pretty easy (for Kobe) jumper?  Some great execution from the Lakers and some poor execution from the Raptors:

After Ron Artest inbounds it to Pau Gasol, he cuts backdoor while Kobe comes to the basketball.  The Lakers have run a play like this in the past, except instead of a backdoor cut, it was a backscreen set.  Phil Jackson chose not to go with the backscreen, and I think that is smart.  It prevents the Raptors from switching the cut and denying Kobe outright.  On the other side, Lamar Odom sets a back screen for Derek Fisher.

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The title of this post isn’t a joke, as one would assume.  The Knicks were up by 1 with the ball and about 20 seconds left, but they turned it over.  The Hawks were now breaking down the court with the chance for a win.  How did the Knicks stop them?  Let’s look:

As Crawford brings it upcourt he uses a smooth behind the back move to put Toney Douglas on his hip, Crawford gets himself into the lane.  Al Harrington (Al Horford’s man) steps up to greet him in the paint.  Also arrowed is Wilson Chandler, the man who ends up making the block to save the game.

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Usually when I talk about plays late in games, they end up resulting in a win or a tie.  Last night against the Cavs, the Spurs missed a game tying three point shot, but we are still going to talk about it here.  Why?  It was one of the best late game play calls I have seen in a really long time.

The Spurs start this play by sending George Hill into the far corner, Manu Ginobili into the near corner, and Roger Mason off of a Tim Duncan screen right to the ball.  It looks like the Spurs are trying to set up a quick hitter for Roger Mason off the inbounds, but Richard Jefferson inbounds it to Manu instead.

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Against the Memphis Grizzlies, the New Jersey Nets erased a 21 point 1st half lead and actually had the game pretty close towards the end of the third quarter.  The Nets ended up losing the game in part because of two mistakes I see NBA teams make a lot.  The first is not using the foul to give, or using it way too early.  The the is going for the steal in a situation where you need to foul.  Now these might seem like small mistakes that just happen, but if you make them in critical situations, then they can cost you the game.  Let’s use the Nets’ game as an example:

Now, the video starts when Devin Harris takes the foul to give with 6.9 seconds left in the third quarter.  This is after he hit a jumper to cut the Grizzlies lead down to two points (After they were down 16 to start the half).  The Grizzlies re-enter the ball, and end up scoring as time runs out.  Yes, the foul is early, but the biggest problem here is where the foul takes place, right around half court.  Mike Conley isn’t a threat out there, so if Devin Harris was to allow him to dribble it down to the three point line or deeper in, it could have taken another 2 to 3 seconds off the clock.  The mistake ended up giving the Grizzlies a two point lead and taking away all the momentum from New Jersey.  Memphis also scored the first basket of the fourth quarter, so you had a 2 point game quickly jump back up to a 6 point game because of the foul.

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Ever since he was sent down to the D-League, Hasheem Thabeet became the butt of many jokes (fair or not).  I thought it would be interesting to take a look at him and his game.  We are going to look at two plays from the Dakota Wizards’ (Thabeet’s team) 104-102 win against the LA Defenders (A game where Thabeet put up 14 and 8 – but with 4 fouls).

I think that the Wizards have done a pretty good job of getting the ball to Thabeet where he can just catch and go up with it.  Everyone knows that Thabeet is raw, so if he can get the ball right at the basket, he can use his size advantage to finish at the rim:

On this play, the Wizards are working in transition, with Thabeet getting out in front of everyone.

The Wizards’ point guard does a great job of lobbing it in to Thabeet, allowing him to use his size to make the catch and finish at the rim.

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I am here at MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, and looking through the number of great papers one of them caught my eye.  It was called “The Value of a Blocked Shot in the NBA: From Dwight Howard to Tim Duncan” written by John Huizinga, (A professor of business at the University of Chicago) who has been Yao Ming’s NBPA registered agent since Yao’s inaugural season, representing Yao in his dealings with the Houston Rockets, as well as with major endorsement partners.

Data

Before getting into the data and what it tells us, it was important for us to learn how the data was gained.  Mr. Huizinga developed a database called Chances.  The database uses data provided by STATS, LLC. and allowed everyone to know the context of the action before the block.  The sample of the data used in the presentation was players with over 100 blocks over the last 7 years (this is when the data has become available).  In total, this ended up being 170 player-seasons.

Type Of Block

Is blocking a lay-up more valuable than blocking a jump-shot?  Mr. Huizinga’s data says yes.  In his presentation, he said that it all comes down to expected value.  A jumper has an expected point value of 1.04 while a lay-up has an expected point value of 1.54.  Looking at it this way, Brendon Haywood, who many people is a very good defender (me included) actually is a less valuable shot blocker than Jermaine O’Neal.

Haywood gets 69% of his blocks on jumpers, meaning he only blocks 31% of the more valuable lay-ups.  On the other end of the spectrum, 91% of Jermaine O’Neal’s blocks were on lay-up attempts, while only 9% of his blocks were the less-valuable jump shots.

“Russells”

Many people who have seen Bill Russell play (or have seen highlights) know that Bill Russell was remembered for blocking shots for his teammates, starting a fast break (called by Bill Simmons as “Russells”.  Mr. Huizinga showed that this doesn’t really happen in the NBA anymore.  There have only been 7 players (in the 7 season where the data was tracked) who accumulated more than 20 “Russells” in a season.

Preblock Situation

One of the most important things to take away from Mr. Huizinga’s presentation is expected value of the preblock situation.  Or in otherwords, what happened right before the block took place.  Naturally, a block coming off of a live-turnover situation on a lay-up (think a LeBron chasedown) is going to be more valuable than a block coming off of a deadball situation.  Again, this comes down to expected point value.  The expected point value of a live-turnover situation is higher than a deadball situation because coming off of a live-ball turnover, the defense doesn’t have a chance to get back.

The best shot blocker in the NBA when it comes down to this situation ends up being Andrei Kirilenko, as 16% of his blocks come against this shot type.  The worst ends up being Greg Ostertag.  This makes sense considering that Ostertag isn’t really known for his footspeed.

Putting It All Together

So whose blocked shots are the most valuable?  Mr. Huizinga closed the presentation by going over what he calls “Block Value.”  To determine block value, he used the formula Points Saved + Points Created where Points Saved equals the effect of a Block on Opponents Expected Points during this possession and Points Created equals the effect of a Block on Own Team’s Expected Points During the next possession.

Using this formula, we found out who had the best season since the data started being collected (2002-03) in terms of overall block value.  It ended up being Theo Ratliff during his 2003 season.  Ratliff accumulated a block value of 300 (287 coming from points prevented while 13 came from points created), which when transformed into wins ends up being right around 5.

Interesting Numbers

Just thought it would be interesting to include some numbers towards the end of Mr. Huizinga’s presentation, showing how number of blocks can’t really be used when determining who is the best “shot blocker.”

2003 season

• Stromile Swift | 119 blocks with a block value of 74
• Rasho Nesterovic | 117 blocks with a block value of 124

So why was Mr. Huizinga’s paper called From “…Dwight Howard to Tim Duncan?”  Well as he explained, through a series of charts, Tim Duncan has had the best season in history when it came down to value/block with 1.12, meaning he saved 1.12 points with every block and Dwight Howard ended up with the worst season in terms of value/block with with .53 (both came during the 2008 season).

Here Kevin Arnovitz’s post today on Truehoop:

The fact that these things are knowable — passing shot vs. lob, longer grocery line with a bagger vs. a shorter one without — doesn’t mean they warrant too much attention. Trying to quantify every detail of your waking life is paralyzing.

But the prospect that we might get to know all these things we used to guess at — it’s tantalizing.

And that’s the point of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference on Saturday. That’s why I’m on my way there right now, and why TrueHoop and the TrueHoop Network plan to cover it like it’s the Super Bowl. More of that kind of knowledge is in all of our futures — in sports, public policy, Wall Street and maybe even your weekly grocery run.

I am actually in Boston right now, so check the site out tomorrow.  I am going to have some stuff from the conference.

With around 30 seconds left, the Grizzlies and the Hornets were in a tight game.  The Grizzlies were up by 1 point with the ball on the side.  They were able to execute, meanwhile, the Hornets who got the ball down 3 were unable to.  That turned out to be the ballgame.

As the ball gets handed to Rudy Gay, Zach Randolph is going to set a downscreen to free up Mike Conley.

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Coming out of a timeout with 5:41 left in the fourth quarter, the Miami Heat trailed the Golden State Warriors by one point.  After two very nice possessions (and an empty possession from Golden State), they were winning by 4 points and they didn’t give that lead up for the rest of the game.   Both of these plays featured Dwyane Wade as the primary ball handler, which is a pretty interesting strategy.  Here is the first:

Now, it might look like a simple ISO play, but I really like it.  The Heat show a screen on one side with Udonis Haslem, take it away, and bring a screen on the opposite side with Jermaine O’Neal.  It might not look like much, but look at how the Warriors are set up to defend both screens.

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After a Raymond Felton jumper, the Charlotte Bobcats took a 74-70 with about 8 minutes left in the fourth quarter, and it looked like they were pulling away.  The Dallas Mavericks responded with 13-1 run over a span of three and a half minutes, turning a 4 point deficit into an 8 point lead.  I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at the key possessions of the run.

Poss. 1 – Terry Steal/Marion Dunk

After two Jason Terry free throws, the Bobcats started the ball up the court.  The Bobcats get in their set, and Gerald Wallace is actually open on the wing.  Jason Terry does a great job of leaving his man, jumping the pass, and getting the steal.  The ball ends up in Jason Kidd’s hands who quickly tosses it back up court, starting a two on one fast break that ends with a Shawn Marion Dunk.  4-0.

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