Taylor is back at it again with more awesome stats to digest. Since we all (hopefully) know what each stat means, we’ll just go with the box score. And if you forgot what a CHBA is click here for a quick reference guide.
As Taylor said in his email the Could Have Been Assist category really backs up the gripes we all had with the Thunder missing so many open jumpers.
Interesting to note how the “Could Have Been Assist” really backs up a lot of the comments in the post game write up. Against the Warriors the team had 26 assists compared to 22 CHBA. Against the Lakers the Thunder had 17 assists compared to 33 CHBA.
Also, Taylor added a “Points Created” category as well as success rates for high and low post play.
Look it over, digest and discuss in the comments. But I must say, one thing that really sticks out to me is that OKC attempted just one charge last night. With as much attacking the basket L.A. did, that’s a little disturbing. Also, I mentioned how Durant’s length was pretty effective last night on Kobe and Taylor’s stats show that KD altered five shots – that’s almost as good as a block.
trade watson!
Thabo is definitely a fine defender, but he's going to need a bit more Bruce Bowen (read: cheap shotting and defensive reputation) before he's going to get calls his way. The big thing that's still a problem with the SG position is exactly what Nix mentioned. We have one guy who can shoot (Weaver) and one guy who can defend top wing players (Thabo). What we need is a three point specialist who can defend. That would be the perfect 2 for this team. With all the mess Durant and Westbrook create with drives and demanding double-teams, a guy who will hit open shots consistently (while still playing strong defense) could totally change the way teams can defend us.
Also @Joe, the guarding rules have been changed twice. First, after the Pistons repeated as champions in 1990. Second, after the Pistons won the championship in 2004. One might call it suspicious. But, ironically, while the rules were designed to help stars (90s was the reign of MJ) and increase scores, all it's managed to do is force top teams to decrease their pace and focus more on defense. Teams in the 80s and 90s were so physical that it was far more important to get the ball in the hoop quickly, increasing scores and excitement. But hey, they've got Lebron, Kobe, and Wade (notice how all the best players as of late have been wing guys? Hmm.), why care that the rules have just watered down the game.
Is it just me, or is Thabo's jump shot extremely flat- as in hardly any arc at all? Maybe we could all chip in and get him JJ Ridick's "better basketball" video as an early christmas present.
I thought Tbone did good defensively too. I don't know what year it was, but about six or seven years ago the NBA changed the contact rules on defense, to where there are only certain ways a defender can touch the ball handler, and it hasn't been the same since. They were changed because Pat Riley's Knick's teams and Heat teams were "too dominant" and physical and the NBA wanted showtime scoring and not slowdown defense.
Basically Tbone did all he could do against Kobe and he still got several calls against him.
I agree with the above comments on Thabo. He was very impressive on the defensive end and was really giving his all. He was so frustrated when Kobe was getting every "MVP" call.
Now we just need Thabo to score like Weaver did last night...Or Weaver to guard like Thabo did last night...either way...get those two combined!
I saw it too Jax. I thought Thabo did a solid job and the most important thing I saw is how HARD he worked. He wanted to stop Kobe. I really see Thabo as a lock down guy in the future.
I'm sure it's hard to judge when a shot is altered. I thought Sefolosha bothered Kobe's shot a lot. It'd be interesting to see what Kobe's FG% is for one on one shots against Sefolosha.
Maybe I'm just watching the game through Thunder colored glasses, but I thought Sefolosha did an outstanding job on D, but I can't prove it with stats other than deflections.
I just remember seeing Weaver, one of our better defenders, look foolish a few times guarding Kobe. While Sefolosha was kicking tail.
While I'm bragging on Sefolosha, I wanted to mention that I saw him call for the ball a few times on offense. I love that.
I think that "Give Up Rebound" stat will change in the future because both the Warriors and the Lakers only had 3 offensive rebounds. Your comment about Kristic is funny though. He did do a good job last night but maybe it was because the Lakers weren't attacking or when Kristic was in position to give up an offensive rebound the ball bounced the other way. Also, both the Lakers and Warriors played without a true center.
Durant's arms are so long that when other players simply "contest" a shot he is actually "altering" the shot. There were a 1 or 2 of Kobe's jumpers that he obviously altered with his long arms and the drive by Odom is another one that I can remember where he did not simply contest the shot but clearly altered it without actually getting a hand on the ball. I think Kristics lack of a vertical is what keeps him from altering shots although he does get his hands up a lot to contest, same for Collison. Green will probably have more altered shots in the future because his athleticism should allow him too. We only had 1 block last night as a team (Kristic) which is crazy.
I saw the final score while I was still at the beginning of the 3rd quarter and I was surprised that the game was still relatively close late into the 4th quarter. Kobe really showed up. Hopefully Durant can learn to take over like that in the 4th quarter because we seem to fall apart late in games.
Kristic, Green and Collison had half of the team's contested shots (27 of 55). They only altered 4. Durant altered 5 by himself.I'm surprised that the correlation between those three front court players not having success with altering shots, and the points in the paint, is an inverse correlation. We outscored the Lakers in the paint (which is a miracle by the way).
I am blown away when I see Kristic has a box-out to give-up-rebound stat ratio of 11-0. I could have sworn the Lakers had at least 400 rebounds over Kristic due to his 2 inch vertical leap. We need a stat just for Kristic. It's called the "how many rebounds you got because you were just standing there and the ball bounced right at you and no one else was around" to "I fought and clawed my way to a rebound that was bouncing right for the hands of the players on the other team" ratio. I'm pretty sure Kristic would be 11-0.