I was curious as to what part of our team performance is breaking down most (offensively and defensively), so I decided to use 82games' team data to compare our hometown squad to what I would imagine Rambis' ideal flows to be (e.g. the LA Lakers).

The results, as you may expect, reinforce the picture we already have of our team: not enough ball flow, not enough shooters or makers, and not enough interior defense (although this could also be interpreted as not enough perimeter defense).

The comparisons are nice, as possessions per game are almost equal (94 to 95, Min to LA).

I began by looking at the shot clock stats. My thinking was that if LA is running the triangle how it is supposed to be run, it would offer us insight into what we should be watching for as our guys develop their ability to run it. Interestingly the percentage of shots taken within each time segment (0-10, 11-15, 16-20, and 21+) for each team are within 1 percentage point of each other. In all cases, LA is the superior shooting team, but where they really excel over us is deep in the shot clock (but before the hail mary shots).

When 16-20 seconds has elapsed the Lakers are .082 better in eFG% than we are (.504 to .422), leading to 4.3 more points than us. Considering that just under a quarter of both teams' total shots come this deep in the shot clock, a +4.3 point margin is huge. For comparison both teams also attempt a quarter of their overall shots between 11-15 seconds in, with LA only holding a +1.5 point advantage in points scored over us. What this suggests to me is that LA is using superior ball movement and clearly superior 3 point shooting (as evidenced through scoring differential and eFG%).

The other big observation is our atrocious assist rate. LA roundly surpasses us in this area, and the return of Love combined with ever growing familiarity with the offense will hopefully help us in this regard. On average, though, LA's assist rate percentage is over 10% higher than ours for 90% of their shots (meaning that on 9 out of 10 shots LA takes, the shot is assisted 62% of the time, whereas our shots are assisted only 50% of the time).

Defensively squads attack the Lakers early in the clock more often than they attack us. For the most part we're relatively equal, with the Lakers holding the edge over us. The greatest point of failure for us, though, is again after 16 seconds. Our opponents have attempted 39% of their total shots after 16 seconds have passed on shot clock (compared to only 30% for the Lakers' opponents), and we have given up 9.1 more points than the Lakers on those shots! Furthermore we allow almost 70% of those shots to be assisted, whereas the Lakers allow only 55.5%. Something is breaking down on our defensive rotations deep in the shot clock, and it's leading to far too many easy looks for opposing teams.

In terms of shot selection, where we are getting beat soundly by the Lakers is in attacking the rim ("close" shots and dunks). LA is getting 8.5 more points than us while only attempting 5% more close shots/dunks (as a percentage of total attempts). Again, their assist rate on this is significantly better, especially on dunks.

Defensively we're allowing too many open looks on our opponents' jumps shots, giving up 5.8 more points than the Lakers. Our close shot defense is actually better than the Lakers', but we're getting schooled on dunks. Again, the assist rate on the dunks is absurd-87% of our opponents' dunks are assisted, compared to only 66% of the Lakers' opponents'.

The number of bad passes we have is also bad, but I think this will improve greatly by the end of the season.

So, in summary, it appears that ball movement and shooting/making, combined with a better interior presence are where we are failing the most right now. I have hope that Love's return will help significantly in the ball movement area, as will Flynn and Brewer's ability to make better passes in the future. We also straight up need better shooters. Pechovic is among our best, and that about says everything. Pavlovic and Wilkens shouldn't be shooting, and Gomes is not shooting well at all. Where's Wally World when you need him? Finally, we really do need the oft stated defensive center, or some warm body to intimidate in the middle on defense. Adding a Tyson Chandler or even a Samuel Dalembert (not getting into contract issues) would probably swing our scoring differential by 3-4 points per game, and probably represent the easiest way to do so (instead of trying to get a scorer, although I really don't know).

What I don't understand is exactly why our defense breaks down so much after 16 seconds? I know from watching some of the games that guys are either getting out of position or not rotating, but why do we look so bad? Is it a schematic thing? Lack of focus? Too many young guys? I'm appealing to greater basketball minds to help inform this.

Finally, I will leave y'all with this, from the ever talkative Wayne Winston:

By the way to improve a team’s performance by 20 points a game, you need only score one more basket or give up one less basket on around one out of 20 possessions (assuming 200 possessions per game).