Brutal
by Stop-n-Pop on Feb 21, 2009 7:03 AM CST
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Ladies and Gents, I give to you one of the big problems with the NBA: a February game between Indiana and Minnesota where the 3 best players didn't play and where the refs let a lot go even though both teams fouled each other well above their season averages. Too. Many. Games.
On the plus side, last night's tilt was one of the few games where NBA League Pass broadband came in handy and I was able to watch the action with the excellent Quinn Buckner providing color commentary. Between he and Eddie Johnson, I can't decide which guy I would rather listen to call a ball game with Kevin Harlan.
For the rest of the Twin Cities, the game wasn't available on TV so let me do my best to provide you with a rundown haiku:
Bassy Ramble? No
Love bad game right from get go
T.J. Ford bang head
For those of you who watched or listened to the game, feel free to leave your entry in the comments.
Speaking of down below, we've had some interesting comment threads lately. From Shaddy/Robert Bly comparisons to music recommendations to news from Australia about the brush fire, and everything in between, Wyn and I would like to thank our commenters for their excellent contributions to this site. Also, speaking about the brush fire, you can donate to the relief effort by clicking here (the Australian Red Cross).
This season is going to get looooonnnnnngggg and we appreciate all of the intelligent input. Hopefully, we can keep the content interesting and varied. Anywho, let's wrap up the game talk with some bullet points:
- Sebastian Telfair followed up his career-best game with a 1-9 effort from the field (1-5 from 3) and a 1-5 performance from the line. He did have 0 turnovers and a +7 while hounding T.J. Ford. I'll go back to what I wrote before: every 3 Bassy takes is free money for the other team.
- Speaking of basketball's version of Moneyball, I'd like to point you in the direction of another wonderful NY Times article on basketball stats. This one is about Synergy Sports Technology, a business from Arizona that collects hundreds of data points from each and every single NBA (and college) game and provides the information to paying customers. And yes, I have contacted them about their Fan Experience Solutions. I'll let you know what I find out.
- Turnovers are going to be a huge issue with this club going forward until the end of the year. They have to play quicker with more passing now that Big Al Jefferson is out for the year. Keep an eye on the TOr and its relation to OE.
- Randy Foye ended up with a lot of points but his play on the ball was pretty bad for the most of the night. He had a lot of trouble running the pick and roll and his passes across the perimeter are simply not crisp enough to be effective.
- Kevin Love had a horrible, no-good, terrible mess of a game. The most notable issue he was having all night long was getting back on defense. He was consistently behind the action all night long and it probably led to his low minute total. It just wasn't his night. Despite all of that, and despite a -15 +/-, he didn't hurt his team as much as you might imagine. He ended the night with only 5 shots (if you're having a bad night, don't shoot a ton), 6 FTA, 12 rebounds (3 offensive), and 2 steals. He was noticeably unwilling to take the long jumper however and this may or may not work in his team's favor when things are going poorly with a short roster. Here is his shot chart from the last 10 games:
One more point about Love: his raw +/- is going to be skewed from here on out so it will not be the best indicator of how he is doing. Remember how Al Jefferson was putting up horrible +/- numbers last season? Everyone on this team has been bumped up a slot and the minutes that Ryan Gomes fills for Love at the 4 hurt. The minutes that Craig Smith fills at the 4/5 for Jefferson hurt. The minutes that Mike Miller can't come off the bench for Gomes at the 3 hurt. This team still has a massive talent gap and it's only active above average productive players are Love and....well, you can make a case for Miller but both he and Foye are awfully close to simply being average.
OK, that about does it. Thanks again for the excellent comments. We really appreciate it. For a Pacers' perspective, head on over to our sister site, Indy Cornrows.
Until later.
BTW: Sacramento won last night. Unfortunately, it was to Memphis. The Griz are 3 games back of Minny in the win column. The Clips, OKC, and Wiz are all 5 wins back with 13 victories. Here's a number to keep track of: 4.7%. That's the Wolves' current estimated chance of winning the Blake Griffin sweepstakes.
UPDATE: I completely forgot to mention the biggest reason why the Wolves lost to a terrible Pacers team: free throw shooting. They went 23-41 from the line. Ouch. Also, I'm sitting here switching over the laundry listening to In the Zone and Trent Tucker made a very good point about the need for consistency out of the team's young players. The way you get consistency is to play to your team's statistical strengths. In other words, Bassy should stop shooting threes.
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Bassy treys
I’m not with you on the no three-pointer rule for Bassy. I would argue that letting teams off the hook for ignoring Bassy is the real free money because then you are trying to run a set 4 on 5. Bassy’s percentage is the same as Carney’s and only slightly lower than Foye’s. I know you like Bassy a lot too, but it seems like you’re harping on his 3-point shooting, when 34% is not THAT bad. The percentage is misleading. For Bassy, the difference between 34% and 40% is miniscule—seven buckets on the season. Are you going to allow an opposing defense to call the shots over seven buckets? To me, that’s not playing the percentages.
I’d like to see him penetrate more, but if he passes up those wide open looks on the perimeter, he’ll never get in the paint. I don’t want Bassy hoisting 10 threes a game unless he’s really hot, like the other night, but 4 to 6 good attempts from deep seems about right.
The only way for Bassy to be effective is for him to take and make three-pointers when the opportunity presents itself. The onus is on him to make those shots, because not taking them is not an option at this level. If he was longer and stronger, like Rondo, he could try to force his way to the rim, but that doesn’t work for Bassy because as quick as he is, he’s not explosive and doesn’t have the length or hops that Rondo has.
The encouraging thing is that Bassy has been improving his three-point shooting..
Thanks for the comment..
…I would disagree in that even at 2-3 attempts per game the likelihood of him helping the team to finish the possession in a more favorable manner is to put the ball on the floor and get into the lane. It’s also a volume issue. He’s going to shoot between 160-170 3s this year. Let’s just say 165. If he shot his career average, we’re talking about 51 makes on the year, or about .62/game. That means for every 2.5 shots he took per game, he’d make .62 of them. At his current percentage, he’ll end the year with 55 makes, or about .67/game. If he were a 40% shooter, he’d make 66 with .80/game.
The kicker is this: What if he only took 30/year? With his career average, that breaks down to 9.3 makes while his current average would net 10.2 for the season. What it would then do is open up an additional 130 possessions for other use: for a higher percentage mid range jump shot, for his 29.8 ast-r, for his increasing ability to get to the line, and so on and so forth. This is where the big gain will come from by him shooting far, far, far fewer 3s. Tony Parker and Rondo should be his models. Rondo took 19 3s last year. TP took 66 and 38 the year before that.
This is where it would really be interesting to have some data like Synergy Sports. Where you could put data points on how effectively he is able to favorably extend/end possessions when he drives instead of shoots. We’ve seen two unthinkables in the past two games with Bassy. First, against the Heat, he was fouled by Chalmers on a close out beyond the arc. Second, he was fouled while shooting a 3. The reason why these two plays were so out of the norm is because most teams play off of him anyway. They dare him to shoot and they are perfectly fine living with the results of a guy who hits 3s about 3 out of 10 times.
The World's Leading Exporter of Small Area Quickness
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I should add...
…that it is perfectly likely that his shooting is so bad from all over the court that he may be most effective hitting 33-34% of his 3s. This, however, would depend on measuring how effective he once he gets into the lane. I have no way of doing that.
The World's Leading Exporter of Small Area Quickness
www.canishoopus.com
Bassy gets left wide open from 3 all the time.
I don’t think he should hoist it up every time, but I"d like to see him take 3-4 good shots per game.
I have no evidence to back this up, but I just have a gut feeling that over the rest of this season and next season we’re going to see Bassy become a respectable shooter.
Totally agree...
with SFJ on this one. Telfair is shooting .378 on his in close shots vs. an eFG of .418 with his jumper. Given the fact he’s even more horrible finishing than shooting, I’d rather have him shooting when left wide open, and preferably behind the arc. Obviously if guys play him tight or close out too hard, he needs to drive since he’ll inevitably draw a help defender and should find someone open. But when the defense is slacking way off on him, there is really no use in dribble driving into a brick wall that will most likely end in a low percentage finish.
By the way, I truly think one of the reasons Telfair is taking a fair number of 3’s is Mike Miller. How often is it that Miller unnecessarily drives and kicks it out to a wide open Bassy, who usually has to take the shot because of the clock winding down. No pun intended, but THAT is what’s BASS ackwards.
solid points...
…and I completely agree on the Miller factor. I mentioned it in the Morey post, but here’s hoping that the Wolves have a stat to track how often he has the ball in his hands beyond the arc with less than 3-5 seconds on the shot clock. Thanks for the alternate take guys. This topic probably deserves a second look with a post.
The World's Leading Exporter of Small Area Quickness
www.canishoopus.com
Coach Mac...
has been doing two things I don’t like since Big Al went down:
1. Starting Kevin Me Badd at C
2. Playing this weird ball screen offense
Love is a great rebounder, but he absolutely cannot handle most starting Centers in the NBA. Even a stiff like Roy Hibbert was getting off against him the other night. KLove needs to start at PF with a big to support him. Collins isn’t a total disaster (ringing endorsement)…throw him for the first 6 minutes of the game and let him pick up the token fouls.
We can still run our “Inside / Out” offense like we did with Al. Smith and Love can both post up and pass. Granted the other team doesn’t have to respect them as much, but it would be better than this “pattycake” we’re running on the perimeter with this Ball Screen BS (hey, I just realized Ball Screen initials are BS…very fitting).
"I'm gonna make you cry...I'm gonna make you cry and dip my cookie in your tears!!!"
When Mr. Candace Parker arrives
he’ll be able to spell Chinstrap at the 5. And maybe Kevin McHale can make an appointment with tT’Wolves front office, go hat in hand, and ask please nice if they can bring up Pops Blah Blah Blah-Blah from the d-league.
With our current personnel, and inside/out game will get us nowhere
We have to play D’antoni ball. We beat Miami, a far more talented team than our own, because of 3-pointers. We were absolutely brutalized down low on offense and defense and will be for the rest of season no matter who we are playing. We’re just too small down there.
Well, I picked a bad game to go see in person, probably the only one I’ll see all year, to boot. It was just a weird, listless game. (And no, I didn’t go to for the “Guys Night Out” promo…)
I haven’t watched Indiana at all this year, so I was surprised to see them run a ton of 5-out offensive sets like they did, even sometimes with guys like Hibbert in, and they just do a lot of cutting and screening out in space. And of course the Wolves, who are a little below-the-curve defensively out on the perimeter even against conventional sets, were repeatedly burned by it.
I agree with the idea the Wolves really need a defensive big man to add to the mix, but I think he needs to be MOBILE, a guy who can move and guard well out into space. Thabeet’s a wonderful defensive presence at UConn, but he does most of his work down low in the middle of the zone. I think both Love and Jefferson have shown they can defend low moderately well, sometimes even against larger opponents: neither’s that quick but both are above-average strong, and Love in particular, if he sits on a guy’s knee it’s over. But I’d love to see them somehow find a long guy who can ambulate out on the perimeter, so that big men with range and/or the 4/5-out perimeter sets aren’t such a mismatch.
BTW
The prospect in this next draft who maybe has the best potential to address this need might be Al Farouq Aminu. I’ve been on him since the beginning of the season as a potential wing, but at this point he looks more like a frontcourt player. He sees a ton of time at the 4 and even 5 with Wake, and he isn’t a superb range shooter or handler, so he looks like an athletic 4. But he’s a fantastic combo of length and fluidity (he’s 6-8 or 6-9, but with a fantastic wingspan). I think he’s a hybrid frontcourt player in the mold of Brenden Wright or Thad Young, and he’d certainly add an element the Wolves lack.
Coincidentally, draftexpress currently has the Wolves landing Aminu with their top pick and Evan Turner with the Heat pick. No PG, but I’d still giggle like a school girl if that happened. Those two would add a completely new dynamic to work with.
I don't know much about Aminu..
…but I imagine that would be a highly thought of draft if it worked out like that. I think Turner will really move up as we get closer to the draft.
The World's Leading Exporter of Small Area Quickness
www.canishoopus.com
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