Point Blank – November 4, 2016
Derrick and Joakim go back to Chicago…Andy Reid said that Alex Smith was going to throw the ball down the field also (should we believe him)…We should be Bullish on Chicago’s chances to score vs. this defense…
We head into a weekend with Baseball for the first time since March, but the NBA schedule is now in full swing and there are plenty of inviting plot twists across the gridirons that will end up in the portfolio. Let’s begin on the Friday hardwoods, where some interesting sub plots are at play in Chicago.
Item: Derrick and Joakim come back to the Windy City
As noted often here, the NBA regular season is a long circus tour of various ebbs and flows, which puts a premium on gauging the focus level for particular games, not only in terms of predicting them, but also in the post mortem grading. One of the more fascinating episodes will take place tonight, when Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah play in Chicago, wearing the uniforms of the visiting team for the first time in their long NBA careers.
This one is so unusual in that these really have been long careers, Noah nine seasons with the Bulls, and Rose eight years and seven seasons, with both expecting to finish their career in Chicago until the Fred Hoiberg administration began to change things. And for Rose it really is a homecoming, to the city of his birth.
The awareness of the setting is there. From Rose - "That would be a dream (to get a unanimous ovation), but I know I'm going to get some boos here and there. It's all a part of the game, all a part of the sport. It's not going to affect the way that I play and how bad I want to win that game." And from Noah - “I’m trying to stay focused on the moment. I know it’s going to be emotional.”
So let’s set some perspective and figure out if there is an opportunity created.
Item: A team will often step up to play harder when a game means something special for their teammates (but…)
One of the issues driving teams for settings like this is for the others to appreciate what it means to competitors like Rose and Noah, and to play even harder for their teammates. But is this necessarily the case for the Knicks, and might it possibly backfire?
New York enters the game with an awkward chemistry as the new pieces try to fit, which has resulted in some truly bad basketball - in going 1-3 SU and ATS the Knicks have come up 42.5 points short of the market expectations. It isn’t just execution but also effort – they are #26 in defensive efficiency and #28 in rebounding.
As such, Jeff Hornacek is already aware of the potential trap tonight brings, and how it could backfire - “You’ve got to be careful not trying to do too much. We’ve just got to play within ourselves and not try to do things that we’re not capable of doing. Maybe right now we all think we can score, but we need to figure out who should be the guys that are scoring.”
And Rose and Noah come front and center with an awareness of the overall team picture. First Rose - “It sucks (being 1-3). I’ve been on teams where there’s a culture, and we’re trying to build a defensive culture here, and it takes time.” And Noah - “It’s us coming in with the right intensity and having the will to fight. Obviously we have a lot work to do. It’s not the end of the world. There’s a lot of talent on the team. We got to stay patient.’’
Is there something that we can do tonight? I believe so, and will get to it in a moment, but now for something that does need to become part of your NBA handicapping consciousness for this season -
Item: Past Knicks and Bulls trends have no meaning
I don’t want to be redundant because this is a point that gets made often, but because there is such a unique example, let’s spell it out. Both Chicago and New York have undergone major roster turnovers over the past two seasons, and also coaching changes, in the case of the Knicks multiple changes. So what is the worth of previous season’s data concerning these teams? Zero. Both should be treated as though they have started from scratch for 2016-17.
That is not an easy thing for some folks to do because using past patterns can be an integral part of the handicapping process. In this instance those patterns just don’t matter.
Item: Would the Chiefs have really opened up with Alex Smith
This has a chance to be a rather interesing episode in Kansas City, bringing up the old debate once again about Alex Smith as mostly a game-manager, a guy who has been in the right place at the right time to be successful (#5 among active QBs in Win Percentage), but lacks the down-field passing skills to take a team to a higher level.
When Smith was injured vs. Indianapolis last week Nick Foles not only stepped right in, but played at a high level, going 16-22 for 223 yards. In particular note that four of those completions went for more than 20 yards, after Smith had only had seven such plays all season, in 154 attempts. And that has been the knock on Smith throughout his career, with the following from Pro Football Focus showcasing his limitations well, the average distance beyond the line of scrimmage of his pass attempts -
So now we were finally going to get the acid test, right? The opportunity for someone else to run the same offense, and perhaps show that the WR corps is betetr than advertised. Besides, Foles also happens to be 19-16 as an NFL starter, with an 88.1 Passer Rating, which is higher than the 85.1 of Smith, including a full half yard more per pass attempt.
But we have to back up a step. First is that the Foles career numbers should not be best viewed as a whole. He was in his own right place/right time moment when Chip Kelly made his NFL debut, going 8-2 with a 119.2 Passer Rating across 10 starts. It was as much opposing defenses not being prepared for the Kelly system on the first look as it was anything special from Foles.
Then there is the matter of Andy Reid. I don’t know if Reid was just protecting Smith, or trying to stave off any future QB controversy should Foles play well again, but when he was asked if the game plan opened up with Foles on the field he responded with the following -
“No. Alex, I’m not sure you realize how good he is. We’ve opened this thing up for him more than we’ve ever opened it up. He does a tremendous job. It was a shame that he didn’t have a chance to finish off the game plan because he would have had a ton of success with it. Not taking anything away from Nick — we didn’t have to cut a thing out for Nick, so that was a win-win for both guys. To think one would have done better than the other — I don’t think that. I think if Alex would have been in, we would have done the same thing.”
Were the Chiefs indeed going to be throwing the ball down the field more vs. the Colts had Smith stayed in the game? It would be an understandable notion – Indianapolis rates #31 in adjusted defense from Football Outsiders, including #29 against the pass. But was Reid making more of a political statement than a football tactics one? We’ll get a chance to learn something on Sunday, and a magnifying lens will be laid over KC/Jax even more so than usual.?
In the Sights, Friday NBA…
Let’s go back to Chicago and put something in the portfolio for Friday night. I do believe the Knicks will bring a lot of energy to this setting, trying to win it for Rose and Noah, and needless to say Rose will be a catalyst. That extra energy is much more likely to show on offense than defense, largely because the latter aspect is a long way from being ready, and with the Bulls relishing the opportunity to get out and run it will be #508 Chicago Team Total Over (8:05 Eastern) with 107.5 available in the morning trading, and value up to 108.
Let me introduce a phrase that will be used here often to help set perspective on the New York defense – PVM, for “Points vs. Market”. This is a way of showing how close the markets are to evaluating an offense or a defense, and while individual Team Totals are not tracked in many data-bases you can calculate this by using the closing Side/Total on each game as the market projection. So here is the New York defense so far this season:
Market Scoreboard
@CLE 107.5 117
MEM 98 104
@DET 103 102
HOU 108.5 118
NET -24
The Knicks are allowing 6.0 ppg more than the markets have anticipated, and it is actually even worse than that – because their three losses have been one-sided, they only allowed 69 points across those three fourth quarter’s.
Chicago is well-set to take advantage of a bad defense, the Bulls being able to score from so many directions. They rate #3 in offensive efficiency so far and attribute some integrity to that, with a #1 in assists per game, and 72.9 percent of all made baskets coming from a teammates pass. Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade are showing that they can compliment each other; Rajon Rondo has some finishers that enable him to dish without having to score; and the dynamic of having Nikola Mirotic (14.0 ppg) and Doug McDermott (13.3) coming off the bench allows Hoiberg to mix and match his combinations based on weaknesses of the opposition. The Knicks bring plenty of them (Carmelo Anthony will have to chase either Mirotic or McDermott out beyond the ac).
Look for a lot of early energy here to set the tone, both Rose and Rondo pumped up for this setting and each of them being lousy defenders making it easier for the other side. And for our purposes it helps that the Knicks are off tomorrow, which means they may chase harder from behind than usual, which can create additional scoring opportunities.
In the Sights, Saturday Market Basket…
Because of the time crunch I will go shorter on the details here, but now that the markets have turned 28 into a win number it is time to pull the trigger with #337 Syracuse (3:30 Eastern). I see as high as +29 at a good store right now.
As noted here many times there are no style points in play for Clemson at all – Dabo Swinney has been through a full cycle of this, and knows what playing 15 games can mean. As such the week after grinding past Florida State in a draining affair means just getting a win and moving on. Meanwhile Syracuse comes in not only physically fresh off of a bye, but with a chance for Dino Babers to tweak the playbook a bit more in his first season. The Orange can attack aggressively throughout, piling up a lot of first downs to keep the game flow from ever getting away, and even if it does they bring the ideal ingredients for the Back Door.
In the Sights, NFL…
We’ll have to wait until Monday night for the best value on the NFL board, and it takes us to #473 Buffalo Team Total Under (8:30 Eastern), with 17.5 commonly available in the Sunday trading.
I have written at-length about the Seattle defense in the last two Tuesday recaps, noting the grit the Seahawks showed despite having been on the field so long at Arizona and New Orleans the past two weeks, yet allowing only two TDs through that stretch, one of them on a short field after a Russell Wilson interception vs. the Saints. It is a group that now gets a badly needed extra day of rest, and while Kim Chancellor will miss one more game, they have managed to adapt well to his absence.
I believe the Buffalo offensive numbers are misleading, which has helped to create a false market impression. The Bills put up fantastic rushing counts in back-to-back games vs. the Rams and 49ers, but it came when both teams were facing major injury issues, and then did some scoreboard/box score padding in each of the last two games, going 75 yards for a TD on the final drive vs. Miami when trailing in double figures (they scored with 0:14 remaining, the Dolphin prevent properly draining the clock), and then 66 yards on the last possessions vs. New England, scoring with 0:30 left. With LeSean McCoy and Robert Woods playing through injuries the Buffalo will be hard-pressed to get into a flow here, with Tyrod Taylor facing a night crowd in Seattle, which provides arguably the toughest challenge for a QB in the NFL.
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