Point Blank – April 27
Doc’s bunch goes from Clippers to Clipped (and all he can do is “Cry a River”)…On dealing with the actual realities, through the noise, in Hornets/Heat (and a market adjustment we can take advantage of)…It’s Mason Plumlee’s world, we are only visitors…Beating Hill these days may be more like climbing a mountain…
Medical orderlies slipping around the corner to use their cell phones (the old days of pay phones had more of a romantic touch) have been among the biggest market movers in the NBA playoffs the last couple of days, greatly altering the landscape and creating some intriguing opportunities. One of them alas, forces us to wonder if the Rockets might get enough of a jolt from the new path laid out for them, and thinking abut that bunch gives me a headache.
No one has a bigger headache in the league than Doc Rivers right now, the engine having been removed form his car, and likely not enough torque having been built up to even drift home vs. Portland. So with another long read ahead because of so many key issues on the Wednesday board the jukebox remains plugged in one more day – if all Clippers fans can do is “cry a River(s)”, it means a cheap excuse to conjure up some old Joe Cocker, this one live from 1992 -
Now more of the “Game Inside the Game” on the playoff hardwoods…
Hornets/Heat #5 – The truth behind the Heat shooting; the truth behind Kaminsky/Jefferson starting; and searching for truth on Jeremy Lin (it is Game #5 now, does anyone really know where this series is?)
This series has been a challenge, not much going from the pockets to the betting windows yet because the results have been inconsistent, starting with some challenging pendulums to evaluate, and now some personnel decisions as well.
At the start it was the Miami offense executing brilliantly. There were the obvious questions about whether it was great offense or awful defense, but as noted here Steve Clifford felt that staying the course was the proper mode to get back into the series, and as it turned out he was correct Clifford’s key phrase after opening 0-2 being – “But shooting is not their strength.” Was the Charlotte defense better in winning the last two games? A little. But as it turns out the quality of shots did not change all that much; instead the Heat simply started making fewer of them. There was some good work done by the folks at 538.com on that front, and let’s shamelessly borrow the key table. The first column is “Quantified Shot Quality”, or what the expected outcome would be given where the shots were taken from and how open the shooter was, the second was the outcome of those shots –
Shot Quality Effective FG% Difference
Game #1 49.7 62.5 +12.8
Game #2 47.2 63.0 +15.8
Game #3 45.3 38.6 -6.7
Game #4 46.7 46.7 0
The Hornet defense was a little better, not a lot better. Now about one of those assumptions of how they got better, Frank Kaminsky and Al Jefferson being inserted into the starting lineup. Their presence indeed created a different flow in Game #3, especially in the third quarter when the Hornet offense began working more through Kaminsky getting touches in the paint, with some key comments on that aspect in the Monday column.
So that has been a big key to the turnaround, right? Actually no. The Heat tweaked their defense a bit on Monday and Kaminsky had only four points, on 1-5 shooting. Despite the lineup change theoretically leading to a pair of wins, you have this for those two games in Charlotte –
Minutes +/-
Kaminsky/Jefferson 107:16 -11
All others 171:44 +31
Jeremy Lin 59:47 +34
Now it is time to throw Lin into the mix because he brings the next wild card element, with 39 points in that playing span the last two games, much of it at the FT line. Lin has drawn 24 fouls in the series despite only playing 110 minutes, the 24 matching the number of fouls drawn by LeBron James and James Harden so far in the playoffs, which does not seem quite right, but has indeed happened.
Erik Spoelstra tried to be diplomatic about it – “We’ve probably fouled more in these four games than we have the last four weeks. But you have to credit them. They’re aggressive and make you have to defend with position.”
Spoelstra’s players were more blunt. From Hassan Whiteside – “They just get in the lane, throw their head back and the ref just says foul. … I thought the playoffs were physical. This ain’t physical.” And Dwayne Wade – “We’re playing an aggressive game. It’s the playoffs and we’re playing like we’re supposed to. Hopefully it’ll change.”
Think we’re out of pendulums yet? No – there is also the marketplace. The Game #1 Total on this court closed at 199, and the game produced a 214. Game #2 closed 198, the outcome 218. So where are we tonight? How about 193.5. We’ll get back to this one in a moment.
Trail Blazers/Clippers #5 – It’s not just about who is out, but who is in – here comes Mason Plumlee
The Clippers are done in terms of winning the championship. Done. Yet when opening the Wednesday Las Vegas Review Journal sports section there was this sitting atop the Sports page (yes, I am one of the older types that still gets a newspaper delivered – I actually relish having all of the MLB box scores on a single page, which makes for convenient post-mortem scribbling). Up to 100-1? Hell, a book could make it 750-1 and write all of the business they want without much risk. Remember what the Grizzlies were in the San Antonio series? That was just to win a single series, now this depleted bunch has to find a way to win 14 more games, all against superior opponents.
The big question is how much fight we see tonight. Will this be a loose and aggressive team that will scramble hard with their backs to the wall? Or instead is this a bunch that knows they cannot win, and might actually dread having to extend the season against the Warriors? And from a practical basketball standpoint, how will Doc Rivers shake things up tactically? He has to deal with Mason Plumlee, after all.
To backtrack, one of the prime tools that Rivers used in getting to a 2-0 advantage was trapping Damian Lillard and C. J. McCollum when Portland used those pick-and-roll sequences on offense, forcing the Trail Blazers big men to create, something they are not good at. But Terry Stotts was willing to let the ball go through Plumlee’s hands more as a counter, and in the two home wins he had 19 assists. This from a guy that only averaged 2.8 during the regular season. It was not just Plumlee as a distributor, however, but also the way his energy picked up in other aspects of the game, hauling down 35 rebounds in 63 minutes of court time. That's more rebounds and more assists than any other player on either team, quite a parlay combination.
The markets have made a statement here, the Trail Blazers now favored by -3, after being +8 on this court last week. Now let’s see if they have the poise and focus to take care of business. There are two prime factors that can lead to upsets in games like this – 1. The healthy team coming in over-confident because of the personnel losses the other side has absorbed; 2. The fact that Stotts and his team can’t be sure what Doc’s game plan is going to be, or his player rotation, which makes preparation more difficult.
Rockets/Warriors #5 – The Warriors have already been pretty good in this series without Steph Curry; is there some genuine Rocket fuel out there?
The Warriors know now that Curry will not be available for at least a couple of weeks, so there is no looking over their shoulders now – it is time to get to the task at hand, and settle in to their new rotations. In truth, those rotations have been pretty good in this series – they have out-scored the Rockets by 33 points in the 153:36 that Curry has missed, which would pro-rate to 10.3 for a 48-minute game.
But is there a wild card in the mix here, not just the Curry injury, but also Paul/Griffin as well? Dare we even consider that the often disinterested, and occasionally brain-dead, Rockets to have been given a jolt of energy? There actually is a path to the Western Conference Finals for this bunch, and of all teams they know what it is like to come back from a 3-1 deficit, something they did just 12 months ago against the Clippers.
From J.B. Bickerstaff - "This team, the core of this team has been in this position before. That's one of the things we talked about. Our approach is it's one game at a time, the same as we approached it last year. I know for a fact, Golden State doesn't want to make that four-hour flight back here.”
I just don’t want to have to think about that yet, but will over the course of the day…
About Last Night - Just how damn good has Rich Hill been?
The good news from cashing Oakland/Detroit on Tuesday is that we got about the best possible result of out bucking Mike Pelfrey, who was just good enough to stay in the rotation. Pelfrey allowed eight hits, only recorded one strikeout, and his 37.0 GB% was his worst rate so far this season. Without strikeouts or ground balls there is no way to win, but Detroit paid him $16 million, and will keep sending him out there to try to justify part of it.
The flip side of that equation becomes a conundrum for the marketplace. It will not be easy for some to believe in Rich Hill, a 36-yard old journeyman that has been with seven different organizations. But in nine starts since showing up healthy late last season for the Red Sox, he now has the rather remarkable count of 73 strikeouts vs. 38 hits allowed over 55 IP. That is rather electric stuff, but according to catcher Stephen Vogt after last night’s win, there may be more ahead – “That was the best fastball I’ve seen from him yet.”
That fastball matters, because any pop at all from that pitch, to go with one of the best curveballs around and a decent slider, can lead the handicapper to throw out much of Hill’s injury-riddled career and believe in the present. Might he actually be a few years younger than the calendar shows, because those injuries kept an innings toll from zapping his arm? Teammate Josh Roddick sympathizes with what hitters are up against – “We now he’s going to throw the curveball. Everybody knows he’s going to throw the curveball. And you still can’t hit it.”
In the Sights, NBA…
As noted in the many fascinating aspects of Hornets/heat above is perhaps the most intriguing of all, the Total dropping as low as it has for this evening based on the Game #1/#2 closers on this court. I believe the markets have now gone too low with it, especially with Nicolas Batum likely to see action, which opens things up offensive for Charlotte. At this price we don’t need any kind of explosion, just two teams attacking aggressively with the ball, and that is what I expect to see this evening, so call it #576 Miami/Charlotte Over (8:05 Eastern), good up to 194.
Chicago Cubs 200 Prop (through April 26): 4
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