Point Blank – April 18, 2017
NBA Tuesday - Zig Zag is alive in 2017…The Miller’s Tale, 2017 version, begins…
When we get to the second game of the first-round playoff series each NBA April there is a market “right of passage” that comes into play – is the Zig Zag influence going to be there? Last night the money flowed the opposite way in Pacers/Cavaliers, while it was also noted here that Grizzlies/Spurs might not attract bettors to the usual patterns because the series may not be competitive.
Tonight’s board is a different model, however, because it brings many bettors what they want the most at this time of the calendar – the opportunity to bet on a higher-seeded playoff favorite that just lost their previous game outright. The notions are easy to digest, an expectation of the superior team with their backs to the wall reaching back for a big effort, while an underdog that wins on the road in the opener can sometimes lose a few whispers of steam because of that human psychological trait of it being “mission accomplished”, these teams often taking to the road with the notion that a 1-1 split is a win.
And so here comes the flow – Toronto, Boston and the LA Clippers are all sitting higher than their closing line for Game #1, with the Rudy Gobert injury also a prime pointspread factor out west. That is not a surprise based on the usual betting patterns, but is there merit to the adjustments given how the games flowed? It is time to get to work, and the method here throughout the playoffs will be “The Game Inside the Game” approach, looking at one key element of each matchup that will go a long way towards determining the outcome.
MILWAUKEE/TORONTO – Kyle Lowry has been around a lot longer than Malcolm Brogdon, but Brogdon is younger and bigger than Lowry
One of the notions I brought up in setting the stage for this series was the major edge in playoff experience that the Raptors brought to the table, and the gap was wider at the key PG spot than anywhere else, Lowry having 731 career games, plus 31 post-season starts under his belt, against the rookie Brogdon. Yet on Saturday it was a mismatch between them –
Min FG Pts Reb Ast TO +/-
Brogdon 34:13 6-13 16 6 2 1 +17
Lowry 33:52 2-11 4 2 6 1 -22
And while Brogdon’s assists were not what a team usually wants from that spot it is also a function of Milwaukee being able to originate offense via Khris Middleton or Giannis Antetokounmpo; the Bucks had the sparkling ratio of 22 assists vs. only five turnovers. What mattered most is that Lowry struggled to get into a shooting rhythm against Brogdon, who is five inches taller, and even when he got past him found little breathing room against a defense that is long on the perimeter.
Lowry will bounce back and play better tonight, the Game #1 loss not being debilitating for a Raptors team that is so accustomed to losing series openers (something you will hear often from the Sports Mediaverse today). But Brogdon isn’t going away. Real +/- charted him as a shooting guard this season, not a PG, and of those that played at least 25:00 per game he rated #6 across the league at the position.
So why the lack of sizzle across the Sports Mediaverse for his game? For all of the bemoaning I do about the lack of defensive skills for the one-and-done players in this era, Brogdon got schooled in those arts about as well as a college player could in four foul seasons under Tony Bennett at Virginia (129 games, 102 starts), but NBA GMs weren’t necessarily thrilled with a guy that was going to turn 24 early in his rookie season. So Brogdon was only the #36 player taken in the draft, and will go down as a steal.
There isn’t anything all that magical in his stats, but there doesn’t have to be – with the upside that players at the other positions have Jason Kidd can afford to have a fundamentally-sound grinder with the versatility to play both the #1 and the #2 positions, while also being able to guard some #3s, and the best way to understand Brogdon’s impact came when he had to miss five games late in the season because of injury – the Bucks went 1-4 ATS in that stretch, losing to the market expectations by 52.5 points in regulation.
This isn’t just about Lowry responding tonight, but the fact that even if he does bring a lot more fire he faces a genuine challenge in this matchup.
CHICAGO/BOSTON – It isn’t only the lack of stars; what if the Celtics just aren’t tough enough
An issue involving Zig Zag in Boston goes to the very heart of the notion that this is not a traditional #1 vs. #8 series. The underdog Bulls have more playoff experience and showed no intimidation in the opener, while the favored Celtics still do not have a playoff series win from the current group on their resume. What was noted here going in to game #1 was the notion that Boston faces the end-game challenge of having a lot of good players, but not necessarily the stars that take control in the latter stages when it is close. For Chicago Jimmy Butler can do that, and Dwyane Wade and Rajon Rondo also remember how and can conjure the occasional moment.
But what about toughness as well? The Bulls knocked the Celtics around 53-36 on the boards Sunday, and while I don’t have a particular data-base to look it up, I would wonder if there has ever been a #1 vs. #8 series opener in which the deficit in that category was so wide. The issue for tonight, for those wanting to back Boston to get even, is that this was not necessarily all that new – in five head-to-heads this season Chicago holds a +55 rebounding advantage, a significant +11 per game.
The Bulls were #4 in the NBA in rebound% this season, the Celtics #27. What makes the Boston numbers more ominous is that there was an unfortunate consistency for Brad Stevens, they rated #25 in offensive rebounding and #27 on the defensive glass. The rotation is simply under-sized, and perhaps even more vulnerable at playoff time than during the regular season, as the physicality picks up a bit.
Can this be solved? Let’s go to the words of Jae Crowder, who calls himself a guard in this take, which perhaps shows the issue of so many of the front-court players being more perimeter-oriented (including Al Horford) - “I think just awareness is a major key on it. We have to be more aware of where Butler’s at on the court and where their rebounders are. And I think once we have an awareness of where they are, we can take care of it. But I think it’s not just only on the bigs. It’s on the guards to come in and clean up. Those guys are in the trenches fighting, so us guards have to come help our bigs out the entire series.”
For Boston to get the money tonight will require producing a margin, and margins require a lot of positive execution in the other elements of the game if a team can’t win the boards.
UTAH/LA CLIPPERS – How could the Clippers not score down low when it was Boris Diaw at the #5 and Joe Johnson at the #4
In setting up this series in the Friday edition much of the focus went on how Quin Snyder had worked around so many injuries to get the Jazz to 51-31, and it was truly an awkward twist of both body and fate when Rudy Gobert went down early. Gobert had been the one rock Snyder had been able to build a foundation on in his rotation, having missed just one game during the regular season.
Yet the Jazz more than held their own without Gobert, winning the game 97-95. Some of that could be attributed to Snyder once again making so many good moves, and for those that weren’t up watching late on Saturday night it was his decision to not call a time-out on the final possession, which is almost an automatic, and instead force the Clippers to play defense with Jamal Crawford, not Luc Mbah a Moute on the floor, that led to Joe Johnson’s game-winner.
There was good spacing from the Utah offense, which had four players score 15 points or more and seven have at least two assists, going small to spread out the Clippers defense. That can happen when both teams are preparing on the fly for an unexpected situation, and Doc Rivers acknowledged that - "I thought they played well under adverse conditions with Gobert going down. In some ways, that helped them. They got small and stretched the floor, which hurt us a little bit, and we didn't play great."
But it is one thing for the LAC defense to be out of sync when having to be more geared towards guarding the perimeter, it is another matter entirely when the Clippers could not find their way to attack the basket despite Diaw essentially being at center, and Johnson at power forward, in many of the Utah alignments. They only scored at a 99.5 PP100. For perspective –
Age Size
Diaw 35 6-8/250
Johnson 35 6-7/240
Derrick Favors is the third prime cog in that rotation, and will likely start tonight, while Snyder even dropped down to get 9:12 out of Jeff Withey.
The Clippers did a poor job of running offense. Chris Paul did what he does, 10-19 from the field for 25 points, with 11 assists vs. only one turnover, but there was confusion from the others, who were just 26-62 (imagine how many assists Paul could have had), with nine assists and 14 turnovers. Blake Griffin, who should have dominated in the low post, was 7-18 on 2-poit shot attempts, and turned the ball over six times.
So now the big question – was this the failure of LAC to adjust on the fly, and with two days to prepare can there be a better offensive design to attack the basket? That is what I will be looking for early, to see if an In-Running opportunity might get created. At the current -9, the markets have already made a rather major assumption on that front.
In the sights, Tuesday MLB…
I believe there are reasons to like Shelby Miller. I already know there will be almost no reasons to like the Padres this season. And there are going to be precious few nights in which I will be trusting Fernando Rodney to help protect an investment. Add it all up and the equation this evening is for #909 Arizona First Five Innings (10:10 Eastern), with -125 or less the value point.
I will likely turn Miller’s recent career arc into a feature topic soon, but many of you already know the story – he had one of the all-time examples of Baseball Being Baseball in 2015, going 6-17 with Atlanta despite a 3.02 ERA, and Arizona saw enough promise through that to make a rather expensive trade. Miller’s 2016 with the Diamondbacks was a 3-12/6.15 disaster, injuries playing a part and the sport also being unfriendly (.340 BABIP and 65.4 LOB%), so there became genuine questions about the psyche of a guy off of a 9-29 run across two seasons.
But the former first-round pick of the Cardinals is not showing any physical or psychological issues so far, with one of the biggest velocity spikes of any starter in the Majors. He has been hitting 98 mph on the guns, with an average fast-ball rate of 94.9 that is two full mph above his 2016 tracking. That has naturally led to a significant increase in SWS% (from 7.2 to 9.7), and there may well be something to like here. There is also much to like about a team off to a 9-5 start, but while Rodney is a perfect 5-5 in save opportunities he is walking a tight-rope that he could fall off of at any time, hence the focus goes to the early stages.
The Padres are who they are, a bad lineup that lacks upside, and Jarred Cosart is already with his fourth organization, showing a lack of both pop (career 5.7 K/9) and control (4.5 BB/9) that indicate a low ceiling; at best a journeyman innings-eater, if he can even be that.
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