Point Blank – February 11
The Bucks finally stopped here (at home)…It’s not how many rodeos for the Spurs, but how many games count in this one…There have plenty of rodeos for the current Iowa Hawkeyes…
The Celtics have beaten the Cavaliers and the Clippers in a pair of thrillers this past week, showcasing the depth of the roster and the ability of Brad Stevens to make the puzzle pieces fit. In between was a loss at Milwaukee, seemingly incongruous with the other results given the five-game losing streak the Bucks carried into that game. Yet it may not have been, and it brings a good exercise today into examining how unusual schedule stretches can impact the precision of power ratings.
So with a cheap excuse for a musical interlude in play, especially a country theme as it becomes rodeo time in San Antonio, how about a little Willie Nelson, joined with Sheryl Crow, “On the Road Again”. The tempo does not quite suit Crow, but this version showcases Willie on guitar, which we do not get to see nearly enough -
You will not notice anything all that unusual from the distribution of the minutes for Milwaukee from Tuesday’s win, but the order of appearance had a major change, O. J. Mayo and Miles Plumlee starting, and Michael Carter-Williams and Greg Monroe coming off the bench. Mayo and Plumlee did not have overly productive outings, the Bucks going -2 in the 18:29 that Mayo played (while he did not score, six assists vs. only one turnover was a major positive in terms of getting the offense flowing), and -8 in the 18:28 for Plumlee, but there was a fire lit under the two former starters. Carter-Williams had 16 points, six rebounds and five assists over 26:01, and Monroe 29 points, 12 rebounds, three assists and a pair of blocked shots in 29:32. It was enough to gut out a badly needed win, even after a 19-point lead had disappeared.
Why did Jason Kidd make such a move? Because he could. Sometimes it is that simple. Tuesday’s game marked the 22nd straight court change for his team, and tonight when the Bucks host Washington it will mark the first time since the day after Christmas that they have had consecutive home games. Prior to hosting the Celtics 15 of 21 had been played on the road.
It is not easy for a coach to make changes through such a cycle, practice time being so limited. That was why the game vs. Boston went under the microscope, because not only were the Bucks getting a home game, they were also really “home”, having had three days off since finishing up a road swing at Utah. That kind of practice time had not been available since the season started, and it provided Kidd the opportunity to tweak his rotation, not so much in terms of altering playing time, but reworking the way it was distributed. His take even tried to downplay things a bit, to not alter the confidence level of two of his key cogs - "Nothing that Michael or Moose (Monroe) have done, but we're just going to try something different. Here at the 53-game mark we'll look at a different lineup, but Michael and Moose are going to play as many minutes if not more than if they were starting."
Now, of course, comes the challenge in terms of power rating the Bucks. You should not give too much credit for Tuesday’s win because of the beneficial prep time involved, something teams rarely get. At the same time, that long slog over the past two months may have lowered their power rating too much because of the inability to get their legs firmly beneath them, and spend some time on the home practice floor. It is one of the challenging realities of the long NBA grind, and learning to sort through the impact that these cycles can have on teams should become a key part of your handicapping processes.
Especially since sometimes even the traditional tracking has to be adjusted…
Has the San Antonio rodeo trip really started yet?
If it is February, that means rodeo time in San Antonio, and Pops and the Spurs have to hit the road again. One need not be reminded of that each season, and when the following tweet was sent out by ESPN Stats & Info earlier this week there did not necessarily need to be a second glance -
But for me there was. Did that really begin the rodeo cycle, or was it merely a two-game run through Miami and Orlando, before taking the All Star break off? After the break there will be six consecutive road games, for a total of eight in all, but because of the big gap between winning at Orlando last night, and playing the Clippers in the Staples Center next Thursday, should their necessarily be a connection?
This will not sound like a big deal, and in truth it isn’t huge from a handicapping perspective, but it is one that I have to deal with many days in putting Point Blank together, the notion that my numbers will be different from other sources, which means that explanations must be necessary to explain the discrepancies. To set some perspective, let’s look at the previous six times the Spurs have had to go through this cycle -
Year Last Home Return Pre-Break Games
2015 - Feb 6 March 4 3
2014 - Jan 29 Feb 26 4
2013 – Feb 2 Feb 27 5
2012 – Feb 4 Feb 29 8 (all)
2011 – Jan 29 Feb 23 8
2010 – Jan 31 Feb 24 5
Notice how different this one is. As such, I am not tracking it as an eight-game road trip, but instead breaking it into two, and even when the Spurs resume they get a bit of a travel break, playing the Clippers and Lakers back-to-back at the Staples Center, which will mean only going through five cities. They then receive a nice respite after finishing the tour at Houston on February 27, getting three days off before hosting Detroit. There have been some truly tough cycles for Gregg Popovich and his team to go through in the past because their home court was not available; this one lays out about as easily as the circumstances allow.
In the Sights, NCAA…
We can stay with the colloquial theme of rodeos on the college ranks tonight because what might appear to be a daunting road trip for many teams, facing Indiana in Assembly Hall with first place in the Big 10 on the line, can be handled with poise and maturity from #755 Iowa (9:00 Eastern). This is far from the “first rodeo” for Fran McCaffrey’s Hawkeyes, and with a key scheduling element also in play the +3.5 out there this morning brings solid value.
In this day and age experience is rare on the college hardwoods, with so few talented players sticking around for four years at their Universities. Iowa is an exception to that rule, with Jarrod Uthoff, Mike Gesell, Adam Woodbury, Peter Jok and Athony Clemmons having combined for 552 games in Hawkeye uniforms, including 395 starts. When you have that much experience both individually and in playing as a unit good things can happen, especially in terms of handling a hostile environment. That is the key for this bunch – they have not only been through the rigors of the road, but they have indeed handled them.
As a prelude to this season, the Hawkeyes won Big 10 road trips to Ohio State, Minnesota, Michigan, Nebraska, Penn State and at Indiana last year, comfortably handling the Hoosiers 77-63 at tonight’s venue, while also winning at North Carolina in a tough non-league trip. This season they were thrown a brutal early conference gauntlet, already playing at Purdue, Michigan State and Maryland, but they beat the Boilermakers and Spartans by a combined 24 points, while a 74-68 loss to the Terrapins was a one-possession game in the final minute. There have also been the confidence boosters of winning in double figures at Illinois, Marquette and Rutgers this season, and taking Iowa State to the limit at Ames before falling 83-82 as +7.5, an comfortable ATS capture. The Hawkeyes have been road underdogs nine times the past two seasons, going 7-2 ATS (they lost to the spread by a half point at Maryland earlier), and with six of those ATS successes being outright wins.
A second issue for tonight is whether they should indeed be the underdogs. Yes, Indiana is 9-2 in Big 10 play, while Iowa is 10-1, and if the Hoosiers win there becomes a three-way tie for the top spot, along with Maryland. But consider how those conference schedules were built. Outside of Iowa, the three best teams in the league on my ratings are Maryland, Michigan State and Purdue. Iowa has faced those three teams five times, going 4-1 with an impressive +43 net point differential, despite three of those games being on the road. How has Indiana fared against that trio? The Hoosiers have not faced any of them yet. The Big 10 scheduling roll of the dice has been an extremely favorable one for Tom Crean and his team, and I believe that has created the wrong impression in the marketplace.
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