Point Blank – May 18
Zig Zag yes, but not necessarily the obvious (there is a helluva lot of ego in this series, so time for more QMS, “Pride of Man” on the way)…Seriously, I don’t know what to do with Clayton Kershaw right now (but I do know what to do with Nate Eovaldi and BMC)…
As Adam Silver lobbies in the future for legal betting and the NBA to become allies, he can thank our industry for providing about the only drama there was in Cleveland last night, or perhaps better said the only reason to keep watching Raptors/Cavaliers to the end. A Total that went from 202.5 to 197.5 had market segments, especially cursing bookmakers, on their seats to the very end.
As it turns out those crashing the Under weren’t all that right in their handicap, the game sitting on 110 at halftime, 162 after three quarters, and 180 with 6:50 remaining. But that is when the one-sided nature of the affair ground the flow to a halt, and neither team chose to attempt a shot on their final possession, allowing the seconds to tick away. 199 was not a good landing place for many stores.
Game 2 of that series will be the lead here tomorrow, but for now it is time to head back out West, where the intensity level will be at an extreme this evening. As noted before the opener, Golden State games will be a chance to celebrate the legendary Rock and Roll scene that found a birthplace in the Bay Area, a magical convergence of cultural place and time, and once again it is the Quicksilver Messenger Service that best sets the stage – on Monday night it was “Pride of Man” showing from the Thunder key cogs as they brought many of basketball’s elements into play when their shots weren’t falling (no video this time, but we are so fortunate the audio is out there) -
Turn around go back down
Back the way you came
Can't you see that flash of fire
10 times brighter than the day
Can’t you envision that being in the heads of Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, when they trailed 60-47 at halftime. Yet as it turns out it wasn’t the brilliant offensive skills of those two stars that turned the game, and that is where we need to start if we are to get the best handicapping feel for Game 2.
Thunder/Warriors Game #2 – Let’s go forward by first going back in time
Golden State was -7.5 in most key precincts at tipoff on Monday. The halftime line was pick’em, the markets adjusting the Warriors -13 for the game. Why did it look like such a mismatch? The battle of the three superstars was a rout in the opening half –
Min FG Pts TO Reb
Durant 21:35 5-11 13 4 3
Westbrook 20:06 1-8 3 3 1
Curry 19:35 5-11 14 3 6
Let some of those elements sink in. Durant/Westbrook had more turnovers than made baskets. Curry nearly matched their point count, and did out-rebound them in less than half the court time. Those were amazing numbers.
So if you were forced to leave at halftime, or perhaps chose to because you thought Golden State was in command, you would have been shocked to see the final score. And if pressed for an answer as to why, you would have likely made the case that the Durant/Westbrook shots started falling, and they put on an offensive showcase to turn the tide. That didn’t happen. Westbrook indeed had an explosion in the third quarter, 19 points in going the 12-minute distance, but in truth the shooting never did turn around for those two. Instead it was their grit competitiveness, and that of the team around them, that created such a swing, and it is that emerging element of the OKC dynamic that is becoming so fascinating. I will get to key parts of that as we now begin to roll up the sleeves for Wednesday night.
Item – Understanding Zig Zag, and using it
OK, so the Warriors were -7.5 on Monday, lost the game, and are now -8.5. That has to be expected, Zig Zag having had the history it has through the course of the NBA playoffs, in particular when it is a team as formidable (and popular) as Golden State coming off of a loss. But Zig Zag is not really about scoreboards turning, but rather the elements that created the scoreboard results bringing pendulums that may have gone too far in a certain direction, and are going to swing back. If the pendulums say the scoreboard was wrong, it is subject to correction. But what if the scoreboard may have been right? That is where the proper handicapping element comes into play, and it leads to some intriguing food for thought in this series.
Let’s start with the single most important point – Zig Zag can only work if the base line for the series is set in the right place. If Team A is expected to bounce back off of a loss, and cover a spread that is higher than the previous game, it can only be a proper fit if the opening line was correct, so that the pendulums can overcome the adjustment. But if the line for the previous game was not proper, then too much is being asked from the components of basketball. That may be the case here, because the interior of the Game 1 castle between these teams did not show things all that far out of place.
Did Durant/Westbrook start making a higher percentage of their shots in the second half? No. It was 6-19 before intermission, and only 11-32 afterwards. So let’s establish an important base point in terms of Zig Zag prospects -
FGs 3-pt
Durant/Westbrook 17-51 3-8
Thompson/Curry 20-47 9-22
That was about as bad as we could ever expect a Durant/Westbrook shooting game to be, yet the two leading Golden State scorers were not far off at all from where one would have projected them. Those shot attempts also represent over half of all taken for each team, which is extremely significant. How can the Thunder possibly win a game in which the shooting disparity was that wide between the key cogs? This is where “Pride of Man” comes into play. OKC reached back and won with effort, not with precision. Let’s look at the floor game -
OKC GS
Rebounds 52 44
Turnovers 11 14
Blocked Shots 6 4
Steals 12 8
2nd Chance Pts 15 2
The Thunder won with grit, not finesse. Westbrook in particular should be noted, coming up with seven steals, the lure of a ring now a genuine part of his consciousness, instead of winning one-on-one ego battles in personal matchups.
That now leads to the single most important question of all for Game 2 – are those floor game outcomes “pendulum” issues, or simply series matchup issues? OKC is going to win the rebounding – in four head-to-heads this season it is now a +48, so Monday’s count was not necessarily an extreme. If the Thunder team hustle is such that they will scrap so hard in the other areas it makes it difficult for the Warriors to build margins – the shooting is going to have to be extreme to overcome those factors.
Hence now the “Pride of Man” focus goes to the other locker room. There is one recurring theme that came from the Golden State Monday post-game that is significant, the struggles on offense in the fourth quarter being due to their lack of patience, a usually-poised team losing their way. Let’s use their own words to detail it, starting with Steve Kerr -
"Lot of quick shots, way too many quick shots. Five minutes left in the game and we're down four or whatever, and we were acting like we had 20 seconds left. Five minutes is an eternity. We know how we have to play. We have to pass and move and create rhythm for ourselves with our screening and cutting. And I just felt like we took way too many quick ones that took us out of our rhythm."
Then Steph Curry – “The pace slowed down, especially in the third quarter with all the fouls that we had and they got to the free-throw line. So the pace wasn’t in our favor. Then we just missed shots. Like I’ve been saying, we got stops and pushed and just rushed a little bit. So we need to have more patience, more composure, and we need to continue to be us.” And finally Draymond Green - "I don't think we were ourselves offensively in the second half. I think we were very careless. I think we were rushing. Everything was rushed. We lost our poise."
The Warriors were held to a shocking 14 points over the final stanza, shooting a terrible 6-23. But now that pendulum problem again, in terms of projecting their bounce-back as the key theme tonight – over that same span the Thunder were also just 8-23.
So what happens tonight? I see an opportunity to put Zig Zag into play, but it is actually against the market grain, and that is often where the best value comes from. Monday night closed mostly -7.5 and 225.5. I currently see -8.5 and 222. From my perspective what the markets are calling for most is driving directly into one of the strongest pendulums in play – they are calling for the Thunder to score less, despite Durant/Westbrook being off of that 17-51. I see that as opportunity. For Durant to bounce back strong off of a poor shooting game is a topic that was the lead here about a month ago, and I expect both his efficiency, and Westbrook’s to be much higher on that end of the court. So let’s call it #705 Oklahoma City Team Total Over, and if the Warriors do indeed stay within themselves better on offense, leading to high degrees of efficiency on their end as well, that creates a better overall game flow and does not hurt the cause at all. I sure as hell don’t expect another 37-point fourth quarter, Durant/Westbrook and Curry/Thompson combining for a mind-numbing 5-26 over that final stanza on Monday, and that opens the door for some late scramble points, which the opener did not bring.
About Last Night (Power Rating Clayton Kershaw is becoming a unique challenge)…
Extremes are difficult when it comes to Power Ratings. Something too low can provide opportunities for timing a turnaround (seriously, we will be looking to get behind the Minnesota Twins soon), as is the case for too high, the history of sport having defined parameters for ceilings and floors. But now there is Clayton Kershaw, who is severely challenging any pre-set baseball philosophy.
For the full season Kershaw has worked 70 innings, with 88 strikeouts, 45 hits allowed, and four walks. Over his last five starts it has been 58 strikeouts vs. one walk. He is a tick away from leading the Major’s in both K% and BB%, which is unheard of (Jose Fernandez leads him 35.2 to 34.8 in K-rate). Kershaw is at 15.9 in SWS% for the second straight season, a remarkable consistency in that stratosphere, and more than a full percentage point above anyone else (Noah Syndergaard at 14.7).
The problem is doing anything with it. I don’t have a model for this performance level, which is just a blur to my charts, which show anything over -260 being too subject to baseball’s geometry to ever leave accompanying value. But this is where Kerhsaw also genuinely challenges that model – because so much of his dominance is in not allowing contact, it lessens the opportunities for bounces to swing an outcome. In each of Kershaw’s last five starts he has struck out at least 11.3 percent of the batters faced, reducing geometry to basic algebra, at least.
I have serious work to do on this front, and am not sure there is going to be an answer.
In the Sights, MLB…
Last Thursday marked the beginning of a sequence that I may get in play often in the weeks ahead, part of the “Firestorm Saga” with the Yankee pitching staff, focusing in particular on Nathan Eovaldi now that Aroldis Chapman is on board to complete the BMC bullpen trio. The notion is that if Eovadli knows that he only has to go out there for five or six innings he can cut it loose, and when he cuts it loose it means throwing about as hard as anyone in the sport. That leads to #978 Arizona Team Total Under (9:40 Eastern) tonight, the projected open Chase Field roof bringing value despite the fact that there may not be enough contact by the Diamondbacks for that to matter. I would be comfortable laying up to -130 on a 4.5, and 4’s are going to be available at even money or even a small + return.
Eovaldi’s first start with Chapman on board was not special, but it was something we can learn from. In two of his previous three games he had worked at least seven innings, but vs. the Royals he was only out there for five. That matters. It also was not the easiest matchup for him, for while the KC offense is nothing special, the Royals do put the ball in play, #5 in the Major’s in strikeout rate. Here is what shows in the deeper tracking, though not in the base box score – Eovaldi’s average fastball clocked at 97.4. That was his season high, and only Noah Syndergaard is being tracked as faster than that. Now Eovaldi can go out there and cut it loose again vs. a lineup that lacks experience against him, with Betances/Miller/Chapman all fresh for the latter stages. Just consider what that can mean against an Arizona lineup that struck out 13 times in eight innings last night, not having had to face any of them.
In the Sights, MLB II…
This is right at the very edge of the value point, but at -145 or less there is enough fundamental baseball handicap to get in play with #981 Boston in Game 2 at Kansas City tonight (8:15). As noted in getting behind David Price in his last outing there was nothing wrong with his stuff that a little warmer weather, and a slight mechanical adjustment couldn’t fix, and he struck out 12 of the 27 Astros he faced in that easy win. Now he gets the benefit of facing most of a lineup that went eight innings against a knuckleballer earlier today (five repeat starters), and a rookie LF in Whit Merrifield that was only called up today, and will be making his debut. Meanwhile Edinson Volquez is only averaging 6.0 IPS so far, and that becomes a problem on a night in which the Hochevar/Herrera tandem will not be available for the Royals, and there is also no guarantee that Yost will use Wade Davis twice the same day. Better starter, better offense, fresher bullpen all align here.
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