Point Blank – March 16
What a “Bettor Better Know” – The Dance to come; The Weekend in Review
The NCAA review this week will only feature on teams that are still alive – plenty of off-season to focus on those that do not play again. And while the beginnings of the Madness were taking place, the NBA continues to move closer towards its own post-season, throwing all sorts of silly numbers into the mix that you either need to adjust for, or ignore completely…
Item: The Committee got the teams right, but many of the seeds wrong
The plan was to use the first topic this week to discuss some of the snubs made by the tournament committee, and also to detail the undeserved teams that found one of the musical chairs available. But this time around it did not play out that way. On the whole the committee did a solid job of getting the appropriate teams into the field, and while there will be some bickering this morning from a Colorado State or a Temple, the cases simply are not very compelling. The guys making the lines would not have either of them favored over any at-large team in the brackets.
Where there will be fun in the days ahead is taking advantage of the mistakes that were made - some unexpected seeding that opens doors. One of them closed quickly, with the betting markets not buying VCU as a #7 vs. Ohio State as a #10 for a moment (some stores genuinely did not see that coming last night, opening Ohio State at only -1 before getting hit), but there are several others that will help to set up First Round value, which will be detailed here over the next couple of days.
Here is the Point Blank schedule: The NCAA Bracket edition will be up this evening, with the focus on individual handicapping elements for the opening round to be spread over the next few mornings. The NIT will come into focus tomorrow, with some of the possibilities that tourney brings. And beginning on Friday morning will be “The Tourney Journey – 2015”, a game-by-game Post Mortem throughout the bracket, which can uncover some key game flow notions to better set you up for the next round. Now, to clean up some weekend business…
Item: North Carolina 63 Notre Dame 54 at 9:42; ND 90-82 final
Mike Brey called a timeout after Marcus Paige hit a triple to give the Tar Heels that lead, and in truth it seemed as though the game had gotten away from the Fighting Irish. Carolina had scored on 12 straight possessions, and it was difficult to see a way that the momentum could be turned. But Notre Dame did it, ratcheting up the defensive pressure for one of the more dominant, and unexpected, spurts of the season.
After that time-out, the Fighting Irish went on a 15-1 run, which became 24-2, and ultimately put up 36 points in 9:01 to close it out. Here is what matters, from two ends. First was their ability to extend defensive pressure, previously not a strength – in that 15-1 burst the Tar Heels were able to manage only one shot, turning the ball over five times. Mark that down as a big turning point for Brey’s team, and also remember the quotes there were used here on Friday, as Jerrian Grant and Steve Vastrua credited their defense for coming up big late vs. Miami. Second, note who made those turnovers – Joel Berry, Isaiah Hicks, Justin Jackson, Kennedy Meeks and Brice Johnson all had one. Marcus Paige? He had none.
This has been a recurring North Carolina issue, and it was first discussed near the end of this column column. Paige only had 68 turnovers through 35 games and 1,150 floor minutes. But the other Carolina players had 376. When the Tar Heels were on their game they looked good enough to have been a #1 or #2 seed. It has been their inability to run a better floor game on offense that has kept them from developing the consistency needed to reach a higher level.
Item: Wisconsin had 17* turnovers in the Big 10 tournament
We’ve been down this road before concerning Bo Ryan and his Badgers, but to only give it up 17* times over 125 floor minutes is yet another tribute to how difficult it is going to be to beat this bunch. Contrast that to what was just said about North Carolina, and you can see how close games get won and lost. Dunks and fancy passes may be the majority of the Sports Center highlights, but by not giving the ball up for anything easy in transition, the Wisconsin defense is able to get set on the overwhelming majority of possessions. The Badgers rallied from 11 down following a timeout with 7:44 left to out-score Michigan State 34-12 the rest of the way, and it was not a case of scrambling or pressing from behind to make it happen – they simply went out and played their game.
So why the * next to 17 in the headline? Because the silliness of statistics will read 18 if you go through the box scores. Wisconsin is credited with a turnover because Ryan showed class, and had his team dribble out the shot clock on their final possession of the weekend. It may go into the books as a turnover, but in that setting it is certainly not one, it is actually a positive basketball play.
Item: VCU won a whole different way
Shaka Smart and his Rams were a topic here multiple times over the second half of the season, first noting that impact that the loss of Briante Weber was going to have, and then the significant lowering of their standard of play without him. Then came Brooklyn and the Atlantic 10 tournament, and they reached back for something special to win it all. But before making the usual assumptions about “Shaka Ball” as the Big Dance begins, note carefully how this team won last weekend. It was not about that pressure defense – Davidson only had nine turnovers in the semi-final on Saturday, and Dayton only 10 yesterday. What the Rams did instead was make shots.
VCU has not been a good shooting team this season, relying on points off of turnovers for a significant part of the scoreboard production. But through those four A10 tourney games the Rams were 40-107 from 3-point range, and 73-97 from the FT line. Particularly contrast those FTs – it was 75.3 percent, vs. 62.9 in league play when Weber’s numbers are removed. How does a team change those stripes this late in the season? Some of it stems from confidence and will, and Smart is among the best at instilling those notions in his team. Some of it may also have just been basketball roulette. That will be a key to ponder, as the Rams get the difficult draw of not only having to play on Thursday afternoon, despite that four-in-four at Brooklyn, but also have to travel across the country as well.
Item: So Dallas got things fixed on Friday, right?
There is plenty at stake when Oklahoma City goes to Dallas tonight, two teams needing wins not just for their playoff positioning, but also in terms of their confidence level when that second season begins (in the case of the Thunder, still “if”). There have been multiple takes here about the issues for the Mavericks, from the fact that Rajon Rondo is not a good fit, through Amare’s Stouemire’s speaking out on their lax practice habits, and also Dirk Nowtizki’s shooting slump. So if you were busy with NCAA conference tournaments over the weekend, and only took a quick glance at the 129-99 domination of the Clippers, you may have assumed that they were finding some answers. If you did, you may also have assumed wrong.
Rondo was not any better, and in fact turned in one of the most amusing +/- counts of the season – he was only a +1 over 22:08, with the Mavs going +29 in the 25:52 that he did not play. Nowitzki did not necessarily find an answer, only taking nine shots in 24:32, making five. Instead what happened was the second until absolutely running roughshod over the Clipper reserves. Try some of these on for size -
Jefferson 22:34 +23
Harris 19:39 +23
Barea 18:24 +23
Stoudemire 14:24 +30
There needs to be an *, of course, which shows the limitations of this particular measurement – Stoudemire only scored two points, on 1-3 from the field, and missed both of his FT attempts. He just happened to be on the court while others where thriving, rather than necessarily contributing to it. But it does tell us that those Dallas issues are still in search of solutions. The Mavs have been home for a full week now, and for the second consecutive game get multiple days to prepare. It means that we should see what they have tonight; with only 15 games remaining, there is not all that much time for adjustments to be made.
Item: Steve Kerr does not care about your computer models
OK, there is nothing terribly new here, so steady readers can skip to the next topic. But for many of you this daily column will continue to focus on how misleading statistical tables and data-bases can be when all they do is treat each game the same. If you are going to win there has to be some Darwin in play – adapt, or you will not survive.
On Friday the best team in the NBA was an underdog at tipoff to an also-ran with no hope of make the playoffs, with Kerr sitting Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Bogut, Klay Thompson and Marreese Spreights in Denver. As such, the 114-103 Nugget win means nothing in terms of adjusting the power rating for either team. And the pointspread role is of zero consequence– do you really want to record it as an ATS failure for the Warriors as a road dog, or a cover for Denver as a home favorite?
Then came Saturday, a 125-94 domination of the Knicks that would seem to explain itself rather well. But it doesn’t. Consider the Golden State offensive output that gets recorded, and then note that the Warriors had actually reached 109 with 2:00 remaining in the third quarter, and were sitting on 123 with 6:05 left. The final score does not do justice to either the Golden State offense, nor the non-existent New York defense, from that performance.
Item: Did the Wizards turn a corner, were the last two wins merely handed to them, or should we just wait until Bradley Beal starts making shots?
Time for more on that vein of misleading results that will go down in history as having happened in earnest. Washington takes the court for the third straight at home tonight, and it is a rather important one, since the Wizards head west for four games afterwards. But while a slumbering team has struggled to find its game since the All Star break enters off of a pair of wins and covers on this home stand, those results do not have to mean anything at all.
On Thursday Washington was handed a 20-point win over Memphis, which sat out Michael Conley, Marc Gasol, Zach Randolph and Tony Allen. Yet the Wizards still fell down by nine points early before taking advantage of a diminished opponent. On Saturday it was one of the more favorable settings of the season, getting to play a Sacramento team finishing a grueling stretch of eight road games in 12 nights, and having to do it without leading scorer Rudy Gay. To show how tapped out the Kings already were, they had run out of gas in Philadelphia on Friday, when the 76ers rallied from 18-down to win 114-107.
Yet Sacramento came out with energy enough to lead 64-46 at halftime, and the Kings were still ahead into the fourth quarter. Had DeMarcus Cousins not been in foul trouble, before eventually getting a technical that gave him he rest of the night off (he scored 30 points in 29:41), who knows how different the scoreboard might have read. So take those wins under advisory, not just reducing anything positive that might be attached, but also be alarmed at the early deficits. Despite all hands now on deck, Washington did not come out and take control from the start against two vulnerable opponents.
The Wizards have plenty to be playing for – with the Bulls short-handed, the #4 seed in the Eastern Conference, and a first-round home court, is well within reach. But where is the spark? Some of it remains a lack of effort (like those first-half points by the Kings), and there may not be enough offensive efficiency until Beal finds his game. He has only shot 29-79 from the field since returning, including 5-24 beyond the arc. Was he rushed back? Perhaps – since the All Star break it has been an 0-6 SU and ATS without him on the court. But keep in mind that is was an 0-5 SU and ATS run before he went on the injured list as well.
This is a big game for the Eye Test against Portland tonight. While the Wizard momentum may mean little on paper, has at least their psyche turned a corner?
Item: Mike Budenholzer’s “Platooning”
And now time for even more on having to adjust box scores for personnel issues. As noted previously on this page, a big part of Atlanta’s success stems from what Mike Budenholzer learned under Gregg Popovich in terms of X’s and O’s, and now he is showing some of those lessons from a game management standpoint as well. His current goal is to keep the Hawks as fresh as possible for the playoff grind ahead, and that means the occasional game off for some of the key cogs. But the Hawks may be doing it with a bit of a twist the rest of the way.
Budenholzer gambled on a setting in Philadelphia last Saturday that backfired, holding out DeMare Carroll, Paul Millsap, Kyle Korver and Pero Antic, and paying the price in an upset loss, one that could matter when it comes to deciding the Home Court should they make the finals against Golden State. So as part of a grueling six-game road trip that will have his team play in three different time zones, including showdowns ahead at Golden State and Oklahoma City, Budenholzer is altering the approach a bit. The rest cycles are now coming a little at a time.
Last night it was Carroll, Millsap and Jeff Teague getting a break in Los Angeles, with the remaining cast able to hold off a late Laker charge (83-67 at 5:58 became 85-83 at 0:30) to win 91-86. It was not just the positive of winning while resting those starters, but to get 24 points and 10 assists from Dennis Schroder over 37:31 will be a big boost for his confidence. Tonight the gears shift a bit – now it will be Korver (who was going to be held out even if he did not suffer that broken nose at the Staples Center) and Al Horford sitting in Sacramento, as Budenholzer picks and chooses based on matchups, rather than sitting more keys at once.
Naturally this muddles both scoreboards and statistics, so make sure you are treating these games with a grain of salt. Only beating the Lakers by five may look like a failure based on the market expectations, but it was actually a clean “W”, in terms of long-term purposes. As for tonight, the adjustments are not easy to make – the Kings will be making their 10th court change over the first 16 days of March, finally returning home after eight straight on the road, though only getting a single day to acclimate. With Gay a ??? (did not play at Washington on Saturday, as noted above), it becomes an even more difficult setting to price, which means not just being careful in the pre-game handicap, but also attaching as little weight as possible when you adjust the ratings afterwards.
Item: And then there are the Nuggets (is Melvin "in the Hunt"?)
OK, so teams heading for the playoffs sit players, which is likely to become even more common. But how does someone maintain good power ratings for the circus of a season it has been in Denver? Naturally anything that happened with Brian Shaw can be discarded, but what in the hell does a database do with a team beating the Hawks and Warriors both in double figures last week? You throw the Golden State win out, for the reasons noted a few topics above, but the Atlanta win was absolutely legit, as noted here on Friday. To refresh that notion, here was the +/- chart from the starting give in that game –
Korver -10 Foye +11
Teague -21 Lawson +15
Millsap -13 Chandler +23
Carroll -15 Gallinari +26
Horford -12 Faried +11
But now fast forward to Sunday night at New Orleans, and it was Melvin Hunt deciding to rest players from his rotation, with Chandler and Foye sitting out vs. the Pelicans. They are expected back tonight vs. Memphis, but others may be given time off. Is this telling us that Hunt has already become the front-runner to be the HC next season? He is treating the team that way – "We're going to figure out ways to get guys in a comfortable position as best we can. And if that's resting a guy, we'll rest him. We've got to have good vision, long-term vision as well as short-term vision. But the long-term vision is definitely going to be considered."
Here is what makes it all so intriguing – Hunt sat two starters on the road against a team fighting for a playoff spot, and still won the game outright as +8 anyway. Five different Nuggets scored at least 17 points in a good display of team basketball, which should have been unlikely given the lineup. It shows that the players believe in him, and perhaps his peering towards the future is an indication that management has told him they believe as well.