stats speak, numbers don't lie

Posted by Anonymous (scroll down to the 2nd comment.) He does a good job of using shot charts to show that the idea being spouted by various members of the media, i.e. the Celtics were the more aggressive team and the Lakers didn't get calls because they were shooting jump shots, is a fallacy. He also points out the shooting foul discrepancy (17 to 3), which counters the argument being made by some that the Lakers only committed 7 more fouls than the Celtics and thus the officiating wasn't really that one-sided.

"The problem was that the Lakers weren't playing significantly less aggressively than the Celtics, and still got hosed. It's one thing to see teams get the short end of the stick and retreat into a shell. The Lakers, though, continued to go to the rack. Check the shot charts for Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/shotchart?gameId=280608002

Pretty much every shot is in the paint or just outside it - between the two of them, they took 23 shots. 18 of them were within 5 feet of the hoop. They shot 1 foul between them. Look at the comparable shot chart for KG - 2 shots in the paint. 4 free throws. There's getting hosed, and then there's inexplicable.

Don't like ESPN? How about CBS: http://www.sportsline.com/nba/gamecenter/shotchart/NBA_20080608_LAL@BOS

30 shots by LA were layups or dunks. Boston had 18. Let's amend that somewhat by noting that the Celtics were the recipients of a number of 2-shot shooting fouls. They were credited with SEVENTEEN shooting fouls - LA got THREE. If we were to give every one of Boston's 2-shot fouls to the Celtics as a 'layup' or 'dunk' attempt (they had 14), that gives them 32 shots at the rim. Both of LA's two-shot attempts were on layups, I believe (one by Fisher, one by Bryant). That gives LA 32 shots at the rim. Gasol and Odom had 16 of them, and received, again, one foul shot for their troubles.

I'll reiterate simply because it bears repeating: Exactly even at the rim in shot attempts. Seventeen shooting fouls to three. On a night when the two teams took the exact same number of shots at the rim. That's not bad, that's borderline absurd. You pretend like the officiating got better in the second half? First half: 19-2, Boston. Second half: 19-8, Boston. Oh good, the Lakers got 6 extra free throws. "Fouls at the end of the game" don't hold water, because LA only fouled once on Posey - let's take that out. 17-8 in the second half, despite long stretches that saw LA play more at being matadors than at defenders because they were trying to avoid getting called for fouls!

I don't expect LA necessarily be -ahead- in free throws. But one expects them to be within, oh, I don't know, twenty? Fifteen too much to ask, perhaps? You're calling out Odom - maybe he struggled because every time he tried to go in the lane, he got hammered or called for an offensive foul? The same is true of Gasol, who admittedly allowed the officiating to take him out of the game - but it took him out of the game because it was so egregiously bad that he attempted 11 shots right in the paint amidst a significant amount of contact, and was rewarded with one foul shot.

Lost in all of this is the fact that Kobe actually played really well against the "Kobe stopper" Boston defense. 30 points on 23 shots is plenty efficient (that's just as efficient as 39 points on 30 shots, which was how he played in game 5 against the Spurs, when everybody couldn't stop talking about how well he played). He tossed in 8 assists to boot. All this despite being saddled with 3 fouls early, all of which were on the floor. I don't know that being "MVP" is worth the 20 or so FTAs it seemed to be against Utah, but, really, Kobe gets called for ticky-tack stuff 3x in the first half while Leon Powe spends his first 10 minutes in the game shoving Pau Gasol half into the stanchion every time down the court!

The 'comeback' almost buries the story more than it should, because the fact is that the officiating killed the Lakers. It pulled Kobe out of the game early, and as soon as he left the early LA lead evaporated (Lakers were up by 1 when he left, were down by 8 when he returned). When he got his 3rd on yet another nonsense call (I was unaware that being shoved into Paul Pierce by PJ Brown was considered a foul, but hey, I'm not an NBA ref - on the flipside, I can see better than Stevie Wonder, which seems to be something they all lack), the Celtics extended a 7-point lead to 12 at the half. And you're fooling yourself if you don't think that the tight officiating (at the Lakers' end, and ONLY at the Lakers' end, for the 2nd quarter) didn't affect how LA played defense for the remainder of the game."

所有跟帖： 

• your playmaker (fisher) had 3 assits, celts' had 16 -weston- ♀ (0 bytes) () 06/09/2008 postreply 17:52:20

• team totals: 20 vs. 31. understand ball movement? -weston- ♀ (0 bytes) () 06/09/2008 postreply 17:53:13

• how old are you? is this what you call debating? -lake3peat- ♂ (488 bytes) () 06/09/2008 postreply 18:02:31

• kiddo, if you read below and your reading comprehension is passa -weston- ♀ (258 bytes) () 06/09/2008 postreply 18:15:14

• goodbye, enjoy it while it lasts -lake3peat- ♂ (0 bytes) () 06/09/2008 postreply 18:17:13

• The type of form you agree as debating is agree with you -沉默是垃圾- ♂ (737 bytes) () 06/09/2008 postreply 18:51:16

• you know what your problem is? -lake3peat- ♂ (840 bytes) () 06/09/2008 postreply 21:15:11