Game 3: Tempo-Free Boxscore Breakdown
I've set forth below the tempo-free statistics from tonight's game, for those of you interested in such things. I do this for my own edification after each game, and it occurs to me that there may be others at SS&R who are into tempo-free analysis, so I thought I'd share what I have in a Fanpost.
As a brief explanation of the different categories:
- "Turnover rate" is the percentage of a team's possessions that end in a turnover. (The league average is about 20%.)
- "FTA/FGA" is the ratio of a team's free throw attempts to field goal attempts and is used as a measure of a team's success in drawing fouls and getting to the line. (The league average is about 0.30.)
- "Effective FG%" is field goal percentage adjusted to account for the added value of three-point field goals. (The league average is about 50%.)
- "True shooting percentage" is a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account the relative values and frequencies of two- and three-point field goals and free throws. (The league average is about 55%.)
- "Offensive rebounding rate" is the percentage of available offensive rebounds that a team collects. (The league average is about 27%.)
- "Points per possession" is exactly what it sounds like. A typical game has 95 or so possessions. NBA teams average about 1.05 points scored per possession.
The point of all this is to measure team performance free of the statistical noise created by different paces of play that you see from team to team and from game to game.
That out of the way, here are the numbers from tonight's game three, which saw the Lakers and Jazz each have 91 possessions.
- Turnover rate: Lakers - 10%, Jazz - 18%.
- FTA/FGA: Lakers - 0.30, Jazz - 0.37.
- Effective FG%: Lakers - 40%, Jazz - 47%.
- True shooting percentage: Lakers - 44%, Jazz - 50%.
- Offensive rebounding rate: Lakers - 28%, Jazz - 37%.
- Points per possession: Lakers - 0.95, Jazz - 0.97.
The upshot of the above numbers is that the Lakers did good work in winning the turnover battle - especially in hanging onto the ball on offense - and in holding the Jazz to reasonable shooting numbers. This was undone, however, by a horrendous shooting night by the Lakers and an inability to keep the Jazz off the offensive glass. In addition, we're still sending them to the line more than you'd like, even if they haven't fully exploited that advantage with good free throw shooting.
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9 comments
Comments
Hey -- nice recap!
Keep it up!!!
Pontiff of the Pryz for Prez Posse...
by timbo on Apr 24, 2009 9:26 AM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Great stuff
Do you calculate all this yourself? Or do you get your numbers from a statistics friendly site. I’ve been looking to get into this kind of thing more, and I’m sure I could calculate most of it easily enough, but I’ve had difficulty in figuring the number of possessions in a game.
I guess I could just start counting during the game …
by C.A. Clark on Apr 24, 2009 1:27 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Calculating Possessions
For Lakers games, I do it the hard way, by reviewing the play-by-play log after each game. There’s a shorthand formula you can use, however, that while not quite as precise nonetheless gives you a good estimate of a team’s possessions.
For each team, the formula is:
(0.44)*FTA + FGA + Turnovers – Offensive Rebounds
I find that this is basically accurate to within 2-3 possessions, so if you just want a quick, back-of-the-envelope number, it works just fine.
by DexterFishmore on Apr 24, 2009 2:46 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
You have no rhythm!
Nice work, though, keep it up!
by Gils_Keloids on Apr 24, 2009 6:23 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
This is awesome
Statistics are always very revealing of a team’s performance, and this shows exactly why the Lakers were in a position to lose. Keep it coming Dexter!
by Sideout11 on Apr 24, 2009 5:16 PM PDT reply actions 0 recs
Well said
I find statistic to be much more useful in evaluating teams than players, and these statistics were very enlightening for me.
DexterFishmore — how long does it take you to put these stats together?
Strength & Honor
by Josh Tucker on Apr 25, 2009 4:53 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Calculations
For each game it takes me about 25 minutes. I don’t mind the legwork, as I think a lot can be learned by looking at these metrics game to game.
by DexterFishmore on Apr 26, 2009 6:41 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Where are the game 4 stats!
Get on it, buddy!
by Gils_Keloids on Apr 26, 2009 7:30 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs
Never mind
Just saw them on the sidebar. Good job!
by Gils_Keloids on Apr 26, 2009 7:30 PM PDT up reply actions 0 recs

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