[JR007]

LET'S CRUNCH THE NUMBERS
IN THE DALLAS-MIAMI SHOWDOWN

After a break through the holiday weekend, the Dallas Mavericks and Miami Heat are finally ready to take the floor tonight for Game One of the NBA Championships.
As promised, we're back with our stat previews for the series here in the Tuesday NOTEBOOK. We'll then preview each subsequent game down the road by looking back at the previous games boxscore stats. That format has served us well this year. Hopefully you do-it-yourselfers have made some good money.
The sequence this year is Tuesday-Thursday-Sunday through the calendar until we have a winner. Let's see what our key indicator stats are suggesting about who that might be.
First, a review of our categories…
Pace: Simply the average number of possessions in that team's games this season. Teams who can enforce their preferred pace on a game generally do well. If two teams prefer the same place, oddsmakers have trouble getting the total in the right place.
Efficiency: Points scored and allowed per 100 possessions. This is scoring adjusted for pace. You don't want to think slow teams automatically have great defenses just because they play low scoring games. Adjusting for tempo makes the cream rise to the top.
Rebound Rate: to keep it simple we're looking at the league rankings in rebounding, defined here as what percentage of available rebounds you grab.
Turnover Rate: league rankings in the percentage of offensive possessions that end in turnovers. We want to know who's sloppy. We want to know who will value their possessions late in close games.
To keep things standardized, we're using REGULAR SEASON totals in our previews. We'll make adjustments as need be for the playoffs. Numbers can get a bit out of whack within a playoff sample size because the strength of schedule differs (Dallas didn't play somebody as soft as Philadelphia, or as injured as Boston), and fatigue challenges aren't the same (OKC was exhausted heading into its series with Dallas, while Miami never faced any tired teams).

DALLAS at MIAMI
Vegas Line: Miami -175 to win the series
Game One: Miami by 4.5, total of 187

Miami has home court advantage because of a superior regular season record. Note that, in the Finals, that means two at home, THREE on the road, then the final two at home if needed. The prior rounds went 2-2-1-1-1. The finals are always 2-3-2 because of the East/West nature of the matchup.
Miami is generally perceived as being the slightly better team on a neutral court. Home court is usually worth 3-4 points in the playoffs. Miami is laying more than that in the series opener.
A Vegas total in the high 180's is kind of a generic guess because these teams aren't very similar in how they've been scoring this year. Dallas reached the 200's in three of five games vs. Oklahoma City. Miami was peaked at 185 in regulation vs. Chicago, and was generally well below that. Oddsmakers are going to let the teams settle on a tempo and style before pinning down a firm total they'll be comfortable with.
Pace: Dallas 93.4 (19th in NBA), Miami 93.2 (21st in NBA)
There are 30 teams in the NBA, so these teams were both below average in tempo during the regular season. They've slowed down in the playoffs too (which is normal because each possession is so important in many playoff games). From low to high, Miami's pace factors were 85-85-85-90-94 in regulation vs. Chicago. Dallas was 88-91-92-93-96 vs. Oklahoma City. The Thunder were pushing things with their guards a bit. Versus the older, slower Lakers, Dallas played to 85-89-91-94. We're expecting high 80's for this series as a general rule.
Efficiency Rankings (points per 100 possessions)
Dallas: 107.6 on offense, 102.3 on defense
Miami: 109.3 on offense, 100.7 on defense
Miami clearly has the edge here in differential with a +8.6 compared to the +5.3 of Dallas. Each has continued to shine in the playoffs obviously or they wouldn't be here. We believe Dallas is playing better in the postseason than that +5.3 would have suggested. But, we can't say they're the equal of Miami right now. Both teams are doing a great job on both ends of the floor. Miami's defense is better and more reliable. Dallas has more offensive weapons, but they haven't run into a defense like Miami's yet. We're not sure how great those bench shooters are going to look against their toughest challenge yet.
Rebounds and Turnover Rankings
Dallas: 11th in rebound rate, 20th in offensive turnover rate
Miami: 3rd in rebound rate, 19th in offensive turnover rate
Miami was third in rebound rate this year in the NBA even though they don't emphasize offensive rebounding in big games. This is a GREAT rebounding team when they want to be. And, the only time they don't want to be is when they're making sure everyone gets back defensively to guard against the fast break. Defense and rebounding win championships. We've typed that a thousand times since the NOTEBOOK started online. Miami has the clear edge in those categories. That's why they're the series favorite.
Neither team is particularly great in the turnover department. The heavy-passing attack of Dallas sometimes gets them into trouble because smart defenses close off the passing lanes. Miami's tendency to let their superstars go one-on-one sometimes runs into TO trouble when they slash through the lane. We don't expect this stat to be a big part of the 2011 story. Though, it's certainly an area that could prove meaningful if one team takes a big step forward.
Series Outline:
To this point, Miami seems to have everything going for them. We should add in three-pointers though. It's a bigger deal in college basketball than the pro's normally. Sometimes lesser teams can overcome weaknesses in a matchup by hitting more treys. Since Dallas is an EXTREME three-point team, this is certainly a possibility here.
Regular Season Treys Per Game:
Dallas: 7.9
Miami 6.7
That's about 4 points per game Dallas may pick up from long range if those averages hold. We should note also that Miami hasn't emphasized treys as much in the postseason so far. Let's run both teams from low to high in mad treys:
Dallas: 3-5-6-7-8-8-9-9-9-9-9-10-10-12-20
Miami: 3-3-3-3-4-4-5-5-5-5-6-7-7-9-12
Miami only topped seven twice. Dallas did it 12 times. Miami's most common range is in the 3-5 area. Dallas is more commonly in the 8-10 area. Obviously, Dallas has a GREAT chance to pull off an upset in the series if they can make 4-6 more treys per game. Should Miami neutralize this stat with good perimeter defense or an increase in production, it's hard to see Dallas winning more than a couple of games.
Barring surprising adjustments from each team (and, these coaches have been very good about making adjustments so that's possible), we're looking at a classic 'defense and rebounding' favorite trying to bulldoze their way to a title against an underdog that needs to shoot well from long range to spring an upset. Kind of like March Madness but in a best-of-seven format!

[broadway6]

let's hope we get a 7 game series