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PB (2/13): Beyond the Stats: Reading Between the Lines on the Tuesday Board
Beyond the Stats: Reading Between the Lines on the Tuesday Board…This time Frank Martin has a South Carolina team that isn’t so “Game”…It is mid-February, and the betting markets still don’t like Nebraska (so here we go again)…
Point Blank – February 13, 2018
Many of the days here are spent in deep dives across various statistical patterns to try to unlock some subtle, but significant, performance aspects; it is all about doing the digging to be ahead of the markets. Today’s board offers a crash course in those elements that can’t be easily measured by numbers, and I will make that the lead.
In setting up the weekend edition last Friday the writing time brought the occasional glances at the screen to see who would be the first to post Cavaliers/Hawks, the challenge of trying to figure out who would be available for Cleveland, and in what rotation. Now this morning is occupied with who will be brave enough to go first with Spurs/Nuggets, and that is where we can start…
Item: The Popovich conundrum becomes the market conundrum
Sub-Item: How Utah got it done last night is worth the search
It is extremely rare for the NBA to have a team play at the altitude sites of Salt Lake City and Denver on back-to-back nights, in either order, and for the Spurs it is make even more difficult because the sequence began at Golden State on Saturday. Gregg Popovich has already been dealing with the shuffling on his rotations because of minor injuries (no Dejounte Murray or Tony Parker vs. the Spurs; no LaMarcus Aldridge until after the All Star break), which led to a comment in the Monday thread about watching for clues closely for those involved in In-Running – if San Antonio lost contact, would Pops have waved a white flag, and save as much energy as possible from his key cogs for tonight?
That did not happen. The Spurs were only down by six at halftime, and seemingly took command in the third quarter, building a lead that stretched out to 13 with 9:29 remaining. It was becoming close to the ideal setting for Popovich – get one win in pocket for the cycle, which can be badly needed as the playoff chase unfolds (the Spurs could fall into the #4 slot this evening, should they lose and Minnesota win), and then back off the throttle at Denver.
It didn’t work. San Antonio got closed out 31-16 over that last stretch, which now makes “reading between the lines” such a key part of building a power rating for tonight’s game at Denver. Aldridge isn’t even with the team; now a big focus is finding out the status of others, since the first to market may find themselves in an opportune position.
There was also a flip side of the equation at Salt Lake City that matters to the handicapper – you don’t want to get caught making easy assumptions, without doing your homework. If the Jazz won back-to-back games without Ricky Rubio, it would seem to indicate that the offense runs OK with Royce O’Neale at PG, right?. Be careful with that – O’Neale did not have a single assist over 38:18, and part of the reason why Utah fell behind in double figures was the offense bogging down.
If the Jazz rallied to win with defense, it meant a big impact down the stretch from Rudy Gobert, right? You would be caught napping there also. Gobert was given a breather with 6:23 left, his team trailing 85-79, but Derrick Favors played so well that one of the best defensive players in the NBA remained on the bench the rest of the way.
There were some details beyond the box score worth filing from several directions. First the admiration Popovich has for the way that Utah plays the game: “Everything is coming to fruition. They believe in the system. It takes a while to put a system in. You have to have players of character who will understand it and execute it.”
Now for some sporting honesty from Quin Snyder: ''This is one of those games you're fortunate to win. You have to catch some breaks. We just continued to compete. That's really all it comes down to. When you do that, you put yourself in a position to catch a break.''
And how about Gobert’s appreciation of Snyder, and accepting his role down the stretch: ''I don't know if there's a lot of coach-player relationships like we have. He trusted me from the beginning, so I trust him too.''
That extra digging can pay off in so many ways in getting the proper understanding of a team, and can steer the handicapper from the danger of making false assumptions. Like perhaps expecting a Frank Martin team to go out and scrap hard physically…
(Meanwhile it looks like Denver -6.5 and 208 will be the range; now time to begin the search for info.)
Item: Right now South Carolina isn’t so “game”
Martin’s Gamecocks have been under a microscope of late because 11 days ago there was an Under ticket put into play with them at Texas A&M, in a game I expected to be a bruising battle around the basket, and an intense scramble for loose balls. You can always count on a Martin team to play hard and never back done, right?
I was wrong that day, South Carolina losing contact early and not putting up any kind of fight, an 83-60 final that wasn’t really that close, and it finished above the 138.5 that had gone into pocket. When a Martin team doesn’t punch back in a game does that mean they come out with fire the next time out? That has not been the case at all, losses to Arkansas and Florida by a combined 40 points, despite the Gamecocks only being a collective +10 at tipoff across those games.
It is in the reading between the lines that we are told to not be thinking about this team as past editions, and not falling into the trap of assumptions. Yes, Carolina will have games in which the shots won’t fall, which is a real weakness with this bunch. But what if the fight simply isn’t there either?
This from Martin made the files, after the 65-41 drubbing vs. Florida: “We’re a hurt team right now…We’re a team lacking spirit. We got beat in every category that’s about effort and discipline. They only scored 65 and we had given up 80 three straight games. So everyone’s going to say, ‘Well, you guys guarded better.’ No we didn’t. We didn’t guard through the disciplines that we teach.”
And from senior guard Frank Booker: “Passion, that’s it. Right now we’re playing kind of stagnant. We’re not playing like the team that we know we are, moving the ball, playing great defense, helping each other out. If somebody gets beat, be there. If someone else gets beat, we rotate. Little things like that that we’re not doing anymore.”
When things are going good for a Martin team there can be edges at the windows because it means they are doing a lot of the little things that don’t show up in box scores. For now there is no one tracking “loose ball percentage”, but in that dramatic run to the Final Four LY it seemed like any time that there was a loose ball in an SC game the Gamecocks were 60-40, or better, to come up with it.
That has been part of my handicapping mindset with Martin teams for several seasons; for now I have to reduce the weighting I give to their “effort” categories, and other handicappers may wish to do the same. Will they bring grit for a revenge setting at Tennessee this evening? If I see it I will adjust for their next game, but I will not have that as my anticipation.
Item: And of course there are the new-look Cavaliers
Naturally Cleveland 121 Boston 99 went under the microscope on Sunday, as will Cavs/Thunder this evening, trying to learn as much as possible about the new Cleveland rotation, both in terms of quality and style. Digging beyond the numbers becomes a prime focus from the start, and there were several items to note.
First is something that I write about here often, taking the time to view any particular team from the other side of the equation, and this from Brad Stevens was worth filing away: ''Yeah, we stunk. But they were really good. They had a lot to do with that.''
From the Cleveland side one couldn’t help but think that LeBron was both praising his new teammates, and taking one last shot at some of the players that were discarded: “At the end of the day, I just like being around guys who want to play and work hard. I know I demand a lot of excellence from my teammates, but I demand it out of myself too. We want to roll. We want to try to play as well as we can and put ourselves in contention to compete for another championship, and that’s my mindset.”
From a practical basketball standpoint a key is going to be defense, which was abysmal before the deal, and the issue of not having a rim protector has not been solved. But there is a genuine degree of upside, so let’s go to Tyronn Lue: “Brad [Stevens] does a great job of putting guys on the floor where they can switch a lot of things. I think with the trades that we made I think we can do the same thing. We can put guys on the floor that are similar sizes, and we can switch a lot of things [defensively].”
The question becomes how much we get to learn this evening, with both Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony uncertain to go. That brings its own fascination in terms of Anthony – the Thunder floor game has looked better without him, and will lead to a lot of reading between the lines on that subject in the cycle ahead.
In the Sights, Tuesday NCAA…
I have gone to the well with Nebraska about as much as any team in a single-season in recent memory, and the Cornhuskers have both been lead topics and an almost constant part of the discussion threads on every one of their recent game days. I was mystified for weeks at why there was money against Tim Miles and his team in just about every Big 10 game, some of the moves substantial, and have just kept riding them out. The current trading is allowing for -1.5 to be put into pocket against Maryland, and that means yet one more time behind #524 Nebraska (7:00 Eastern).
The Cornhuskers have simply been better than the Terrapins, and now that we are deep into the conference schedule, using the Big 10 only base count tells a tale:
Net PPP 100 Maryland -2.4 Nebraska +5.4
Yet tonight’s line is below where the home court advantage would project, despite the fact that Nebraska is also positioned to play well – this is only the third game in 15 days, and sandwiched between Rutgers and Illinois there is nothing preventing a team building in confidence from having their full focus on Maryland.
The Terrapins have managed to gut out a 6-8 in league play despite being short-handed, but I believe that takes a toll down the stretch – Anthony Cowan has played 547 of a possible 565 minutes in Big 10 games, and for Kevin Huerter it has been 499 and Darryl Morsell 472. They have lost their last six Big 10 road trips, and in what is becoming an electric atmosphere in Lincoln they could play well tonight and still lose by a couple of baskets.
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