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Don't Look Now..

MDAV28

MDAV28

Well-Known Member
Don't look now but amid all the OT losses, offensive droughts, and injuries the Jazz are quietly having a successful season.

Jazz are top 10 (9th) in Offensive Rating. Top 10.
Jazz are climbing in Defensive Rating (14th). It is well known that in order to be one of the more successful teams in the NBA, you need to be one of the best offensive AND defensive teams. Only 5 teams this season are top 10 in both Offensive and Defensive Rating (Warriors, Spurs, Cavs, Raptors, and Clippers). Jazz are knocking on the door.
Based on this BasketballReference.com projects our record to be 26-21. Good for the 5th seed (Warriors, Spurs, Thunder, Clippers, Jazz, Mavericks, Blazers, Rockets)

Here is some more nerdy stats to show what the Jazz have been in the top 1/3 of the league this season:
Offensively:
3P%: 8th
3P% from the Corner: 8th
3P Attempt% From the Corner: 2nd
Free Throw Rate: 9th
Offensive Rebound %: 4th
Second Chance Points: 6th
3P% on Catch-and-Shoot: 6th
Effective FG% on Catch-and-Shoot: 8th
FG% on Pull-Ups: 7th
3P% on Pull-Ups: 10th
FG% from the Post: 10th
Pass from the Post %: 2nd

Defensively:
FG% at the Rim: 5th
Opponent Points of Turnovers: 8th
Opponent Fast Break Points: 7th
Opponent Points in the Paint: 3rd

Gordon Hayward
One of 10 players to be putting up 19/5/3 (Curry, Westbrook, Durant, LeBron, Harden, Griffin, Butler, Carmelo, George, Hayward)

Rudy Gobert
FG% of Opponent at the Rim: 40% (BEST in the NBA)
2nd in Blocks per game

Derrick Favors
One of 7 players to be putting up 16/8/50% FG (Durant, Griffin, Monroe, Favors, Towns, Drummond, Lopez)

Due to slow pace and close losses, it's hard to see the success this squad is having this season. I think they have taken a big step forward, especially offensively.

The question is, do you change the team and risk altering the trajectory (up)? Or would a move for a Jeff Teague (who had an amazing game last night), take them to the next level?
 
We've lost 10 games by 5 points or less, win half of those and we're sitting pretty....
 
NAOS said:
@OP:

I want Teague. The price seems to be falling. Burke + pick, pls.
Click to expand...

I am personally hoping that we benefit from the great point guard glut of the last 7ish years. The bid price on Teague has to be much lower in 2016 than it might have been in 2005.
 
tfivas said:
We've lost 10 games by 5 points or less, win half of those and we're sitting pretty....
Click to expand...

In games deiced by 5 points or less Utah has a record of 5-10. The Jazz are only winning a third of their close games. That needs to improve.
 
Stoked said:
In games deiced by 5 points or less Utah has a record of 5-10. The Jazz are only winning a third of their close games. That needs to improve.
Click to expand...

In Q's offense, you need more mature playmakers on the floor than we've had. He's not going for a Sloan/Johnson-style 5-man flex. With Hood's improved playmaking (see other thread), these close games should get better. If Teague were here, they'd get much better. I've personally watched Teague play very well down the stretch of many close games. And, Teague's style of playmaking does NOT conflict with Hay and Hood's style in the half-court.
 
Stoked said:
In games deiced by 5 points or less Utah has a record of 5-10. The Jazz are only winning a third of their close games. That needs to improve.
Click to expand...

There's a pretty good body of evidence that games that close are essentially random. You can't even predict year over year, based upon the previous year's finish, how teams will do in close games.
 
franklin said:
Because Rudy and Favors went down. Let's see how they are with Rudy back.

Again, because Rudy and Favors went down. They are clearly better than 14th.
Click to expand...

Hood's rise has also had a lot to do with that. Will be interesting.
 
Even with all the injuries, we have the 5th best point differential in the west and the only positive outside of the top four. In theory, we should start leapfrogging.
 
Stoked said:
In games deiced by 5 points or less Utah has a record of 5-10. The Jazz are only winning a third of their close games. That needs to improve.
Click to expand...

No doubt but's it's really tough to do that with a gutted roster. If we were at full health, I'd like to think we'd be at least 8-7 in those games. If that happened, we'd be 25-22 and in the 7th seed right now.
 
Sirkickyass said:
There's a pretty good body of evidence that games that close are essentially random. You can't even predict year over year, based upon the previous year's finish, how teams will do in close games.
Click to expand...

I know this is definitely the case in the NFL. I'd think in the NBA it's not as a random and more of a how good is your team and its' closers thing.
 
Cunning Linguist said:
I know this is definitely the case in the NFL. I'd think in the NBA it's not as a random and more of a how good is your team and its' closers thing.
Click to expand...

That's the conventional wisdom. It's also wrong. It's one of the primary reasons that advanced stat people strongly prefer to examine margin of victory over straight winning percentage as a better predictor of success. I think the best explanation came back in 2007 from Hollinger when he first debuted his automated power rankings.

https://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=powerranking-FAQ

Graham (New Haven): Your formula has allowances only for strength of schedule and winning margin. However, one key component to being a good NBA team is the ability to win close games. Please include something useful in your formula (like winning percentage).

HOLLINGER: This is commonly thought to be true, but it isn't.

The real mark of a team is its record in games that aren't close -- like Phoenix's evisceration of Washington last night.

Teams' records in close games tends to vary wildly from year to year with no rhyme or reason, even when their personnel and talent level remain the same. Which suggests that it isn't much of an "ability" at all, but subject heavily to the whims of chance.
Click to expand...

I've paid attention to this over the years and it seems to hold up. 2010 was particularly instructive. That's when the Heat started something like 12-8 and everyone was freaking out about how disappointing they were. They had lost some close games, but had a stellar point differential. They ended up fine. The next year with all the same players they had an excellent "close games" record. The 2010 Mavericks had freakishly good late game luck and the same guys had bad late game luck in 2011.

This makes a lot of sense if you think about it. Good NBA shots are essentially coinflips. If you're within a coinflip or two the results in the last couple minutes are going to be pretty random.
 
When Peter Gammons used to work for ESPN he'd say essentially the same thing about Baseball teams, talking about teams with lopsided records in one run games, and how it normalizes over time.

I remember he was talking about the Reds one year and they were way over .500 in 1 run games, and they ended up collapsing and missing the playoffs in the following months.





Margin of victory is a better indicator for sure though. Ya don't build your team to win close games, you build a team to crush the opposition.
 
Stoked said:
Hood's rise has also had a lot to do with that. Will be interesting.
Click to expand...

Good point.

I don't have access to that offensive rating stat with splits. I recall Locke explaining the huge production boost from Rudy being out and Quin purposefully changing the offense. There was a stretch where we were number one or there about over 6 games or so.

That was before Favors went down IIRC. The offense clearly went to trash once that happened. (Though they did have several high scoring games against the dregs Lakers and plenty OT games). I'm surprised that ORTG stat puts us 9th after the "Withey Span". Hood is probably the reason why.
 
MDAV28 said:
Don't look now but amid all the OT losses, offensive droughts, and injuries the Jazz are quietly having a successful season.

Jazz are top 10 (9th) in Offensive Rating. Top 10.
Jazz are climbing in Defensive Rating (14th). It is well known that in order to be one of the more successful teams in the NBA, you need to be one of the best offensive AND defensive teams. Only 5 teams this season are top 10 in both Offensive and Defensive Rating (Warriors, Spurs, Cavs, Raptors, and Clippers). Jazz are knocking on the door.
Based on this BasketballReference.com projects our record to be 26-21. Good for the 5th seed (Warriors, Spurs, Thunder, Clippers, Jazz, Mavericks, Blazers, Rockets)

Here is some more nerdy stats to show what the Jazz have been in the top 1/3 of the league this season:
Offensively:
3P%: 8th
3P% from the Corner: 8th
3P Attempt% From the Corner: 2nd
Free Throw Rate: 9th
Offensive Rebound %: 4th
Second Chance Points: 6th
3P% on Catch-and-Shoot: 6th
Effective FG% on Catch-and-Shoot: 8th
FG% on Pull-Ups: 7th
3P% on Pull-Ups: 10th
FG% from the Post: 10th
Pass from the Post %: 2nd

Defensively:
FG% at the Rim: 5th
Opponent Points of Turnovers: 8th
Opponent Fast Break Points: 7th
Opponent Points in the Paint: 3rd

Gordon Hayward
One of 10 players to be putting up 19/5/3 (Curry, Westbrook, Durant, LeBron, Harden, Griffin, Butler, Carmelo, George, Hayward)

Rudy Gobert
FG% of Opponent at the Rim: 40% (BEST in the NBA)
2nd in Blocks per game

Derrick Favors
One of 7 players to be putting up 16/8/50% FG (Durant, Griffin, Monroe, Favors, Towns, Drummond, Lopez)

Due to slow pace and close losses, it's hard to see the success this squad is having this season. I think they have taken a big step forward, especially offensively.

The question is, do you change the team and risk altering the trajectory (up)? Or would a move for a Jeff Teague (who had an amazing game last night), take them to the next level?
Click to expand...

I'm glad others have beat me to saying this-- but you're an incredible poster. Stick around, shlick.
 
It's awesome seeing this team healthier again. Can't wait to get back Dante and Alec now.


We are so, so a playoff team. What a crazy year it's been.
 
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