Playoffs scenarios

[KqWIN]

Not to completely hijack the thread...but if you’re bored, look at Conley’s playtype numbers, then plug them into our team and think about how the other players would shift....big difference.

[LesGrossman]

Synergy released their playtype numbers after blocking them for the full season so far. There is a mini-project to be done on those. For example, I noticed how Ricky Rubio is below average(actually MUCH LOWER THAN AVERAGE) in every on-ball playtype... yikes.

If you go through the playtypes for Mitchell you would be impressed by how good he's actually doing in most of them. Right now it seems like the biggest problem is that he gets a TON of the low-efficiency types because noone else on the team can run those and he doesn't get enough of the high efficiency ones(offball), because noone else on the team can create for him and for others. Those numbers are very illuminating about the main problem of this team - lack of secondary ball-handler and offense creator to help Mitchell and share the load of the heavy-duty possessions.

This is interesting. You take the number and then add the interpretation that suits your idea the best, and since its "scientific", theres no questioning the truth, right? Its like if you have the website with the right numbers, you have the monopoly on owning the one and only truth.

But if you ever worked scientifically, you know you have a moral obligation to take the opposing position and question your own bias. Could those numbers be somehow interpreted differently? Do they really explain the whole truth? Some how, we all saw Mitchell go on extended streaks of bad decisions, selfish plays, terrible shooting. How do those numbers not reflect it? And how do you tkae the team offense into the equation? Are there numbers specifically for the last five minutes? Because what we run offensively changes dramatically in the last minutes. No overall numbers can help in explaining why this team tends to go on dry streaks, choke jobs, and give away games that were actually won, if you dont understand that.

[KqWIN]

Questioning your own bias. What a novel concept

[babyjax13]

Synergy released their playtype numbers after blocking them for the full season so far. There is a mini-project to be done on those. For example, I noticed how Ricky Rubio is below average(actually MUCH LOWER THAN AVERAGE) in every on-ball playtype... yikes.

If you go through the playtypes for Mitchell you would be impressed by how good he's actually doing in most of them. Right now it seems like the biggest problem is that he gets a TON of the low-efficiency types because noone else on the team can run those and he doesn't get enough of the high efficiency ones(offball), because noone else on the team can create for him and for others. Those numbers are very illuminating about the main problem of this team - lack of secondary ball-handler and offense creator to help Mitchell and share the load of the heavy-duty possessions.

This is interesting. You take the number and then add the interpretation that suits your idea the best, and since its "scientific", theres no questioning the truth, right? Its like if you have the website with the right numbers, you have the monopoly on owning the one and only truth.

But if you ever worked scientifically, you know you have a moral obligation to take the opposing position and question your own bias. Could those numbers be somehow interpreted differently? Do they really explain the whole truth? Some how, we all saw Mitchell go on extended streaks of bad decisions, selfish plays, terrible shooting. How do those numbers not reflect it? And how do you tkae the team offense into the equation? Are there numbers specifically for the last five minutes? Because what we run offensively changes dramatically in the last minutes. No overall numbers can help in explaining why this team tends to go on dry streaks, choke jobs, and give away games that were actually won, if you dont understand that.

Present your own interpretation instead of ripping someone down, it just seems petty and you have historically been a really smart poster so I don't know why this is the argument you are going to make.

[stitches]

This is interesting. You take the number and then add the interpretation that suits your idea the best, and since its "scientific", theres no questioning the truth, right? Its like if you have the website with the right numbers, you have the monopoly on owning the one and only truth.

But if you ever worked scientifically, you know you have a moral obligation to take the opposing position and question your own bias. Could those numbers be somehow interpreted differently? Do they really explain the whole truth? Some how, we all saw Mitchell go on extended streaks of bad decisions, selfish plays, terrible shooting. How do those numbers not reflect it? And how do you tkae the team offense into the equation? Are there numbers specifically for the last five minutes? Because what we run offensively changes dramatically in the last minutes. No overall numbers can help in explaining why this team tends to go on dry streaks, choke jobs, and give away games that were actually won, if you dont understand that.

What exactly is my bias here?

I see that you didn't actually provide counters to any of my points, but rather ranted stuff about my biases. Lets see you interpret those numbers differently. It will be interesting to me to see how you interpret Mitchell being the only one consistently above average in almost every single playtype while Rubio being consistently below average in almost every single playtype(because as we are talking about biases - we all know that it's not your Rubio-bias that made you make this post, right? RIGHT?). I'd love to hear the interpretation here. I'd also love to hear the interpretation to the whole team being ****/or not having enough of a sample in any on-ball play type, while Mitchell being the only one who is both above average and having a big sample in those. Come on. Lets interpret. Mitchell is far from perfect and he makes some bad decisions, but he's also the only consistent offensive threat on this team and is shouldering a load that not many stars in the league do. Is there a playoff team in the league with worse overall offensive talent? Mitchell is a second year player, he will make mistakes, he will made some dumb decisions, he will continue to learn. The impressive thing is that even with those his efficiency per playtype is pretty damn good.

About the clutch thing - we've talked about it before and it gets regurgitated time after time and people seem to still be spewing the same divorced from reality BS even after people have pointed that clutch play in the league as a whole not just for the Jazz is different than most of the rest of play. Teams change how they defend in the clutch. They do... just watch the damn games. They pick up the intensity, they pick up the aggression AND MOST IMPORTANTLY they do switch more in order to force isos, because generally isos are low-efficiency shots. Yes, this is not a novel concept - defense can dictate how you run your offense. If they switch everything, they make it extremely hard to run anything that's not an isolation(this is especially true when you don't have great offensive talent). Hell, Houston made the greatest offense in the history of the NBA - the Warriors, into ISO-fest last year in the playoffs, because they were switching everything. Every single team in the league changes how they run their offense in the clutch... EVERY SINGLE ONE! Do you know why? It's not because they all have a 'selfish Mitchell' who wants to chuck in the clutch. It's because defenses start switching everything and FORCE them to go iso-mode more. We just don't have the talent to attack that. We don't have the offensive firepower to counter that. We have one single reliable player that can create relatively good shots if the opponents switch everything - it's Mitchell, who is still a 2nd year player and will make his fair share of mistakes and boneheaded decisions.

BTW... since we are talking about bad decisions in the clutch...

Mitchell's TOV in the clutch is... 7.6%. Do you know what the TOV% for our other ballhandlers is?

Rubio - 30.3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIRTY PERCENT TURNOVER RATE IN THE CLUTCH. THIRTHY!!!
Joe Ingles 6.9%...

I wonder why we are not running more of our regular offense in the clutch?

But yes... please... lets see your interpretation of those.

Here's your clutch stats for the Jazz:
https://stats.nba.com/players/clutch-advanced/?sort=NET_RATING&dir=-1&CF=TEAM_ABBREVIATION*E*UTA

Here's the playtypes page(use the drop down menu for playtypes and filters to filter for just the Jazz players if that helps):
https://stats.nba.com/players/ball-handler/#!?CF=TEAM_ABBREVIATION*E*UTA&SeasonType=Regular%20Season

Lets see your interpretation of the stats. I'm very far away from believing I'm infallible. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm wrong in my interpretations. I'd love to hear yours and who knows, maybe you change my mind.

On a side note - if there's anything Mitchell needs to get much better at it's the easy stuff - he's surprisingly horrible in both transition and on cuts. WIth his athleticism, this should NOT be the case. He should be firmly above average in those.

[KqWIN]

This is interesting. You take the number and then add the interpretation that suits your idea the best, and since its "scientific", theres no questioning the truth, right? Its like if you have the website with the right numbers, you have the monopoly on owning the one and only truth.

But if you ever worked scientifically, you know you have a moral obligation to take the opposing position and question your own bias. Could those numbers be somehow interpreted differently? Do they really explain the whole truth? Some how, we all saw Mitchell go on extended streaks of bad decisions, selfish plays, terrible shooting. How do those numbers not reflect it? And how do you tkae the team offense into the equation? Are there numbers specifically for the last five minutes? Because what we run offensively changes dramatically in the last minutes. No overall numbers can help in explaining why this team tends to go on dry streaks, choke jobs, and give away games that were actually won, if you dont understand that.

What exactly is my bias here?

I see that you didn't actually provide counters to any of my points, but rather ranted stuff about my biases. Lets see you interpret those numbers differently. It will be interesting to me to see how you interpret Mitchell being the only one consistently above average in almost every single playtype while Rubio being consistently below average in almost every single playtype(because as we are talking about biases - we all know that it's not your Rubio-bias that made you make this post, right? RIGHT?). I'd love to hear the interpretation here. I'd also love to hear the interpretation to the whole team being ****/or not having enough of a sample in any on-ball play type, while Mitchell being the only one who is both above average and having a big sample in those. Come on. Lets interpret. Mitchell is far from perfect and he makes some bad decisions, but he's also the only consistent offensive threat on this team and is shouldering a load that not many stars in the league do. Is there a playoff team in the league with worse overall offensive talent? Mitchell is a second year player, he will make mistakes, he will made some dumb decisions, he will continue to learn. The impressive thing is that even with those his efficiency per playtype is pretty damn good.

About the clutch thing - we've talked about it before and it gets regurgitated time after time and people seem to still be spewing the same divorced from reality BS even after people have pointed that clutch play in the league as a whole not just for the Jazz is different than most of the rest of play. Teams change how they defend in the clutch. They do... just watch the damn games. They pick up the intensity, they pick up the aggression AND MOST IMPORTANTLY they do switch more in order to force isos, because generally isos are low-efficiency shots. Yes, this is not a novel concept - defense can dictate how you run your offense. If they switch everything, they make it extremely hard to run anything that's not an isolation(this is especially true when you don't have great offensive talent). Hell, Houston made the greatest offense in the history of the NBA - the Warriors, into ISO-fest last year in the playoffs, because they were switching everything. Every single team in the league changes how they run their offense in the clutch... EVERY SINGLE ONE! Do you know why? It's not because they all have a 'selfish Mitchell' who wants to chuck in the clutch. It's because defenses start switching everything and FORCE them to go iso-mode more. We just don't have the talent to attack that. We don't have the offensive firepower to counter that. We have one single reliable player that can create relatively good shots if the opponents switch everything - it's Mitchell, who is still a 2nd year player and will make his fair share of mistakes and boneheaded decisions.

BTW... since we are talking about bad decisions in the clutch...

Mitchell's TOV in the clutch is... 7.6%. Do you know what the TOV% for our other ballhandlers is?

Rubio - 30.3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THIRTY PERCENT TURNOVER RATE IN THE CLUTCH. THIRTHY!!!
Joe Ingles 6.9%...

I wonder why we are not running more of our regular offense in the clutch?

But yes... please... lets see your interpretation of those.

Here's your clutch stats for the Jazz:
https://stats.nba.com/players/clutch-advanced/?sort=NET_RATING&dir=-1&CF=TEAM_ABBREVIATION*E*UTA

Here's the playtypes page(use the drop down menu for playtypes and filters to filter for just the Jazz players if that helps):
https://stats.nba.com/players/ball-handler/#!?CF=TEAM_ABBREVIATION*E*UTA&SeasonType=Regular%20Season

Lets see your interpretation of the stats. I'm very far away from believing I'm infallible. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm wrong in my interpretations. I'd love to hear yours and who knows, maybe you change my mind.

On a side note - if there's anything Mitchell needs to get much better at it's the easy stuff - he's surprisingly horrible in both transition and on cuts. WIth his athleticism, this should NOT be the case. He should be firmly above average in those.

Thank you for calling out that BS. It’s not the first time I’ve seen the intellectual card pulled, only to go on and make something up about someone’s bias or intentions to circumvent an actual argument based on reason and facts.

I applaud you for going even further by expanding your argument with more reasons and facts. We all know how easy it would have been to turn the tables and focus on the real bias here.

[MeestR]

Sorry. I saw the thread title and assumed we were talking about playoff scenarios.

I was looking at the standings, and the Jazz are currently in 8th place by win percentage. Tied with 6th place Spurs in the loss column. 8 total games behind 1st place Warriors and 3.5 games behind 4/5 Blazers/Thunder. If we want to get to 52 wins (the magic number that keeps popping up in social and professional media as the goal for this years team), we would have to go 15-1 the rest of the year.

NBD, only a couple 7 and 8 game win streaks. Just can't lose to any more lotto teams. Fortunately, the only playoff teams left on the schedule are the Nets, Nuggets and Clippers - of those, only the Clips are on the road. The thing is, that Clippers game on the road, it's the last game of the year.

52 wins would get us in home court territory. otherwise we'll probably stay in the 5-6-7-8 range. I would prefer to be matched up with the Nuggets or Blazers, as opposed to Rockets or Warriors. Thunder I don't care either way.

[KqWIN]

7 with a matchup against the Nuggets would be perfect. I don’t see a scenario where we fall to 8th with our schedule and holding the tie breakers vs SAS and LAC.

5th is looking like the best case scenario right now as far as regular season wins, but is significantly worse than 6 or 7.

[MeestR]

I know Denver has been right at 1 or 2 the whole year. But I think they finish as the 3 seed. Houston is going too good. But 1, 2, or 3 are all still up for grabs for those 3 teams, I think.

I would most want Jazz to get to that 52 mark, regardless of the seeding. But if we can't do that, then I want them seeded against the Nuggets, and NOT in the Warriors bracket.

Better realistic scenario: 52 wins equals a 4 seed for the Jazz, and match up with the Blazers in 1st round. The Nuggets keep the 1 seed. Warriors and Rockets are the 2 and 3 seeds.

[stitches]

The more I'm watching this team the more I feel like it doesn't really matter who we play. We are not going far no matter who we play against. This team is not well constructed to give fits to the best teams in the league. So yah... As long as we avoid GSW so we can at least get a competitive series in the first round, I'm good.

[KqWIN]

Any series besides GSW and potentially HOU will be a competitive series.

[LesGrossman]

Synergy released their playtype numbers after blocking them for the full season so far. There is a mini-project to be done on those. For example, I noticed how Ricky Rubio is below average(actually MUCH LOWER THAN AVERAGE) in every on-ball playtype... yikes.

If you go through the playtypes for Mitchell you would be impressed by how good he's actually doing in most of them. Right now it seems like the biggest problem is that he gets a TON of the low-efficiency types because noone else on the team can run those and he doesn't get enough of the high efficiency ones(offball), because noone else on the team can create for him and for others. Those numbers are very illuminating about the main problem of this team - lack of secondary ball-handler and offense creator to help Mitchell and share the load of the heavy-duty possessions.

This is interesting. You take the number and then add the interpretation that suits your idea the best, and since its "scientific", theres no questioning the truth, right? Its like if you have the website with the right numbers, you have the monopoly on owning the one and only truth.

But if you ever worked scientifically, you know you have a moral obligation to take the opposing position and question your own bias. Could those numbers be somehow interpreted differently? Do they really explain the whole truth? Some how, we all saw Mitchell go on extended streaks of bad decisions, selfish plays, terrible shooting. How do those numbers not reflect it? And how do you tkae the team offense into the equation? Are there numbers specifically for the last five minutes? Because what we run offensively changes dramatically in the last minutes. No overall numbers can help in explaining why this team tends to go on dry streaks, choke jobs, and give away games that were actually won, if you dont understand that.

Present your own interpretation instead of ripping someone down, it just seems petty and you have historically been a really smart poster so I don't know why this is the argument you are going to make.

Thank you, i'd be very interested in a rational exchange with knowledgable people, many of which are present in the Jazz forum. However, how would you feel, facing some of the answers you'll see when browsing through this thread? I dont think i insulted anyone or called anyone out, called their posts nonsense, BS or similar. That just isnt the tone i enjoy when talking to people. We can differ as much as we want, but if you want to talk to me, show a minimum of respect evne if ou dont know my background, or i will not invest the time because its obviously not worth it. That does not apply to you, babyjax. Maybe i'll write a PM explaining my position, i'd be interested in your view.

[babyjax13]

This is interesting. You take the number and then add the interpretation that suits your idea the best, and since its "scientific", theres no questioning the truth, right? Its like if you have the website with the right numbers, you have the monopoly on owning the one and only truth.

But if you ever worked scientifically, you know you have a moral obligation to take the opposing position and question your own bias. Could those numbers be somehow interpreted differently? Do they really explain the whole truth? Some how, we all saw Mitchell go on extended streaks of bad decisions, selfish plays, terrible shooting. How do those numbers not reflect it? And how do you tkae the team offense into the equation? Are there numbers specifically for the last five minutes? Because what we run offensively changes dramatically in the last minutes. No overall numbers can help in explaining why this team tends to go on dry streaks, choke jobs, and give away games that were actually won, if you dont understand that.

Present your own interpretation instead of ripping someone down, it just seems petty and you have historically been a really smart poster so I don't know why this is the argument you are going to make.

Thank you, i'd be very interested in a rational exchange with knowledgable people, many of which are present in the Jazz forum. However, how would you feel, facing some of the answers you'll see when browsing through this thread? I dont think i insulted anyone or called anyone out, called their posts nonsense, BS or similar. That just isnt the tone i enjoy when talking to people. We can differ as much as we want, but if you want to talk to me, show a minimum of respect evne if ou dont know my background, or i will not invest the time because its obviously not worth it. That does not apply to you, babyjax. Maybe i'll write a PM explaining my position, i'd be interested in your view.

Perhaps I'm overinterpreting what you said, and if so, I apologize, but to me the explanation of the statistics by stitches was pretty reasonable, and rather than presenting a counterargument (because they don't really contradict your points at all) instead your first paragraph read very much like you were questioning stitches competence. Feel free to PM if you'd like, don't want this to spill into being something it shouldn't : )

[KqWIN]

Seed probablities per inpredictable:

2 - 2%
3 - 5%
4 - 13%
5 - 25%
6 - 37%
7 - 13%
8 - 4%

[Inigo Montoya]

What are the odds for the Rockets to end up with the 3rd seed, then?

[KqWIN]

What are the odds for the Rockets to end up with the 3rd seed, then?

3rd seed odds:

POR - 32%
HOU - 26%
DEN - 18%
OKC - 16%

[LesGrossman]

I wonder wether therse a scenario in which the Jazz end up playing the Spurs. SA is on a run and just beat GSW convincingly. On the other hand, they were one of the easier teams to deal with for the Jazz. Probably the easiest matchup i can think of.

[KqWIN]

OKC is making a hard play for the 6 seed. Need to fall into traps if we don’t want to end up as he 5.

[Crunch 99]

With most teams having just 12 or 13 games to go, the Nuggets are still competing for the top seed, only 1/2 game behind the Warriors. But I would only give the Nuggets about a fifteen percent chance of winning the conference. I think the Warriors will do enough to make sure they get the number one seed. Both 538.com and ESPN BPI project the Warriors at 58 wins versus the Nuggets at 55 wins.

They are also projecting the Jazz to finish 5th to open the playoffs against the 4th place Blazers. So if 538 and BPI are correct, we would end up in Warriors' bracket.

[KqWIN]

I think POR would smoke us easily. Perfect counter to our strengths and weaknesses. But if we’re in the 4/5 anyways, I’d rather play them then HOU just for the sake of watchability.