ijspeelman wrote:JonFromVA wrote:ijspeelman wrote:
The only other factor is who we are leaving open, and if they are better wide open three point shooters than average. Luckily, I have a list of all the players that shot wide open threes against us in the last 10 games with their % in those games versus their average wide open % this year.
If every shooter, shot exactly their average against us on the same attempts, they would have scored 54.9 less points in total or 5.67 points less per 100 possessions which would have put us at a 109.33 defense rating over that time instead of a 115 defensive rating. That's a huge difference.
That's a big part of the puzzle, but it's not the last factor, just perhaps the last factor we can look at with stats as opposed to film study and breakdown of each play?
Are all wide open 3pt shots as determined by the tracking data, equal? We'd need to somehow demonstrate that.
Basically, if you compared how a shooter performs in a practice setting where he's taking a lot of shots from the same spots and moving around to spots familiar to him and compare that to how he shoots in actual games, you will likely see a huge disparity.
Are we doing things to make opponents feel more comfortable like they're taking practice shots? Maybe something we don't do constantly, but when we do it, opponents are ready to make us pay?
Thinking about it, there may be more statistical evidence we could gather. Do we see a difference in transition .vs. half court? Does the "lucky shooting" appear to happen more or less often when specific Cavs are in the game? How does the first half shooting compare to the second half? Are we giving up fewer open and wide open shots because of pure hustle? A defender racing to put a hand up after the shot is already on the way, doesn't actually do anything beyond proving to his coach he's playing hard.
My guess at this point is the Cavs focus on protecting the paint over the perimeter makes their defense predictable and opens them up to losing to luck and they may be giving up more open shots than the tracking data is detecting because of effort. Of course even JBB will occasionally make a defensive scheme/personnel adjustment after giving up a 10-0 run.
I mean just watching I don't personally think anything wild stands out. You could argue that JB has a predictable offensive set-up where you can generate wide open threes you want, but then you'd assume we'd give up more of them.
Opponent wide open threes are normally extremely even between teams because a wide open three is a wide open three as it doesn't matter who's in front of them because they basically aren't there. There is a difference between wide open corner shots and above the break, but I don't want to get into that (mostly bc those stats aren't avl).
Basically, the high efficiency is bad shooting luck for us even if you think our defense elevates wide open shooting efficiency for opponents (though I don't really subscribe to any ideas that our defense is creating these wide open efficiency numbers for opponents). The list of players above are collectively shooting at a higher wide open efficiency than Steph Curry in both of his MVP seasons... by almost 10%. That is not sustainable shooting.
Keep in mind, I'm not arguing you're wrong, just that until other plausible reasons are eliminated we can't be sure you're right and looking in to those possible reasons is a lot more interesting than throwing up our hands and waiting for our luck to turn.
It comes down to a point I've already made ... why do players shoot so much better in practice or even a work-out than they do in game?
Why does Steph shoot the 3-ball better after taking 7+ dribbles as well as or better than he does on wide open shots? Why does he shoot tightly contested 3pters better than wide open?
We might conclude luck, but the trend is there over the previous 2 seasons too albeit with some variance in the numbers.
We might just as well ask why doesn't Steph shoot open 3pters better?
My answer is there's a lot more that goes in to whether a shot goes down or not than a players shooting % and how open he is, and it's predominantly bio-mechanical and mental.
If we could adjust something about our defense and made sure the open 3pters we gave up were happening in spots opponents don't usually shoot from or practice, I suspect we'd see our "luck" change.
