Game 70: Suns (22-47) @ Pistons (33-36)

[TeamTragic]

We aren't going to be able to hold on to all these young players. We need to find the areas where we need to improve quality and go for it.

I see rival GMs are now posting in this thread

[PackSuns]

It was real nice to see us taking care of the ball. I think we only had a 4-5 Turnovers. We shot the ball pretty bad which is sometimes worse than a turnover. I don't mind dead ball Turnovers and would rather have someone punt the ball out of bounds as opposed to taking a terrible shot that leads to transition Buckets for the other team. At least if you punt the ball OB it gives you an opportunity to set your defense. Just my coaching philosophy.

[GMATCallahan]

It was real nice to see us taking care of the ball. I think we only had a 4-5 Turnovers. We shot the ball pretty bad which is sometimes worse than a turnover. I don't mind dead ball Turnovers and would rather have someone punt the ball out of bounds as opposed to taking a terrible shot that leads to transition Buckets for the other team. At least if you punt the ball OB it gives you an opportunity to set your defense. Just my coaching philosophy.

... for sure. However, one cannot really control whether one's turnovers are of the dead-ball or live-ball variety, so ...

[GMATCallahan]

By the way, that game represented the Suns' last one ever at the Palace at Auburn Hills. Phoenix lost its first game there, too, on December 28, 1988, but the Suns were facing a Detroit club that had just been to the NBA Finals and that was on its way to winning the first of two consecutive championships.

The Pistons did not attempt a three-pointer in that game. Meanwhile, the Suns were without both Jeff Hornacek and Dan Majerle, basically meaning that they did not start a shooting guard. Small forward Tyrone Corbin, a middling shooter without much range outside of eighteen feet, served as Phoenix's starting shooting guard. (For the year, Corbin shot 0-2 on threes.) Ace sharpshooter Eddie Johnson, who was more of a small forward in terms of ball-handling, speed, and quickness, took a lot of the minutes at shooting guard off the bench (offensively, at least), and a rookie Steve Kerr—who usually did not play—managed to receive 12 minutes off the bench due to the absence of Hornacek and Majerle. However, Kerr shot just 1-7 from the field, including 1-5 on threes, which means that he attempted 50 percent of the Suns'—and the game's—three-pointers. Kerr converted the game's only trey.

Despite the absence of Hornacek (who doubled as the Suns' backup point guard that season) and Majerle, and the fact that Tom Chambers shot just 8-26 from the field, the Suns only lost by six points, 106-100.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/198812280DET.html

[PackSuns]

It was real nice to see us taking care of the ball. I think we only had a 4-5 Turnovers. We shot the ball pretty bad which is sometimes worse than a turnover. I don't mind dead ball Turnovers and would rather have someone punt the ball out of bounds as opposed to taking a terrible shot that leads to transition Buckets for the other team. At least if you punt the ball OB it gives you an opportunity to set your defense. Just my coaching philosophy.

... for sure. However, one cannot really control whether one's turnovers are of the dead-ball or live-ball variety, so ...

Somewhat. You can definitely limit live ball Turnovers by not dribbling into a crowd or under throwing entry passes into the post. Underthrowing outlet passes etc. There are many ways to limit these types of turnovers. My point was we did a good job of limiting those types of mistakes which was a huge plus. I give a lot of the credit to the team for that. My other point was that we took a lot of ill advised shots which are just as bad or worse than a turnover. Just one mans opinion and observation.

[GMATCallahan]

In terms of assessing the value of live-ball turnovers versus dead-ball turnovers, the greater utility would probably come in measuring the value of steals versus charges on defense. Steve Nash, for instance, drew a lot of charges, and some people (some posters, anyway) stated that those charges were as valuable as steals. Well, not quite. The charges were valuable, to be sure, as they meant that the other team had not scored and that the Suns got the ball back. But they were not as valuable as steals, given that steals are obviously live-ball turnovers that allow you to not just get the ball back, but to get it back in a situation where the opposing defense may not be fully set up and is often scrambling to recover in transition or on the fast break. Those sorts of possessions tend to result in more efficient offense, which probably helps explain why high-steal players seem to fare well in the advanced metric Real Plus-Minus.

Of course, gambling for steals can really hurt a defense, too, so, but steals are very valuable basketball plays precisely because of how live-ball turnovers tend to funnel defense into offense.

[GMATCallahan]

It was real nice to see us taking care of the ball. I think we only had a 4-5 Turnovers. We shot the ball pretty bad which is sometimes worse than a turnover. I don't mind dead ball Turnovers and would rather have someone punt the ball out of bounds as opposed to taking a terrible shot that leads to transition Buckets for the other team. At least if you punt the ball OB it gives you an opportunity to set your defense. Just my coaching philosophy.

... for sure. However, one cannot really control whether one's turnovers are of the dead-ball or live-ball variety, so ...

Somewhat. You can definitely limit live ball Turnovers by not dribbling into a crowd or under throwing entry passes into the post. Underthrowing outlet passes etc. There are many ways to limit these types of turnovers. My point was we did a good job of limiting those types of mistakes which was a huge plus. I give a lot of the credit to the team for that. My other point was that we took a lot of ill advised shots which are just as bad or worse than a turnover. Just one mans opinion and observation.

There are ways to limit turnovers in general. However, I am not sure that one can tell a team, "If you turn the ball over, make sure that you commit a dead-ball turnover, not a live-ball turnover," which was my point. A smart player may be able to make that judgment in a very specific situation. For instance, in November, I was viewing/studying the Suns' quadruple-overtime victory at Portland in November 1997. Late in regulation, with the shot clock starting to wind down, Kevin Johnson, from the left wing, tried to hit Danny Manning with a lead pass as the forward cut along the baseline, left to right, behind the defense. The ball went out of bounds for a dead-ball turnover, which was not ideal, yet not devastating, either, since the Suns could at least set up their defense in trying to hold their deficit at two points. Since Manning was cutting behind the defense and Johnson was passing over and past the defense, if the pass failed to connect, it would probably go out of bounds. If it did connect, the result would probably be a layup. So in certain situations, a player might be able to say, "I will try this pass given the upside (a layup late in the shot clock), and if it fails, at least the result will be a dead-ball turnover rather than a live-ball turnover." But a player really capable of making that kind of calculation in the moment is going to be pretty rare.

By the way, here is the play in the game log:

2:29 Rider 11' Jump Shot (25 PTS)

102 - 104

2:10 Johnson Bad Pass Turnover (P2.T15)

http://stats.nba.com/game/#!/0029700110/playbyplay/

So when the ball sailed out of bounds, there were five seconds remaining on the shot clock.

[PackSuns]

In terms of assessing the value of live-ball turnovers versus dead-ball turnovers, the greater utility would probably come in measuring the value of steals versus charges on defense. Steve Nash, for instance, drew quite a few charges, and some people (some posters, anyway) stated that those charges were as valuable as steals. Well, not quite. The charges were valuable, to be sure, as they meant that the other team had not scored and that the Suns got the ball back. But they were not as valuable as steals, given that steals are obviously live-ball turnovers that allow you to not just get the ball back, but to get it back in a situation where the opposing defense may not be fully set up and is often scrambling to recover in transition or on the fast break. Those sorts of possessions tend to result in more efficient offense, which probably helps explain why high-steal players seem to fare well in the advanced metric Real Plus-Minus.

Of course, gambling for steals can really hurt a defense, too, so, but steals are very valuable basketball plays precisely because of how live-ball turnovers tend to funnel defense into offense.

Great points. We are on the same same page. Thanks for sending over that link. What a game that must have been.