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Spurs 95, Trail Blazers 111 - Feb 25, '15
The Spurs continued to play some pretty bad basketball on Wednesday, losing handily to a Blazers team which shot a ridiculous 13/26 from deep and even better from mid-range en route to a 111-95 blowout. The Blazers shot 58% eFG, 12 points better than the Spurs, despite the Spurs finally putting up some decent three point numbers at a whopping 38%! Spurs opponents have shot >50% in two of the past three games, which probably says something about the Spurs' three point defense.
The worst part of this game by far was watching Tony Parker continue his absolutely abysmal play. After netting a -5.2 on Monday against the Jazz, Parker managed to play even worse, going 1/8 from the field and tossing out four turnovers to negate his four Assists, for a mind-boggling -5.9 AdjGS points, which made him the sixth best player for the Blazers.
Once again Parker showed no explosiveness or ability to finish anywhere near the rim, and his passes were even errant for much of the night, including one play in which he inexplicably tossed the ball straight out of bounds. He also managed to step on the baseline yet again, which somehow has been a problem for him this year. I don't know how much of his issues are physical/wanting to avoid injury versus mental. Maybe some of both. But the fact remains that unless the Spurs can get some sort of decent production out of their starting PG, they aren't going to win very many more games.
It's a shame this was a loss, because the Spurs got some solid production from guys who haven't been too solid lately. In addition to Duncan's phenomenal night, the Spurs got 18+ AdjGS each from Kawhi and Danny Green. Tiago Splitter and Patty Mills, both of whom have been largely absent from the box score lately but had very solid performances, each pitching in about 10 AdjGS points, Splitter doing it in just 17 minutes and Mills in 10. That's the sort of production from role players which took the Spurs all the way last season. Unfortunately, that performance was offset by absolutely horrible play in significant minutes from Parker and a whiff from Ginobili.
The optimist in me (there's a tiny little one who pokes his head out from time to time) hopes that the second unit can continue to improve its play and carry the Spurs for a bit while the first unit figures out its issues.
Four Factors (def.)
Spurs
Trail Blazers
Shooting (eFG%)
46%
58%
Ball Handling (TO%)
14%
15%
Off Rebounding (OR%)
23%
31%
Shooting FTs (FT Rate)
17%
18%
Team Stats (Definitions at bottom of post)
Spurs
Trail Blazers
Pace (No. of Possessions)
93.9
Points Per Possession (PPP)
1.01
1.18
Points Per Shot (PPS)
1.12
1.31
2-PT FG%
45.3%
50.8%
3-PT FG%
38.1%
50.0%
FT%
92.9%
80.0%
True Shooting %
52.1%
60.6%
Spurs
Trail Blazers
Offensive Rating
100.9
118.6
Defensive Rating
118.6
100.9
Net Rating
-17.7
17.7
Spurs
Trail Blazers
Passes / poss.
3.6
3.0
% of FGA uncontested
44.7%
49.4%
Points in the paint
40
30
Second chance points
15
13
Fast break points
16
13
Spurs
Trail Blazers
Assists
20
25
Steals
8
9
Turnovers
13
13
Ball Control Index (BCI)
(Assists + Steals) / TO
2.15
2.62
Spurs
Trail Blazers
Expected Offensive Rebounds
10.8
9.8
Offensive Rebounds
10
12
Difference
-0.8
2.2
Spurs Shot Chart
Trail Blazers Shot Chart
[Content]
Players (Definitions at bottom of post, columns sortable)
Spurs
Tim Duncan
28
24.1
0.84
20 Pts (9-12 FG, 2-2 FT) 8 Reb (1 Off), 2 Ast, 1 Stl, 2 TO, 1 PF
24%
69%
96.6
102.3
-5.8
Kawhi Leonard
35
19.4
0.55
14 Pts (5-13 FG, 1-4 3PT, 3-3 FT) 8 Reb (2 Off), 3 Ast, 1 Blk, 4 Stl, 2 TO, 1 PF
22%
46%
95.9
111.7
-15.8
Danny Green
32
18.0
0.56
17 Pts (4-9 FG, 3-7 3PT, 6-6 FT) 5 Reb (3 Off), 1 Blk, 1 TO, 3 PF
18%
59%
103.1
111.5
-8.3
Tiago Splitter
17
9.9
0.57
6 Pts (3-4 FG, ) 4 Reb (2 Off), 1 Ast, 1 Blk, 1 PF
11%
78%
119.8
144.8
-25.0
Patty Mills
10
9.4
0.94
10 Pts (4-9 FG, 2-4 3PT ) 1 Reb (0 Off), 2 Ast,
35%
51%
118.6
176.9
-58.3
Marco Belinelli
21
7.2
0.34
9 Pts (4-6 FG, 1-2 3PT ) , 1 TO
17%
55%
118.2
129.4
-11.2
Cory Joseph
12
5.7
0.49
2 Pts (0-1 FG, 2-2 FT) 2 Reb (0 Off), 1 Ast, 1 Blk, 1 Stl,
7%
70%
103.2
128.6
-25.4
Aron Baynes
19
4.7
0.25
6 Pts (3-5 FG, ) 3 Reb (0 Off), 1 Ast, 1 TO, 2 PF
14%
52%
100.6
98.7
1.9
Jeff Ayres
2
1.7
0.72
2 Pts (1-2 FG, 0-1 FT) 1 Reb (1 Off),
33%
40%
63.3
125.0
-61.7
Boris Diaw
21
0.9
0.05
5 Pts (2-11 FG, 1-2 3PT ) 2 Reb (1 Off), 4 Ast, 1 Stl, 1 TO, 3 PF
25%
28%
102.0
142.1
-40.2
Matt Bonner
3
0.0
0.00
0 Pts ,
0%
0%
63.3
125.0
-61.7
Manu Ginobili
13
-0.1
-0.01
2 Pts (1-5 FG, 0-2 3PT ) 1 Reb (0 Off), 2 Ast, 1 Blk, 1 TO, 1 PF
24%
28%
91.4
139.1
-47.7
Tony Parker
27
-5.9
-0.22
2 Pts (1-8 FG, ) 2 Reb (0 Off), 4 Ast, 1 Stl, 4 TO, 4 PF
21%
20%
89.7
98.8
-9.2
Show Trail Blazers Players
[Content]
Spurs Index: 86.7 (def.)
Factor
Value
Score
Passing (AST%)
54.1%
26.1
Shooting (eFG%)
46.5%
17.3
Defensive Rebounding (DReb%)
69.2%
18.1
Defense (DefRtg)
118.6
16.9
Opponent % of FGA Uncontested
49.4%
8.3
Total
86.7
Trail Blazers Spurs Index: 96.0 Show Breakdown
This is the lowest Spurs Index I've seen all year. All five categories were really bad -- poor passing, poor shooting, poor rebounding and horrible defense is a recipe for a blowout loss. Imagine that.
I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I've found watching this team lately has become decidedly unpleasant. Hopefully Pop and crew can right the ship so I can look forward to game nights once more, instead of dreading them just a bit as I'm starting to do.
--- Definitions eFG%: Effective Field Goal percentage. (via) Effective Field Goal Percentage; the formula is (FG + 0.5 * 3P) / FGA. This statistic adjusts for the fact that a 3-point field goal is worth one more point than a 2-point field goal. For example, suppose Player A goes 4 for 10 with 2 threes, while Player B goes 5 for 10 with 0 threes. Each player would have 10 points from field goals, and thus would have the same effective field goal percentage (50%). AdjGS: a take-off of the Game Score metric (definition here) accepted by a lot of basketball stat nerds. It takes points, assists, rebounds (offensive & defensive), steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls into account to determine an individual's "score" for a given game. The "adjustment" in Adjusted Game Score is simply matching the total game scores to the total points scored in the game, thereby redistributing the game's points scored to those who had the biggest impact on the game itself, instead of just how many balls a player put through a basket. Usage%: This "estimates the % of team possessions a player consumes while on the floor" (via). The usage of those possessions is determined via a formula using field goal and free throw attempts, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers. The higher the number, the more prevalent a player is (good or bad) in a team's offensive outcome. Floor%: Via Basketball-Reference.com: Floor % answers the question, "when Player X uses a possession, what is the probability that his team scores at least 1 point?". The higher the Floor%, the more frequently the team probably scores when the given player is involved. Offensive Rating (offRtg): Points per 100 possessions. Defensive Rating (defRtg): Points allowed per 100 possessions. Spurs Index: The Spurs Index © is a just-for-fun formula that attempts to quantify just how "Spursy" a particular game is, based off averages for the 2013-2014 regular season. A perfectly average game would have a Spurs Index of 100. The formula consists of four factors which the Spurs are known for and lead or nearly lead the league in: Shooting (effective Field Goal %), Passing (Assist percentage), Defensive Rebounding Rate, and Defensive Rating. These metrics are weighted as follows:
The values for each metric are determined based on how a particular game's performance compares to the Spurs 2013-2014 regular season average for that metric. For instance, the average effective Field Goal percentage for 2013-2014 was 53.7%. So if the Spurs shot 60% in a given game, the score for eFG% would be calculated by: (0.6 / 0.537) * 20, which would yield a "score" for that factor of 22.3.
Factor
Weight
Average
Passing (AST%)
30%
62.1%
Shooting (eFG%)
20%
53.7%
Defensive Rebounding (DReb%)
20%
76.4%
Defense (DefRtg)
20%
100.1
Opponent % of FGA Uncontested
10%
40.8%
Special thanks to:
- Bill Connelly over at our sister blog Rock M Nation, for the idea for Study Hall (and many of the stats and definitions)
- Nick Bottomley, whose nba stats API project made it possible to automate the statistical breakdowns for every game