FanPost

Some interesting crunch time stats

I stumbled upon some surprising stats today on 82games.com.  I have openly questioned why Blake isnt seeing time in the fourth quarter, and I believe I found some stats that should only add fuel to this fire.  My point in all of this is that we are better when Blake plays over Jack, most specifically in the 4th quarter.  So I will just jump right into it.  

For those who arent familiar with 82games style, they use a lot of + - stats that are broken down by the possesion rather than by the minute.  They then magnify the stat over 100 possesions to get more useful numbers.  This helps even out different styles of play and gets to the nitty-gritty of what happens each possesion, or rather, every 100 possesions.  

First the on/off court stats of Jack and Blake.  Jacks are here , Blakes are here .

You can see that our team gets outscored by an average 4 points per 100 possesions when Jack is playing and our team outscores our opponents by 2.3 points per 100 when Jack is on the bench. Blakes are just the opposite, we out score our opponents by 1 with Blake on the floor and get outscored by 4.5 with Blake on the bench.  People often cite getting to the basket as a reason for JJ to play, but we only get 3 extra freethrows per 100 possesions with JJ over Blake. And when you consider we turn the ball over 1 extra time per 100 with Jack over Blake, it diminishes the value of those 3 freethrows.  As a team, we shoot a higher percentage with Blake and also outrebound our opponents with Blake on the floor.

NOW THE MIND BOGGLING STAT

I found what 82games refers to as the "crunch stat".  It basically takes a players + - during the overtime or the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter WHEN the game is within 5 points either way.  So lets see how our team does in crunch time with Blake at the helm as opposed to Jack. Jacks stats are here , Blakes are here .

Now, did everyone catch that?  When Jack plays in crunch time we give up 100.4 points per 100 possesions and only score 94.7 points per 100 possesions.  With Jack playing, our record is 12-15 in these close games.  Now onto Blake.   With him on the floor we hold our opponents to a rediculous 86.1 points per 100 possesions and score an even more rediculous 120.8 points per 100 possesions, and our record is 17-9 in those games!.  In all of Jack's crunch time minutes, we have been outscored by 15 points.  In all of Blakes crunch time minutes, we have outscored our opponents by an unheard of 54 points.  Blake's +54 is by far the best on the team, while Jack's -15 is convincingly the worst.  You also might notice that Jack's scoring and passing numbers are all better than Blakes, and this is the problem.  Too much JJ1 and not enough Roy.  When Blake plays late, Roy gets the ball, the defense spreads, and we win 2 games for every loss. When Jack plays late, he controls the ball too much, the D collapses around his drives, and we lose more than we win.  Can we please see Blake finishing some games? Please?

Rant over, and I promise to never say "per 100 possesions" again...