STATS Hoops Blog

• Kevin Durant was brilliant on touches of less than 4 seconds, shooting 9-13 (69%).

• While Dirk Nowitzki put together a performance to remember, several other players also produced extremely efficient performances.

• A traditional look at a box score might suggest that Russell Westbrook struggled to involve his teammates by recording only 3 assists. Tracking data suggests otherwise; in spite of on off-night shooting the ball, Westbrook positively impacted the Thunder’s efficient offensive performance by recording 5 secondary assists and 6 free throw assists.

First Touch and Field Goals Made

Dirk Nowitzki was very successful in Game 1 in large part because of his ability to establish position on his sweet spots. A side-by-side comparison of his first touch chart and shot chart reveals that Dirk frequently scored from the same location as his first touch. Nowitzki’s ability to create space and successfully knock-down one jumper after the next with little movement highlights his offensive prowess. Of Dirk’s 83 touches in Game 1, 43 (51.8%) were of the 0 dribble variety.

Kevin Durant seemingly scored at will as well, although his first touch chart shows that he did not establish position close to the basket on a consistent basis. Durant’s versatile offensive game and ability to score from different locations on the floor fueled his efficient, offensive performance.

by Matt Beardmore

Both point guards have California roots and left Pac-10 schools following their sophomore seasons. Both can carve up defenses with their uncanny ability to find the open man. But the similarities between Dallas’ Jason Kidd and Oklahoma City’s Russell Westbrook seemingly end there.

Hoping his 17th season in the league continues with a Western Conference finals victory over the Thunder, Kidd will no doubt stick with the pass-first mentality that has made him so successful. Westbrook, on the other hand, might want to think about employing more of Kidd’s approach in a postseason where he’s been criticized for shooting too much if OKC is going to move onto the NBA finals.

Drafted out of Cal by the Mavericks when Westbrook was just five years old, the 38-year-old Kidd again ranked among the league’s best in assists this season with 8.2 per game – just .017 more than Westbrook, the former UCLA star.

Going head-to-head in three matchups this season, Kidd got the upper hand, winning twice in Oklahoma City while dropping a Dirk Nowitzki-less matchup in Big D. And while Westbrook’s numbers on the surface look impressive – 14.3 points and 8.7 assists in those three games compared to Kidd’s 6.0 and 9.7 – a deeper analysis reinforces reputation.

J-Kidd prefers to swing the ball and find the open man while Westbrook likes to penetrate and use his athleticism to attack the rim. You don’t need next-generation player tracking to tell you that, but you do need it to tabulate the quantifiable evidence: The Mavs PG dribbled the ball an average of 3.5 times in his 296 touches against OKC compared to an average of 5.2 dribbles for the Thunder’s third-year point guard in those matchups.

While Westbrook “touched” the ball far fewer times (78.3) than Kidd (98.7) in those three games, he actually held the ball an average of 4.8 seconds per touch, 1.5 more than the Mavs veteran.

For all that time of possession, the strong defensive backcourt of Kidd, Jason Terry and DeShawn Stevenson did a stalwart job of limiting Westbrook in finishing, cutting his points per touch down by a third (to .18) of what it was (.27) in the 47 total games that were tracked during the season. Similarly, Westbrook’s scoring average in those three games (14.3) was 7.6 points off his average (21.9) for the season.

Kidd was also inefficient scoring-wise against the Thunder, scoring .06 points per touch – .02 fewer than his season average in 47 tracked contests – and shooting 23.3 percent, including 4 of 20 from 3-point range. But that’s not his game. When Nowitzki was sidelined with a sprained right knee in the Jan. 6 matchup and the team needed everyone to pick up the scoring load, Kidd stayed true to form, taking just seven shots in a 99-95 loss and going scoreless despite touching the ball 98 times.

Westbrook, on the other hand, was the league’s second-highest scoring point guard behind MVP Derrick Rose and saw a giant green light when two-time reigning scoring champ Kevin Durant was sidelined for four games with an injury. Westbrook shot 22.5 times per game in those contests – 5.6 more than his season average.

Westbrook’s penchant to shoot has never been more evident, or criticized, than during this postseason. And for good reason. He has a team-high 243 field-goal attempts (three more than Durant) and the Thunder are 2-4 when he hoists more than 20 shots. Yet OKC improved to 6-0 when he takes 20 shots or fewer with its 105-90 Game 7 victory over Memphis on Sunday.

Even though he went just 4 of 12 from the field, Westbrook more than offset a subpar shooting afternoon by deferring to Durant and finishing with 14 points, a playoff career-high 14 assists and 10 boards.

Thunder coach Scott Brooks has tried to deflect the “He shoots too much” criticism aimed at his point guard in the opening two rounds, but Oklahoma City will likely need more Game 7-type efforts from Westbrook if they’re going to represent the West in the finals.

That could be a challenge against a Mavs team that has held Portland and the Lakers to 88.0 points per game on 44.0 percent shooting in the postseason. But if the Thunder can get past Kidd and the Mavs, it will likely be the result of a real changing of the guard… and his name is Westbrook.

Memphis Grizzlies (5 Road Games)

Zach Randolph has made only 34 assists on 378 passes in the postseason, meaning less than 9% of his passes end in an assist.

Sam Young is only shooting 10-25 (40%) overall and 1-5 (20%) from 3-point land when there is no defender within 4 feet at the time of the shot.

OJ Mayo is only shooting 5-12 (42%) in catch and shoot 3-point attempts.

Dallas Mavericks (5 Home Games)

Dirk Nowitzki is averaging 67.2 touches per game and .40 points per touch.

Peja Stojakavic is shooting 14-23 (61%) on 3-point shots when there is not a defender within 4+ feet.

Jason Terry has also been an efficient shooter thus far in the playoffs, shooting 12-22 (55%) in catch and shoot situations from 3-point range.

Jason Kidd has committed just 9 turnovers on 376 touches, turning the ball over on only 2.1% of his touches.

OKC Thunder (5 Home Games)

Kevin Durant continues to be the most efficient scorer in the league, averaging 58.4 touches per game and .56 points per touch. Durant has improved his scoring efficiency in the second half of games thus far in the playoffs.

Russell Westbrook has been prone to turn the ball over in the playoffs; in 401 touches he has 26 turnovers (6.5% of the time). While Westbrook has only averaged 6.0 assists in five home games, he also has recorded 1.0 secondary assists per game and 1.6 free throw assists per game.

Brett Huston:

***Written before Game 2 vs. OKC Thunder***

A month ago, Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol were playoff novices.

Randolph’s postseason experience consisted of one minute of garbage time in 2002 with Portland and one unsatisfying seven-game series a year later. Gasol’s contribution to the NBA’s 16-team tournament was being a throw-in for his own brother in a Februrary 2008 deal that turned the Lakers into the Western Conference’s best team for the next three seasons.

That’s a title San Antonio assumed this regular season – and one Randolph, Gasol and the Grizzlies wiped away in six games. With the Spurs gone, the Lakers’ next biggest threat appeared to be up-and-coming Oklahoma City.

Once again, Memphis doesn’t seem to be intimidated.

The Grizzlies have been perhaps the West’s most impressive team thus far in the postseason, and it’s not just because they’ve been protecting their home-court advantage at FedEx Forum.

While Memphis won its three home games against the Spurs, an eighth seed isn’t going to make any noise in the playoffs without being able to win on the road. After going just 16-25 away from home in the regular season, the Grizzlies are a miraculous Gary Neal 3-pointer away from a 3-1 playoff record in hostile territory.

The key to that success? Playing from the inside out. In the two games Memphis won, Randolph and Gasol scored 49 points apiece, an average of 0.321 points for every touch.

In the two road losses, the frontcourt tandem got fewer touches and totaled just 60 points. They averaged 126.5 touches in losses in Games 2 and 5 against the Spurs, 26 fewer than they had in Game 1 wins at San Antonio and Oklahoma City.

Randolph’s 36 touches in Game 2 were unusually low because of foul trouble. Not coincidentally, that was the lone time in Memphis’ seven postseason games it hasn’t led in the fourth quarter.

In addition to fewer touches, Randolph and Gasol weren’t nearly as efficient in the losses. The duo averaged 0.237 points per touch in the losses at San Antonio, and got to the free-throw line 40 percent less (20 attempts) than they did in their series-opening wins over the Spurs and Grizzlies (33).

Formulating a plan to slow Randolph and Gasol is far easier in theory than in practice, but Thunder coach Scott Brooks might want to use a few more double teams to get the ball back to Memphis’ shooters.

The Grizzlies, quite simply, don’t like to shoot the 3. They attempted 926 in the regular season, the fewest in the league in the past four seasons. They’re 11-16 when they take 14 or more shots from beyond the arc, something they’ve done just once in the postseason – the 93-87 Game 2 loss at San Antonio.

On the other hand, Memphis is 40-22 when it attempts 13 or fewer 3s.

It doesn’t take a playoff veteran to see that riding Randolph and Gasol is a formula that works more often than not.

Posted by BRETT HUSTON…

It’s easy to hear the name Dirk Nowitzki and think of the former MVP draining an 18-foot jumper with the graceful, unmistakable arc that looks like it may never descend from an arena’s rafters.

So easy, in fact, it’s hard to forget the Dallas Mavericks star is 7 feet tall. Nowitzki shot a career-high 51.7 percent from the field this season, and many of those came on the type of fall-away beauties that are sprinkled throughout the Mavericks’ SportsCenter highlights every other night. But while the success of his signature move may seem like a sure thing, Nowitzki has, in fact, been even better more productive from much closer to the basket.

Taking a look at 43 of Nowitzki’s tracked games from the 2010-11 regular season is rather revealing.

Dallas fed Nowitzki the ball inside the 3-point line 1,207 times, with 61 percent of those touches coming in the three-to-four foot area just inside the arc. When he caught the ball there, he scored 0.52 points per touch and made a solid 53.4 percent of his attempts. One look at his numbers closer in, however, reflects just how important it is to deny Nowitzki the ball near the hoop. On 169 occasions, the Mavericks got the Big German the ball either on the block, or in what long-time NBA analyst Hubie Brown likes to call “the painted area.” Nowitzki scored 170 points on those touches, including an incredible 1.22 points per touch – while shooting 69.2 percent – in 95 paint touches.

Let’s compare those numbers to a pair of Western Conference big men more known for doing their scoring underneath the hoop. Houston’s Luis Scola averaged 0.87 points on his 245 touches that began in the paint, slightly better than the 0.78 San Antonio’s Tim Duncan averaged on his 230.

Is Nowitzki, with more than 1,100 regular-season and playoff games and upwards of 41,000 minutes, going to be able to handle the physical rigors of grinding on the block like Scola and Duncan’s bulkier bodies can? No way. But with 60 percent fewer touches in the paint than his fellow tall Texans had, it’s hard to see why Rick Carlisle isn’t running more a few more interior plays for Nowitzki.

In that same vein, there’s strong evidence for the Rockets and Spurs to let Scola and Duncan branch out a bit – even while their points per touch were essentially sliced in half away from the paint or block.

That’s because, given the ball farther out, neither is the ball stopper they tend to be inside. Scola’s smarts helped him pick up an assist 8.7 percent of the time his first touch came on either wing just inside the arc.

Duncan’s passing skills shined even more. The 13-time All-Star found a cutting Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker or one of his other teammates 9.9 percent of the time his first touch came on either wing, and a remarkable 11.4 percent of the time he was given the ball at the top of the key.

That’s some impressive vision.

SportVU tracking has allowed us to pull a couple of quick takeaways from the Thunder’s first two playoff games versus the Nuggets.

• Russell Westbrook has been succeeding in getting his teammates involved in the first two games with 14 assists, 5 secondary assists and 3 free throw assists.

• Surprisingly Kevin Durant has found ways to get open looks, shooting 17 times with defenders at least 4 feet away and converting on 12 (71%) of these opportunities. Durant is also shooting 6 of 9 (67%) from 3-point distance in these situations.

• Denver has shown that it is willing to give Serge Ibaka open jumpers and its working; he has converted just 3 of 12 of his attempts when a defender is 4+ feet away at the time of the shot.

• Durant has been just as efficient of scorer in the post-season as he was in the regular season. On 121 touches, Durant has poured in 64 points for a .53 points per touch average. In tracked games during the regular season Durant tallied 2,169 touches and 1,162 points, for a .54 points per touch average.

• As a team, the Thunder have shot 13 of 35 (37%) in catch and shoot situations from 3-point distance.

• 42% (299 of 700) of Thunder touches have been by Russell Westbrook or Kevin Durant.

• In limited action – Daequan Cook has averaged a shot nearly every other time he touched the ball, with 9 attempts on just 19 touches.

Despite recording a minus nine in the box score, Amar’e Stoudemire of the Knicks was a big reason why the Knicks had success against the Celtics in the opening game of their series. Stoudemire recorded 28 points from 57 touches, scoring .49 points per touch. The Knicks other superstar, Carmelo Anthony, had only 15 points on 59 touches, .25 points per touch.

A majority of Stoudemire’s touches started on the left wing versus the Celtics off passes from the point guard. In fact, 24 (42%) of Stoudemire’s touches started with a pass from one of the Knicks point guards. Stoudemire’s effectiveness hitting that left elbow jumper allowed him to later put the ball on the floor and go to the basket.

• Of Stoudemire’s 33 passes only 8 shots were taken by his teammates, shooting 3-8 (37.5%) on those attempts.
• Stoudemire shot once in every 3 touches and turned the ball over once in every 14.3 touches.
• In nearly 39 minutes of game action, Stoudemire ran 2.4 miles overall, most among Knicks players.
• From his 57 touches, Stoudemire did not dribble on 39 of them and only dribbled more than three times on 3 of his touches.
• Stoudemire shot 3 of 4 in catch and shoot situations and the Knicks were 10 of 19 overall, Stoudemire shot 7 of 10 when he did not take a dribble.
• The longer Stoudemire possessed the ball, the less efficient he became:
• On possessions of 0-2 seconds in length, he shot 6 for 7.
• On possessions of 2-4 seconds in length, he shot 1 for 1.
• On possessions of 4+ seconds in length, he shot 4 for 8.

Player Involvement

Leveraging SportVU Hoops player tracking technology, STATS is able to calculate player touches. Touch data provides unique insights into a player’s involvement within his team’s offense.

As anticipated – point guards dominate this category, typically recording a touch in more than 80% of a team’s offensive possessions while on the court. Jason Kidd leads the way in involvement (for players who have been tracked for at least 10 games) at 89.3%. Russell Westbrook of the Thunder closely follows at 86.7%.

The chart below displays involvement for some key offensive players. Manu Ginobili and Monta Ellis both touch the ball on more than 65% of their team’s possessions, while more efficient scorers such as Kevin Martin and Kevin Durant are involved only 63.8% and 56.9% of the time, respectively.

** Players Tracked in 10+ Games

True Usage per 48 Minutes

Capturing both team possessions (pace of play) and player touches via tracking technology, STATS is able to calculate a player’s true usage per 48 minutes.

Take a look at how these notable players compare.

** Players Tracked in 10+ Games

When taking a closer look at the OKC Thunder, Kevin Durant has been involved in 52 possessions per 48 minutes this season while Russell Westbrook is involved on 79.2 possessions. The starting two guard for the OKC Thunder, Thabo Sefolosha, is only involved in 35.9 possessions per 48, and promising young big man Serge Ibaka is involved in 41.9 possessions.

The playoffs are just around the corner and teams’ ability to avoid turnovers (and gain extra possessions) will be magnified in these critical games. STATS has captured 44 games of tracking data for Jason Kidd and Russell Westbrook. It’s interesting to note just how much more prone to turnovers Westbrook is compared to Kidd despite considerably less touches.