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Tag Archives: Blake Griffin
Video Playbook: Clippers Crash The Glass On The Grizzlies
From just about any perspective, Game One was a disaster for the Grizzlies. In wasn’t just the 112-91 torching they suffered at the hands of the Clippers, it was the way their defense broke down in multiple ways. Two huge keys for the Grizzlies heading into this series were slowing down the Clippers’ pick-and-roll and keeping them off the offensive glass. Both areas were a huge disaster in Game One. The heart of the … Continue reading
Objectivity, In A Subjective World
This week ESPN gave us a snapshot of what’s become one of their standard summer projects, #NBARank. As an end-of-season treat they put together an early preview, giving their panel of 111 contributors (myself included) the standard task of ranking each player on a scale of 1-to-10 in terms of ‘current quality.’ This time instead of evaluating the whole league we were just asked to assess a core group, assembling a list of the … Continue reading
Weekly Stats Recap
For this week’s #StatStudy, basketball coach/guru @C1ayMitche11 questioned an offense predicated on launching three pointers and chasing down the loose ball was an effective strategy in the NBA. He estimated that 60% of teams that won the rebound battle and attempted more triples would win the game and that the number would rise to a 75% success rate if the team tallied more offensive rebounds and 3PA. Our sample size this week was 54 … Continue reading
Game of the Week: Los Angeles Clippers at Denver Nuggets
The Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat and Los Angeles Clippers are the cream of the league at this point. There is a mix of teams behind them who are just outside of that elite group. Denver might be the best of those non-elite teams. The Nuggets have top-five offense and are among the fastest teams in the league. On Thursday, they will test how close they are to the upper echelon … Continue reading
Weekly Stats Recap
Thanks to Utah Jazz fan, Taylor Berthelson (@utahmankiyi), this week’s study was devoted to determining the importance of the first quarter to the game result. I used years of data to determine that winning teams typically performed well in the first quarter earlier this week, but it doesn’t hurt to add some 2012-2013 statistics to prove the trend true for this season. Taylor estimated that 60% of teams that win the first quarter win the … Continue reading
Weekly Stats Recap
This week I thought I’d take a look at the shot taking/making of offenses “at the rim” and behind the arc. Theoretically, offenses work hard to get a good look from one of these spots on very possession, and I was curious which had a greater impact on the game. My hypothesis was that winning teams would have the consistent edge “at the rim” while the three point shooting would be something of a … Continue reading
Weekly Stats Recap
As mentioned in the previous edition of the Weekly Stats Recap, the suggested #StatStudy for this week was orchestrated to determine the impact of elite assist men. Perry Missner (@PerryMissner), a noted doubter of the importance of great point guards, estimated that 65% of the teams with a double digit dime man would win. As it turns out (for this week at least), Perry wasn’t pessimistic enough when it comes to the correlation between … Continue reading
Weekly Stats Recap
This week’s #StatStudy was suggested by our very own Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh), a great basketball mind who will stop at nothing to make sense of this game we all know and love. Mr. Levy was curious as to the ideal number of possessions, a stat that I measured by recording the OffEff (points per 100 possessions) of every winning team this week (52 games). Oddly enough, the result from this study closely resembled a … Continue reading
Fridays With Fenrich: Clipper Ships And Peppermint Sticks
Fridays With Fenrich is a weekly feature here at Hickory-High, the aggregation of an extended, week-long email conversation on a single basketball theme, between myself and Kris Fenrich of Dancing With Noah. Ian – As of Monday evening the Los Angeles Clippers have won 17 games in a row. Over that span they’ve scored at the league’s second-most efficient pace, 111.0 points per 100 possessions. They’ve also had the league’s second-stingiest defense, allowing just 95.0 points per … Continue reading
