Before we start, I wanted to share that I've started a Zazzle store for all the BoxScore geek t-shirt designs that you'll see us wearing at SLOAN. That site is here. I've also managed to put up our first exclusive design up for all you amateur twitter journalists:
Share it with someone you love and let us know what you think in the comments. More shirts to come!
Let's get to the game review. I distinctly remember saying to expect at least a split in Miami.
I've always pushed the notion that Kawhi Leonard is a franchise changing player. Since he became a Spur, San Antonio has gone 125-39 (76% win percentage or about 63 wins in an 82 game season) in regular season games where he's played 20 minutes or more. For the playoffs, they've gone 37-16 for a 70% win percentage and made the conference finals once and the Finals twice.
As of last night, Kawhi Leonard is the leader in Playoff Win Shares amongst players under 22. He's currently fourth amongst players in their first three seasons behind such unknowns as Dwayne Wade, Manu Ginobili and some dude named Lew Alcindor and he's got a good chance at ending up number 1 after these finals.
Let me share something I've been working on with you:
That is a detailed breakdown of Kawhi Leonard's game using a system I've been developing based on Wins Produced using a rating system similar to what you would see in a video game. Read that card to mean that Kawhi is a top five talent and he's severely overpowered. He's arguably the best defender in the league and the only real knock on him is he's not agressive enough. He does play next to Tony Parker, Manu and Duncan though.
He's not even 23. It's insane.Some quotes from twitter:
Maybe Leonard's best quote from last night, after career game in Finals: "That's one game. I have to keep going." Again, 22 years old.
— Dan McCarney (@danmccarneysaen) June 11, 2014
There are no other humans alive right who could do the defensive job Kawhi did on KD in the conference finals and on Lebron in the Finals.
— The man with the #'s (@ArturoGalletti) June 11, 2014
Now we get to the recaps. A little background first, I need to explain the graph you are about to see. For each series you'll get a table that contains basic player information (name, team, position for series, % of possible minutes played) as well as information about the player's performance. It shows the player's average value in terms of point margin per game for the series (POP per game) as well as his value for each individual game for the series (gm1 thru gm7) and his per minute value (POP 48) and his performance level (explained here). These first numbers are with respect to value in the series, the rest of the numbers are how the player compares to all the players in the playoffs in per minute numbers (POP48 and WP48) and Wins Produced. Got it?
If you have questions, feel free to ask in the comments.
We're doing this with three tables. First the stats:
Then the advanced boxscore:
Finally the summary (now sorted by Finals impact):
Some fun Facts about the first half of basketball destruction:
- Spurs 71 points at the half was the most points in a Finals half in 27 years (Lakers in 87)
- Spurs 71 points in a half in a road game is the second most in the Finals ever and the must in 52 years (Lakers in 62). Pace adjusted, it would be the most by a landslide.
- Spurs 71 at the half is the most in a road playoff game in 22 years.
The Spurs are at their best when Kawhi Leonard gets his. They go from being a great team to a historically great team.
This series boils down to a simple truth, we are seeing the best basketball player alive (and perhaps the greatest of all time) and the best basketball team in the world (and one of the all time great teams) face off. Lebron can keep any team in any game but the Spurs aren't just any team. Lebron had an insane, pantheon level, game 2 but even with that we are a couple of missed free throws and a Bosh three from Miami being down 3-0.
It's also not an accident that every Miami player not named Lebron James is showing up with negative Points over Par per game in this series. The Spurs are better and deeper than Miami. I truly believe that the Spurs second unit could have made the Eastern Conference Finals. Miami desperately needs someone other than Lebron to show up in particular because Leonard and Green have done as good a job as is possible of containing him and keeping him getting low percentage looks (he's converting them but at that point you just have to shrug).
I like to imagine the following conversation taking place after the game in the Miami locker room:
"Officer, I'd like to file a missing person report." "His name is Dwyane Wade. He was last seen in Indiana"
— The man with the #'s (@ArturoGalletti) June 11, 2014
"Isn't that Mr. Wade over there?" "It can't be. It's the 2014 Finals and he's getting outplayed by Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis"
— The man with the #'s (@ArturoGalletti) June 11, 2014
Dwyane Wade is not right. Russell Westbrook and Reggie Jackson killed the Spurs in the Thunder series. If Wade was healthy he should be able to achieve at least 50% of that and that really might be enough to stretch this out. The Heat guards in general are getting crushed by their San Antonio counterparts. Parker and Mills are leading the straight MVP race for San Antonio.
I honestly don't know what I would do at this point if I'm Spo. Slow the game the hell down and go to something like Wade, Allen, Battier, Lewis, Lebron, Bosh and Birdman. This is similar to the switch they pulled in rotations last year but It doesn't help that Birdman looks banged up, Battier may have contracted rigor mortis and Mike Miller isn't walking thru that door.
The biggest problem really is that they can't really punish the Spurs for going small becuase the answer to Lebron seems to be Kawhi.
Initial Prediction: Spurs in 5
Updated Prediction: All the models are now back to Spurs in 5.
MVP: Kawhi Leonard because of the added difficulty of covering Lebron but I wouldn't quibble with Tony.
Let's do the updated odds.
I'm extremely curious about the referee assignments in game 4.
-Arturo