July 4, 2010
Winning Titles At a Faster Pace

And now, in a near complete break from the fiasco that is the Summer of Money  - well, at least as far as my BlackBerry battery is concerned - let’s talk about pace and winning championships. 

During Friday’s press conference, Byron Scott - whose previously coached teams ranked 15, 28, 26, 23, 21, 28, 18, 11, 9, and 13 in pace - made a point of emphasizing his “Showtime Lakers” roots and his desire to implement a running offensive team. 

This was widely seen as a direct pitch to LeBron James. “You can be Magic,” was what it sounded like to me. And while I haven’t always been enthralled by the idea of Scott becoming the Cavaliers head coach - his alleged under preparedness and inflexibility are not character traits worth gravitating towards - I must say that he was impressive in the presser.

Furthermore, I’ve long believed that the position where LeBron can best utilize his gifts is PG. There is always a lot of talk about how LBJ is a great finisher; personally, I think he’s more devastating as a passer surrounded by dunkers and long distance shooters. If Scott wants to push James to play more 1 then, I will be loudly rooting at his side. 

Whether or not Scott actually institutes a faster paced offense than he did in New Orleans with Chris Paul remains to be seen. But the bigger question, really, is whether or not a faster pace is going to translate to more wins, especially in the playoffs. 

During the press conference, Scott said something that perhaps hinted at James’s discontent in the 2010 series with the Celtics. He noted that running was particularly important in the playoffs because offense is tougher to execute, as your opponent knows exactly what you’re going to do.

The legitimacy of this statement can be debated (overall, offensive efficiency does not go down in the playoffs), but you can see where I’m going with this - LeBron may have believed that the Cavs should have ran more against the Celtics, to combat the Celtics stiff defense. If true, Scott was publicly agreeing with him.

So where have the last ten NBA champions ranked in terms of pace? In reverse order, starting with the 2010 Los Angeles Lakers…

14, 5, 19, 27, 12, 23, 24, 20, 6, 14

4/10 were in the 20’s
2/10 were in the top 10 (both Phil Jackson coaches Lakers teams)
4/10 were in the teens 

Back in March, I wrote a piece about pace and its relationship with defensive efficiency. I only looked at a small sample, so the results were inconclusive, but none of the top 10 fastest teams of the ‘09-‘10 season were also in the top 10 on defense. That tiny bit of research led me to believe that playing at a faster pace could lead to bad habits on the defensive end. 

If Scott does indeed decide to increase the pace of the Cavaliers, we shall see what sort of effect it has on the Cavaliers’ defense and, more importantly, their point differential. Teams have certainly won in the playoffs, recently at least, playing at a wide range of paces.

10:02pm  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/771622710/champpace
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FILED UNDER: Cavs NBA Championship Pace 
March 23, 2010
Pace + Defensive Efficiency

I’m sick, so chances of this post being as in depth and stellar as one that would appear on Waiting For Next Year seems unlikely. Having said that, one thing I’ve been very curious about lately is the relationship between pace and defensive efficiency - if there is one. 

I say this because of how much talk there always is, year in and year out, surrounding the Cavs and how slowly they play. I have a tendency to believe that fast play leads to poor defense - it’s difficult, I believe, to exert energy on defense and always be setup to stop your opponent if you’re busy running up and down the floor in transition. Consequently (in the words of AC), I think that Coldstone’s emphasis on defense would coincide with a resistance to a fast paced offense.

That’s only intuition though. I have no actual idea as to whether or not there’s any correlation between how fast a team plays and how good or bad they are on defense. Time then to look at some numbers.

The ten fastest teams in the league are: Golden State, Indiana, Minnesota, Denver, Phoenix, Sacramento, Houston, New York, Memphis, and Chicago. 

The ten best defenses in the league are: Orlando, Boston, the Lakers, Charlotte, Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, Cleveland, Miami, San Antonio, and Utah.

As you can see, there is no overlap. None of the ten fastest teams are also one of the ten best defensive teams and vice versa.  

Here’s a breakdown of where each of the twenty teams listed rates in both categories.

TEAM     PACE    DEF

GSW            1           29

IND             2           17

MIN             3           27

DEN            4           15

PHX            5            25

SAC            6            24

HOU           7            14

NYK           8             26

MEM           9            23

CHI            10           11

ORL           22            1

BOS           24            2

LAL            11           3

CHA          25            4

MIL            15            5

OKC          14            6

CLE           27            7

MIA          28             8

SAS          23             9

UTA         12            10

Given the proximity of teams like the Bulls, the Lakers, and the Jazz to the top 10 in both pace and defensive efficiency, a relationship between slower play and good defense is likely not absolute - but there does appear to be some modicum of truth to the notion that strong defense may be boosted by a measured pace. 

In order to really prove anything, extensive analysis would have to be done by looking at data from multiple seasons, but at least the next time you hear someone grumbling about why the Cavs play so slow, you can throw back one possible reason why. 

1:00am  |   URL: http://www.josemesaisdead.com/post/467553523/pacedefeff
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FILED UNDER: Stats Pace Defensive Efficiency NBA