NBA: Can We Really Determine Why Any Team Loses Games Frequently?
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NBA: A second Denver Nuggets loss in February to the Dallas Mavericks, to a team that the Nuggets had beaten on opening day of the current NBA season, it was enough to get Sports Notebook wondering why any NBA franchise with a winning record suddenly falls steeply, for instance, to that 102-84 Nuggets loss to the Mav’s this past week, a top shooting guard (Ty Lawson) finishing with less than three points during 28 minutes of play, a game that had the Nuggets holding as much as a 20 point deficit.
In other words, which combo of categories in NBA basketball causes a team to go belly-up quicker than ice melting over a hot stove?
To mind came the following: lack of field goal attempts, an insufficient number of three pointers, free throws way off, not enough rebounds or blocks or steals, too few assists, low number of players reaching double-digit points per game, not enough players gaining 20 or more points in a single game, and then those factors that are hard to quantify, for example, players out from injuries, weak defense and so not enough turnovers, and there’s the quality of the opposition, in effect, a team being outclassed in spite of having above-the-margin skills and a winning record.
Unable to let go of all this, Sports Notebook examined 12 among the losses that the Nuggets have accrued since the start of the current NBA year, hoping to have clues as to why one NBA team loses to another.
Here are the finds, and note that the data falls into one of three sub-sets: the Not Quantifiable, Defense, and, Offense:
(1) Five of the 12 Nuggets losses went to teams either in first or second place within their conference’s division (Not Quantifiable).
(2) Only four of the Nuggets 12 losses were the second of games scheduled back-to-back (Not quantifiable, though implied is the impact of near-exhaustion among players).
(3) Six of the losses occurred after wins when the Nuggets accumulated 100 points or more during each (Not-quantifiable, maybe the tiredness factor, or over-confidence after a win).
(4) For four of the 12 losses, a Nuggets top scorer was unable to play because of a recent injury (also, Not-quantifiable).
(5) Nine losses occurred when the Nuggets FG shooting percentage was lower than that of the opposition (Offense issue).
(6) Eight losses accrued when the Nuggets three-pointer percentage was lower than that of the opposing team (Offense).
(7) Eight losses happened when the Nuggets failed to have a free throw percentage higher than that of the opposition (Offense).
(8) When during losses the Nuggets FG percentage was higher than the opposing team’s FG percentage, the Nuggets 3-Pointer and FT percentages were extremely low--- five or more percentiles less than that of the opposing team (Offense).
(9) In only five losses have the Nuggets finished with fewer players having double-digit points (Offense).
(10) The Nuggets failed to provide a shooter with 20 or more points in five of the 12 losses (Offense).
(11) Eight of the 12 losses saw the Nuggets finishing with less than 100 points (Not-quantifiable).
(12) The Nuggets experienced only one loss of 12 when one of its players gained more than 30 points (Offense).
(13) In only four of the 12 losses had the Nuggets fewer assists than the other team (Offense).
(14) In lost games when the FG percentage was higher than that of the opposition, there were more assists than that of the opposition (Offense).
(15) In seven of the 12 losses, the Nuggets had fewer rebounds than the opposition (Defense).
(16) Also in seven of the 12 losses, the Nuggets had fewer blocks than the other team (Defense).
(17) In five of the 12 losses, the Nuggets were unable to match the other team’s number of steals (Defense).
So, what can be distilled from this, leaving us with a few clues as to why an NBA team will lose to an opposing franchise?
Apologies to readers wanting something unique---the surprise from the data above is that it hasn’t offered anything startling, there’s no revelation here about previously hidden reasons as to why a team will lose to another. Into the pool of basketball knowledge is something that anyone can guess after observing only a few NBA games. In the most general of equations, the data offers this: “Weak Defense + Poor Offense (namely, Poor Quality of Shooting) = Failure.”
Yet in a majority of cases (in those 2011/12 losses belonging to the Nuggets, anyway), probably no team loses because of only one or two not-quantifiable, defense and/or offense factors. As reflected in the above data, the number of Not-quantifiable, Defense or Offense reasons for a team’s losses are usually many, a different combo game after game. Clear, however, is that those factors that reside within “the Defense aspects of play,” they affect "the Offense" greatly, e.g., there’s the obvious: a small number of rebounds, blocks and steals result in too few turnovers, the outcome being a low amount of opportunities to initiate fast breaks and then score. Too, low FG, 3-Ptr and FT percentages can occur even with a large number of turnovers and fast breaks, signaling the importance of “shooter-accuracy,” so often the result of smart playmaking, that is, from lots of passing until the right shooter is open against the shot-clock.
And, the impact of the Not-quantifiable, the factors that cannot be measured accurately, when these factors are unprepared for they can be lethal: not every NBA team has the good fortune to have in reserve a Jeremy Lin who can offset the absence of a Carmelo Anthony.
And, how does a team keep from losing to franchises like the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Dallas Mavericks when the two are sizzling hot with each team-member nearly at career best? This question leads to a bigger one, “What is it that allows one NBA team to prevail over others consistently, reaching the top of its division?” Sports Notebook will examine a dozen or more Nuggets wins, in hope of finding some unique answers? Stay tuned!
END/ml
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