Comments on: Crunching The Numbers: Pierce is shooting over 50% from 3 & other eyeopening stats

By: John V

John V — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:40:14 +0000

I agree that Rasheed’s shot selection has been poor, and I’m disappointed by it. The only thing I’d say is that that stats, in and of themselves, are not necessarily a problem. I don’t care if he takes 7 threes a game, if they’re open threes. And, given the Cs other options, it’s conceivable they could be. In fact, it’s conceivable he *would* get that many open threes, if he’d rotate the ball and let it come back to him. Instead he’s just firing away. I’m not too thrilled with his interior defense, either.

I don’t care if he never posts up on offense, and I certainly don’t want him having Scal/Rondo/Marbury-like hesitation to take open jumpers. I just think he needs to scale back the highly contested threes.

By: DJE

DJE — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:10:36 +0000

On raw +/- at NBA.com you can see that Boston plays best when Perk is on the court – he plays the least minutes of starters (which is not so good, something to do with over-zealous defence I think) but team performs best when he is on-court, perhaps because no-one else can do the grunt work like he does.

Question for Brian / Zac: Dean Oliver is not a big fan of running up the score, do you think this is what Boston has been doing so far? And do you agree with him – I don’t know, because points differential is one of best indicators we have of success …

By: The Mid-Afternoon Milk Mustache, featuring Crow Enchiladas | Stacheketball, an NBA Blog

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:59:03 +0000

[...] The Lampshade: Chew on this, through eight games, Shelden Williams has shot more free throws than Kevin Garnett and Rasheed Wallace combined. Five Celtics statistical anomalies brought to light. [Celtics Hub] [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 19:53:22 +0000

At least the turtle shoots better than Rondo and Perk at the line!

By: DeVelaine

DeVelaine — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:58:22 +0000

I’ve made a point this year to track these stats myself, updating my own spreadsheet after every game. I completely glossed over most of the individual stats as I’ve been more interested in trying to get a lot of numbers that I feel useful to track.

It’s interesting to note some of the things you’ve mentioned, including Sheed’s horrible accuracy from deep. If we take out his attempts from deep (17-50), the team is shooting just under 43.3% from three. As it is, we’re still over 40%. And it’s only a matter of time before those start falling for him again.

As for Sheldon’s FTs… I don’t have numbers for garbage time, but if you want to count all of the Charlotte game as garbage time (cause it really was), that removes an 8-11 game from his totals. All of the close games or difficult games to win? He’s perfect from the stripe at 10-10 (Cavs, T’Wolves, and Nets, actually).

By: Brian Robb

Brian Robb — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:54:19 +0000

Good question Mr. Lowe. Upon inspection, it has been revealed 15 of Shelden’s 29 free throws came during the 4th quarters of the home blowouts against Charlotte and Chicago. That makes the stat a bit less daunting but even without those garbage time free throws, Williams still matches Garnett’s FT attempts for the season at 14 and beats Wallace’s easily (9). Thus I am still disturbed by those numbers.

By: Zach Lowe

Zach Lowe — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:09:57 +0000

How many of Shelden’s FTs have been in garbage time?