Did I see a good team win or a bad team lose? It's hard to tell, but at least we snapped the losing streak. The game was pretty close for a while, but then Kobe got hot late, which seems to be the key to getting the W.
Maybe it will be fun to look at his in-depth stats.
First off, the on court / off court numbers are crazy. On court looks fine, but I can only assume the off court ones are a statistical anomaly. They show that when Kobe comes off, the Lakers go from scoring 105.8 points per 100 possessions to 79.6. That's almost believable, since he's our best offensive weapon. But then the opponents go from scoring 103.3 per 100 to 90.7? So the Lakers actually defend better without him? It's not just pace, because these are numbers per possession, but I don't pretend to know enough to figure out what's up. Are all teams' second units that bad?
Effective FG% shows a similiar trend, the Lakers going from 48.4% to 36.7% with Kobe, and opponents strangely going from 47.6% to 43.9%. Assists take a 10% jump up when he leaves also, not a good sign; but he does create his own shot very well.
Heading over to the "By Position" tab, we see something strange going on with Power Forward, I guess Kobe spent a minute there and all the per 48 minute numbers got screwed up or something. Bottom line though, we do better when Kobe plays Shooting Guard, except that he flat out shuts down opposing Small Forwards, holding them to a PER of 5.4 (15 is the league average). That could be because he only guards short small forwards, although I also wonder how it's charted when Kobe is guarding a different guy than guards him, which seems fairly frequent.
Last we have to check out the Clutch Play tab, to see how Kobe is performing with less than 5 minutes left and neither team ahead by more than 5 points. Oh look, Kobe is always there, big surprise. Most of the numbers are just too small to matter, but he's not driving and dishing (or the other Lakers aren't making shots when he does), he's shooting a little better than normal (surprising, given a few of the fourth quarters I've watched), and overall the Lakers are slightly worse than their opponents in clutch time on the season.
I think things are okay for now. Andrew Bogut again looked great last
night, and in the 27 minutes he's been on the floor, the Lakers are
+24.6 points per 100, not bad rook. Another in the long line of great
Lakers centers as predicted? If so, he should make sure he always finds
time for his country.
previous entry:
