Carlisle's personality is staganent!!

umm...Arroyo hasn't played enough this year to accredit him for all of our offensive bursts. Besides, in my opinion that this was the first time all season that he has had an obvious impact on our offensive production. ..and when was the last time we had a turnover problem? Chauncey did everything you spoke about last year except we didn't have a bench to go to. That said.... I still see your point.

A more efficient offense (which I think is more of a credit to Flip than Carlos) leads to a lower margin of easy offensive opportunities for the opposition.

But...in a situation where you have two strong offensive squads it is defensive presence and turnovers that likely will be the deciding factor. So I still subscribe to the defense wins championships theory. Otherwise we would be looking at the Suns as defending champions right now.

While we're on the subject of defensive effectiveness.....

Here's some other food for thought. With the Pistons propensity to take quicker shots, how has that translated into shot attempts for the opposition compared to last year? ..and if you look at the increased shot attempts over last year, how well are we truely performing on "D"? Is there truely that big of a drop off of points allowed based on possession?

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Great , logical post! Nuff said.

Brown did not run a stagnent offense. Most of the time, it was pretty darn effective. You don't see high numbers only because our use of the whole shotclock limited the number of posessions. Remember this, we won a championship, and came 12 minutes from a back to back with Brown's offense. If it was stagnent, no way that happens. Occasionally, we would hit a scoring drought. Big difference. A perfecrtly good offense which has an occasional scoring drought now and then can't be called a stagnent offense.

Just because a well run offense helps your defense does not mean that playing good defense does not help your offense. Both things are true. And both are very important.

I think it would be a stretch to say our offense was "pretty darn effective" the last couple years. We had far too many scoring droughts and our FG% was in the bottom half of the league.

One thing that's interesting to note this year is that we are 6th in PPG allowed (pretty good) but in the bottom third in FG% against (which I have generally considered the most useful gauge of a team's defensive prowess because it doesn't depend on the tempo of the game).

The reason for this apparently contradictory information can be found at the free-throw line. We are #1 in the NBA in fewest FT per game allowed.

Now, we can look at this stat two different ways. One possibility is that we are good fundamental defenders. The other is that perhaps with a few more fouls (especially at the rim) maybe our opponents' FG% would drop.

Joe, himself, said that he couldn't stand the droughts. We are too good to have had so many droughts. At least, I hope that is true. We will find out this year.

Don't overanalyze data that may simply be skewed early by some hot shooting nights by a few teams. Also, did you factor in turns? Really, our defense should be judged by their percentage of shot attempts they get off our shot attempts, multiplied by their shooting percentage. (Factoring in free throw attempts somehow as shots.) Got that?

Lets slow that down. If we take a shot, the expectation is that they should get the ball whether we miss the shot or make it. So we shoot the ball. They should get then one shot attempt. Unless we get the offensive rebound, or we steal the ball before they shoot it. If they miss a shot and get the offensive rebound, it raises their percentage of shot attempts.

To figure this, start with our shot attempts. Add a number to our shot attempts based on free throws we took. May call it one shot attempt per 1.5 free throws we take. Now you got the denominator. Use their shot attempts as the numerator.

Multiply this fraction by their modified shooting percentage. Their shooting percentage has to be modified to account for times where they get free throws. Perhaps count every 1.5 free throws as a shot attempt for them. (refer to these as added shot attempts.) To adjust the makes, multiply the added shot attempts by the percentage of free throws made, giving you the added makes.

Change that a bit. Use 2 free throws = one shot attempt. Also, count each made 3 as a made free throw for this calculation.

If you multiply our shooting percentage, adjusted for foul makes and misses, by our percentage of times getting a shot after their shot attempts, adjusted by their free throw attempts, you get 58%.

Conversely, you get 50% for the same calculations for our opponents.

I did not use the formula I posted earlier as I saw some flaws in it.

One of the main things that make our number so much better is our lack of turns. We also have a slight edge in rebounding yet over our opponents.

By the way, we are just shooting 1.5% better than our opponents, so that by no means is the bulk of the difference.

Rather than speak using abstract concepts, lets look at the real numbers:

Brown's Pistons -

2003-2004 ~ 90.1 p/g 43% team FG pct.
2004-2005 ~ 93.3 p/g 44% team FG pct.

Carlisle's Pacers -

2003-2004 ~ 91.4 p/g 44% team FG pct.
2004-2005 ~ 93.0 p/g 43% team FG pct.

Sounds like the same "stagnent" offense to me.

It is also important to mention that both teams have competed pretty evenly during the postseason as well. In this situation, the statistical inferior offensive team actually went on to win the championship. hmm.....

More food for thought:

Carlisle's Pistons:

2001-2002 ~ 94.3 p/g 45% team field goal pct.
2002-2003 ~ 91.4 p/g 43% team field goal pct.


What does this mean? This means that the offensive production of Detroit actually dropped when Brown took over in 2003. This also means that Carlisle was able to get 94 points a game out of his team. Not bad. This was before the defensive rule changes.

An eerie stat is that Carlisle's Pacers duplicated his previous effort with the Pistons. 91.4 p/g 44% team FG pct. Wierd.

So regardless of what formula you put together, the end result is that Brown's offense never proved to be more effective than Carlisle's. We did not see in increase in field goal pct, so that suggests that we did not really see "better shots" under Brown's system. Nor did we see the benefit of scoring more points under Brown's system. Looking for the difference?

Doesn't take rocket science.

It's defensive prowess that grew during Brown's tenure.

Plain and simple. Show me an analyst anywhere who wouldn't attribute the Pistons's success to strong defensive play and unselfishness. These are principles that have existed since Carlisle was the coach. We have never got any respect for our offensive talents....until now.

So if a stagnent offense is one that has difficulty putting points on the board. I would say that both teams had that problem. And any formula you throw together has no substance because the results have not had a statistical influence on offensive production.

Oh, yeah, and if your team has a problem putting points on the board consistently...that DOES lead to scoring droughts.

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