Which big was more at fault

[Newskoolbulls]

In yesterdays game which one of our bigs hurt us more? I feel Ty killed us in his limited time. He has played well this year and in game one but god he doesn't hustle, he can guard anyone on the perimeter. He looked like a mess. Noah and Miller weren't any better however Ty was a big reason why Big baby and Kendrick went off.

 

[dougthonus]

Newskoolbulls wrote:

In yesterdays game which one of our bigs hurt us more? I feel Ty killed us in his limited time. He has played well this year and in game one but god he doesn't hustle, he can guard anyone on the perimeter. He looked like a mess. Noah and Miller weren't any better however Ty was a big reason why Big baby and Kendrick went off.

We were -21 with Tyrus on the floor
We were +19 with Miller on the floor
We were -4 with Noah on the floor

Which one do you think hurt us the most? Clearly you can't say Miller given that we dominated the Celtics while he played. Noah was a bit under, but Tyrus was massively under.

Granted, it could not be causal, but it's hard to argue in any other direction.

 

[Newskoolbulls]

I really hate the +/- system but this time its correct.

 

[Hendu0520]

You may be right that Tyrus hurt us the most, but I think if you keep Tyrus in he would end up doing spectacular things. I mean those 6 blocks make the Celtics think a little before coming in, that is great to have that threat on the court. Noah was getting pushed around just as much, pick your poison but he is just a steady player, he won't do anything special that gets the team so pumped. Miller was old and tired c'mon Tyrus needs minutes sometimes to be productive. They could have put him at the 3 some and went with a big lineup, something but benching him doesn't help. (Skiles) In the post game post someone put up the per min rebound stats and he was right there with Miller and Noah. They also gave up more or equal to as many offensive rebounds as Tyrus did.

 

[Hendu0520]

Oh and those blocks were kept in play that's why the Celtics got to them, it was just luck, only a fool would say they hurt us. I don't want a layup.

 

[Shakes]

The Celtics only scored on one of Thomas' six blocks (they missed shots on three others). So you can't really blame the huge negative plus/minus he wracked up on bad luck in the other team getting the ball after he blocked it.

 

[DASMACKDOWN]

Its hard to say who was worse because they were all bad. You cant really call Tyrus out by himself because nothing changed when we had a heavy dosage of Miller and Noah. Noah got owned completely by Perkins that game. Gray probably would have been a better option.

But I do feel that Celtics just got alot of home cooking for defensive plays period.

I believe that every single drive Miller did (and not convert btw) he drove into traffic and never got the call. The refs just held the whistle.

The thing is Perkins and Big Baby are high volume foulers.

I believe if Miller does the exact same thing in game 3 and 4, those 2 will be in foul trouble the whole time and be a non factor.

It seems to me that this series will be all about the bigs. Who ever takes it will win.

So the way I look at it, we should be favored for the rest of the series.

I think we should be absolutely embarrassed if we cant be out Big Baby,Perkins and Mikey Moore.

 

[dougthonus]

Its hard to say who was worse because they were all bad. You cant really call Tyrus out by himself because nothing changed when we had a heavy dosage of Miller and Noah. Noah got owned completely by Perkins that game. Gray probably would have been a better option.

What do you mean nothing changed?

We were -21 with Tyrus and +19 with Miller. A 40 point swing is a pretty huge change isn't it? How big of a change do you want it to be?

You could argue that you can't tell between Noah and Miller because Noah played with Miller, and maybe if we had Tyrus and Miller it would have been the same, but clearly something pretty huge changed when Miller played.

That being said, it doesn't prove Miller was the cause of the change, but our fortunes definitely changed.

 

[DASMACKDOWN]

dougthonus wrote:

Its hard to say who was worse because they were all bad. You cant really call Tyrus out by himself because nothing changed when we had a heavy dosage of Miller and Noah. Noah got owned completely by Perkins that game. Gray probably would have been a better option.

What do you mean nothing changed?

We were -21 with Tyrus and +19 with Miller. A 40 point swing is a pretty huge change isn't it? How big of a change do you want it to be?

You could argue that you can't tell between Noah and Miller because Noah played with Miller, and maybe if we had Tyrus and Miller it would have been the same, but clearly something pretty huge changed when Miller played.

I hate the +/- stat period. Because it gives no real reflection on impact. A player could be 10/10 for 25 pts and score all the points for his team but if the other team has 30 pts guess what he is -5. The same as another player who has zero pts. Then if a bench player comes in and the Bulls go on a 5-0 run, guess what, they will be +5 even if he hasnt even scored a point. So basically its a garbage stat. I mean seriously Ben Gordon -1, Lindsay Hunter +2 Kill the stat already.

But in this case, I do not question the impact of Miller....offensively.

But he was equally as bad as Tyrus and Noah defensively and rebounding.

Thats where we were killed.

There is no way anyone can say definitely from a rebound/defensive point that Miller was any better than those guys.

Remember Tyrus played 20 mins had 4 rebs. Noah played nearly twice as many minutes and got 8 and Miller played 35 mins and got 9.

When you add that Tyrus had 6 blks it pretty much makes the all around effort equal to the others.

But we got collective owned. Im just saying calling our Tyrus much worse than the others isnt exactly true.

 

[dougthonus]

But in this case, I do not question the impact of Miller....offensively.

But he was equally as bad as Tyrus and Noah defensively and rebounding.

Thats where we were killed.

There is no way anyone can say definitely from a rebound/defensive point that Miller was any better than those guys.

Remember Tyrus played 20 mins had 4 rebs. Noah played nearly twice as many minutes and got 8 and Miller played 35 mins and got 9.

When you add that Tyrus had 6 blks it pretty much makes the all around effort equal to the others.

But we got collective owned. Im just saying calling our Tyrus much worse than the others isnt exactly true.

I'm not arguing a causative relationship for Miller going in at all. You said nothing changed. I said something changed, the score, by 40 points in our favor.

Even though it was a big problem all game long, our defensive rebounding was better with Miller in the game than when he was on the bench. The biggest problem was our guards leaking out and not boxing out the opposing guards though.

As Airp pointed out, their guards were +14 vs our guards in rebounding while our big men played their big men to a near draw.

 

[AirP]

The +/- doesn't really work well for ONE game and I'll tell you why.

This year, Chicago has played HORRIBLE early in games and the first 2 games of the playoffs were no exceptions. So if you play those first 8-10 minutes you're more then likely going to be climbing a hill to get up to the 0 mark in the +/- department, it's just a staple of a young team. This is another reason why Noah and Tyrus have been the top +/- when they were coming off the bench before this year.

You people have to understand... Boston's PG, SG and SF just about got HALF of all of Boston's rebounds... ALMOST HALF yet people are going to ***** about the bigs. Guess what... Boston's leading rebounder was their Rondo... their PG... tied with Perkins.


LET ME PUT IT IN PERSPECTIVE... Ben Gordon and John Salmons didn't even COMBINE FOR ONE REBOUND A QUARTER. There was atleast 1 quarter our SG/SF starting combo didn't get a rebound while Rondo was averaging 3 a quarter.

That's right... keep bitching about a big that only got 4 rebounds in 20 minutes while our SG and SF did about as little as you can possibly do at the NBA level in the rebounding department. You know it wouldn't have been that big of a deal if there weren't long rebounds to get but there were TONS of long rebounds to get and our guys didn't go after them.

 

[Kush77]

+/- in basketball is an absolute joke. I've been saying it on my show for over a year. Ever since yahoo started putting it in boxscores and national announcers starting citing it during broadcasts.

How can a guy be responsible for someone else getting lit up? Lets say Big Baby is doing a good job on Tyrus Thomas. But Ben Gordon lights up Ray Allen for 8 points in 2 minutes. Then Big Baby's +/- is getting impacted the same as Allen's even though Allen is the one getting torched.

Basketball is also the only sport that has uncontested points. If Rose/Gordon play a bunch of minute, but Noah and Ty keep sending Davis and Perkins to the line to get free points, that reflects bad on the backcourt.

There's just too many flaws in +/- for me to take it seriously. It works in hockey, not in basketball.

 

[Hendu0520]

I agree with Dasmackdown when he said that the refs were letting the Celtic's bigs get away with a lot of fouls inside. I expected that though because they are the defending champs so I knew they would get the calls. That won't happen in Chicago. The Bulls are already outweighed and the refs were letting the C's put their forearms to the back of our bigs. Tyrus is the weakest of the three so naturally I think he struggled more in that rough kind of game. But that is the coaching staff's responsibility when a guy has 6 blocks to find a way to utilize his athleticism to negate the power of the other team. The Bulls did not have a lot of fastbreaks this game, Derrick seemed to be pulling up. He didn't start a fastbreak once off of a made shot I don't think. Our bigs are much better runners, it was too much of a halfcourt game, despite the quickshots and the high score. Or you could run Tyrus at the three, at least try it for a bit. Vinny still hasn't learned in game adjustments very quickly, they should have been trying to force the tempo or go bigger.

 

[Hendu0520]

yah plus/minus is a joke, I've been ignoring it ever since they made it. Even big swings mean nothing. Every box score's +/- is different anyways, I mean c'mon what is that? And when I tried to follow it this year with Derrick Rose I was always 1 or 2 off just like all of the others. It is the worst stat in basketball.

 

[dunkside.com]

Hendu0520 wrote:

You may be right that Tyrus hurt us the most, but I think if you keep Tyrus in he would end up doing spectacular things. I mean those 6 blocks make the Celtics think a little before coming in, that is great to have that threat on the court. Noah was getting pushed around just as much, pick your poison but he is just a steady player, he won't do anything special that gets the team so pumped. Miller was old and tired c'mon Tyrus needs minutes sometimes to be productive. They could have put him at the 3 some and went with a big lineup, something but benching him doesn't help. (Skiles) In the post game post someone put up the per min rebound stats and he was right there with Miller and Noah. They also gave up more or equal to as many offensive rebounds as Tyrus did.

that would be me.
i also favored the idea of putting tyrus in at the 3.
it can't be done for long periods cause then you don't have anyone else to substitute for them when they get tired, but at least for stretches a big line-up could be something the celtics are not expecting. going small has become so predictable ...

dougthonus wrote:

What do you mean nothing changed?

We were -21 with Tyrus and +19 with Miller. A 40 point swing is a pretty huge change isn't it? How big of a change do you want it to be?

You could argue that you can't tell between Noah and Miller because Noah played with Miller, and maybe if we had Tyrus and Miller it would have been the same, but clearly something pretty huge changed when Miller played.

That being said, it doesn't prove Miller was the cause of the change, but our fortunes definitely changed.

+/- is relevant for a big enough amount of statistical data. for one game it doesn't mean anything. sure, it may turn out that data for some games matches the overall trends, but you can't really draw conclusions from the +/- stat for one single game.

think about the following scenario: a player (role player, limited role, a big) is put on the team and the other team has a 15-0 run. he can have absolutely no fault: the other team just doesn't miss and his own teammates fumble the ball away and take a few bad shots that he can't get to (long shots = long rebounds, opponents run on the fast break). then his coach takes him out to go small to try and get back in the game and never puts him back in. the guy ends with 6 minutes played and a -15 in the +/- for that game. did he lose the game for his team ? certainly not. it was a matter of circumstances.

tyrus was in for the celtics torrid start. but it was rondo who did most of the damage. he put 2 quick fouls on rose and 3 more on hinrich. check out the play by play. while tyrus was in boston scored as follows:

Perkins Putback Layup Shot: Made (2 PTS) (noah's man)
Rondo Putback Layup Shot: Made (2 PTS) (rose's man)
Perkins Fade Away Jumper Shot: Made (4 PTS)
Assist: Rondo (1 AST)
Davis Jump Shot: Made (2 PTS)
Assist: Rondo (2 AST)
Perkins Putback Layup Shot: Made (6 PTS) (noah's man)
Pierce Dunk Shot: Made (2 PTS)
Assist: Rondo (3 AST)
Rondo Free Throw 1 of 2 (3 PTS)
Perkins Hook Shot: Made (8 PTS)
Rondo Driving Layup Shot: Made (5 PTS)

meanwhile tyrus had 2 blk on rondo. he went out just as the celtics cooled down a little, but he already had a +/- of -11.

it's obvious that the ligher tyrus and noah have a hard time against the heavier perkins and big baby, but blaming the loss entirely on tyrus is, imo, ridiculous if not downright stupid.

and let me commit what's probably a heresy on a bulls forum right now:
if we're looking for people to blame, how about rose ?!
i know everybody's high on roses right now, but let's face the truth: his man TORCHED the bulls. rondo and perkins dominated the offensive glass. rondo had 7 f***ing offensive rebounds. at one point someone (cough*rose or hinrich*cough) should've put a body on him and boxed him out.

the truth is it's rondo and then ray ray who torched the bulls.
the truth is even without garnett the celtics are a better team, if not necessarily in terms of talent, for sure in terms of experience.
the truth is their were playing at home and got their (more than) fair share of calls
the truth is big baby hit a lot of outside shots (17-18 ft). he took way more long shots than close ones, but he made those. normally if you have a boston possession that ends with a long 2 by big baby, you did a good job on defense.
the truth is the bulls are too light in the frontcourt to deal with the celtics, especially if the refs allow the game to be more physical.
the truth is vinnie never did a damn thing to try and counter the celtics aggressiveness on the offensive boards. he just isn't good enough to come up with the right adjustments. and he messed up the final TO.
the truth is that despite all these shortcomings the bulls lost on a (virtually) last second ray ray 3p shot. they were thisclose to taking 2 games on the court of the defending champions. you should be VERY happy with this.

Kush77 wrote:

+/- in basketball is an absolute joke. I've been saying it on my show for over a year. Ever since yahoo started putting it in boxscores and national announcers starting citing it during broadcasts.

see above. it's irrelevant for little statistical data. sort of like a role player hitting 2-2 FG in a game. it doesn't mean he'll shoot 100% for his career even if given 30 shots per game.

stats are relevant when properly interpreted. otherwise they are just some numbers.
sometimes there are correlations between stats (say something like cavs win everytime lebron has 12 ast, or magic win everytime dwight has 4 blk), sometimes there can be trends that coincide but between which there is absolutely no connection (say clippers win everytime i wear my pink underwear - which is never, which explains their record ).

for the +/- I think it's more relevant if you look at it for an entire season and adjusted per minute. of course, on a bad team everyone's +/- should be lower, while on a good team everyone has a better +/-. that's why you can't really compare the +/- of players on different teams (unless some more adjustments are made, i guess statisticians could find a formula for it), but at the end of a season you could notice that one of the players on your team had a constant positive influence while on the floor. of course whoever interprets these stats also has to take into account who's a starter and plays against the best players of the opposing team and who plays against reserves and so on.

what you get in the boxscore is raw data.
it needs to be aggregated and properly interpreted to make sense.

 

[Shakes]

The reality is nothing is that one game isn't a statistically valid sample size of anything at all. That includes scoring, it's not like +/- is the only thing that is going to have a lot of noise in it. Yet that didn't stop the "Rose scored 36 points in a playoff game and is now a superstar" talk. The real explaination is probably "some days when you shoot it the ball goes in the little hole more often than others and it's no more than dumb luck", but the alternative of Rose breaking out into a top player was what people wanted to believe, so that's what people ran with.

What the +/- tells us for game two is that we played better with Miller than with Tyrus. That doesn't necessarily mean that Tyrus or Miller were the reasons (after all correlation is not causation). However the fact is that Miller has strongly positive and Tyrus strongly negative +/- throughout the regular season too. At that point you really have to wonder whether there is something to it. Again, it still might not be Tyrus' fault, there are many reasons one could dream up (eg maybe Vinny knows how to use Miller better than Tyrus, who knows).

Maybe the reasons don't even matter, maybe the immediate thing to take from it is "we don't know why, but we play better with Miller. Lets play Miller more and Tyrus less in the playoffs". Seems to be what Vinny is doing anyway, and it seems to be working.

Anyway I agree with the general idea that it's Rondo (and Rose's inability to guard him) that's killing us, not the bigs. Only one player from either team has played well in both games, and it's the guy being guarded by the worst defender on the court. Who would have thunk it?