NBA Advanced Matchups: Friday, March 13th
Welcome to the NBA Advanced Matchups, presented by Ohnjz. I’ll be taking you deep into the depths of NBA advanced stats to uncover the top plays in each NBA slate (with four or more games). We’ll consider a broad spectrum of metrics here, including SPORTSVU player and shot tracking, play type data, individual defensive metrics, and my personal favorite, Ohnjz’ bad-jokes-and-snarky-comments-per-article. As always, this work is meant as a guide to help you hone in on what advanced stats would suggest are some of the top plays – but it’s ultimately up to you to decide how to build your lineups.
MINDFULNESS
Before we dig into the Advanced Matchups, we’ll take note of the team and game situations that can impact our decision-making each day
BLOWOUT CONCERNS
•OKC VS MIN – OKC -10
•DET VS POR – POR -8.5
FATIGUE CONCERNS
• Detroit – 3rd game in 4 nights
• Orlando – 3rd game in 4 nights
Question: Do you guys like having this included? Are there additional factors you would like to see included in a brief list each day? If the concept isn’t helpful I’ll remove it – let me know in the comments.
UNDER THE MICROSCOPE
THUNDER PG RUSSELL WESTBROOK
It’s another Westbrook slate tonight, which mean ‘To Fade, or Not To Fade” is the question we start our lineups with. I purposely avoided writing up Westbrook in his last game vs the Clippers, based on what they often try to do defensively against elite players. To their credit, the Clippers forced 10 Westbrook turnovers, and held the Thunder PG to just 5/14 shooting. But that only ‘held’ Westbrook to 24 real points, which he supplemented with 9 rebounds, 7 assists, and 2 steals. On a night where a few other elite players busted even worse (here’s looking at you, James Harden & Steph Curry), Westbrooks 45+ FPT performance wasn’t a complete disaster. And that was the worst case scenario, against a team that clearly uses significant defensive game-planning to try to eliminate the top option on teams that rely too heavily on one player. Luckily, the Timberwolves couldn’t be more different than the Clippers defensively, meaning a monster performance from Westbrook could be coming as soon as tonight.
First, the Clippers have a few things the Timberwolves don’t. 1) An elite PG defender (Chris Paul, widely regarded as one of the best individual defenders in the NBA), 2) A true rim protector (DeAndre Jordan), and 3) An aggressive defensive gameplan when elite usage scorers come to town (traps, hard double-teams, etc). Instead, the Wolves struggle defensive against basically every position (bottom-five in DVP versus all five positions). Though the return of Ricky Rubio & maturation of Andrew Wiggins has improved the Wolves defensively, they still get eviscerated by a variety of players and schemes. Rubio has been getting pasted by opposing screeners lately (see Chris Paul’s first game vs the Wolves). Andrew Wiggins is often stuck (loosely) to the opposing team’s #1 scorer for stretches, and though he usually settles down as the game progresses, he is not an elite perimeter defender, and gets taken to school often (i.e. CP3, James Harden, etc). The Wolves’ bigs lack cohesion, and when there is dribble penetration, the opponent usually skates freely to the hoop for easy buckets (i.e. Damian Lillard). This is all going to be a massive problem against Westbrook.
Continue Reading Advanced Matchups: FanDuel Members or DraftKings Members
Take Your Game to the Next Level!
Each weekday when there are four or more late-slate games, Ohnjz will bring FanDuel & DraftKings Incentives members Advanced Matchup breakdowns for that day’s NBA games. These data-driven breakdowns will provide you insight & analysis you can’t find anywhere else. Enjoy!
Buy NBA Incentives Now!
