Bobcats End Losing Streak, Clippers Seek to Extend Winning Streak

As of this morning, two long NBA streaks were ongoing, the L.A. Clippers' 17-game winning stretch and the Charlotte Bobcats' string of 18 consecutive losses. The Clippers are off until a Tuesday night game at Denver, whereas the Bobcats played this afternoon at Chicago.

Thinking this morning that Charlotte's losing streak was likely to be extended in Chicago, I began work on the following chart to track how far the Clippers would rise in the annals of all-time NBA winning streaks and how far the Bobcats would fall in the ranks of all-time NBA losing streaks. You may click on the graphic to enlarge it.

A funny thing happened at the United Center, however, as the Bobcats shocked the Bulls, 91-81, to bring the Charlotte losing streak to an end at 18. After the Bulls had rallied to tie the game 65-65 after three quarters, Chicago proceeded to miss its first six field-goal attempts of the fourth quarter as Charlotte took a 75-65 lead. The Bulls never seriously challenged thereafter.

Tomorrow, the Clippers will have the opportunity to extend their streak.

UPDATE 1/1/2013: The Clippers had their winning streak ended by Denver.

Tennessee Men's Three-Point Shooting Crashes!

After catching parts of yesterday's Tennessee vs. Xavier men's basketball game -- one in which the Volunteers shot a dreadful 3-of-20 from behind the arc -- on television, I did a little research and discovered what can only be considered a collapse of Tennessee's outside game. Below, I've plotted the Vols' three-point shooting percentages in each of their games thus far (game-by-game log). The original raw data are shown in the black curve, whereas a smoothed "Loess" curve that emphasizes the larger trend rather than short-term fluctuations, appears in white (see bottom of this post for an explanation of curve-smoothing). You may click on the following graph to enlarge it.

As shown, Tennessee actually started out pretty well, exceeding .400 from three-point land in three of its first four games (against Kennesaw State, UNC-Asheville, and Massachusetts). From there, things went downhill, with the exception of the Vols' ninth game, against Presbyterian.

Two games in particular in which Tennessee's offense entered the deep freeze were those against Georgetown and Virginia. In losing to Georgetown by a 37-36 score, the Vols not only had a bad outing on threes, but also struggled horribly on free throws (3-of-11). Then, against Virginia, Tennessee scored only 38 points, losing 46-38.

At this point, the Volunteers have shot .200 or below from downtown in five of their last six games. As of this writing, Tennessee is tied for 317th out of 347 in the nation in three-point shooting percentage (.280, 51/182).

In a situation like this, one might ask whether, perhaps, Tennessee had a good three-point shooter get injured after the first few games. That does not appear to be the case. In the opener vs. Kennesaw State, for example, guards Skylar McBee (4-of-7) and Jordan McRae (3-of-4) shot well from behind the arc. Both have played in all 11 of the Vols' games thus far this season.

Texas Tech Football Defense Not Getting Takeaways

As Texas Tech's football team heads into its bowl game Friday night against Minnesota, the Gophers have to be fairly confident about not getting the ball swiped when they're on offense. As I learned yesterday from a local radio sports station, the Tech defense has not registered a takeaway (i.e., defensive fumble recovery or interception) in its last five games.

That seemed to me like a long dry spell, but whenever one hears a number (in this case, the Red Raiders' five straight takeaway-free games), he or she should always ask, "Compared to what?" To answer this question, I examined the statistics for all Big 12 games this year to see how often other conference teams went takeaway-free. The results appear in the following chart, with takeaway-free games shown in white font. For each row, the focal team is listed in the left-hand column. Then, for each of its nine Big 12 games (listed across sequentially), we see the takeaways (defensive fumble recoveries, followed by interceptions) against each opponent.*

TAKEAWAYS (Def. Fumble Recoveries/Interceptions)

	Game 1	Game 2	Game 3	Game 4	Game 5	Game 6	Game 7	Game 8	Game 9
Baylor (vs Opp.)	0/0 WVU	0/0 TCU	0/0 TEX	1/1 ISU	0/2 KU	1/1 OU	0/3 KSU	1/3 TTU	0/2 OSU
Iowa St. (vs Opp.)	0/2 TTU	2/3 TCU	1/0 KSU	2/0 OSU	3/1 BAY	0/2 OU	0/0 TEX	3/1 KU	0/0 WVU
Kansas (vs Opp.)	4/0 TCU	0/0 KSU	0/1 OSU	1/0 OU	0/2 TEX	0/0 BAY	0/1 TTU	1/0 ISU	0/1 WVU
K-State (vs Opp.)	2/1 OU	2/3 KU	0/1 ISU	0/2 WVU	2/1 TTU	1/4 OSU	1/1 TCU	0/2 BAY	1/2 TEX
Okla. (vs Opp.)	0/0 KSU	0/3 TTU	1/2 TEX	1/2 KU	0/1 ISU	0/0 BAY	0/2 WVU	0/1 OSU	1/0 TCU
OSU (vs Opp.)	0/1 TEX	0/0 KU	1/1 ISU	1/2 TCU	0/0 KSU	2/0 WVU	1/2 TTU	1/1 OU	1/0 BAY
Texas (vs Opp.)	0/1 OSU	2/0 WVU	0/1 OU	1/1 BAY	1/0 KU	0/0 TTU	0/2 ISU	0/1 TCU	0/1 KSU
TCU (vs Opp.)	1/1 KU	0/1 ISU	2/4 BAY	0/0 TTU	1/1 OSU	1/1 WVU	1/1 KSU	1/3 TEX	1/1 OU
TexTech (vs Opp.)	1/3 ISU	1/0 OU	0/0 WVU	1/2 TCU	0/0 KSU	0/0 TEX	0/0 KU	0/0 OSU	0/0 BAY
WVU (vs Opp.)	0/1 BAY	1/0 TEX	1/1 TTU	0/0 KSU	2/1 TCU	0/1 OSU	1/1 OU	1/0 ISU	0/1 KU

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Texas Tech's five straight games without a takeaway are shown in yellow. The Red Raiders had one other takeaway-free game earlier (against West Virginia) for a total of six. The next closest team to Texas Tech in not purloining the ball was Baylor, who had three straight games (and three total) sans takeaway. At the other extreme, Kansas State took the ball away in all of its Big 12 games, for zero takeaway-free games.

Tommy Tuberville, who coached the Red Raiders during the regular season before bolting for Cincinnati, speculated in this article that, "I think we set a national record of six games without a [defensive] turnover..." However, the article could not pinpoint whether the five-game streak was an NCAA record.

UPDATE: After failing for roughly 59 minutes of their bowl game to get a takeaway, the Red Raiders intercepted a Minnesota pass in the final minute to set up the game-winning field-goal, as Texas Tech won 34-31 (stats and play-by-play).

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*You'll notice what appear to be a few scheduling oddities. For example, TCU appears in the chart as the second conference opponent for both Baylor and Iowa State. No, the Horned Frogs were not playing at the same time in two games. Baylor and Iowa State each began conference play on September 29. The Cyclones played TCU a week later, on October 6. The Bears had a bye on October 6, so their second conference game was played on October 13, also against TCU.

Sun Devils Scorch Texas Tech on Three-Point Shots

I attended Saturday afternoon's Arizona State at Texas Tech men's basketball game. The Red Raiders are trying to rebuild with a young coach after a few down seasons and were looking for a win over a major-conference opponent. However, it was not to be, as the Sun Devils put on a three-point shooting exhibition, en route to a 77-62 victory. ASU shot 14-of-27 (.519) behind the arc for the game, but did particular damage in the first half.

I have charted the outcomes of ASU's 17 first-half three-point attempts, of which the Sun Devils made 10, from the play-by-play sheet . Each row represents a particular three-point attempt.

Successful Threes	Time Remaining	Missed Threes
Gilling	18:14	---
Felix	17:31	---
---	16:35	Gordon
Gordon	16:15	---
Gilling	15:59	---
Gilling	15:21	---
---	14:46	Gilling
Gordon	13:03	---
Gordon	12:50	---
---	11:55	Gilling
---	7:11	Carson
Gordon	5:09	---
Gilling	3:01	---
---	2:17	Felix
Gilling	1:20	---
---	0:12	Gilling
---	0:01	Gordon

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Forward Jonathan Gilling, a sophomore from Denmark, led the way for ASU, hitting 5-of-8 from downtown in the first half and 6-of-12 overall on the day. He came into Lubbock hitting only .358 on threes (24-of-67) for the season. Guard Evan Gordon added four treys in the first half, on six attempts; he went 4-of-7 on the day. He came in shooting .309  (21-of-68) this season from long distance.

In addition to the Sun Devils' high three-point accuracy rate, the way they produced flurries of treys was impressive. All told, as the chart shows, ASU made seven of its first nine three-point attempts. The first two made threes came less than a minute apart (with 18:14 and 17:31 remaining in the first half). A bit later came a torrent of three treys within less than a minute (between the 16:15 and 15:21 marks). A couple minutes later, Gordon hit a pair 13 seconds apart (13:03 and 12:50).

O.J. Mayo Off to Fast Start on Three-Point Shooting

After 22 games this season, O.J. Mayo of the Dallas Mavericks is currently hitting three-pointers at a torrid .525 percentage (64-of-122). The New York Knicks' Jason Kidd actually leads Mayo slightly in this statistical category, .527-.525, as of this writing, but Kidd has taken roughly 50 fewer shots than Mayo from downtown. Mayo's career shooting percentage from behind the arc, based on four seasons with the Memphis Grizzlies before this fall's arrival in Dallas, is .388. That's an excellent success rate, but this season he's taking his outside game to a new level.

In looking at the list of annual NBA leaders in three-point shooting percentage, there have been some players who have managed to maintain a hit rate of .500 or greater for a full season. Most recently, Kyle Korver shot .536 (59-of-110) from long-distance during the 2009–10 season and Jason Kapono, .514 (108-210) in 2006–07. However, these percentages were achieved on a lot fewer shots than Mayo would be projected to take over the entire season (roughly 450), based on his shots per game thus far.

Taking number of shots into account, arguably the most impressive three-point shooting season since the NBA introduced the trey in 1979-80 was by Glen Rice in 1996-97, when he shot .470 (207-of-440). Whether Mayo can surpass Rice's percentage -- or better yet .500 -- over a comparable number of attempts, of course, remains to be seen.

Periodically, I'll track Mayo's progress toward a .500 season on three-point shots. Below are two graphs I made, the first looking at Mayo's game-specific three-point shooting and the second looking at his cumulative percentage. (You may click on the graphics to enlarge them.)

The first graph shows that Mayo hit 50% or more of his three-point attempts in 11 of his first 12 games this season, the only exception being a 1-for-3 outing against Washington in Game 9. He then went into a brief slump, including three games in which he missed all of his attempts from behind the arc (.000 percentages). Lately, however, he's gotten pretty hot again.

The second graph shows his cumulative three-point shooting perecentage after each game. Let's focus first on the blue curve, which presents Mayo's actual raw data. Mayo went 2-for-4 in the opening game, hence the blue curve is at .500 on the vertical axis. He then shot 3-for-5 in the second game, giving him a combined 5 made threes on 9 attempts, for a cumulative percentage of .556 after two games. His peak cumulative three-point shooting percentage thus far came after four games, at .667 (18-for-27).

The red curve in the second graph represents a "smoothing out" of the trend to avoid slight game-to-game fluctuations and focus on the larger picture.* The smoothed curve makes it clear that Mayo has settled into a cumulative shooting percentage of roughly .52 over his last several games (in contrast to the blue, raw-data curve, which shows some slight fluctuations above and below .52 over the same span of games). Another point worth noting is that, as the season moves along and Mayo's cumulative shooting percentage reflects increasing numbers of shots, his performance in any one game (or small set of games) will have less and less effect.**

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*TECHNICAL POINT: The official name of the smoothing technique is loess (also known as lowess) regression, which refers to "local" estimation in different segments of the sequence. Further information on the technique is available here and here (the second article links to a free downloadable Excel add-on to do loess regression). Loess regression requires the user to submit a value for what is called the "smoothing parameter." With a low value, such as .25, the smoothed curve really does not get too smoothed out at all, closely following the twists and turns of the data (i.e., the loess curve is highly sensitive to tiny changes in the trend being plotted). In contrast, a smoothing parameter of 1.0 generates essentially a straight line, showing very little sensitivity to small ups-and-downs in the raw data. I ultimately chose a .50 smoothing parameter, which is at the high end of what the Excel software add-on said was the typical range.

**UPDATE: In the Mavericks' 23rd game of the season, tonight at Toronto, neither Mayo nor any of his Dallas teammates made a three-pointer. Quoting from the game article: "The Mavericks went 0 for 13 from 3-point range, coming up empty for the first time since February 1999. Their stretch of 1,108 games had been the longest active streak in the NBA."

Garnett's Long Streak on Rebounds is Over

This is the kind of streak that is impressive not because of brilliance or fortitude, but due to its longevity. After all, if you're 6-foot-11 and one of the great players of the NBA's modern era, getting one rebound (or more) in a game is not that difficult.

However, when the Boston Celtics' Kevin Garnett failed to get a single rebound against the Philadelphia 76ers this past Saturday, according to ESPN Boston, he "was shut out on the glass for the first time since Jan. 21, 1997 -- when he was a mere 20 years old." Garnett only played 23 minutes out of a possible 48 against Philly, thus hindering his chances for a rebound somewhat. Nevertheless, the streak is over, as I learned today watching ESPN's show "Around the Horn."

Though we know that Garnett went nearly 16 years between rebound-less games, I could not find any articles that gave the exact number of consecutive games in which he had secured at least one rebound. Thanks to the abundant resources at Basketball Reference, I was able to answer this question without too much difficulty. One can simply go to the page on Garnett, scroll down a bit until a grey horizontal links bar appears, and then click on "Game Logs."

There, I found that KG had pulled down at least one board in his final 42 games of 1996-97. Next, I needed to find out how many games Garnett had played in each season from 1997-98 to 2011-12, as we know he got a rebound in each game he played during that span. Finally, I ascertained that Garnett had gotten at least one rebound in his first 19 games of 2012-13, before being shut out vs. the 76ers. Here are all the consecutive games in which Garnett had gotten a rebound.

1996-97: 42	2002-03: 82	2008-09: 57
1997-98: 82	2003-04: 82	2009-10: 69
1998-99: 47	2004-05: 82	2010-11: 71
1999-00: 81	2005-06: 76	2011-12: 60
2000-01: 81	2006-07: 76	2012-13: 19
2001-02: 81	2007-08: 71	TOTAL: 1,159

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Garnett thus had grabbed at least one rebound in 1,159 straight games. No wonder he was exasperated (seemingly in a humorous way) after the Philly game upon learning he had come up empty on the boards. This page has videos of both Garnett's post-game statement (warning: salty language) and the play on which Garnett claimed he should have been credited with a rebound. Unfortunately for KG, a teammate pulled the rebound away from him!

Another thing to note from the above chart is Garnett's durability. For several seasons, he played in all or nearly all of his team's 82 games (the 1998-99 season was shortened to 50 games due to an owners' lockout).