Friday, May 11, 2018

Warriors' Explosiveness

ESPN The Magazine has an online article today on the Golden State Warriors' offensive explosiveness. Specifically, the article provides statistics on the Warriors' frequency of going on 10-0 and 15-0 runs, and examines whether there are distinguishing circumstances that seem to presage such runs and any effective strategies for opponents to short-circuit them (spoiler alert: time-outs don't seem to work).

Back in 2015-16, I examined the explosiveness of the Warriors (which I defined as scoring 18 or more points in six-minute intervals) and of the eight college teams seeded No. 1 or No. 2 in March Madness (defined as scoring 15 or more points in five-minute intervals).

One pattern I found for the Warriors in the final 6:00 of regulation play is that the further they were behind, the greater the offensive bursts they exhibited.

The college teams' explosiveness did not seem to predict NCAA-tourney success. Xavier was the most explosive team among the eight I studied by a good margin (13 explosions in its last 10 regular-season games, with no other team higher than nine). The Musketeers also had the fastest tempo (possessions per game) among the eight teams. Despite these seeming advantages, however, Xavier was eliminated in the second round.

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