Photo: John Leyba- Denver Post
As a second follow up to my recent fanpost The Denver Defense and Courting Chaos I had a look at game 5 and have again analyzed the Denver lineups data to see if the most successful lineups in the game were also good at creating chaos on the defensive end.
If you want to know more about what the the chaos% is trying to measure and how it is calculated, check out my earlier fanpost.
Chaos Percentage
- The overall game chaos% was 2.9 percent over the season average and a new high for the series
- If each half is calculated separately, it can be seen that the 1st half chaos% was very high while the 2nd half was .8 percent under the season average
- This is consistent with the +20pts differential in the 1st half which included 7 steals and 3 blks resulting in a turnover, followed by the -13pts in the 2nd half which included 5 steals and 1 block resulting in a turnover
- The points off turnovers are consistent with the chaos percentages with 12pts in the 1st half and 7pts in the 2nd. The total of 19 for the game is very close to the season average of 19.9pts
Game 5 Lineups
I have looked at the 8 Five man lineups that played at least 90secs in the game and focused on the Top 3 Lineups by NetRtg in the game.
Click the graphic above to view large version (data sourced from NBA.com/stats and to allow comparison between lineups with different minutes, non % stats are listed at per minute rate).
Members of the top 3 Lineups mapped for comparison
Observations:
- 6 out of the 8 lineups had a positive NetRtg
- The top lineup ranked no1 in the OffRtg and NetRtg categories and no2 in DefRtg. This lineup also ranked no2 in the Chaos category of Steals and no1 in PTs off TOs
- The 2nd NetRtg lineup ranked no2 in the OffRtg and NetRtg categories and no4 in DefRtg. This lineup also ranked no4 in Steals and no2 in PTs off TOs
- The top 3 lineups all ranked in the top 4 in Pts off TO
- Chandler and Lawson were part of all 3 top lineups, while Brewer, Iguodala, and Miller appeared in two out of three
- The 2nd and 6th lineup were two pg lineups as was the poorest lineup (ranked 8th). The 4th rated lineup was a two center lineup
Game Flow
Next I have taken the 'game flow' lineup information graphic from the PopcornMachine website and added boxes to indicate when the best lineups were playing.
Observations:
- As can be seen in the graphic four of the five best Nuggets runs (18-6,15-6,8-0,5-0) occurred in the first half. The top three first half runs are connected to the top ranked lineups
- The top NetRtg lineup was responsible for the 12-0 run in the 3rd quarter
This graphic also allows the Golden State lineups to be seen for those interested in looking at the match ups that played against the successful lineups.
In conclusion, the Nuggets achieve their largest chaos rating yet of the playoff series at 16%, and finished with their largest win 107-100. The numbers continue to indicate that chaos percentage is measuring an element crucial to the success of the Nuggets.
