Frank's fault .... he's too busy screwing up the offense this year to pay any real attention to the defense. Miss you guys.... even if you don't move the meter.
^^ I think they just fell apart in the 4th. Rondo/Monk/Bron/Melo/Dwight did quite alright in the 3rd.
I agree with the above posts generally. A few other things I noticed: All non-Westbrook lineups crushed. The only Westbrook lineups that really worked were: Westbrook/Bazemore/LeBron/AD + either Melo/DAJ (+5 in 15:42 min, i.e. +15/gm) Disappointingly, the Westbrook/Bradley/Bazemore/LeBron/AD lineup did not work (-4 in 4:52 min), despite having 4 defenders, AD playing Center, and Bradley/Bazemore/LeBron/AD all having generally good to great games. Maybe it's too small? The Westbrook/Monk/Melo lineups of all variations gave up 40 pts (-24) in 11:24 min. i.e. would give up 168 pts/gm and be -101/gm!
Here's my theory for the Russ/Rondo lineups... Sacrifice U-G-L-Y in the short term for the greater good and expedite Russ' comfort level with another ball dominant Laker. The thinking is it'll cut down on the meshing time of Bron and Russ because Rondo and Bron are the floor similarly. I also think that Vogel loves Rondo, trusts him implicitly, and if he had another son that he'd name him "Rajon."
Panko this is wonderful analysis - really appreciate you doing this. For me, it’s hard to infer a great deal from this just yet as it’s only one side of the equation. The other side of the story is what lineup did golden state counter us with. And when you have both, you still need context by watching film to see how we were missing shots or defending poorly and that’s pretty much what coaches (and Rondo) do in the film sessions. We also need a lsrger data set to build proper hypotheses. For example, did those Russ lineups fail because of the personnel around him or just because he had a terrible night and was the weak link? Because If it’s the second, you write it off and know there will be improvement, if it’s the first then you can tweak things to get better lineups on the floor. Basketball after all is a chess match, and you won’t win every minute your on the floor because the opposition will have stronger lineups than you at times. That’s why they say it’s a game of runs and flow. The point that killed us is the start of the 4th quarter, there was a -8 run in the first 3 and a half mins that we just couldn’t recover from. That’s where the game was lost. And it’s probably a little bit of us going through a dry spell and GS leaning on a well established system, a team that has continuity and great shooting.
we (you) :THT Heart Hands:should keep this up and look for trends as the sample size increases. i hesitate to draw serious conclusions right now, but i wonder if we can qualitatively, game by game start to build an idea. svtzr's point about who's out there on the other side is important, too. though i believe we had lebron on the floor and they had steph off when we really lost control, right? maybe we tried to relax a bit.
We shouldn't look to only one game, but it's fair to say you can't pair Melo and Russ lol. Russ with Rondo is also not helping Westbrook is playing the Lebron minutes. Sitting first in the Q1 and run the 2nd unit out of the gate in the Q2. I would switch that until the team is more used to each other. I prefer to do minor changes one at a time than waiting for the whole thing to work up together while is clearly not working right now with Russ. It also takes pressure from him
I'll do it when I can, but not sure how long I'll be able to keep it up, it'll probably need to be a group effort if people want to keep it going. For now, I'll try to do it on game nights, and if I don't post by the next day, someone else would need to do it. I'm not that tech savvy, so I just do it by hand, by looking at the play by play. Perhaps someone else has an easier, tech-automated way to do it, but that's beyond my capabilities.
there's gotta be a way, as 82games and other sites have to compile this for every game. i'm having trouble finding the raw data archived, though again, somebody must have it... edit: apparently cranjis runs this site, which contains lineup data: https://www.bball-index.com/nba-lineup-data/ but we'd need access to the raw data from which they've compiled that. i don't see that anywhere.
Game 2 vs Phoenix 10/22/21 1Q A. 12:00 - 6:31 (5:29) Westbrook/Bazemore/LeBron/AD/DAJ +2 B. 6:31 - 4:25 (2:06) 1 sub Monk Monk/Bazemore/LeBron/AD/DAJ +4 C. 4:25 - 4:21 (0:04) 1 sub Melo Monk/Bazemore/LeBron/Melo/AD +0 D. 4:21 - 3:09 (1:12) 1 sub Westbrook Westbrook/Monk/Bazemore/Melo/AD -2 E. 3:09 - 0:00 (3:09) 1 sub Bradley Westbrook/Bradley/Monk/Melo/AD -1 2Q F. 12:00 - 9:40 (2:20) 2 subs LeBron & Dwight Westbrook/Bradley/LeBron/Melo/Dwight -2 G. 9:40 - 6:59 (2:41) 1 sub Monk Monk/Bradley/LeBron/Melo/Dwight -5 H. 6:59 - 6:57 (0:02) 1 sub Bazemore Monk/Bazemore/LeBron/Melo/Dwight +1 I. 6:57 - 5:48 (1:09) 1 sub Westbrook Westbrook/Monk/Bazemore/Melo/Dwight -3 J. 5:48 - 4:42 (1:06) 1 sub AD Westbrook/Monk/Bazemore/AD/Dwight -3 K. 4:42 - 3:13 (1:29) 1 sub Rondo Rondo/Monk/Bazemore/AD/Dwight +1 L. 3:13 - 0:00 (3:13) 2 subs LeBron & Bradley Rondo/Bradley/Bazemore/LeBron/AD -5 3Q M. 12:00 - 9:23 (2:37) 2 subs Westbrook & DAJ Westbrook/Bazemore/LeBron/AD/DAJ -2 N. 9:23 - 6:03 (3:20) 1 sub Bradley Westbrook/Bradley/Bazemore/LeBron/AD -4 O. 6:03 - 4:22 (1:41) 1 sub Monk Bradley/Monk/Bazemore/LeBron/AD -6 P. 4:22 - 2:13 (2:09) 1 sub Rondo Rondo/Bradley/Monk/LeBron/AD -6 Q. 2:13 - 0:00 (2:13) 2 subs Westbrook & Melo Westbrook/Rondo/Bradley/Melo/AD +4 4Q R. 12:00 - 8:21 (3:39) 2 subs LeBron & Reaves Westbrook/Rondo/Reaves/LeBron/Melo +5 S. 8:21 - 7:11 (1:10) 1 sub AD Westbrook/Rondo/Reaves/Melo/AD +2 T. 7:11 - 0:00 (7:11) 1 sub LeBron Westbrook/Reaves/LeBron/Melo/AD +10
Is it helpful to say who's subbing in, or does that just make it harder to read and look at the lineups? Example with: 2Q F. 12:00 - 9:40 (2:20) 2 subs LeBron & Dwight Westbrook/Bradley/LeBron/Melo/Dwight -2 Without: 2Q F. 12:00 - 9:40 (2:20) 2 subs Westbrook/Bradley/LeBron/Melo/Dwight -2
Not sure how much to take away from the 4Q considering it was a blowout, other than to say that I'm interested to see how Reaves does in some regular non-blowout minutes in the future. FWIW, CP3, Booker & Ayton still played most of the 4Q (8:21-0:00), during which time the Lakers came back +12. (Down 22 to down 10) Also, I've been in the camp of wanting to see AD at the 5 more, but counterintuitively, the AD+DAJ lineups have been some of the best ones. Went +4 today. Was +2 in G1. That's +6 across 23 min so far, in 2 losses. Will be interesting to see if that continues, since I'm guessing Vogel sticks with this starting lineup. FWIW, this lineup is Bazemore/LeBron/AD/DAJ + either Westbrook or Monk. Perhaps because it's a bigger lineup, it gives up fewer points, while other lineups are too small? Other notes: The only players with a positive +/- in both games are Rondo and DAJ. AD played 12:47 min at PF (+2 overall) & 25:22 min at C (-8 overall, -24 until late in 3Q) (8.5 min at C in 4Q, +12). Westbrook played 34:35 min (+6) 24:36 min with LeBron (+9) 9:59 min without LeBron (-3) But through 3Q: 13:46 min with LeBron (-6) 8:49 without LeBron (-5) It's not rotations, but something else from the box score I thought was interesting: Lakers shot 15-34 (44%) from 3, while Suns shot 10-32 (31%) from 3. However, Lakers went 19-52 (37%) from 2, while Suns went 32-54 (59%) from 2. Perhaps interior spacing is bad, since they're collapsing and sagging off Westbrook, but if Lakers can swing it to the open man, 3 pt looks are good?
feel like the monk/melo lineups just need to be shelved permanently. can't play those two at the same time. the fact that we outshot them from three and got murdered is pretty rare for us and thus pretty disconcerting. i wonder if dj is benefitting from playing with our big three of AD/lebron/baze (the only three guys consistently defending) moreso than doing anything himself. can't know because he basically doesn't play without them.
That could be true, but the 3Q & late 2Q point to the Baze/LBJ/AD combo at 3/4/5 not working so far. (Maybe too small? Bc works well when they are at 2/3/4.) L. 3:13 - 0:00 (3:13) Rondo/Bradley/Bazemore/LeBron/AD -5 N. 9:23 - 6:03 (3:20) Westbrk/Bradley/Bazemore/LeBron/AD -4 O. 6:03 - 4:22 (1:41) Bradley/Monk/Bazemore/LeBron/AD -6
I like seeing who subbed in. Interesting that the 4th quarter lineups with Rondo, Russ, Reaves and Melo worked with both Bron and AD as the 5th guy. I would think long term the Rondo and Russ lineup will be a bust. The Suns definitely took their foot of the gas some in the 4th, so that accounts for some of the gain. Plus AD looked like he woke back up in the 4th. I think we need to find some more minutes for Reaves. His energy is needed.
oh, and i actually tried to write a program to automate the lineup output, but i ran into some issues and had to quit. if i ever get another free hour, i may look at it again.
It's still hard for me to draw too many conclusions from this. So what I did was watch the film back, alongside your work and alongside the box score to help provide context. I wasn't so happy with Lebron and AD's initial shot selection. They went 1/5 from mid range to begin and it just felt like they were settling for poor shots. Especially AD who shot two fade aways against Crowder, who ironically crowded him on both his iso mid range jump shots. Westbrook had a really good first quarter, he had 3 assists that created wide open shots and 7 points. There was a nice pick and pop with AD, a full court pass to a Lebron 3 after collecting a rebound and finding Monk for a three after penetrating into the paint. Russ was also aggressive in finding his shots after a very ineffective first game and scored 8 points (had a three rim out which would of been icing on the cake). He also played pretty good defence, getting an excellent block on Ayton and another steal by not allowing an alley oop off a Chris Paul pass to Ayton while defending a pick and roll. In general, we contested well forcing PHX to shoot 2/9 from 3. Bazemore was a real standout here with his defence on Booker (1/6) this quarter. Bazemore, Monk and Lebron went 4/4 from three. So the quarter one reflects players hitting outside shots, good contesting against PHX and Westbrook being active. Here is a few key moments from the first 4 minutes: Soft foul on CP3 for 3 FTs (Melo) Soft foul on Crowder for 3 FTs (Lebron flagrant) Rip through foul on CP3 for 2 FTs (Bradley) Coach Foul for 1 FT (Vogel) Emotional foul on CP3 for 2 FTs (Howard shove) 2 other legitimate fouls by us that were deserved PHX shot 13 free throws to our 2 in this quarter and 11 of those were gifted to them. With all of that we shot 4/7 over that time frame and were still in the game with 7 mins left. Apart from gifting them points, the FTs put Lebron and Russ into foul trouble and put us into the penalty as a team. As a result, we kind of just fell apart for the rest of the quarter. Bad body language from the team, the AD/Dwight altercation, poor turnovers, missed shots, no defence because of the penalty. But most importantly, we didn't make shots going 2/12 for the rest of the quarter while PHX shot 9/14. We missed 7 shots at the rim with some of the best finishers in the league. Meanwhile CP3 was gifted 8 FTs and Booker and Bridges went 6/6. A key adjustment by PHX to get Booker going was to have him curl off the ball and have Ayton set screens on Bazemore, creating space for Booker. We performed the worst this quarter, but started to recover our composure. The majority of our shots were at the rim or from three, so we had some offensive concept of the type of shots we wanted to create. However, we missed a ton of these shots. We were 3/10 at the rim and 1/9 from three this quarter. AD went 2/8, our 3pt shooters went 0/7 (Rondo, Monk, Bradley, Baze). On the Suns side, Paul dominated the PnR with Ayton and hit a ton of difficult mid range shots (4/5). Javale added some extra finishing at the rim (3/3). Booker got hot off the adjustment in the second quarter and went 4/6 off the back of that. The comeback started at the end of the 3rd alongside that Westbrook/Rondo/Bradley/Melo/AD rotation. AD got 6 free throws, and alleyoop and that started it. We can definitely draw some positivity from the 4th. We outscored them by 17 and got within 9 (we were down 32). They had to bring their starters back in to close it out. I want to mention Reaves' excellent defence first. Apart from Paul and Booker cooling off from 3, Reaves played excellent on ball defence against both of them. He kept the effort high, didn't foul and contested hard. He is a good option against these slower more skilful players because of his intelligence, interested to see if this is something he can build on. We played well on the offensive end. I think the first 3:40 was interesting without any big man. Westbrook played a lot like he did with Houston. We had 5-out and every time the ball was rotated to him, he put pressure on the defence by attacking his man. He can beat his man every time and when there is no big in the paint, that's going to create a good shot most of the time. I also feel the refs swallowed their whistles on 3 of his drive attempts in the fourth. There was a Westbrook/AD PnR that I want to draw attention to at the 7:50 mark. We loaded the weak side with three shooters and played for the westbrook drive down the key, Ayton had to hedge to stop that and it was an easy alleyoop for AD. We should have that every time down the floor. Melo and Reaves were big from three going 5/7. -------- Bridges was a big difference maker the whole game going a hyper 8/11 - even his missed shots looked good. He also had 3 steals, with two of those coming in the second quarter to really help PHX break away. Definitely worth that contract! Hopefully as Russ rounds into form we can have his 1st and 4th quarter kind of effort consistently night in night out. It was good to see glimpses of how things could work. I was happy with our shot selection apart from a few random mid rangers to start the game. Including Russ only taking three 3pt attempts in the flow of the game. I expect us to shoot closer to our average at the rim and significantly better from the elbow (AD went 0/7 from here) in future games, which would of boosted our offence in the 2nd and 3rd quarters by 10-12 points. The meltdown was unexpected and strange. We got a lot of work to do and need to up our defence. Reaves should get some more playing time to see if he can win a position on our roster. We could of used Nunn and THT for some offence and to throw at Paul, Bridges and Booker through the second and third quarters.
