Why did we implode last season?

[KingSpeed]

We started the season 22-13 and we were playing great basketball. So why did we play 19-28 the rest of the way? James Jones missed some games there. I also think that a big turning point in our season was when Roy missed games for a death in his family. I don't blame him but we needed those wins to stay afloat. Any thoughts as to how we completely crashed and how we can avoid that this season?

 

[B-Roy]

The schedule was harder during the second half imo. Also, we just came back down to earth. We weren't REALLY as good as a 22-13 team.

 

[alex42083]

We had no interior defense whatsoever last year, we allowed teams to offensive board until they scored and we weren't that great of an outside shooting team since James was out a lot.

Now, we're in the top 10 in blocks, we outrebound our opponent nearly every game out, and we're one of the top 3-point shooting teams in the league. Helps to have a Greg and a Rudy, too.

 

[KingSpeed]

But we beat good teams during our run. We beat both Utah and Denver in their buildings. We beat Utah 3-1 over the whole season.

 

[Ed O]

The 13 game win streak was an aberration. There was no implosion... the team just wasn't very good.

Ed O.

 

[DaRizzle]

The 13 game win streak was an aberration. There was no implosion... the team just wasn't very good.

Ed O.

+1....The way you put it doesnt give the full story Kingspeed...There are different ways to get to 22-13 and the way the Blazers did it you knew (or at least I did ) they wouldnt keep it up at that level the full year.

Hence, you were owned

 

[1 Eye Jack]

The 13 game win streak was an aberration. There was no implosion... the team just wasn't very good.

Ed O.

Agree.......Plus the season really starts after the all star break. Teams start playing at a different level as the playoffs get closer and we were simply not a good team.

 

[KingSpeed]

A 7 game win streak might be an aberration. But a 13 game win streak? It was all luck? I don't buy that. We were playing good basketball. Why did we suddenly stop?

 

[Natebishop3]

A 7 game win streak might be an aberration. But a 13 game win streak? It was all luck? I don't buy that. We were playing good basketball. Why did we suddenly stop?

And houston had a what... 16 game win streak? What did they do in the playoffs? Nothing. Win streaks don't necessarily mean anything. We had some really lucky wins in that streak. It could have ended much earlier.

 

[alex42083]

I think Eric's been reading too many mixum posts lately..

 

[KingSpeed]

Houston had a 22 game win streak and they made the playoffs. If Yao, who was there for the first 10 games of the win streak, had played, they probably would've gotten out of the first round. We didn't even make the playoffs. I believe that's never happened before to a team that wins 13 in a row. The reason I bring it up is because I want it to not happen this year.

 

[STOMP]

I'd argue that Jones's impact on the 1st half of the season was substantial. Dude had an absolute money jumper from everywhere, shooting well over 50% from deep and played a smart all around effective game. I thought he was much more effective then Travis or Martell and felt a bit teased by what might have been if hadn't tweaked his knee in preseason. Not only did that injury limit his availability and ultimately shut him down, but it had to limit his on court abilities too.

I'd rate losing one of their better players at least as high as any other reason for Why did we implode last season? given so far. Lucky for us that Rudy has stepped into that void big time.

STOMP

 

[Drink Your Milkshake]

Too young and inexperienced. Also, the 13 game win streak made the team look better than actually were.

 

[DaRizzle]

I'd argue that Jones's impact on the 1st half of the season was substantial.

Very true....he was on a tear during that winning streak I believe (or at some point during the season at least)...I remember you guys giving him crazy love in threads last year

 

[Drink Your Milkshake]

A 7 game win streak might be an aberration. But a 13 game win streak? It was all luck? I don't buy that. We were playing good basketball. Why did we suddenly stop?

The reason they won those games is because the bench was hitting all their shots. Jack was playing way above his head and Outlaw couldn't miss. That's luck and/or streaky and never lasts in the NBA. The team started losing again once the second unit fell back to earth.

 

[Nikolokolus]

The 13 game win streak was an aberration. There was no implosion... the team just wasn't very good.

Ed O.

+100

If anything the team exploded for a month and then settled right back to where they belonged (~.400) for the rest of the year.

 

[Minstrel]

The team was about a .500 team last year. They simply played at extremes...they weren't as good as 13-0 (obviously, no team is) and they weren't as bad as their worst stretch. Breaking the season down into mini-records isn't too useful (unless there was some structural difference, like with and without a star). They didn't implode, they simply got to around .500, their true level, in an odd way.

 

[hasoos]

Because over an 82 game season, your true character comes forth by the time it is all said and done.

 

[Minstrel]

+100

If anything the team exploded for a month and then settled right back to where they belonged (~.400) for the rest of the year.

I'd say "where they belonged" was ~.500...which is where they finished. Ignoring the winning streak isn't any more valid than looking at it as the team's true level and then assuming they imploded.

 

[LittleAlex]

Houston had a 22 game win streak and they made the playoffs. If Yao, who was there for the first 10 games of the win streak, had played, they probably would've gotten out of the first round. We didn't even make the playoffs. I believe that's never happened before to a team that wins 13 in a row. The reason I bring it up is because I want it to not happen this year.

Portland had to play their absolute best to win most games last year, and they had a stretch of games where they managed to play that well about 18 games straight. That isn't going to last in the long run and it didn't.

This year, Portland has rarely played their best, yet they are winning games. When they are at their best, they have blown teams out. Our bench got better this year. Some players made strides in their games. That is why they will make the playoffs this year as opposed to last year.

 

[Nikolokolus]

I'd say "where they belonged" was ~.500...which is where they finished. Ignoring the winning streak isn't any more valid than looking at it as the team's true level and then assuming they imploded.

"Belonged" probably isn't the right word, but .400 ish is where they were for around 4 months out of the six month season. That's not taking anything away from what they accomplished in December and January, but from a statistical standpoint you'd have to call that streak a bit of an outlier -- they definitely over performed.

 

[Boob-No-More]

But we beat good teams during our run. We beat both Utah and Denver in their buildings. We beat Utah 3-1 over the whole season.

The 13-game winning streak was, by far, the easiest stretch of the team's schedule last year. 10 of the 13 wins were at home. And one of the three road wins was a buzzer beater over a crappy Memphis team that was starting Damon at PG and Darko at center.

Yes, they beat Utah twice during the early part of the streak, but Utah was playing like crap then. They were in the middle of a 6 game losing streak, and were barely 0.500 for the season in spite of a 7-2 start and went 5-11 for the month of December. The Blazers weren't the only ones beating them in December 2007. Utah didn't turn their season around until January.

There were a few home wins over quality opponenets during the streak, but you have to remember the team played well at home all season - and struggled on the road. Come January, the schedule was much tougher with a lot more road games. All young teams struggle on the road. It's to be expected.

BNM

 

[Minstrel]

"Belonged" probably isn't the right word, but .400 ish is where they were for around 4 months out of the six month season. That's not taking anything away from what they accomplished in December and January, but from a statistical standpoint you'd have to call that streak a bit of an outlier -- they definitely over performed.

But that's not the right way to analyze...which stretch was an outlier and which was representative. The way to analyze is to take the entire sample...which has both good and bad outliers. They weren't as good as their winning streak, but they also had a very bad stretch in the second half which wasn't representative. Overall, they finished about .500, which I'd say is probably representative.

 

[Nikolokolus]

But that's not the right way to analyze...which stretch was an outlier and which was representative. The way to analyze is to take the entire sample...which has both good and bad outliers. They weren't as good as their winning streak, but they also had a very bad stretch in the second half which wasn't representative. Overall, they finished about .500, which I'd say is probably representative.

There are always residuals, but if the point is that the December to mid January stretch stands out in particular; nowhere else in their schedule did they post such a large disparity for so long (above or below their season average). I admit I haven't done any kind of in depth regression analysis to see how much of an outlier the win streak was, and I'm relying quite a bit on hunch and best recollection, so I could certainly be wrong.

Hmmm ... Actually I think I'm going to create a scatter plot of their daily average winning percentage throughout last season and see what comes up, I'll post it here if people are interested.

 

[Sheldon Shape]

We lost our sense of urgency like Aruba lost Natalie Holloway. No but seriously, we just weren't good enough and not skilled enough last season to overcome other teams.

 

[Minstrel]

There are always residuals, but if the point is that the December to mid January stretch stands out in particular; nowhere else in their schedule did they post such a large disparity for so long (above or below their season average). I admit I haven't done any kind of in depth regression analysis to see how much of an outlier the win streak was, and I'm relying quite a bit on hunch and best recollection, so I could certainly be wrong.

Well, for what it's worth, I do think it was a major outlier. But in analyzing performance (from what I've read from actual stats geeks...I have no training personally, beyond standard college stats classes), you generally don't worry about the "shape" of the distribution, just what was accomplished.

For a hitter in baseball, if they had a really hot June, but were below-average the rest of the year, you don't throw out June as an outlier...you let it have as much effect as one month of performance should have, regardless of whether it's all concentrated in one month, or distributed across the six months. It still matters as much in telling you about the player's ability.

Similarly, I don't think the shape of the wins distribution matters a great deal for the Blazers last year. I don't think the Blazers were better or worse than a team that won the same number of games, but spread those wins out more consistently.

 

[oldmangrouch]

A 7 game win streak might be an aberration. But a 13 game win streak? It was all luck? I don't buy that. We were playing good basketball. Why did we suddenly stop?

A team of streak shooters that was way too reliant on outside shooting. During the streak, Blake was hot and Jones was actually our best SF...but we were playing without much margin for error. When Blake went cold and Jones' knee went wonky, the Blazers weren't the same team.

 

[KingSpeed]

Aren't we relying on outside shooting this season too? I guess what I'm asking is... are we really the 2nd best team in the West and will we keep this up? Or are we about to fall off the map like we did last season too?

 

[Nikolokolus]

Well, for what it's worth, I do think it was a major outlier. But in analyzing performance (from what I've read from actual stats geeks...I have no training personally, beyond standard college stats classes), you generally don't worry about the "shape" of the distribution, just what was accomplished.

For a hitter in baseball, if they had a really hot June, but were below-average the rest of the year, you don't throw out June as an outlier...you let it have as much effect as one month of performance should have, regardless of whether it's all concentrated in one month, or distributed across the six months. It still matters as much in telling you about the player's ability.

Similarly, I don't think the shape of the wins distribution matters a great deal for the Blazers last year. I don't think the Blazers were better or worse than a team that won the same number of games, but spread those wins out more consistently.

You're right the shape of the distribution doesn't really matter because of the diminishing effect that each additional win or loss has on the overall record which ended up hovering right around .500 from March onward (give or take 2 or 3 percent).

What is interesting is to break the season down into 6 classes: in this case I just looked at the record by month. When you take the mean of the average win % for all months you end up with the following:
October-November: 31%
December: 87%
January: 57%
February: 36%
March: 47%
April: 38%

The mean of those monthly winning percentages is 49.1% (off of the true 50% value because each month has slightly differing numbers of games and April unfairly weights the mean) and the median (which corrects for outliers) is at 42% which is the "average" level of expected performance I was trying to describe on a hunch.

 

[STOMP]

Aren't we relying on outside shooting this season too? I guess what I'm asking is... are we really the 2nd best team in the West and will we keep this up? Or are we about to fall off the map like we did last season too?

Last I checked Portland was making more then two 3's more per game then last year and shooting them at a much better % too. Hopefully they continue to fare better with the luck of the health draw then they did last year when Jones went down. To me, Rudy has replaced Jones's threat and then some.

STOMP