Re: Shooting form

[jmc@ptc.com]

Joe Hironaka wrote:
> I noticed that Walker's turnovers have been quite high over the past week,
> even though the team is thankfully playing well. I think Walker finally has
> a nice string of double-digit rebounding games going, though.

The extra turnovers are probably due to Walker's increased number of 
attempted passes, which is leading to better offense for the team, but 
more turnovers as well.  

The increased pace of the game caused by Walker passing more and other 
Celtics passing more and pushing the ball up more and playing more 
agressive defense seems to help the Celtics, even if the passing and 
defense isn't all that great.  Fox Sports NE showed a statistic the 
other night which showed that in Celtic wins, they not only score more 
themselves than in losses, but they actually GIVE UP more points to 
the opposition than they give up in losses.  In other words, higher 
scoring games seem to favor the Celtics. 

I was curious as to just what kind of winning percentage the Celtics 
have in high-scoring vs. low-scoring games, so I just downloaded the 
stats for the season from NBA.com, and wrote a little program to 
figure it out.  Interestingly, I came up with different totals than
FSNE for Celtics' averages:

  Avg Win   102.85 - 90.15
  Avg Loss   86.09 - 98.30

So, in fact, they were wrong.  However, the overall point average was 
higher in Celtics wins.  Celtics wins average 96.5 points per team and 
Celtics losses average 92.2 points per team, which is not as much of a 
difference as I was expecting, but still a somewhat significant difference.

Then I checked Celtics record in "high scoring" games, using different 
definitions of "High Scoring", ranging from combined team totals of over
186 up total over 196.  Here are the records: 

# > 186   Hi Scoring: W 9 L 13,  Low Scoring: W 4 L 10
# > 187   Hi Scoring: W 9 L 12,  Low Scoring: W 4 L 11
# > 188   Hi Scoring: W 9 L 12,  Low Scoring: W 4 L 11
# > 189   Hi Scoring: W 9 L 12,  Low Scoring: W 4 L 11
# > 190   Hi Scoring: W 7 L 12,  Low Scoring: W 6 L 11
# > 191   Hi Scoring: W 7 L 12,  Low Scoring: W 6 L 11
# > 192   Hi Scoring: W 7 L 10,  Low Scoring: W 6 L 13
# > 193   Hi Scoring: W 6 L 10,  Low Scoring: W 7 L 13
# > 194   Hi Scoring: W 6 L 9,   Low Scoring: W 7 L 14
# > 195   Hi Scoring: W 5 L 7,   Low Scoring: W 8 L 16
# > 196   Hi Scoring: W 4 L 6,   Low Scoring: W 9 L 17

So the Celtics winning percentage in "High Scoring" games is 
in the 37% - 43% range, and in "Low Scoring" games is in 
the 29% - 35% range.   They win about 40% of high scoring games 
and about 32% of low scoring games.  

Jon Mc