Comments on: Biggest Elimination-Game Chokes by Win Shares

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:12:44 +0000

I love Larry Bird!

(But what does that have to do with this post?)

By: michelle

michelle — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:54:33 +0000

larry bird did doa good job.

By: michelle

michelle — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:51:10 +0000

larry bird is a great player.

By: Mike G

Mike G — Sun, 02 May 2010 12:50:55 +0000

One-game play may be fairly random, but for the duration of a playoff series, it seems that player's have their good and bad series.

Any chance you could do WS per game over the course of a series, and rank these?
First-round, 2nd, Conf. finals and Finals?
Listing also players' regular-season WS (per game or per minute) ?

Ultimately, having these plus playoff opponent RS W% (or Pyth%), we could get a measure of Playoff-minus-Season records for players. Relative to the stiffer competition in the playoffs.

In the season, the average opponent is about .500 . In playoffs it's generally over .600, but it varies by matchup. Wouldn't a player's playoff WS/Min expect to be only .500/W% of his RS rate?

By: themojojedi

themojojedi — Sat, 01 May 2010 07:11:21 +0000

Did Durant just push his way onto the list Neil, or did his free throw shooting save the day for him?

By: Romain

Romain — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 09:10:17 +0000

I guess advanced stats (and regular stats as well for that matter) will say Nowitzki had a highly efficient game 6 last night facing elimination against the Spurs. 33 pts on 38 minutes, 13/21 from the field, just one turnover.

And yet this will fail to capture how stupidly he put himself in foul trouble in the 1st half with two frustation fouls on George Hill.

By: Nick

Nick — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 05:26:22 +0000

Wow. Kobe twice on the list in the top 10 alone.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 21:25:58 +0000

What I find interesting is that a number of the players on this list also appear on the best elimination game performances list, too.

The point, as I see it, is that we shouldn't be too quick to brand a player as a hero or a goat based on just one or two big games; it may be that their next big game will be as bad as the last big game was good (or vice versa).

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 19:28:20 +0000

A lot of these definitely had extenuating circumstances. And like Downpuppy said, stars (or at least starters) are predisposed to appearing on this list because the coach allows them to continue sucking for 30+ minutes. If a lesser player started out 1 for 6 with 2 turnovers or whatever, he'd get yanked, but when someone like Kobe does it, the coach knows it's uncharacteristic and hopes he'll eventually turn it around. If you pull Kobe after a cold start, maybe you reduce the chances of having one of these team-killing games, but you also reduce the chances of him getting hot again and dominating. Is it better to have a cold player who has a nontrivial chance of getting hot again soon, or a known mediocrity that won't go 6 for 23 and get you blown out, but also has no chance of playing well?

By: downpuppy

downpuppy — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:37:51 +0000

I'm surprised at how many stars there are on this list, but I suppose if your 4th or 5th best player is stinking out the join you bench him before too much damage is done.