I already had great respect for the physical and mental toll back-to-back games takes on NBA players. As I try to predict my way through the rest of this season (remember it all started with Carmelo Anthony and has migrated to Damian Lillard) one game/one quarter/one shot at a time, I have an even greater appreciation. Last night’s Blazers-Clippers game was a bit of an odd one, to say the least. In the end the Blazers pulled out the comeback, overtime victory largely led by a dominant Nic Batum in the 4th quarter and OT.
Damian Lillard went 1-for-13, and that one made field goal didn’t come until pretty late in the game. It’s not as though he wasn’t productive, matching a 25-year record for a guard rebounding. I bring this up for a reason:
For his career, Damian Lillard has NEVER had a game where he made 0 FG.
— matt d'anna (@matthew__danna) March 5, 2015
And this is why predictions are so fun and incredibly hard.
Despite these odds, my original predictions for last night turned out fairly well. Most notably, of the 13 shots he took, only two of them fell outside of a predicted area. Further, here’s how the counts played out for each quarter:
- 1st Quarter: I said 4, he took 3
- 2nd Quarter: I said 4, he took 2
- 3rd Quarter: I said 3, he took 3
- 4th Quarter: I said 7, he took 3
If these predictions can perform this well on such a strange night… I’m on to something. Mind you, I did create a scoring system for evaluating each prediction, and I will update the performance of all these predictions when I catch my breath. For now, the point is this: this process is doing better than just blindly guessing (which was a legitimate concern of mine). These patterns in shot activity really mean something. Identifying them is the less-than-easy part.
Having said all that, Dame and the Blazers take on the Dallas Mavericks tonight. Here’s my prediction for his shot activity all night:
A few notes about what fed this beast:
- There’s a negative (albeit relatively weak) correlation better the quality of the Blazers opponent and Damian Lillard’s overall shot count. The more wins the other team has, the more Dame typically shoots.
- There’s a negative (and relatively stronger) correlation between days between games and overall shot count. This means that with less rest, Dame shoots more.
In practice, what do these things mean? Lillard is going to shoot his way out of last night’s misses. It’s been a proven formula for him.
This is obviously a bit different than last night’s quarter-by-quarter stuff; it’s as if I’ve summed all the quarterly predictions into one chart. This style also allows for more ebb and flow throughout the game. Will it perform better? Is it more tactically useful in game planning? These questions will warrant further exploration in the near future. For now, it seems reasonably safe to say if the Dallas Mavericks were game planning specific to Damian Lillard, these are the quantities and areas they should expect him to be active from.
Dame Time. Shot Caller. Enjoy the game.
Data and photo support provided courtesy of NBA.com, Basketball-Reference.com, and data extraordinaire Darryl Blackport.