Offensive and Defensive Efficiency Without Technical Fouls

Dec 8, 2014; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers head coach Doc Rivers reacts after Los Angeles Clippers guard Jamal Crawford (not pictured) is ejected during the fourth quarter against the Phoenix Suns at Staples Center. The Los Angeles Clippers defeated the Phoenix Suns in overtime with a final score of 121-120. Mandatory Credit: Kelvin Kuo-USA TODAY Sports

Over at the stats page here at Nylon Calculus, you can find a team’s offensive and defensive efficiency that takes into account a team’s points and exact possession totals. Simple enough, but for this post I filtered out all points that came from technical fouls, the kind not caused by a defensive three second violation but instead likely from, among other things, going a bit too far with a referee or opposing player. This was all done just out of curiosity, but it may or may not be helpful to pluck out points from those technical fouls since they can be assessed on either side of the floor, during a dead ball or live play, and can be assessed to both players and coaches[1. With that in mind, there should be on-off the floor stats for Doc Rivers.].

To no surprise, the Los Angeles Clippers and Phoenix Suns have been the two teams most affected by non-defensive three second technical fouls, tied for the league lead by allowing 48 points off them, but interestingly enough the Clippers also lead the league in points scored from technical fouls charged to their opponent with 35. About 25 percent of all points from technical fouls have come from games featuring at least one of those two teams.

Below is a look at them and the other 28 teams, both their offensive and defensive efficiency if we filter out points from those techs:

The results may or may not be underwhelming since we are taking anywhere from roughly four minutes of scoring to 24 from teams who have now played 80 or more games and defended over 7,000 possessions, but it’s still enough to move the rankings around, even if only slightly. The Clippers would’ve moved up two spots defensively, from 16th to 14th, and placed above the league-average mark currently at 106.6 but when filtering out techs it would be at 106.3. That may have been a big deal, fair or not, with end-of-season awards right around the corner.[2. Utah would drop two places in defensive efficiency, from 15th to 17th.]

The Clippers have actually softened their difference on the defensive end over the last month, giving up just four points on techs over their last 16 games. Meanwhile, Phoenix has allowed eight tech points over their last ten games. Some teams like those two have allowed a good chunk of their points off technical fouls for a stretch of ten games or so, including the league-high five points in one game by the Clips at Cleveland on February 5. So then they also either managed to not get whistled for techs over other stretches of games or just got lucky their opponent missed their free throws. After all, DeAndre Jordan was given a technical foul Saturday night against Memphis, but Courtney Lee missed the free throw attempt[3. According to technical free throw stats from NBAwowy, league-average free throw percentage on all technical fouls is about 78 percent compared about 75 percent for non-technical free throw attempts. Those results are similar to a post at 82games back in 2006 dedicated to free throw shooting on technical fouls.].

So for the heck of it, I looked at some seven to 12-game stretches when teams allowed a bunch of tech points over that time:

Season totals and even the seven to 12-game samples are actually pretty tame compared to a legendary team 15 years ago: the 2000-01 Portland Trail Blazers, led by Rasheed Wallace and his 41 (!!!) technical fouls. During that season, the Blazers reached the Clips and Suns’ current total of 48 technical points allowed by their 39th game and finished the season with 84, though they only allowed one point over their last eight games. That made their year-long difference on the defensive end with and without those fouls a little better.

There were several stretches around ten games long from those Blazers that were impressive, but they also had much longer ones over multiple months that just aren’t sustainable in today’s NBA. Those were what I looked at just out of curiosity, otherwise the smaller stretches of games would feel endless. Below are some numbers crunched over at SacTown Royalty and with game logs from Basketball-Reference, though these are estimates.[4. To get estimated possession totals, I also factored in technical foul free throws from opposing teams.]:

It’s still a long way to go for the Clippers, Suns, and the rest of the league to reach what the 2001 Blazers had done. With how suspensions are handed out these days after reaching a certain number of technical fouls (unless they’re rescinded later), it doesn’t look like they will be surpassed any time soon. For DeAndre Jordan and the Clippers, though, maybe their technical fouls still made a meaningful difference when considering awards for defense.