Nylon Calculus: Cavaliers-Pacers win probabilities, style, matchups and more

This is the annual first round match-up where everyone just assumes LeBron James will roll over the opposition. You can see it in the betting markets who greatly favor the Cavaliers when team stats see the series more evenly. But all things fail eventually; it’s just a question of when. Cleveland absolutely created some doubts this season after some awful stretches of basketball. You could write a novella about their issues, so I’ll focus on this: what will their frontcourt rotation be? Based on pure production, it should be Larry Nance Jr., Kevin Love, and LeBron James in some situations as the power forward. There’s also Jeff Green, who should be used sparingly as a “big man” because of his limitations on the boards and in paint defense; it’s match-up dependent.

Tristan Thompson, sadly, has fallen far; he was the starting center on their title team but they just have not been effective when he’s played, due to a loss in quickness and other factors. I’m not sure how much he’ll be used, but based on this season Cleveland fans are hoping it’s infrequently. Reports suggest the Cavaliers will keep going small with their starters with Jeff Green and Kevin Love. That was successful, but it hasn’t been their best lineup, which you can see in the table below. I’m not saying I know for certain what will work best, but it’s a question the Cavaliers need answered during the first round before the competition gets tougher.

Table: frontcourt pairs with LeBron James on court (NBAWOWY.com)

— Justin Willard (@AcrossTheCourt)

Defensive matchups

As has been well-chronicled throughout the season, Victor Oladipo has emerged as a bonafide impact player — the type that opposing teams build game plans around.

During the regular season, he averaged 23 points per game on 58 percent true shooting and 30 percent usage. Indiana had an offensive rating of 109 when he was on the floor and a mere 103 when he was off. His defensive contributions were just as (if not more) significant, so when accounting for teammates, opponents, and other factors, his Real Plus-Minus ranked in the top 10.

The Cavs had a glimpse of Oladipo’s improved play during their regular-season matchup. In these four games, he scored 25 points per game on 55 percent true shooting and 30 percent usage. His 3-point percentage was somewhat higher than normal, but otherwise his performance against Cleveland was consistent with how he fared against the rest of the league.

The playoffs might be a different story, though — or, at least, we shouldn’t be surprised if they reveal a deviation from the regular season.

The following chart shows how the Cavs matched up defensively against the Pacers to date. Each line indicates the defender who spent the most time guarding a specific offensive player on a given possession. The thicker the line, the more frequent the matchup.

JR Smith served as the primary defender on 77 percent of Oladipo’s offensive possessions. If you’ve been following our playoff previews, you’ll likely note that such frequency is pretty high for a player outside the big-man position, and it was consistently that way from game to game.

This rate seems liable to change. Not only did the regular-season series finish before the trade deadline, when the Cavs overhauled their roster, but Smith has also recently been moved to a reserve role. Instead, Jeff Green appears slated to guard Oladipo, with head coach Tyronn Lue touting the forward’s versatility.

And who knows? Perhaps we’ll see “Playoff LeBron” in a critical defensive moment, too.

— Positive Residual (@presidual)

Offensive styles

These charts are not meant to evaluate whether an offense is good or bad. They are designed to help illustrate how teams go about the goal of trying to put the ball in the basket. Each team’s offense is evaluated on four stylistic spectrums.

Ball movement is measured with the average touch time for each team, from the NBA’s player tracking statistics. A lower average touch time means the ball is moving from player to player more quickly.

Player movement is measured with a combination different NBA.com tracking statistics, and works out to average distance traveled per 24 seconds of offensive possession.

Pace is measured with the average length of an offensive possession from Inpredictable, a more accurate representation for how quickly a team is working than traditional pace.

Shot selection is measured with MoreyBall percentage — in this case the percentage of a team’s true shooting opportunities that came at the rim, from the free throw line, or on a 3-pointer. It’s a generalized measure but captures something about how much each team hews to the shots that are, on average, the most efficient.

On the graph below you’ll see a line for each team’s offense. As the line moves away from the center of the graph on each axis you’re seeing more of that stylistic trait. For example, shot selection shows a (hypothetically) more efficient shot selection the further you are from center. Here’s how the Cavaliers and Pacers match up.

The Pacers have played a very distinct style this season. Although they score a lot in transition they don’t play at a fact pace overall, and they’re very comfortable taking open mid-range shots. Cleveland, on the other hand, plays a style more similar to Houston — lots of 3s, up-tempo, not much movement in the halfcourt as a dominant creator pounds the ball.

— Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)

Win probabilities

To project the series, I am using my in-season game projection model. The model is trained off historical game data, and accounts for rest, travel, team strength, and matchup. Since I began using the model to predict outcomes, I have been able to correctly identify the winner in about 70 percent of games.

The Cavaliers will be coming into this series as strong favorites to advance against a surprisingly strong, young Pacers team. Nearly everyone counted the Pacers out when they lost Paul George this past summer, but the team clicked and pushed for the No. 5 seed behind a star performance from Victor Oladipo. The most likely outcome of the series is Cavaliers winning in five games, occurring in over a quarter of simulations. The Pacers odds to win approach closer to one in three if they can push the series to six or seven games. There is a small chance of an upset here if playoff LeBron does not make an appearance, but look for the Cavaliers to move on to the conference semifinals after a quick, but competitive, series.

— Jacob Goldstein (@JacobEGoldstein)