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Nylon Calculus: Warriors-Trail Blazers win probabilities, assist maps, style charts and more

By Andrew Patton

PORTLAND, OR - FEBRUARY 13: Stephen Curry #30 of the Golden State Warriors and Damian Lillard #0 of the Portland Trail Blazers talk a;tg; on February 13, 2019 at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2019 NBAE (Photo by Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Images)
PORTLAND, OR - FEBRUARY 13: Stephen Curry #30 of the Golden State Warriors and Damian Lillard #0 of the Portland Trail Blazers talk a;tg; on February 13, 2019 at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and/or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2019 NBAE (Photo by Sam Forencich/NBAE via Getty Images) /
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Previewing the second-round series between the Golden State Warriors and Portland Trail Blazers with shot charts, assist maps, offensive style charts and expected win probabilities.

Shot charts

After another postseason defeat of the Houston Rockets, the Golden State Warriors move on to the Western Conference Finals, but down Kevin Durant for an unknown length of time. While Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson can still light up the nets without Durant, anytime a team loses a first-team All-NBA type player, the offense is bound to suffer. In the below gifs, the cumulative points per shot is displayed in cumulative five-game increments through the season. The figures are broken up by shots taken with Durant on the court (n = 5727) and Durant off the court (n = 2614). It’s no surprise that efficiency decreases when a player like Durant is on the bench, but how his absence is handled over the course of several games will no doubt be a major determinant in the series.

Right after a grueling seven-and-a-half game series against the Denver Nuggets, the Portland Trail Blazers get the next opportunity to dethrone the Golden State Warriors. With Damian Lillard and Stephen Curry going at it from deep, offensive fireworks might be expected. Of note, however, is Golden State’s defense. On the year, they have given up a staggering 48.5 percent on step back and pull-up 3s (284/585). With Lillard likely to pull the trigger early and often from deep (very deep), how Golden State defends him is crucial. He’s “only” at 38.6 percent on step back and pull-up 3s, so any increase in efficiency in that area could bode well for Portland.

— Andrew Patton (@anpatt7)

Offensive style chart

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 of 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.

— Ian Levy (@HickoryHigh)

Assist maps: Draymond Green

Draymond Green isn’t your typical primary creator. He doesn’t drive to the basket much (just 1.5 times per game); he can’t create scoring chances in isolation (only 0.2 possessions per game); and his shooting certainly isn’t proficient enough to create space for his teammates (a lousy 28.5 percent on 3s).

And yet — it is Green who is in charge of distributing the ball to the league’s highest-powered offense. During the 2019 postseason, he is the Warrior who has touched the ball the most (88.2 touches per game); he is the one who has made the most passes (71.1 passes per game — 20 more than even Stephen Curry); and he is the one who leads the team in assists (8.0 per game).

With Kevin Durant sidelined by a calf strain for at least the first few games of the Western Conference Finals, the smart play for Portland will be to double team Stephen Curry early and often. If the Blazers are blitzing and trapping Curry on high pick-and-rolls, the ball will find its way into the hands of Green with even more regularity, as it did in Game 6 against Houston. Green tallied a whopping 86 passes on 102 touches in his team’s close-out win on Friday (both game highs), as the Rockets attempted to force the ball out of Curry’s hands.

It’s in these scenarios — with the ball in the middle of the court looking to exploit a 4-on-3 advantage — where Green demonstrates his special skills as a creator. He attacks the basket looking to draw the back-line defender away from the hoop so he can lob passes over his head. For example, during this postseason, Green has already set-up Andre Iguodala with an assist at the rim on 16 different occasions; 7 times on an alley-oop dunks, alone. If help defenders get sucked into the paint to stop his penetration, Green also has the quick decision-making skills and vision necessary to find open shooters with kick-out assists for 3. In general, his commitment to moving the ball swiftly to his open teammates helps to keep the Warriors offense flowing as it should. Durant’s absence will give Green an opportunity to really shine as a creative force for Golden State once more.

— Todd Whitehead (@CrumpledJumper)

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 and has correctly identified the winner in 78 percent of games in these playoffs.

The Warriors come into the series as strong favorites, winning in 84 percent of the 10,000 simulations. The average length of the series was 5.6 games, with the Warriors sweeping in 18 percent of simulations. The Blazers will have a very quick turnaround after finishing the Nuggets off in seven games. With Durant’s health in question, he is counted as out for the entire series in these projections to give a worst case scenario look for the Warriors. If KD is able to play from Game 1, the model gives the Warriors a 93 percent chance to win the series with a 61 percent chance to win in four or five games. The Blazers are a fun, explosive team that will not go out without a fight, but at the end of the day the Warriors might just have too much talent even without KD for this series to go the distance. Especially if KD is able to play and looks like himself, the Warriors should be expected to move on to the NBA Finals for the fifth consecutive year.

— Jacob Goldstein (@JacobEGoldstein)

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