For this particular part of the Mavericks-Nuggets review, most of the following was written on the same day this Report was posted. This is due to the importance of the fouling topics.
See the additional editorial notes at the end for more details about late postings and how they are not going to be a problem any longer.
FROM MAY 5, 2009, JUST AFTER GAME TWO OF THE EARLY MAY 2009 WEST SEMIFINAL SERIES BETWEEN THE DALLAS MAVERICKS AND THE DENVER NUGGETS
[Game Two was won by the Nuggets 117-105; the Nuggets lead the series 2 games to 0.]
Posted by ray_sir_6
Please tell me that was sarcasm. Even the announcers are pointing out the blatantly bad calls. "I could hear that foul from here" when they stole the ball from Terry. This was when they were either tied or within 2pts, so BIG SWAY in momentum courtesy of the refs.
"He made tons of contact, pushed the defender 6ft away." when Carmelo rammed Wright out of the way. And then they T'd up the Mavs coach for complaining.
"I see why Dirk is upset, that was clearing off the Nuggets" when the refs screwed yet another call.
The refs can control the flow of the game with their calls, and they were making the 4th quarter impossible for the Mavs to get going.
Oh, and the charge Damp took in the first half on the fast break wasn't in the protected area. He had both feet in front of it until he was contacted and he put his foot back where his heel was bearing on the line. It's a tit-tat call, but one I rewatched a few times, cause it looked to me that he was well out of the blocking circle....and he was.
I wish there would be more fairness in the calls the refs are making. I was thinking it was going well until the 4th started, and they weren't calling anything on Denver, but the Mavs seemed to be getting called on tit-tat fouls that wouldn't have been called earlier. Like Dampier getting a block on the baseline that they called a foul. It was a bad camera angle, but it didn't show any body contact, and if Damp got part of the hand, is was barely his pinkie, and 99% ball.
All very true.
The refs were horrible in game one and merely bad in game two. In game two they were better than game one, but don't be fooled, they were still bad in game two. Deserving special mention is that the touch fouls against Dallas have been out of control in this series.
The moral of this story is not that most or that even many games are going to be decided by the referees. The moral has to do with when one of the teams has a radical "fouling policy" that by definition the referees are not used to seeing. The moral is that it is possible for referees to be "steamrolled" by a team that is using a lot of intensity, energy and effort to partially camouflage a high fouling policy.
You don't normally have to be worried about and on the lookout for the referees calling a game very unequally. But you have to be worried and on the lookout when you know that your opponent plays fast and loose with the rules and intentionally operates a high fouling rate. So check the fouling rate stat of your opponents, and get ready to force the referees to call the game fairly if you have to, by having your team intentionally start fouling more (and harder) than usual, and/or by complaining up to and including getting a technical or two or three.
Keep in mind that it is a well known "secret" in basketball that getting a second technical (which throws you out of a game) is a long shot, since referees know they will come under a lot of scrutiny if they throw someone out of a game. So you have to be prepared to "use your free technical" by calling the referees out if your team is being steamrolled by the referees due to them having been steamrolled by a high fouling team.
That the Nuggets in 2008-09 operated a high fouling rate defense, and on offense a high "fouls obtained" policy, both of which on purpose, is obvious:
2008-09 DEFENSE: OPPONENT FREE THROWS / FIELD GOALS ATTEMPTED RATIO
--The NBA average in 2008-09 was .236
--The NBA overall average in the last 30 years is .241
--The 30 Championship winners of the last 30 years average .220
--The defensive FT / FGA "safe range," the range that almost all Quest winners are in, is .200 to .240
Denver Nuggets: .259 (6th highest in the NBA)
Dallas Mavericks: .225 (21st highest in the NBA)
2008-09 OFFENSE: FREE THROWS/FIELD GOALS ATTEMPTED RATIO
--The NBA average in 2008-09 was .236
--The NBA overall average in the last 30 years is .241
--The 30 Championship winnters of the last 30 years average .239
--The offensive FT / FGA "safe range," the range that almost all Quest winners are in, is .217 to .257
Denver Nuggets: .290 (highest in the NBA)
Dallas Mavericks: .224 (23rd highest in the NBA)
The prior year, 2007-08, the Nuggets defensive FT / FGA was only .203, which was way below the League average of .231. And this was just barely inside the low end of the safe range. The Nuggets were 26th on this in 2007-08 but then, as we have seen, they were 6th on this in 2008-09. So their policy was reversed, and they went from one extreme to the other. In other words, the Nuggets strategically and intentionally went from being an overweight on skilled defending to one overweight on aggressive and fouling type defending.
For the Nuggets, the two years were a tale of two completely different defenses, which by the way, regardless of which defense is more right and more wrong, is a sign of a franchise that is not sure of what it is doing and/or what it wants to be doing, which of course is a very large down signal with respect to whether that franchise could ever win the Quest.
Offensively, the Nuggets were completely consistent from 2007-08 to 2008-09. Unfortunately, they were consistently wrong! They were both years too much overweighting the importance of driving into the paint and getting fouls. In 2007-08, the Nuggets offensive FT / FGA was .259, second in the NBA whereas, as we have seen, in 2008-09, the Nuggets offensive FT / FGA was .290, the highest in the NBA. Since the Nuggets got a lot of uncontested fast break scores, ones where they could not possibly be fouled, the .290 number is especially extreme and radical. The Nuggets were literally off the deep end.
Folks, this is mostly if not entirely the handiwork of George Karl. Either because he is unable to coach a professional flow type of offense, or because he actually believes that flow offenses with some organization and consistency do more harm than good, he is constantly preaching to his players to drive the ball into the paint. Nuggets players under Karl are under fair warning that if they take as many jump shots as the average NBA player takes, they are subject to loss of playing time on the Nuggets. J.R. Smith in particular had to make radical changes in his playing style to accommodate the Karl demands.
In summary, the Nuggets were outside of the safe ranges three out of four times, and they were barely in the defensive safe range in 2007-08 when, given their lack of offensive quality, they should have fouled more than they did.
DALLAS MAVERICKS
As for Dallas, defensively they were .252 (9th in the NBA) on the FT / FGA in 2007-08 and, as we have seen, .225 (21st) in 2008-09. So they switched in the reverse direction that Denver did. But not only was the Dallas change in the reverse direction, it was much less radical a change than was the Denver change. And Dallas had less radical fouling policies than did Denver both years.
The Mavericks could have been a little less aggressive defensively in 2007-08, but regardless of that relatively minor complaint, it doesn’t seem that the Mavs were off base to any big extent either year.
Offensively, the Dallas Mavericks were .259 (7th in the NBA) on the FT / FGA in 2007-08 and, as we have seen, Dallas was .224 (23rd in the NBA) on the FT / FGA in 2008-09. So offensively, Dallas went from slighly overweight driving into the paint to slightly underweight. Both years, Dallas was in the offensive safe range.
It's interesting to note that from 2007-08 to 2008-09, the Mavericks offensively became less aggressive about driving into the paint, and so they got fewer free throws, whereas defensively, the Mavericks also reduced aggressiveness, in the sense that they fouled the opponent less than the year before. But these were not radical changes and, unlike the Nuggets, the Mavericks were within the safe range offensively both years.
Since I am not a Mavericks expert at this time, I can not exactly evaluate the Mavs' changes from 2007-08 to 2008-09. However, I can say that the Mavericks have been much less radical than the Nuggets have been, both defensively and offensively.
Amazingly, in terms of ranking, the Nuggets have been among either the top six teams or among the bottom six teams in the NBA on BOTH offensive and defensive foul policy BOTH years. So clearly they (incorrectly) think that extreme fouling / getting fouled policies might produce a Championship. Or else they are doing this for marketing reasons, trying to get more fans this way.
By contrast, the Mavericks have avoided the highest or lowest ranking extremes of the NBA both offensively and defensively both years.
CORRECT DEFENSIVE FOULING POLICY: A NUMERICAL UPDATE
The important thing is that if you want to win the Quest, you should avoid a high fouling defense, because although that will get you a few extra regular season wins, and it might possibly get you a few extra playoff wins, you will most definitely be toast should you (fortunately) reach a Conference Final with a high fouling defense.
Specifically, to have any chance at all of winning the Quest, your defensive FT/FGA should NOT be among the eight highest in the NBA, and it MUST be less than .250. On the other hand, unless you have a truly high skill defense, one like the Spurs did when they won several Rings in the last decade, you probably don't want to be among the ten lowest FT/FGA teams either. Therefore, unless your team is very highly skilled defensively, you want your team to be balanced and "middle of the road" with respect to fouling rate.
Numerically, you want your team to be between about .200 and about .240 on defensive FT/FGA. If you are above .240 you are fouling too much and if you are below .200 you are probably not fouling enough. If you are above .250 you have essentially zero chance of winning the Quest for the Ring. If you are below .190, you have zero chance unless you are one of the most skilled defenses in history.
For much more information about this important topic, see this Report. The two paragraphs immediately above is merely an extension of that Report.
CORRECT OFFENSIVE DRIVING INTO THE PAINT POLICY
I am going to quote from my own recent report on this:
Some basketball people simply believe that on offense, the more free throws earned, the better the offense. However, looking at this objectively, there is not anywhere near enough proof that this assertion is always or automatically correct. It is very clear that you should try to avoid being well below average in this, but whether you should be above average depends on your playmaking and shooting.
The reason you should avoid being substantially below the League average on this is simply that any offense, regardless of quality, is easier to defend the more predictable it is. And if you are below average in the free throw versus shot attempt ratio, it means you are not aggressively driving into the paint enough to test the interior defenses enough, which makes your offense too predictable and therefore makes it easier for the opponent to defend your playmaking and shooting.
However, if you are an above average playmaking and/or an above average shooting team, you will be to some extent shooting yourself in the foot and squandering your offensive edge if you overweight driving to the rack for fouls. So, if you have a high quality offense in general, you are advised to keep your offense between a little below average and a little above average in the free throw attempts versus field goal attempts ratio.
Always remember, do NOT attempt to be way above average in free throw attempts versus field goal attempts if you have a high quality offense. And remember the other side of that coin: you can not simply by overweighting driving for fouls achieve a high quality offense. This is actually a dumb mistake. You can't depend on a combination of interior defending lapses, referees calling every foul, and making most of your free throws to make up for a general lack of offensive quality. To have any chance at all to contend for a Ring, you MUST have a high quality offense that is NOT dependent (for scoring) on driving into the paint a lot more than other teams do.
On the other hand, if you have a poor point guard, and/or you have poor playmaking, and/or you have poor shooting, you can make up for one or more of these deficiencies to some extent by overweighting driving into the paint and earning more free throws. The worse the quality of your offense, the more you should resort to driving to the rack and trying to earn free throws more than most teams do. But again, although if you are a medium or lower quality offense overall you can force a better offensive result by overweighting drives to the rack, and although you might possibly win an extra playoff game or two by doing so, you can not and will not become a contender for a Championship just by doing this.
The important thing is to calibrate the overall quality of your "field goal offense" with to what extent you drive the ball into the paint. The higher the quality of your overall and of your field goal offense, the less you should overweight driving into the paint.
OFFENSIVE DRIVING INTO THE PAINT STRATEGY NUMERICALLY (NEW):
If you are a Quest contender overall, you honestly rate the real quality of your offense. In most cases, if you are a serious contender in the Quest, your offensive FT/FGA should be between .217 and .257, and your NBA rank should generally be between #10 and #20. The higher the quality of your point guard and your offensive flow, the lower you should be in that range, (and the lower you should be ranked) and vice versa.
You can NOT expect to gain more than a trivial number of extra regular season wins by overweighting driving into the hoop and by having an offensive FT / FGA higher than .257. So on offense, unlike on defense, you can not substantially change your regular season result, let alone your Championship chances, simply by ramping up the “aggressiveness factor”.
GENERAL SUMMARY
You should avoid being radically high or radically low on either offensive FT / FGA or on defensive FT / FGA. At a bare minimum, you almost always need to avoid being in the top six or the bottom six teams on either. In most cases, you want to be within the numerical ranges indicated above. Exactly where in those ranges you want to be depends on quality assessments of your offense and your defense that have been described.
REAL TIME MONITORING
You can real time monitor the crucial FT / FGA ratios for NBA teams in 2009-10 here. This page is not active yet, but it will presumably become active no later than when the season begins.
========== Editorial Notes ==========
--The above was written in early May, 2009.
--As promised, we are finally posting material written and posted on forums in the spring. Obviously, if you have your own site, you should be posting at least simultaneously on your own site when you for whatever reason post elsewhere. But there has been a bad habit of not doing so, a bad habit that is being beaten down due to new content sharing regulations that have teeth.
========== VIDEO PLAYERS ==========
DALLAS MAVERICKS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER
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DENVER NUGGETS 2009 MOST POPULAR VIDEOS PLAYER
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