More Of What The Numbers Can Tell Us About The Series

Delving further, this time into what the numbers can tell us about the playoff series between the Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks.

Milwaukee Bucks on the season as whole, with John Salmons, and before the trade for Salmons.

First the offense:

Name	Poss	Off Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
Season	90.2	1.068	48.3	18.1	26.2	14.4
with Salmons	88.1	1.083	48.8	19.2	26.4	14.5
before Salmons	91.4	1.059	48	17.5	26.1	14.4

And the defense:

Name	Poss	Def Eff	eFG%	FT Rate	OR%	TO%
Season	90.2	1.048	48.6	34.8	23.6	16.8
with Salmons	88.1	1.026	47	32.2	24	16.3
before Salmons	91.4	1.061	49.5	36.2	23.4	17

The Hawks have five units that played at least 115 minutes together this season. Four of those five outscored their opponents. The three units that played together the most each outscored opponents by at least five points per 100 possessions.

Unit	Min	Off Eff	Def Eff	Diff
Bibby/Johnson/Williams/Josh Smith/Horford	1169	109.1	103.6	+5.5
Bibby/Crawford/Johnson/Josh Smith/Horford	406	120.7	108.9	+11.8
Crawford/Johnson/Williams/Josh Smith/Horford	356	119.1	108.9	+10.2
Teague/Crawford/Evans/Joe Smith/Pachulia	146	109	111.6	-2.6
Crawford/Johnson/Evans/Josh Smith/Horford	115	117.7	116.1	+1.6

You may have noticed that those units including Jamal Crawford give up a lot more points than does the starting lineup. Here's Crawford's on/off numbers for the season:

Crawford 09-10	Off Eff	Def Eff	Diff
on court	113.3	109	+4.3
off court	109.5	103.8	+5.7

Crawford's on court numbers might be hurt by the volume of minutes he plays in the fourth quarter* as it includes both the team's worst struggles (both offensively and defensively) and garbage time.

*Crawford led the league, playing 864 minutes of fourth quarters this season. Jason Terry was second with 781. (Courtesy ESPN Stats and Information)

Milwaukee hasn't played any one unit more than 258 minutes this season. Their expected starting lineup for the playoffs has played just under 105 minutes together. Here are Milwaukee's five most used units.

Unit	Min	Off Eff	Def Eff	Diff
Jennings/Delfino/Salmons/Mbah a Moute/Bogut	258	105.2	90.9	+14.3
Jennings/Bell/Delfino/Mbah a Moute/Bogut	178	107.1	101.2	+5.9
Jennings/Bell/Delfino/Ilyasova/Bogut	118	108.9	84.7	+24.2
Jennings/Delfino/Salmons/Mbah a Moute/Thomas	105	110.2	116.7	-6.5
Jennings/Bell/Delfino/Warrick/Bogut	102	101.9	96.6	+5.3

Here are Milwaukee's five most used units consisting only of players that available for the series:

Unit	Min	Off Eff	Def Eff	Diff
Jennings/Delfino/Salmons/Mbah a Moute/Thomas	105	110.2	116.7	-6.5
Ridnour/Delfino/Stackhouse/Ilyasova/Thomas	89	105.1	108.9	-3.8
Ridnour/Salmons/Stackhouse/Ilyasova/Thomas	53	103	84.5	+18.5
Jennings/Bell/Delfino/Ilyasova/Gadzuric	48	106.1	102.1	+4
Jennings/Salmons/Delfino/Ilyasova/Thomas	40	106.7	100	+6.7

It's a good thing the Hawks play a certain style of basketball regardless of the opposition. There's simply not much tape on the short-handed Bucks to watch in order to formulate a game plan specific to their current makeup.

One possible downside of the Hawks playing a certain style of basketball regardless of the opposition is the specter of Scott Skiles figuring out a way to stifle Atlanta's isolation offense. The Bucks haven't stopped Joe Johnson yet this season (27.3 PPG, 56.1 TS% in the three games) but they are unlikely to see him used in a wide variety of sets. Only Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James had more plays run for them in isolation than Johnson and of the top five players in the league is isolation plays, Johnson was fifth at creating points off of isolations.

Name	Plays	Pts per Play
Carmelo Anthony	729	0.91
LeBron James	660	0.97
Joe Johnson	603	0.88
Kevin Durant	591	0.98
Kobe Bryant	579	0.95

(Courtesy ESPN Stats and Information)

At Basketball-Reference.com, Neil Paine has a useful capsule preview comparing the two teams.