Winning The Math Game
The Pelicans seek to overcome the impending 3pt differential through offensive rebounding and winning the possession battle
Twitter nerds and basketball fans alike will have noticed many NBA personalities discuss winning the “math game”. This can mean a few different things, and as the game has evolved, it has come to be synonymous with trading long twos for threes. There are, however, a few other ways to win the “math game”, and the simplest one is to have more scoring opportunities than the opponent.
How does this math work? At the simplest level, a team that shoots 50% on 8 two point shots will score 8 points. If the opponent team manages to take 10 shots, a mere two more, they only have to hit 40% of them to match the point total. At a large enough level, teams can overcome good shooting nights by opponents or their own poor shooting nights by simply getting more scoring opportunities. A team that has 100 scoring attempts to an opponents’ 80 has a much larger margin of error.
Typical games don’t have tend to have a 20 possession margin, but through turnovers and rebounds, there can end up being significant discrepancies in one team’s scoring attempts vs another. A team can live getting outscored from the 3pt line by 15 if they outscore the opponent by 16 on second chance points. A simplistic example, yet it illustrates the give and take nature of trying to win the math game.
Not every team can win the numbers on all fronts - if a team was capable of doing it, they would be a dynastic juggernaut. The staff has to get together and decide what approach is best for their roster. For the Willie Green, this means doubling down on offensive rebounds.
”We wanna create opportunities where we get extra possessions,” said Green after the first preseason game. “We want to be able to crash, especially from our corners, from our wings.”
CJ would agree with him. “The more possessions you can get the better, right?” says CJ, “It’s hard to score. But if you’re able to get 2 or 3 opportunities to score on a possession, I think you’re really giving yourself a chance.”
Green and the team are deeply cognizant of the math game being played. Each interview, Green gives insight into how the team is approaching possession efficiency. He’s also aware of the trade offs. If teams are not disciplined enough, crashing the offensive glass can lead to runouts on the other end. But that doesn’t deter Green. When it comes to the balance of transition defense and offensive rebounds, he still prefers the rebounds.
“I think for us it’s doubling down on the offensive rebounds. We’ve looked at some numbers and seen where that pays dividends. Doubling down on offensive rebounds, looking to kick out for threes. A lot of transition baskets, unfortunately, they happen on live ball turnovers. So if we can cut down on those, that’ll help us in transition. But any time we have an opportunity offensively to crash the glass, we want to.”
This quote demonstrates a tremendous amount insight into the Pelicans’ process analytically. The last two years, the team has been quite good at transition defense, and they know it.
Since Willie Green arrived in New Orleans, the Pelicans have finished 4th and 10th in offensive rebounding. Correspondingly, they finished 2nd and 10th in transition defense efficiency. It doesn’t correlate for all teams, but the Pelicans were a better transition defense team the year they were 4th in offensive rebounds.
Likewise, the Pelicans have been good to elite when it comes to defending off their own misses. They led the league in defensive efficiency off live rebounds in Willie’s first year, sliding to 11th his second. One thing I want to make note of is how dramatic the difference between live ball turnovers and missed shots is from an efficiency standpoint. The year the Pelicans were 5th in defending off steals, they were still allowing an ORTG of 132.7 on those plays. This is why Willie Green deems it critical to avoid turnovers.
”We gotta do a better job of taking care of the basketball. That keeps teams out of transition.”
Now some of the Pelicans slippage last year can be attributed to the mass of injuries. With Zion out for the majority of the season, the team lost not only one of the most dynamic offensive rebounders in the game, but their best offensive player. As the offense took a tailspin, the number of missed shots and turnovers increased - allowing teams to enjoy a larger amount of time in transition.
The other aspect of slippage can be attributed to playing much smaller lineups than the previous year. In Green’s first year, the team saw a lot of success with Jaxson Hayes at the 4 and seldom closed small. This past year, the team almost exclusively closed small with Larry Nance at the 5 spot. The Nance small ball units clocked an OREB% of 25.5, which would put them at 34th percentile across the league. However, with Zion in the lineup, the units were 99th percentile at avoiding transition situations on defense.
It’s really hard to overstate the impact Zion himself has on the team’s defense. Not because he’s an elite defender - but because teams routinely have to send 4 guys to keep him off the glass and end up being unable to run. Not only that, he finishes possessions at such high efficiency, it allows the Pelicans to play half court defense at an ungodly rate. When Nance and Zion were on the court together, the Pelicans spent 82.9% of their defensive possessions in half court - once again 99th percentile - much thanks to their 123.8 ORTG. Their offense drives their defense.
Larry Nance, Jr. thinks it also wears teams down.
”Z is a bully in the paint. Brandon likes to get in the paint. CJ likes to get in the midrange. Herb wants to get in the paint. We have a lot of guys that like to play around the rim, so when you get in there, I think Utah did this to us a little bit last year, Houston did it a little bit to us, where you get enough bodies in there, it’s taxing. It wears you down. You get to the fourth quarter and box outs become less, and rotations become less because guys are tired of fighting you up underneath the rim.”
As Nance highlights, this roster is uniquely suited for success on the glass. With a dearth of shooters and the absence of Trey Murphy, the Pelicans will have to utilize all their weapons towards winning the possession battle. A strong focus in this area coupled with a Zion led offense should pay massive dividends on the defensive end.