Over the years, analytics have become an increasingly large part of NBA basketball. With the rise of the three-pointer and modern, high-scoring offenses, analytics have been a way for teams to track these trends using real-time, on-court numbers.
Still, analytics should be the last thing mentioned for a team that just got swept out of the NBA playoffs. In Cleveland, for example, their series loss somehow did not stop head coach Kenny Atkinson from claiming that his team actually “won” analytically, sparking a fierce response from Josh Hart ahead of Game 1 on Wednesday.
“I guess we lost analytically. I think technically they’re up 3-2, analytically speaking,” Hart said on the ‘Roommates Show. “I mean, there are a lot of things that analytics don’t show or don’t take into account,” he added. “I just always thought analytics were like, geeky unathletic white guys that wanted to be a part of the league but just couldn’t make it playing basketball, so they decided to put math into the equation. So, that’s always how I felt analytics are.”
Teams have put more and more stock in analytics lately, believing that advanced metrics are the key to success. Internally, coaches and scouts use analytics (specifically through stats like VORP, effective field goal percentage, and turnover rate) to gauge the value of certain players, lineups, or rotations.
For the Cavs, analytics was part of the formula, and coach Atkinson clearly paid attention to it, as he couldn’t help but bring it up in the face of defeat.
“We’ve had really good moments in this series,” Atkinson said, via the Cavaliers. “Up 20 Game 1. Even Game 2, take that run out from the beginning of the third quarter, and it’s pretty tight. I think analytically, I think we’ve won the expected, I said three out of three, we’re two out of three in the expected… There’s an expected score, and we won two out of three.”
Numbers don’t mean everything in the NBA, and there are plenty of little things that impact a game that do not show up on the stat sheet. The gritty, selfless plays are never counted, and neither is defensive intensity or execution. Multiple NBA players have expressed this over the years, including Kevin Durant and Paul George. Former Lakers coach Bryonn Scott even claimed that it’s ruining the NBA.
The Cavaliers learned that the hard way this summer, when they failed to even win one game against the Knicks, despite the combined efforts of Donovan Mitchell, James Harden, Evan Mobley, and Jarrett Allen.
The Knicks, meanwhile, aren’t concerned with the analytics. Since the very start, they’ve always played within the flow of the game, making adjustments as they see fit. The result is a Knicks team that’s looked like a well-oiled machine on both ends of the floor, easily dispatching competitors as the best in the East.
Rather than focusing on the analytics, New York is focusing on a more practical side of the game, and it’s been a winning formula so far. Going into Game 1, they’ll be going against an equally worthy Spurs squad, and it’s going to take everything in their power to come out on top.
