Liberty 59, Chicago Sky 49: The Stat Analysis

by Ray Floriani on Aug 6, 2011 12:37 PM EDT in WNBA

Those of us studying and utilizing tempo-free stats love it when a coach or player lauds a defensive (or offensive effort). A quick look at the possessions and points to give us offensive efficiency, tells us more - just because you held a team to 49 points does not mean the defense was great. What if it were a 55 possession contest? In the case of the New York Liberty's 59-49 victory over the Chicago Sky on Thursday afternoon, the defense did anything but rest.

Exhibit A : The possessions and efficiency

Possessions Offensive Efficiency

Chicago 70 70

NY 74 80

The Sky did not do a bad job on their defensive end, but John Whisenant's Liberty was in lock-down mode holding the Windy City reps to an offensive rating of 70.

Whisenant said last week he expected and sees his team getting better defensively as the season wears on. It is simply a case of his personnel learning and getting comfortable with his defensive 'package' or system. Playing your best defense as playoff time rolls around is everyone's objective.

The Four Factors:

eFG FT Rate OREB Pct TO Rate

Chicago 35 23 34 31

NY 41 11 29 20

As has been the case very frequently this season, the Liberty were out-rebounded on the offensive end. But not enough to have a big difference as the numbers further attest to their defensive excellence. Chicago was forced into an absurdly high 31% turnover rate. That, coupled with a 35% effective field goal mark (1 of 9 from three did not help) spelled doom.

The Sky did have an edge on the line. They shot 17 free throw attempts to the Liberty's eight. Again, chalk some of that up to the home team's defensive intensity. When you play tough defense there is the chance of committing aggressive fouls. You want to avoid fouling, but here the Liberty did not do anything to hurt themselves with a little extra fouling.

Added defensive notes: Sylvia Fowles was the lone visiting player in double figures. Fowles scored 11 points on 5 of 8 shooting from the floor. In fact, she was the only Chicago player, with 5 or more field goal attempts, that exceeded 50% shooting.

The Sky were held to single digit scoring in two quarters. They scored 8 the second period and one, yes one, in the final ten minutes of the game.

Points and Win scores :

The respective leaders....

Points WS

Sylvia Fowles, Chi 11 10

Cappie pondexter, NY 15 1

Nicole Powell, NY 13 1.5

Fowles helped her case not only with her 5-of-8 shooting but 8 rebounds and only one turnover. Powell led all rebounders with ten. A 5-of-16 shooting afternoon coupled with 4 turnovers affected the Win Score. Pondexter earned scoring accolades but her 6 of 16 from the field and a 3 assist, 2 turnover performance also decreased the WS.

Records: Chicago is now 9-12 while the Liberty improved to 12-8.

Attendance was 10,133 on Camp Day.

Tweet Comment 1 comment | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Read More: new york liberty, chicago sky

Comments

I'd Like to Add to that fairly interesting analysis

I did not watch this particular N.Y. vs. the Sky match but
the box score shows that Ray’s analysis is accurate to a substantial degree.

Still, any professional basketball team that scores only one point in a quarter
must have deeply mysterious offensive problems, such as the Sky have experienced.

One non-mysterious problem is their 3 point shooting strategy, a problem
that has plagued the Bulls at various points in the past 30 years. If a team does not have
consistently effective 3 point shooting, their offense is usually fairly predictable.
The Sky, in this 59-49 failure, only attempted 9 three point shots. On average, most
teams in the top three positions in the East and West attempt double or almost double that amount of 3 point shots per night. The Sky shot .111 from 3 point range, not any surprise because at 34.6% they have the 3rd worst team three point percentage in the league. I would bet that their weighted-average 3 point percentage is THE worst.
I would also bet that their team weighted-average field goal percentage is 2nd or 3rd worst in the league.

So what were the Sky probably doing? What they are frequently doing. Attempting to force the ball with passes to a person that is double or triple covered for a supercontested turnaround jump shot or slow drives towards the lane that give the defense adequate
time to create double coverage on the Sky player who pulls up for a supercontested pull up jump shot. They also have a habit of half-ass effort on their not-that-contested lay ups.
This is exactly how the Bulls performed in their worst offensive years. Neither team spreads the defense to relieve the pressure on the person who eventually takes the shot. Each team is noticeably supbar at moving on offense without the ball and this is a significant part of their extraordinary turnover problems (so is their impatient pass selection).

This is not a result of coaching. This is a result of player habits. It does not require
an above average defensive effort to shutdown this type of offense.

San Antonio and Minnesota were the opposite of the Sky offense on 8/4 when
I watched those teams play on NBA TV and to a large degree that is why both teams
are almost guaranteed to EASILY qualify for the playoffs this year. The identical case can be made for Seattle and Connecticut in general and their performances on 8/5 on NBA TV provided an excellent examples.

Hopefully for the Sky and their fans the Sky are going to figure it out. Perhaps Epiphany Prince can recover from the All Star curse she apparently is experiencing (she has shot 33% or worse the last 3 times the Sky have performed and each time they were playing against a defense from the middle or bottom part of the league standings-L.A., Tulsa, and New York.).

These are mysterious results for a team this talented.

by 77DJK on Aug 6, 2011 6:34 PM EDT reply actions