Kings - Mavs Defensive Statistics and Analysis

Well, last night’s game against the Mavs wasn’t nearly as fun as the Grizzlies game, but it was a pretty predictable loss playing back-to-back on the road with our only 7 players who have played together before logging very heavy minutes.

For a quick recap, I will be tracking Heavily Contest Shots (HC), Lightly Contested Shots (LC), Altered/Blocked Shots (ABS), Forced Turnovers (FTO), and times a player was beaten 1 on 1 into the lane (BL).

Also, two new stats I added for this game were Post Scored Upon (SCU) and Post Stops (PST). These are obviously meant to track the results of what happens when a player is posted up on. One strategic mistake I made for tracking this game was only counting it as a stop if the offensive player shot and missed. For the next game, I will track any time a player gets the ball in the hoop and makes an aggressive move but it rebuked. I’ll explain this further in another post tomorrow.


Let’s start with our defensive player of the game.

Andres Nocioni – I’ll be honest, my first inclination was to say no one. However, aside from actually communicating on defense (you could hear him yelling over the tv), Noc actually heavily contest 5 shots (4 of 5 resulted in misses), forced two turnovers, and stopped Dirk on 50% of his post ups. JT actually did better against Dirk in the post, forcing him out further and contesting his turnarounds well. However, I’ll give Noc the nod for his aggressive D and good close outs.


And our defensive goat of the game:

Kevin Martin – He’s 2 for 2 right now. Again, he is on the court for 30+ minutes and he had 0 altered/blocked shots, 0 heavily contested shots, and only one lightly contested shot. He was a non-factor. Unlike last game, he did not force a single turnover against the Mavs either.

Other notes:

- Spencer Hawes was miserable in the post. Dampier and Bass took turns getting good post position and Spence was scored on 4 out of the 5 times he was posted up. He allowed Bass to get very deep position for a couple of short jumpers as well. I will give him credit for being move active today though. He did have 1 altered/blocked shot, 5 heavily contested shots and 10 lightly contested shots. Unfortunately, too many lightly contested shots were either weak attempts at D against his own man or getting out to contest a shooter/penetrator too late. His contesting did not do much good either as players were hitting a lot of shots over him, but that may be more a factor of luck. If he stays this active off the ball, it should lead to better results in the future.

- Francisco Garcia was active again this game, but was limited due to foul trouble. He still managed 2 ABS, 3 HC and 4 LC. He also forced two turnovers and was only beaten into the lane once.

- Bobby Jackson continued to lightly contest a lot of shots (3) while only heavily contesting 1 shot. Obviously he has lost a few steps from his prime.

- Donte Greene plays fewer minutes and was quieter today, but still altered/blocked 1 shot and heavily contested 2 more (both misses). He is really starting to show some defensive potential. His length and ability to close quickly seems to bother shooters and allows him to contest shots at the rim. Vaguely reminiscent of what Lamar Odom does for the Lakers.

- As a team we allowed the Mavs to get far too many uncontested baskets, including 9 in the fourth quarter alone.

Statistics – Min – ABS – HC – LC – BL – FTO-PSU-PST

Beno Udrih – 38 – 0 - 5 – 5 – 4 – 1 - 1- 0
Kevin Martin – 30 – 0 - 0 – 1 – 1 – 0 – 1 -1
Jason Thompson – 19 – 0 – 0 – 4 – 0 – 2 – 2 -2
Francisco Garcia – 30 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 1 – 2 – 1 - 0
Spencer Hawes – 23 – 1 – 5 – 10 – 0 – 4 – 4- 1
Bobby Jackson – 23 - 0 – 1 – 3 – 1 – 1 - 1 - 0
Donte Greene – 21 – 1 – 2 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 - 0
Andres Nocioni – 30 – 0 – 5 – 1 – 1 – 2 – 2 – 2
Will Solomon – 11 – 0 – 0 – 1 – 0 – 1 – 0 - 0