FanShot

A concern for the Clippers

12

You'll need Insider to read the whole thing but essentially Tom Haberstroh is breaking down the schedule and looking at how teams will handle the back to backs of this condensed season. He specifically discussed the Clippers. But do familiar teams actually play better in a crunch? It sure seems that way. The following chart illustrates the relationship of continuity and performance in back-to-backs. If you're a coach, you want to see your team in the top right of the chart: good performance and familiar faces. The bottom left? Well, that's when you get some ugly play along with some new faces. Sorry, Clippers fans. Evidently, continuity isn't just an empty load of coachspeak: We're seeing a pretty consistent relationship above (and a stronger relationship than what we see in regular games). Teams that play well on back-to-backs tend to have a lot of continuity on their roster. Other teams have struggled with their new teammates when they hit the grind. You rarely see a team with low continuity and a good record or a bad record and a high retention rate (notice the empty pockets in the bottom right and top left corners). The Clippers, as good as they might be, have really struggled to maintain their performance when they play without any rest. So it's not just that bad teams play poorly; unfamiliar ones do, too.

Trending Discussions