The W Column: Home Warriors

by Atma Brother ONE on Dec 26, 2006 10:24 AM PST in The W Column

If you take a close look at the Warriors' record through 29 games this season, you'll notice that they've struggled mightily on the road, but been dominant at home. I did a little number crunching comparing shot attempts, shooting accuracy, rebounds, assists, turnovers, steals, blocks, fouls, points scored, and points allowed to investigate why this Warriors squad was so bad away from the Bay, but so good at the Oracle Arena. This edition of The W Column Home Warriors details what the numbers revealed.

Check out the article and make sure drop your thoughts on why you think the Warriors have been so dominant at home in the comments.

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Interesting

The biggest find you made -- I think -- is the disparity between assists on the road vs. at home: the W's are about 30% higher in assists at home. To me, assists are the result of ball movement and people movement. In a motion offense, you're going to get more assists. It's that simple.

What this suggests is that the team is falling out of motion on the road. But I didn't see that in the last three games. (I think they just ran out of steam in Miami, after the Magic win.) So, I'm optimistic the boys will be better on the road as the season progresses, especially if BD keeps it up. (I didn't see where you gave BD's assists on the road vs. at home; I suspect he's symptomatic of the team on the road. But I think that's starting to change.)

But the "home Warriors" is a bit strong, given the (low overall) level of competition they've faced thus far. So while I expect them to improve noticeably on the road, it'll be hard for them to keep winning more than two out of three at home. Well see. And tonight will be interesting, because I think BD, AB and Dun are ALL going to have to play well, and JR's just going to have to show better than he has thus far this year if the team is going to get past the Sixers, who'll likely try to muscle us pretty hard. The W's should win, but will only if they (and this means BD, primarily) keep up the good TEAM work. We have to make sure BD stays vocal, and really runs things like he can. It works.

Finally, next time you do a statistical analysis, try match Dun's stats in team victories vs. losses. My guess is that there's a big difference: I think that when Dun plays well, the W's are very likely to win; when he doesn't, they're very likely to lose. Moreso than with any other player. For example, if BD plays poorly, the team will almost surely lose, but even if he plays well that doesn't mean they'll win. If true, that doesn't make Dun the most important player by a long shot. But it would tell us something about his value to the TEAM, wouldn't it?

(BTW, I thought Dun -- and the entire team -- played fine defense in the Magic game: the team was mostly in zone, anyway, and Nelson -- when he hit -- was largely hitting over the zone, which is a risk anytime you play that defense. See, Kapono, J. I guess it was just a bit strange to see your FIRST comment about Dun, in a game in which his offense was so crucial, be an attempt to cut down his defense, especially when the W's 1-2-2 zone generally doesn't work so well when he's not in the game.)

by johnl on Dec 26, 2006 1:20 PM PST reply actions

Thanks for the comments

I didn't want to make that article too long, so it doesn't cover all of the good points you brought up. So here goes:

I'm with you. Before I starting poking around with the numbers I really expected the Warriors' road woes to be a result of poor shooting from the field, 3pt land, and the free throw line, but when I split up the numbers the thing that popped out were the assists and turnovers, not the shooting rate. I expect the turnover rate to be higher on the road, but I think the Warriors can also get the assists up away from home with better ball movement and people movement as you note. Going beyond the numbers, it seems intuitive that the Warriors would move better and be more energetic at home. It's something they can realistically work on and improve. Their movement away from the ball on the road hasn't been as good; there's more standing around and less sharp cuts.

I didn't see where you gave BD's assists on the road vs. at home; I suspect he's symptomatic of the team on the road. But I think that's starting to change.

Through 29 games this is how it looks for Baron Davis:

BD at home- 9.2 apg : 2.6 TO (this is a fabulous assist to turnover ratio)

BD away- 7.3 apg : 3.0 TO (if you're better than 2:1, you've done your job so this is still pretty good, but nothing compared to the home ratio)

I was actually thinking that same thing, but I took a deeper look and their schedule at home has been fairly comparable to their road one, in terms of difficulty of teams faced. I do think this team had a gift schedule with all those home games early on and those matchups against teams on the 2nd of back-to-back games, but for the most part I think the Warriors are one of the better home teams in the NBA. Now if they lose tonight against the Sixers and on Friday against the Celtics, you can ignore what I just wrote.

That's a good request and a cool project. Next time I'll do some regressions to uncover what factors predict Warrior wins best. My hypothesis (which probably won't mean much seeing as how my hypothesis about the shooting percentages at home vs the road didn't pan out) is that the Warriors win when these things happen:

BD has a phenomenal assist to turnover ratio
A Warrior in addition to BD gets 20+ points (not that he can't score big for the Warriors to win)
They hit their free throws better than 75%
They knock down 3's at a 40% clip or better
They don't get KILLED on the glass rebounding the ball
Mickael Pietrus and Andris Biedrins create a lot of turnovers

Haha and I was trying to stay away from inferential stats over the holidays!

by Atma Brother ONE on Dec 26, 2006 3:05 PM PST up reply actions

Thanks

Good points. Agree with all you say. I note that virtual all your points were true in last night's win -- though I was surprised this morning to learn that the W's hot nearly 75% of their free throws (it didn't seem that way to me). And, of course, BD played fabulously, again (he ought to bring Grandmama up here more). But I also note that when the team went on its second quarter run to build its lead to 20 (after slipping a bit following the hot start), the three key guys on the floor were BD, AB and Dun -- and they're my keys to victory. (Barnes played a second great game, but I wasn't surprised to read that, after it, Nellie sought him out in the locker room, saying: "Hey! Boston waived your ass too." Or words to that effect. The guy's got some talent, but his consistency is worse that MP's.)

Anyway, it was great to see the guys bury a lesser team, and keep their feet on the other guys' necks.

by johnl on Dec 27, 2006 11:12 AM PST up reply actions