After a wild Game 3, everyone take a breath
Please, spare me anything claiming Ray Allen isn’t one of the top shooters in the history of the league. Despite his 0-13 shooting in Game 3, Ray Allen didn’t lose his jumpshot, overnight. It’s just simple arithmetic.
Everyone will be talking about Allen’s nearly record-setting poor night but it’s time to look at the numbers, because, while they can be manipulated, they simply don’t lie.
In Game 1, Ray Allen went 3-for-8 from the field. In Game 2, he went 11-for-20, and in Game 3, 0-for-13. Combined, that’s 14-for-41, or 34.1 percent for the series. From 3-point range, he has made 8-of-21 in the series, or 38.1 percent.
His season averages? Well, in the regular season, he shot 47.7 from the field. and 36.3 percent from 3-point line. In the playoffs, including last night’s goose-egg performance, he’s still averaging 43.9 percent from the field and 41.6 from behind the arc.
The point? He’s basically where he was all season. He’s still better from behind the arc in the playoffs than he was in the regular season, though he is down about 4 percent from the field.
A few weeks ago, I interviewed the authors of Stumbling on Wins, and they write specifically about the hot-hand theory in the NBA. Check out the interview for more about stats and decision making in the NBA and NFL, but they basically say that no player is every really “on fire” during a game — it’s simply the law of averages doing its magic. In the end, it all usually evens out. Make a few here, miss a few here, and it’s all a wash.
This is that theory at its finest. He has a great shooting game in Game 2, and a bad one in Game 3? The result, he’s still about where’s he’s been throughout the entire regular season. Stop being so myopic, everyone. While I know people will say, “If Ray Allen even made a few of those shots, Boston would have won,” it’s simply an ignorant statement. Because, while that may be true, it wouldn’t be working with what his averages say will happen. He could and should have probably missed more shots in Game 2, which may have cost the Celtics the chance to win that game, so again, it’s all even steven.
So again, everyone, please exhale. While people may be saying, he’s lost his shot, or worse, his confidence, it simply isn’t the case. Expect him to bounce back over the next few games, and he’ll probably end the series right about where he is now, which is basically where he’s been all season.
It’s not his stroke, it’s not the defense. It’s just numbers and averages working out, like they should.
4 Comments
coursework*
You have no idea how right you are- most people have a fundamental misunderstanding of probabilities and the “hot hand” is a great example. I did a lot of course in judgment and decision-making, and this type of thing was a major focus. Which is why I cringe whenever fans start to throw around terms like “clutch”.
I’ll have to read the book. I’d love to get a chance to chat with guys, that must have been a good interview.
Been thinking about this a lot recently, and I’m increasingly of the opinion that the issue lies with an understanding of what hot hand means.
First, lets be clear that ‘average’ means exactly what it says. It is not the representation of any given game, but a collective assessment over a wide range of games. The actual experience in any given game of that average is almost always going to be different from ‘the average’.
In that context, what ‘hot hand’ means is that in this particular game, a player’s scoring mechanics are most finely aligned (tendons and ligments, mental game, e.t.c) while in a ‘slump’ they are most off. So in game 2, for some reason, Ray’s shooting mechanics were about as sharp as they can be, while in game 3, they were as off as they can be. In game 4, they are more likely to return to an intermediate state, in which the actual manifestation is more in line with what has been seen before (5/7, 3/8, 2/5 shooting nights, that kind of thing).
The issue I see with statistical analysis and statements that say a certain sequence is bound to happen even randomly is that it obscures what is going in in the mind of a player, which is not random at the point of experience. Rather I believe what that statement actually indicates is that for any given good basketball player, there is a very high likelihood that playing mechanics will be so finely tuned that an exceptional game will result at some point, and that we should not be surprised if that happens.
The surprise comes if that exceptional occurence happens for so long that it stretches the imagination to call it exceptional any more, even though it would appear to be exceptional given previous assessment of that players capabilities.
Interesting stuff Onu….Definitely an area that arouses interest.