The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. The Eastern Conference Finals has rolled out with some bizarre statistical twists. Going into Game 4, the Miami Heat held a 2-1 lead despite outscoring the Celtics in just
Nylon Calculus
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Every team has the same goal on offense — score as many points as possible. But every team goes about that in a different way, using different patterns of
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. At first glance, it would be hard to place blame on Giannis Antetokounmpo for any of the Bucks’ offensive struggles in their 2-2 split with the Boston Celtics. He’s
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. This morning, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski broke news that Nikola Jokic had been selected as the NBA MVP, with an official announcement to come later this week. It was Jokic’s
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Clutch statistics, both for teams and players, are notoriously unreliable as predictors of future outcomes. They come with the requisite noise of small sample size, the context and style
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Last week on The Whiteboard, I began the annual exercise of examining the offensive style of each team using the same NBA offensive style charts I’ve been building for
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Last week on The Whiteboard, I began the annual exercise of examining the offensive style of each team using the same NBA offensive style charts I’ve been building for
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. In yesterday’s installment of The Whiteboard, I began the annual exercise of examining the offensive style of each team using the same NBA offensive style charts I’ve been building
For much of the regular season, the Milwaukee Bucks have avoided the national spotlight. They begin their campaign for a second-consecutive championship on Sunday against the Chicago Bulls, and the numbers say they’re just as good as last year. Less than nine months ago the Milwaukee Bucks secured the franchise’s second championship and first in
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. As the end of the NBA season approaches playoff and award races are narrowing. In the case of MVP, that latest straw poll at ESPN indicates that we’re likely
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. On the surface, the most obvious link between the 60-point games for Karl-Anthony Towns and Kyrie Irving this week was their 3-point shooting — 7-of-11 for Towns, 8-of-12 for
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Assists can be one of the noisest measures of statistical performance because they require to players to make it work. The creator who makes the pass is the one
The Cleveland Cavaliers’ surge into the NBA playoff picture has surprised many, but the data suggests this young Cavs team is right where it belongs. At the midway point of the NBA season, few would have predicted that the Cleveland Cavaliers would sit with a top-10 record and the league’s sixth-best point differential. The Cavs’
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. The decline of the post-up is well understood, although the degree to which it has led to adaptation rather than extinction doesn’t get enough attention. The post-up has, generally,
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. Another night. Another win for the Golden State Warriors. Another rough shooting night for Steph Curry. He finished 18 points, 9 rebounds and 7 assists in a 38-point blowout
The Whiteboard is The Step Back’s daily basketball newsletter, covering the NBA, WNBA and more. Subscribe here to get it delivered to you via email each morning. P.J. Tucker’s NBA niche has always been about 3-and-D but his defensive impact and versatility have long been the more reliable half of that equation. For his career, he’s