Tyrese Haliburton is breaking new ground with his assist stats this season. But don’t overlook what he’s doing on defense for the Indiana Pacers. Tyrese Haliburton is having a remarkable season for the surprising Indiana Pacers, pushing himself into all sorts of outlier statistical territory. His assist to Andrew Nembhard on the game-winning 3-pointer against
Nylon Calculus
The Sacramento Kings have been scoring at an absurd rate, with an offense powered in large part by a historic fastbreak attack. After dropping their first four games of the season, the Sacramento Kings have been on an absolute tear, winning nine of their last 11 games and scoring an obscene 121.5 points per 100
The Warriors bench has been a complete mess and a major factor in their slow start. What’s not working and how do they fix it? The Golden State Warriors championship defense is off to a rough start. After a 130-119 loss to the Phoenix Suns, they’re 6-9 and a league-worst 0-8 on the road. Steph
The Hawks are winning games but passing less than any team in a decade. Will a lack of offensive dynamism hurt them as the season goes along? The Atlanta Hawks made one of the biggest moves of the offseason, trading Danilo Gallinari, three future first-round picks and a pick swap to the San Antonio Spurs
The Lakers have been one of the worst 3-point shooting teams in modern history to start the season. Is the problem talent or random variance? If you’re an NBA fan with a hunger for schadenfreude, the Los Angeles Lakers have been a veritable feast this season. They’re off to a 2-8 start with the worst
A week into the season, the NBA MVP race looks wide open. Here’s a look at one key stat for each of the top candidates so far. By the time we get to March and April, the NBA MVP race will have likely winnowed to one or two key frontrunners. But for now, the field
The Las Vegas Aces collected a historic number of trophies and honors during the 2022 WNBA season, culminating with the first title in franchise history. The Las Vegas Aces capped off their season with a 78-71 victory over the Connecticut Sun in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals, securing the league’s biggest prize. But the
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
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