Los Angeles Clippers Stat Monkey Brief: Clippers/Bucks (12/15/12)
Lob City Highlight of the Day
There have been too many highlights to include a video for all of them, but here is one covering two that are worth another look, especially the DeAndre Jordan putback.
Quick Recap
After two solid performances, the Clippers have extended their win streak to eight games. Besides the high flying dunks and Blake Griffin’s first three pointer of the season, there wasn’t anything remarkable about either of the games. Both the Bulls and Bobcats remained within striking distance the entire game but could not make enough plays down the stretch to get the win. If you compare the field goal percentage, three point percentage, rebounds, assists, and turnovers between the Clippers and their opponents over the last two games, you can clearly see how even and similar the games were:
Clippers - 44.9%, 38.2%, 45.5, 22.5, 13
Bulls/Bobcats – 41.5%, 40.6%, 47, 22, 14
While the Clippers didn’t run either team out the building, it is nice to see them keeping poise and making enough plays down the stretch to win the games, even if it is against statistically inferior teams.
Quick Geek Out
Now that we are 22 games into the season and the Clippers have played a variety of teams with a wide range of efficiencies on defense and offenses, let’s take a look at how those offenses and defenses are affecting the Clippers and compare them against the best and worst teams in both the Eastern and Western Conference.
The expectation is that the worse the defense than their opponent, then the more points the team should score. That holds true for four of the five teams. Washington actually scores fewer points against teams that rank towards the bottom of the league. Of the top three teams, the Thunder are most consistent and only lose .27 points for each increase in rank, for a range of 8.1 points between the best and the worst defense they've faced. Meanwhile, the Knicks are the most erratic, losing almost half a point for each increase or a 14.9 point spread. The Clippers are just behind the Thunder and lose just .28 points per rank for a total range of 8.5.
On defense you expect to give up more points the higher the opposing offense is ranked.
Defensively, the Clippers are the most consistent and are expected to give up the least number of points to top-ranked teams.
Tonight’s Game
Tonight, the Clippers will look to extend their eight game win streak against the 12-9 Bucks. Last year, the bucks were 10-11 through 21 games, so being 3 games above .500 while holding on to the fourth seed in the East is a major improvement. The Bucks, however, have had the 23rd easiest schedule thus far and that may have something to do with their improvement and them ranking 20th and 10th in offensive and defensive efficiency, respectively. Expect the Clippers to keep playing consistently and pull out another win.
Predictions
All these numbers and regression can be used to make a boat load of money but require a ton of math, which you probably don’t want to do. But guess what, we already did all of it for you. All you have to do is check out our official NBA predictions for tonight’s picks that guarantee to pay out or your money back for this article.
