Wow! This game contained some cringe-worthy stretches of play by the Spurs, but they did just enough to stay in striking distance before finally finding an extra gear in crunch time. To cap it all off, Victor Wembanyama ended the game with a strategy that I typically hate: dribble the ball in place on the perimeter with time winding down, attempt to drive to the basket, and then settle for an absurdly difficult midrange fadeaway. However, because it worked I will now insist that it was an awesome
plan that I always supported without reservation.
In any case, games like this typically produce a lot of bad box score grades, simply because close games are generally decided by narrow box score margins. As a result, the winner’s performance does not usually grade well relative to other winners. Even so, patterns in the data can still be unique and informative, as was the case last night:
- As the box score above shows, the Spurs compiled a series of bad grades in critical areas, including FGA, FGM, 3PA, and 3PM differentials of -8, -3, -2, and -1 (respectively). These margins arose in part from rebounding and turnover battles that favored Phoenix, although another factor was that the Spurs were slightly more likely to end their offensive possessions with a trip to the free throw line (more on that later).
- Because San Antonio took and made fewer overall field goals and three-pointers, the Suns scored seven more points from the field. That outcome isn’t a death knell, but since the start of 2012-2013 only 5.65% of winning teams (945 of 16,712) have been outscored by at least that much from the field.
- The Spurs managed to overcome their poor performance from the field with notably better volume (+6 FTA) and efficiency (+14.83 percentage points) from the free throw line. These two advantages combined to generate eight more made free throws for San Antonio, which ended up being just enough to secure the win.
- What’s most remarkable about the Spurs’ performance at the charity stripe is its striking contrast with their struggles from the field. In fact, this contest marked just the 34th time in 16,712 regular season games dating back to the start of 2012-2013 in which a winning team that shot no better than 42.17% from the field and 29.14% from distance managed a FT% of at least 91.3%.
- Finally, although it’s not covered in the team box score above, another striking thing about this game was how heavily the Spurs leaned on Wemby for offensive production. One way to illustrate this is to look at the share of the team’s points scored by Victor (34/101 =33.66%), which is the third highest point share that he has recorded in 172 games with San Antonio. Although the Spurs will surely want to aim for the much more egalitarian distribution of offensive production that has defined the team this year, it is nice to reaffirm that Wemby can be a defensive menace and keep the team afloat offensively when almost everyone else is struggling to score.
What are Team Graded Box Scores?
Very briefly, these box scores grade winner-loser differentials for basic box score statistics, with the grade being based on the winning team’s differential relative to other NBA winners during a defined reference period. Think of it like a report card for understanding how a given winner performed relative to other winners. The reference period used runs from the start of the 2012-2013 season to the latest date of play, including only games in the same season category (i.e., regular season and playoff games are not compared to each other).
Data Source: The underlying data used to create these box scores was collected from Basketball Reference. In all cases, the data are collected the morning after the game is played. Although rare, postgame statistical revisions after data collection do occur and may affect the results after the fact.
