KG's Shutouts

[drza44]

I've been surprised that nobody is really talking much about what Garnett has been doing on defense this postseason.  I've been watching basketball a lot of years, and frankly...I'm not sure I've ever even heard of someone having a defensive run like KG is on in these playoffs.  Michael Beasley, Antawn Jamison and Rashard Lewis are all good-to-very-good offensive players.  Two are recent All Stars.  All are consistent 15 - 20 ppg scorers that are among the leading offensive threats for their respective teams.  And most importantly, all were playing really well before they faced Boston and even did great against Boston...as long as Garnett wasn't on the court.  To whit...

Beasley.
'10 reg season: 14.8 ppg, 45% FG, 1.7 TOs, 30 min/game
'10 playoffs Celtics (KG on bench): 19.5 points/30 min, 62% FG, 2.2 TOs/30 min
'10 playoffs Celtics (KG in game): 7.7 points/30 min, 32% FG, 3.2 TOs/30 min

Jamison
Jamison: '10 reg season: 18.7 ppg, 46% FG, 1.4 TOs, 36 min
Jamison: '10 playoffs (not Boston): 19.4 ppg, 51% FG, 1.8 TOs, 35 min/game
Jamison '10 playoffs (Celtics, KG on bench): 26 points/36 min, 56% FG, 0 TOs/36 min
Jamison '10 playoffs (Celtics, KG in game): 11.2 points/36, 38% FG, 1.9 TOs/36

Lewis
Lewis '10 Reg season: 14.1 ppg, 43.5% FG, 1.5 TOs, 33 min
Lewis '10 playoffs (not Boston): 16.4 ppg, 54% FG, 1.8 TOs, 37 min
Lewis '10 playoffs (Celtics, KG on bench): 17.3 pts/36 min, 48% FG, 1.3 TOs/36
Lewis '10 playoffs (Celtics, KG in game): 5.2 pts/36, 24% FG, 2.0 TOs/36

KG is usually given credit as a "defensive anchor"... a help-defender that you can build an elite defense around.  And despite the injuries this year he's still that, as every way that we have to measure defensive impact would attest to.  But in these playoffs, KG has been performing as a defensive stopper (someone that takes their individual assignment out of the game) on an absurd level.

Most of the time, when a defender is credited for winning a match-up against a good scorer, it is because they slightly limited the opponent's scoring and made them have to work extra hard for every bucket.  The idea of "can't really stop him, just contain him and make him less efficient".  If a defender takes a few points off their opponent's scoring average and 5% points off their shooting percentage, they are usually deemed to have "stopped" the player.  But in this playoffs, KG is essentially cutting his opponent's scoring in half, taking 15 - 20% off their field goal percentage, and adding a full turnover.  I know I'm biased because I'm a KG fan but really...how is this not news?

The narrative from every round thus far has been essentially that the opposing PF should be ashamed of himself for not showing up.  Beasley has been catching major heat in Miami (heh), people are panning the Jamison trade for the Cavs, and everyone is gutting Lewis for his big contract.  But there's one common denominator here...Garnett and the Celtics' defense (can't minimize the team defense as a whole, because everyone has been great and Perk especially has been a rock) have erased these guys.  Terminated them.  I know defense isn't as sexy as offense, but it just seems to me that this should be getting more attention than it has...

[Roy Hobbs]

Interesting stuff, and it definitely quantifies how dominant KG has been.  Where'd you get the stats from?

When we're seeing a stat line from Jamison of 26 points/36 min, 56% FG, 0 TOs/36 min against the Celtics without KG, what's the sample size we're talking about?

[Chris]

Good post.  This really goes to probably the biggest question of the series.  Will KG be able to handle Gasol?

As good as those other guys are, they are nowhere close to Gasol.  He has been one of the top 2-3 players in the playoffs this year, and I have heard multiple pundits call him the best "skilled big man" in the league...and I have a hard time arguing with it, now that KG and Duncan have fallen off a bit. 

So, this is going to be a really good challenge for KG, but if there was any player in the league I would want to take on the job of slowing down Gasol, KG would be the guy. 

[housecall]

TP...your stats says a lot.

[Kwhit10]

Great post, and nice research (where did you get the stats for KG on the court and KG off the court?).  TP

KG has been doing a fantastic job on his man during the playoffs.  Most people have been focusing on his lower offensive stats but his defense has been great.

[twinbree]

TP. Great post and thanks for the stats. His impact on the team defense goes without saying but I've been awed by his man-to-man defense. The PFs he's shutting down are important keys to their team's success and he needs to do the same in the finals because this is the biggest key of them all. My brother found this a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about this. He swears he googled KG's playoff victims and this came up LOL.

[drza44]

Interesting stuff, and it definitely quantifies how dominant KG has been.  Where'd you get the stats from?

When we're seeing a stat line from Jamison of 26 points/36 min, 56% FG, 0 TOs/36 min against the Celtics without KG, what's the sample size we're talking about?

The stats came from a combo of popcornmachine.net and the ESPN game logs, with a little personal leg-work to coordinate the two.

And you're right about the sample size of the "Celtics without KG" being relatively small.  Beasley played 93 minutes with KG on court, 42 minutes with KG off.  Jamison played 172 minutes with KG on court, 23 with him off.  Lewis played 158 minutes with KG on court, 54 with him off.

But the point of the "off-court" stats wasn't originally to be a standalone data point, as I was mainly looking at the "on-court" data.  I was actually a bit surprised myself that there was so much consistency of good production with KG on the bench across the rounds, and that those KG-off-court stats matched so well with what each player had been doing before they faced Boston.  So I decided to include those numbers as another comp, but because of sample size it might be statistically more of a "trend" than a "significant difference".  

On the other hand, the difference is SO large that we might be able to get significance even in the smaller sample size.  Didn't really exercise my nerd-ism to that extent of actually running any ANOVAs or t-tests.  

[action781]

Interesting stuff, and it definitely quantifies how dominant KG has been.  Where'd you get the stats from?

When we're seeing a stat line from Jamison of 26 points/36 min, 56% FG, 0 TOs/36 min against the Celtics without KG, what's the sample size we're talking about?

Yeah, 0 TO is a hint at a very small sample size.  This would be meaningless if it were a 6 min sample.  But seeing that KG avg'd 32.7 mpg in the series, 'shard avg'd 36.2 mpg over 6 games, you know it's AT LEAST over 21 minutes, plus more.  By how exact the ppg decimal was, my guess would be exactly 24 or 36 minutes.  Not a terrific sample, but not too bad considering only 6 games.
EDIT:  Oops, I did shard instead of Jamison.

But with a little math, I found an error in the Jamison stat of 26 pts/36min.  That would mean that in those 23 min, he scored exactly 16.611111 points.  That can't be right.  Even 24 minutes would mean he scored exactly 17.33333 points in that time.  22 minutes gives a decimal also.  I did the surrounding #'s to account for rounding by the stat keepers.  Something has to be incorrect with this stat.

[Drucci]

Thanks for bringing up such accurate stats! I knew KG did a great defensive job on all the opposing PF's but to this point... wow. Impressive. Let's hope he keeps it up against Gasol. I'm not worried though, I felt that Rashard would be his toughest matchup because of his shooting touch and his tendency of hanging beyond the 3 point line but KG totally shut hit down so...

[Carhole]

Very interesting info good work

I just do not know how it relates to covering gasol, those other 3 guys are PFs that play as wing players Gasol operates from the low to high post.

And in 08 it was perk doing most the covering of Gasol while KG was eating up another wing player PF in Odom.

I have faith in Garnett and love to see the evidence of what a difference maker he has been in the first 3 rounds but this is a very different matchup for him and does not play to his strengths. I would have been interested to see D Howards stats while KG was on him b/c it felt like he scored in the post every time that switch happened

[rutzan]

TP to you!

great stats!

I think KG's defense on Gasol and/or Odom is the key to the series...

this was the point I made without the stats on May 29, 2010, at 12:24:08 pm

http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=38157.0

Unsung hero - KG's Defense

KG basically obliterated Jamison and Lewis and turned them into less than non-factors...it allowed the rest of our defense to focus on other areas...

which brings me to the key against the Fakers...

Gasol and Odom...

KG will probably defend Gasol when Bynum is at center...

KG will probably defend Odom when Gasol is at center...

KG won't shut them down like Jamison and Lewis...

but...the key to the series...imho...is KG slowing them down...

i'm not scared of artest, fisher, farmar, brown, sasha, walton...

kobe will be kobe...

[PosImpos]

Good post.  This really goes to probably the biggest question of the series.  Will KG be able to handle Gasol?

Bingo.  Shutting down those other guys wouldn't be nearly as impressive as shutting down Gasol.  Honestly, I'm not sure how much we can expect.  All 3 PFs that KG faced in the post-season so far are stretch bigs - guys that are almost built like SF's.  KG is at least 2 inches taller and quite a bit longer than all of those guys.  

Pau Gasol is a big, strong, skilled big man who won't be nearly so easy to take out of the game.  He's also at least 2x as talented physically and mentally as Beasley, Jamison, and Lewis.

I think we can expect KG to do a good job on Odom (who is similar to Jamison though more athletic).  Gasol is a question mark for me; it might be the key to the series.

[Mr October]

Good post.  This really goes to probably the biggest question of the series.  Will KG be able to handle Gasol?

Bingo.  Shutting down those other guys wouldn't be nearly as impressive as shutting down Gasol.  Honestly, I'm not sure how much we can expect.  All 3 PFs that KG faced in the post-season so far are stretch bigs - guys that are almost built like SF's.  KG is at least 2 inches taller and quite a bit longer than all of those guys.  

Pau Gasol is a big, strong, skilled big man who won't be nearly so easy to take out of the game.  He's also at least 2x as talented physically and mentally as Beasley, Jamison, and Lewis.

I think we can expect KG to do a good job on Odom (who is similar to Jamison though more athletic).  Gasol is a question mark for me; it might be the key to the series.

I actually think that like in 2008, Perkins is going to be on Gasol and KG will be on Odom most of the game. Those are the 2 bigs on each team that get the most minutes.

KG will probably end up guarding Gasol for about 12 minutes per game.

I want KG shutting down Odom whenever possible.

[Brendan]

Beasley is more like Gasol than Jamison and Lewis.

Here's the thing Beasley and Gasol are both going to let KG stay in the paint. Lewis and Jamison forced KG to stay near the perimeter and avoid help - or help then recover to the 3pt line.

Also KG will be playing Odom as much as Gasol.

Here's the breakdown I see (focusing on when KG is in the game, ignoring the Perk/Sheed, Perk/Baby, and Sheed/Baby lineups.)

Perk / KG v. Bynum and Gasol - KG on Gasol
Perk / KG v. Gasol and Odom - KG on Odom
Perk / KG v. Bynum and Odom - KG on Odom

Sheed / KG v. Bynum and Gasol - KG on Gasol
Sheed / KG v. Gasol and Odom - KG on Odom
Sheed / KG v. Bynum and Odom - KG on Odom

BBD / KG v. Bynum and Gasol - KG on Gasol
BBD / KG v. Gasol and Odom - KG on Gasol
BBD / KG v. Bynum and Odom - KG on Odom

I don't want to see Sheed or Perk covering Odom due to mobility, or Baby on Gasol due to the height mismatch. So I'd expect to see switching in the following situations:

Baby / KG v. Bynum / Odom
Perk / KG v. Bynum / Gasol
Perk / Sheed v. Bynum / Gasol
Sheed / KG v. Bynum / Gasol

I haven't done any looking into what the LAL minutes / rotation looks like against the BOS one. The Celts usually do:

Start half: Perk / KG -> Sheed / KG -> Sheed / Baby -> Perk / Baby -> Perk / KG :End Half

But that's been varied a lot by injury, situation, and fouls the last two rounds. I expect they can be more conventional against LAL.

[Chris]

Good post.  This really goes to probably the biggest question of the series.  Will KG be able to handle Gasol?

Bingo.  Shutting down those other guys wouldn't be nearly as impressive as shutting down Gasol.  Honestly, I'm not sure how much we can expect.  All 3 PFs that KG faced in the post-season so far are stretch bigs - guys that are almost built like SF's.  KG is at least 2 inches taller and quite a bit longer than all of those guys.  

Pau Gasol is a big, strong, skilled big man who won't be nearly so easy to take out of the game.  He's also at least 2x as talented physically and mentally as Beasley, Jamison, and Lewis.

I think we can expect KG to do a good job on Odom (who is similar to Jamison though more athletic).  Gasol is a question mark for me; it might be the key to the series.

I actually think that like in 2008, Perkins is going to be on Gasol and KG will be on Odom most of the game. Those are the 2 bigs on each team that get the most minutes.

KG will probably end up guarding Gasol for about 12 minutes per game.

I want KG shutting down Odom whenever possible.

I am much more worried about Perkins on Gasol.  He is a terrible matchup.  Perkins is great against guys like Howard and Shaq who dominate by bullying their way to the basket, however, he struggles against guys like Gasol and Bogut, who are very skilled, and have the footwork and touch to destroy Perk.

I think the C's should be really hoping that Bynum plays, because he is a much better matchup for Perk.