Who is to Blame for Turnovers?

[BballTim]

Offensive rebounds is a bigger issue than turnovers. While we do make a fair amount of lackadaisical passes, we have more assists than other teams so our assist/bad pass ratio probably isn't too far from average. We have more offensive fouls, but a lot of those are bad picks. If we passed the ball a little less and set fewer picks our turnovers would go down but our fg% might drop as well.

Rebounding is definitely the biggest issue that the C's can improve, I think the boat has sailed on us becoming a low turnover team, just not in the cards with this personal and offense.

  We're generally a high turnover team during the season and an average turnover team in the playoffs.

[dark_lord]

i chaulk it up as it is the first game of the season, along with the intensity and hype of the game.

[Fafnir]

Offensive rebounds is a bigger issue than turnovers. While we do make a fair amount of lackadaisical passes, we have more assists than other teams so our assist/bad pass ratio probably isn't too far from average. We have more offensive fouls, but a lot of those are bad picks. If we passed the ball a little less and set fewer picks our turnovers would go down but our fg% might drop as well.

Rebounding is definitely the biggest issue that the C's can improve, I think the boat has sailed on us becoming a low turnover team, just not in the cards with this personal and offense.

  We're generally a high turnover team during the season and an average turnover team in the playoffs.

That's just not true.

Turnover Rates
2009-2010
25 Regular Season
24 Postseason

2008-2009
26.1 Regular Season
22.2 Post Season

2007-2008
25.6 Regular Season
22.8 Post Season

We go from really bad, to just kinda bad. We tend to force more turnovers in the playoffs but its still an issue.

[lon3lytoaster]

I'd be curious to see what how many turnovers we commited the year prior to Doc's arrival. Granted, except for Pierce we have completely different group of guys.

We've just always been a pretty turnover prone team with Doc, I think. I'm not hating on him but that just seems to be how it goes.

But then again, you can't really blame Doc for someone stepping out of bounds.

[BballTim]

Offensive rebounds is a bigger issue than turnovers. While we do make a fair amount of lackadaisical passes, we have more assists than other teams so our assist/bad pass ratio probably isn't too far from average. We have more offensive fouls, but a lot of those are bad picks. If we passed the ball a little less and set fewer picks our turnovers would go down but our fg% might drop as well.

Rebounding is definitely the biggest issue that the C's can improve, I think the boat has sailed on us becoming a low turnover team, just not in the cards with this personal and offense.

  We're generally a high turnover team during the season and an average turnover team in the playoffs.

That's just not true.

Turnover Rates
2009-2010
25 Regular Season
24 Postseason

2008-2009
26.1 Regular Season
22.2 Post Season

2007-2008
25.6 Regular Season
22.8 Post Season

We go from really bad, to just kinda bad. We tend to force more turnovers in the playoffs but its still an issue.

  I'll check when I get a minute, but I really can't believe that about 1/4 of our possessions end in a turnover.

[GreenEnvy]

I still believe we will be (significantly?) better at not turning the ball over this season. Just losing TA and Perk for half a season(Offensive fouls, Off and Def 3 sec, moving picks, etc.) should give us 2-4 less per game.

KG had 7 TO's, which is an extremely high number for him. I remember at least three 24 second violations where we simply weren't paying attention.

It was one game, against a good defense. Let's wait a month and then see how they are doing in the TO department.

[Evantime34]

I think the philosophy is to make a risky pass that could lead to an easy shot, rather than not make that pass and take a difficult shot. This is especially evident in transition.

[Fafnir]

Offensive rebounds is a bigger issue than turnovers. While we do make a fair amount of lackadaisical passes, we have more assists than other teams so our assist/bad pass ratio probably isn't too far from average. We have more offensive fouls, but a lot of those are bad picks. If we passed the ball a little less and set fewer picks our turnovers would go down but our fg% might drop as well.

Rebounding is definitely the biggest issue that the C's can improve, I think the boat has sailed on us becoming a low turnover team, just not in the cards with this personal and offense.

  We're generally a high turnover team during the season and an average turnover team in the playoffs.

That's just not true.

Turnover Rates
2009-2010
25 Regular Season
24 Postseason

2008-2009
26.1 Regular Season
22.2 Post Season

2007-2008
25.6 Regular Season
22.8 Post Season

We go from really bad, to just kinda bad. We tend to force more turnovers in the playoffs but its still an issue.

  I'll check when I get a minute, but I really can't believe that about 1/4 of our possessions end in a turnover.

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/turnoverRatio/order/false/year/2010

I used Hollinger's turnover ratio. It seems rather different than Basketball references numbers though.

[Fafnir]

Offensive rebounds is a bigger issue than turnovers. While we do make a fair amount of lackadaisical passes, we have more assists than other teams so our assist/bad pass ratio probably isn't too far from average. We have more offensive fouls, but a lot of those are bad picks. If we passed the ball a little less and set fewer picks our turnovers would go down but our fg% might drop as well.

Rebounding is definitely the biggest issue that the C's can improve, I think the boat has sailed on us becoming a low turnover team, just not in the cards with this personal and offense.

  We're generally a high turnover team during the season and an average turnover team in the playoffs.

That's just not true.

Turnover Rates
2009-2010
25 Regular Season
24 Postseason

2008-2009
26.1 Regular Season
22.2 Post Season

2007-2008
25.6 Regular Season
22.8 Post Season

We go from really bad, to just kinda bad. We tend to force more turnovers in the playoffs but its still an issue.

  I'll check when I get a minute, but I really can't believe that about 1/4 of our possessions end in a turnover.

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/turnoverRatio/order/false/year/2010

I used Hollinger's turnover ratio. It seems rather different than Basketball references numbers though.

Either his formulas are incorrectly referenced or ESPN's site is broken those numbers are off.

The C's turned it over about 14.5% of the time last year in the regular season and 13.1% in the playoffs.

[BballTim]

Offensive rebounds is a bigger issue than turnovers. While we do make a fair amount of lackadaisical passes, we have more assists than other teams so our assist/bad pass ratio probably isn't too far from average. We have more offensive fouls, but a lot of those are bad picks. If we passed the ball a little less and set fewer picks our turnovers would go down but our fg% might drop as well.

Rebounding is definitely the biggest issue that the C's can improve, I think the boat has sailed on us becoming a low turnover team, just not in the cards with this personal and offense.

  We're generally a high turnover team during the season and an average turnover team in the playoffs.

That's just not true.

Turnover Rates
2009-2010
25 Regular Season
24 Postseason

2008-2009
26.1 Regular Season
22.2 Post Season

2007-2008
25.6 Regular Season
22.8 Post Season

We go from really bad, to just kinda bad. We tend to force more turnovers in the playoffs but its still an issue.

  I'll check when I get a minute, but I really can't believe that about 1/4 of our possessions end in a turnover.

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/turnoverRatio/order/false/year/2010

I used Hollinger's turnover ratio. It seems rather different than Basketball references numbers though.

Either his formulas are incorrectly referenced or ESPN's site is broken those numbers are off.

The C's turned it over about 14.5% of the time last year in the regular season and 13.1% in the playoffs.

  Food for thought, but 14.5% was 27th out of 30 in the regular season, 13.1 was 13th out of 30. And I think the drop from regular season to playoff turnovers was greater the previous 2 years.

[Fan from VT]

Offensive rebounds is a bigger issue than turnovers. While we do make a fair amount of lackadaisical passes, we have more assists than other teams so our assist/bad pass ratio probably isn't too far from average. We have more offensive fouls, but a lot of those are bad picks. If we passed the ball a little less and set fewer picks our turnovers would go down but our fg% might drop as well.

Rebounding is definitely the biggest issue that the C's can improve, I think the boat has sailed on us becoming a low turnover team, just not in the cards with this personal and offense.

  We're generally a high turnover team during the season and an average turnover team in the playoffs.

That's just not true.

Turnover Rates
2009-2010
25 Regular Season
24 Postseason

2008-2009
26.1 Regular Season
22.2 Post Season

2007-2008
25.6 Regular Season
22.8 Post Season

We go from really bad, to just kinda bad. We tend to force more turnovers in the playoffs but its still an issue.

  I'll check when I get a minute, but I really can't believe that about 1/4 of our possessions end in a turnover.

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/turnoverRatio/order/false/year/2010

I used Hollinger's turnover ratio. It seems rather different than Basketball references numbers though.

Either his formulas are incorrectly referenced or ESPN's site is broken those numbers are off.

The C's turned it over about 14.5% of the time last year in the regular season and 13.1% in the playoffs.

  Food for thought, but 14.5% was 27th out of 30 in the regular season, 13.1 was 13th out of 30. And I think the drop from regular season to playoff turnovers was greater the previous 2 years.

I ran into this very problem when starting a similar thread this summer. On ESPN, they have the Turnover Ratio in the Assist Ratio column and the Assist Ratio in the Turnover Column. So the C's turn it over on 14% of possessions and assists are the other column. I think.


Regardless, I tried (and failed) to determine how much of a drop in shooting percentage the C's would tolerate (assuming that less passing/fewer assists would result in a worse FG%) to cut down on passing and therefore cut down on turnovers, therefore increasing possessions.

[BballTim]

Regardless, I tried (and failed) to determine how much of a drop in shooting percentage the C's would tolerate (assuming that less passing/fewer assists would result in a worse FG%) to cut down on passing and therefore cut down on turnovers, therefore increasing possessions.

  It's got to be a pretty small number, right? Cutting back by 2 turnovers a game would put us well above average. We took 77 shots a game (about 88 shooting possessions including free throws). We scored 99 points a game, so that's about 1.125 points per shot or a .563 percentage on shots taken. Add in 2 possessions to get the same amount of points, and you're at 99 points on 90 shooting possessions, or 1.1 points per shot or a .550 percentage on shots taken.

  Feel free to check my math or my methodology, but if it caused you to miss more than 1 more shot a game then it's not worth it to cut back on the turnovers.

[Fafnir]

Regardless, I tried (and failed) to determine how much of a drop in shooting percentage the C's would tolerate (assuming that less passing/fewer assists would result in a worse FG%) to cut down on passing and therefore cut down on turnovers, therefore increasing possessions.

  It's got to be a pretty small number, right? Cutting back by 2 turnovers a game would put us well above average. We took 77 shots a game (about 88 shooting possessions including free throws). We scored 99 points a game, so that's about 1.125 points per shot or a .563 percentage on shots taken. Add in 2 possessions to get the same amount of points, and you're at 99 points on 90 shooting possessions, or 1.1 points per shot or a .550 percentage on shots taken.

  Feel free to check my math or my methodology, but if it caused you to miss more than 1 more shot a game then it's not worth it to cut back on the turnovers.

Depends on the sort of turnovers we're talking about.

Deadball turnovers don't matter as much, basically a missed shot. Turnovers that lead to fast break opportunities are more problematic as they lead to quality shots and layups for the other team. But not turning to over is the same as getting an extra shot. That's worth 1.07 points, or 1.27 points if they actually get a shot off.

I really don't buy that for the C's to continue their shooting efficiency that they must turn the ball over at their current rate. Each of the teams with great eFG% turns it over less than the C's.

Though in defense of your statement the C's shot a lot worse in the playoffs than they did in the regular season.

[Fafnir]

Regardless, I tried (and failed) to determine how much of a drop in shooting percentage the C's would tolerate (assuming that less passing/fewer assists would result in a worse FG%) to cut down on passing and therefore cut down on turnovers, therefore increasing possessions.

  It's got to be a pretty small number, right? Cutting back by 2 turnovers a game would put us well above average.

That's the thing though, if we grabbed two more defensive rebounds we'd have been average too.

Two turnovers and two rebounds a game don't sound like a lot till you try and get them or prevent them.

[BballTim]

Regardless, I tried (and failed) to determine how much of a drop in shooting percentage the C's would tolerate (assuming that less passing/fewer assists would result in a worse FG%) to cut down on passing and therefore cut down on turnovers, therefore increasing possessions.

  It's got to be a pretty small number, right? Cutting back by 2 turnovers a game would put us well above average. We took 77 shots a game (about 88 shooting possessions including free throws). We scored 99 points a game, so that's about 1.125 points per shot or a .563 percentage on shots taken. Add in 2 possessions to get the same amount of points, and you're at 99 points on 90 shooting possessions, or 1.1 points per shot or a .550 percentage on shots taken.

  Feel free to check my math or my methodology, but if it caused you to miss more than 1 more shot a game then it's not worth it to cut back on the turnovers.

Depends on the sort of turnovers we're talking about.

Deadball turnovers don't matter as much, basically a missed shot. Turnovers that lead to fast break opportunities are more problematic as they lead to quality shots and layups for the other team. But not turning to over is the same as getting an extra shot. That's worth 1.07 points, or 1.27 points if they actually get a shot off.

I really don't buy that for the C's to continue their shooting efficiency that they must turn the ball over at their current rate. Each of the teams with great eFG% turns it over less than the C's.

Though in defense of your statement the C's shot a lot worse in the playoffs than they did in the regular season.

  I'm not saying that they must turn the ball over. But I did a quick comparison of the Celts turnovers to other top teams. We were fairly equal in ballhandling turnovers but had more passing turnovers and offensive fouls (I'd guess that a lot of these are illegal picks). The question becomes, do we set more picks than other teams, or worse picks? Do we make more passes than most teams, or riskier passes? In either case, though, our passing and pick setting are integral parts of our offense.

  And while the teams with higher eFG% than us did turn the ball over less often than us, all of them turned it over more often than usual. 3 of the 4 teams ahead of us were in the top 5 for assist rates (as were we). The outlier was Orlando, who took about 10 more threes a game than us. The only team above us in eFG% that didn't take more 3s than us was Utah, who was closest to us in turnover rate.