Game Management
And Why The Jazz Are Bad
It was my fiancé Ellen’s birthday last weekend, so this post is dedicated to her, and the few pixels on basketball broadcasts that she is always finely tuned in to:
I don’t often keep track of how many timeouts, challenges, or fouls a team has remaining until the last minute or two of the game.1 Not Ellen. She has eagle eyes for these little timeout dots nestled into the scorebug in the corner of the screen. She’ll blurt out “Ooh they’re in the bonus” as soon as that fifth foul is called.
So as a birthday present to her,2 I’m going to pay attention to these little dots in this post, with a deep dive into how teams and coaches deploy their game-stopping assets.
Timeouts
Each team gets seven timeouts to use over the course of a 48-minute regulation NBA game. The only restrictions on when they can use them come at the end of the game: you can’t call more than four in the fourth quarter or more than two in the final two minutes. In practice, most teams end up using between 5-6 of their timeouts on average.
Then there are the Indiana Pacers, who use nearly every possible timeout nearly every game. Rick Carlisle has always been in the “you can’t take them with you” camp, averaging 5.8 and 5.9 timeouts per game the last two seasons, but this year he and his squad are calling for stoppage 6.4 times per game on average, nearly a half a timeout more than any other team in the league.
Last year the Pacers were winning a lot of games; this season they’re losing a LOT of games. One of the most common reasons coaches call timeouts is to stop the other team’s momentum. With a -8 net rating, it’s safe to say that other teams have had a lot of momentum against the Pacers this year. When I Googled “Indiana Pacers timeouts” the other day, this tweet came up, a perfect example of what I’m talking about:
The three worst teams in the league - Indiana, Washington, and Sacramento - call the most timeouts. The Bulls and Pelicans are fourth and fifth in timeouts, and not much better in the standings.
Meanwhile, the same is true on the other end. The teams that call the fewest timeouts include the Pistons, Rockets, Knicks, Celtics, and Thunder, five of the top six teams in net rating. They don’t often have to worry about their opponent going on a threatening scoring run.
And then there’s the Utah Jazz. Utah has the fifth worst record in the NBA, is outscored by eight points per 100 possessions, but Head Coach Will Hardy hasn’t stepped in to stop the bleeding. In the past, Hardy has talked about the value of letting players learn how to handle pressure and communicate under duress while taking responsibility for fixing mistakes rather than being bailed out by a stoppage. He may also be scared from that one time he lost his team a game with a timeout.
When he does call timeout these days he can be a little … uh … direct.
Challenges
Another reason coaches take a timeout is to challenge the ruling on the court. Coaches start with one challenge per game, and get a second if the first is successful. Three teams are averaging over one challenge per game, meaning they get (and use) a second challenge more often than not: the Houston Rockets led by Head Coach Ime Udoka, Minnesota Timberwolves (Chris Finch), and Phoenix Suns (Jordan Ott).
Udoka is willing to use his challenge as early as the first quarter with some regularity, but often coaches will save their challenges until the game nears its conclusion, when an overturned call can have a bigger impact on the outcome. Using challenges early, even if they are successful, can backfire if you run out and can’t question a pivotal ref decision later on. So in some ways, what matters isn’t when you use your challenges, but when you run out of them.
We can, in fact, see that Houston loses its challenge in the first quarter relatively often (about once a month), but at least they are willing to use it. Udoka leaves the court having exhausted his challenges half of the time.
Chicago, on the other hand, rarely runs out of challenges because they barely use them. Billy Donovan hasn’t lost the ability to challenge in a first half this season, but he also exits the game with a challenge remaining nearly 95% of the time. Someone may want to remind him he doesn’t get to save them all up and challenge 57 calls in the last few Bulls games of the season.
Miami may be the least effective at using their challenges however.3 They use just 0.6 per game on average, but still manage to lose their challenge early on. Spoelstra is already out of challenges by the end of the first quarter in about 6% of games, and has lost challenges in the first six minutes of games on multiple occasions.
Fouls
The Pistons foul a lot.
Detroit is the only team in the league averaging over 22 fouls per game, which has clearly been an effective strategy, the same way it was for the Thunder last season.4
Like with challenges though, the timing for when fouls occur often matters as much as the number committed. Once a team commits its fifth foul in a quarter, or second in the last two minutes, the opposing team gets to shoot free throws for that and every subsequent foul. So, we can look into when teams commit their fifth foul and enter the bonus.
Detroit still spends a lot of time in the bonus (as early as four minutes into a game), but not as much as the Jazz. At the end of first, second, third, and fourth quarters respectively, the Jazz are in the bonus 56%, 64%, 84%, and 78% of the time.
Overall, they play nearly 12% of minutes while automatically sending their opponents to the line after a foul. That’s a big reason opponents shoot over 27 free throws a game against Utah.
While fouls are a team effort in Detroit (Cade Cunningham actually leads the team with 3.3 fouls committed per game, while Isaiah Stewart, Jalen Duren, and Ausar Thompson all average at least 2.7), Utah’s fouls are mostly committed by their Centers. Jaren Jackson Jr., Jusuf Nurkić, and Kyle Filipowski all average 3 or more per game.5 I suppose if their coach isn’t calling timeouts for them, the big guys will take it into their own hands to get a breather.
On the other end, Dallas spends half as much time with their opponents in the bonus as Utah does, while Denver,6 Houston, and San Antonio don’t have to worry about it much either.7
There’s a lot going on in these heat maps, so let me know what else stands out to you!
i.e., When it actually matters.
Yes, this is a bad present. Yes, I also got her a real present.
Not just because they use them to help get Bam to 83 points.
OKC is middle of the pack in fouls committed this season, though as Ellen noted after watching the recent Nuggets-Thunder game, “OKC doesn’t get called for shit!”
Walker Kessler averaged 4.4 per game in five games before his season-ending injury.
Denver did once enter the bonus in just the second minute of the fourth quarter.
It’s weird that the Texas teams all spend very little time in the bonus right? Are the referees nicer in Texas? Are they content/distracted after a big Tex-Mex meal from the night before?