Charting Duke vs. Clemson (Jan. 23)

[Jumbo]

A couple of interesting things to note. One, obviously, was Coach K's use of fewer lineup combinations than in previous games. Dawkins' absence from the rotation is the obvious example, but Mason and Miles never played together either. Also worth noting was that when Smith was out with 2 fouls in the first half -- which felt like longer than 3 minutes -- Duke did more than hold its own. In fact, Duke outscored Clemson 6-2 during that stretch.

Anyway, on to the numbers ...

Individuals
Kyle Singler 60-45 (+15)
Jon Scheyer 60-47 (+13)
Lance Thomas 49-36 (+13)
Miles Plumlee 36-25 (+11)
Nolan Smith 54-45 (+9)
Brian Zoubek 24-20 (+4)
Ryan Kelly 6-4 (+2)
Mason Plumlee 11-13 (-2)

Per 40 Minutes
Miles Plumlee +38.3
Ryan Kelly +26.7
Kyle Singler +15
Lance Thomas +14.9
Jon Scheyer +13
Brian Zoubek +11.4
Nolan Smith +9.7
Mason Plumlee -10

Lineups
Scheyer-Smith-Singler-Thomas-Miles (x4) 30-23 (+7)
Scheyer-Smith-Singler-Thomas-Zoubek (x5) 13-9 (+4)
Scheyer-Smith-Singler-Mason-Zoubek (x4) 11-9 (+2)
Scheyer-Singler-Thomas-Kelly-Miles 6-2 (+4)
Scheyer-Singler-Thomas-Kelly-Zoubek 0-0 (+0)
Scheyer-Smith-Singler-Thomas-Mason 0-2 (-2)
Scheyer-Smith-Kelly-Mason-Zoubek 0-2 (-2)

[CDu]

It's hard to glean too much from a game in which four players had 35 minutes or more. As should be expected, those guys were all at or right near the teams +/- of +13. We were fortunate that the 3-minute stretch without Smith didn't go worse. Part of the reason was that Clemson had a non-factor on the floor offensively (Andre Young), which allowed us to hide Kelly.

[devildownunder]

Clearly we need to bench Nolan and Jon and start Ryan and Miles in their place. It's obvious.

Why can't K see this??!!?!

[jv001]

I look at the +/- and just scratch my head. Nolan has some very good #s:
22pts, 8/13fgs, 3 rebs, 2 assts, 0 tos, 2 steals. But was down on the +/- list. Then look at Kyles #s: 12 pts, 5/12 fgs, 2 rebs, 1 assist, 5 tos, 2 stls. Jon's #s: 11 pts, 5/13 fgs, 3 rebs, 3 assist, 3 tos. 1steal. Lance to me had good #s: 13 pts, 7 rebs, 1asst, 1 tos, 1 stl. But he guarded Booker most of the night and Booker scored 22 pts on 10/14 fgs, So I guess that offsets some of LT's numbers. Just some interesting observations from one of the biggest games we've played in a good while. Go Duke!

[jv001]

Clearly we need to bench Nolan and Jon and start Ryan and Miles in their place. It's obvious.

Why can't K see this??!!?!

Yeh and bench Mason so he never plays again. lol Go Duke!

[CDu]

I look at the +/- and just scratch my head. Nolan has some very good #s:
22pts, 8/13fgs, 3 rebs, 2 assts, 0 tos, 2 steals. But was down on the +/- list. Then look at Kyles #s: 12 pts, 5/12 fgs, 2 rebs, 1 assist, 5 tos, 2 stls. Jon's #s: 11 pts, 5/13 fgs, 3 rebs, 3 assist, 3 tos. 1steal. Lance to me had good #s: 13 pts, 7 rebs, 1asst, 1 tos, 1 stl. But he guarded Booker most of the night and Booker scored 22 pts on 10/14 fgs, So I guess that offsets some of LT's numbers. Just some interesting observations from one of the biggest games we've played in a good while. Go Duke!

This is a perfect example of a game that illustrates the limitations of reading too much into an individual game +/- summary. Singler and Scheyer played essentially the entire game (Scheyer actually never came out, Singler came out only briefly). So their +/- basically equal the team's +/-. Smith played 37 minutes and sat 3. So much that goes on in any game (including substitutions, game strategy, random variation in shooting success, etc) that it's really hard to identify why the team was +4 (6-2) with him off the floor. The same is true for Thomas, who played all but 5 minutes.

Obviously, the +/- stats reflect the exact results of the game, and suggest that the results were slightly better in the limited time that Smith and Thomas were out. But I don't think that anyone would reasonably argue that the team was better off without Smith or Thomas on the floor. Ultimately, you'd have to look into who was on the floor when Smith and Thomas were out of the game. For example, I suspect that Thomas sat some while Booker sat, which weakens Clemson's lineup a LOT. But even then, the number of possessions are so few that it's hard to take anything away from those "off-floor" stats.