success measures for delay game

[grossbus]

without, hopefully, getting into a discussion of whether or not we should use the delay game in a given situation...


what should be the expected success rate of the delay game? obviously, we want to score or be fouled each possession. that is unlikely. it probably only seemed to me that that was the way it happened when j-will was driving and dishing to los.

today, we used it once at the end of the first half, unsuccessfully, and five times at the end of the game. the first three of those resulted in missed shots and davidson scores at the other end (on two of them anyway, i don't really remember the other one). the next two resulted in rather amazing shots by GP both going to his left and finding only the very bottom of the net.

so, 2 for 6. to my way of thinking (which, jumbo will tell you, is nearly always wrong) we should be scoring or getting fouled better than 50% of the time. but, how much better? or, is 50% about right? it actually could be that i am off base on this.

[Carlos]

I'm going with the measure that we want to finish the game with more points than our opponent. So if we score or get fouled on 2% of our possessions but we win, then the delay game was a success.

[Stray Gator]

What Carlos said.

[Troublemaker]

we should be scoring or getting fouled better than 50% of the time. but, how much better? or, is 50% about right?

Scoring or getting fouled 50+% of the time is the goal when you're running regular offense and have 35 seconds of shotclock to worth with. When running delay and having only 10-15 seconds of shotclock to work with, I think you can't expect much better than 40% success. Like you said, it's only when you have a JWill that you can expect almost no difference between the two scenarios.

[-jk]

I expect us to win them all.

That said, Coach seems to go into slow down about when we're up by more than twice as many points as there are minutes remaining. So if, for the remainder of the game, we can average a trade of 1 point using up 25 or more seconds for their 2 points in 6 or more seconds, we should win them all.

But I just watch games; I'm not a serious stats geek. I'll leave a more detailed analysis to those more capable.

-jk

[Duvall]

I think you may be overlooking the most obvious effect of the delay game - burning clock. In this game, the delay had some success in forcing Davidson to abandon the screen and roll game that was picking Duke apart and shoot quick 3's.

[grossbus]

no, i didn't overlook it, since it is the raison d'être for a delay offense, i didn't mention it. probably should have.