As some of you know, I charted each possession during the Knicks/Mavs game a few days back. One fanpost request later, and here we are. So I'll re-post the data I added in the recap thread, and I'll add in some new data as a bonus so this fanpost isn't competely useless. Ha.

Total Possessions - 109

Possessions with 0 or 1 or passes – 46 (By quarter. 11, 9, 13, 13)
Possessions with 2 passes – 28 (By quarter. 5, 12, 8, 3)
Possessions with 3 passes – 18 (By quarter. 7, 4, 6, 1)
Possessions with 4+ passes – 17 (By quarter. 6, 4, 0, 7)

So we had 63 possessions with at least 2 passes. 46 with less. Account for the end of quarter possessions and fast break opportunities, and that number probably drops to about 37 based on memory. Most of those were Melo iso’s, JR iso’s, or Felton PnR opportunities. I’d say the split was about even.

Plays under 10 seconds – 32 (By quarter. 12, 7, 8, 5)
Plays 10-19 seconds – 65 (By quarter. 15, 21, 15, 14)
Plays 20-24 seconds – 12 (By quarter. 2, 1, 4, 5)

What jumps out here are the plays that take 20 or more seconds. This tells me that even when we do iso, decisions are being made quicker than last year. I remember a LOT of shots going up with 2, 3, 4 seconds left on the shot clock. Not very many this game, which was our worst offensive game by far. Of the 12, 5 were either at the of the quarter or game (Our last 2 possessions in the 4th.) So 7 shots were taken under duress. That’s really good. I dont really remember 32 plays that happened in 10 seconds or less. But that’s probably because I counted offensive rebounds as a new possession. So a few of those were probably putbacks, or quick shots after an offensive rebound.

Other Stats

Plays with the same or more passes than dribbles – 12 (By quarter. 7, 2, 2, 1)

You can see there was a lot more dribbling going on as the game progressed. What I noticed with the first quarter is that these plays were in bunches. 3 in a row, and 2 in a row twice. I’m gonna give Woody the credit. He probably stressed ball movement during timeouts or something, and the team would respond with a few beautiful plays.

Plays with double digit dribbles and 2 or less passes – 30 (By quarter. 5, 10, 9, 6)
Plays with double digit dribbles and 3 or more passes – 16 (By quarter. 3, 4, 3, 6)

Based on this stat, the ball was more stagnant during the middle quarters. It doesnt tell the whole story of course. But still.

BONUS STATS!

Plays with single digit dribbles - 63
Plays with double digit dribbles - 46

Exactly the same as the ratio of 2 or more passes/1 or less passes. 63/46. Which makes me wonder, was every possession with less than double digit dribbles also a possession with 2 or more passes? The answer is.....nope. But how awesome would that have been?

Most passes in a possession - 8
Most dribbles in a possession - 22 (I didnt count end of quarter possessions. If I did it was 29!)
Total Passes - 218 (By quarter. 68, 58, 43, 49)
Total Dribbles - 953 (By quarter. 185, 245, 256, 267)
Average passes per possession - 2
Average dribbles per possession - 8.74

Look at this. Passes go down by quarter almost in order, dribbles get higher every quarter. Mirrors what I remember, the offense got sloppier as the game went on. But the defense got better so we still won. Still something of note though. Also, the average of passes was exactly 2. 218 passes in the game, 109 possessions. Neat. I guess this would kinda be the stat to track through multiple games when I do this a few more times. Passes per possession and dribbles per possession. Easiest way to compare another game's ball movement to this one. Ok, let's get a win tonight!