Game Review: Pacers at Bulls- Game 2

On Monday, the Bulls held off the Pacers to win Game 2 by the score of 96-90. The outcome was not unexpected. But, why did it happen?

First, by way of introduction, here is the ESPN box score. Now, if you're looking for something a bit more advanced, here is the Hoopdata box score.

Looking through the regular box score, one guy stands out as the difference: Derrick Rose. Rose is the guy that will generally stand out if you're looking at Bulls games. But, was he most responsible the the Bulls' Game 2 win?

Rose had 36 points, 8 rebounds, 6 assists, and 6 turnovers. He scored his 36 points on 58.6% true shooting. That can be calculated with the regular box score numbers using the formula found in the True Shooting Percentage Daily Dictionary post. Luckily, though, Hoopdata does the math for us! Rose's true shooting was very good in this game, but let's look at his scoring on another level: a point per possession basis.

Possessions can be estimated pretty well through this formula: FGA + .5FTA + TOV - (1/3)missedFGA. The way possessions are currently calculated, offensive rebounds extend a possession rather than creating a new one. The 1/3 coefficient is the approximate amount of times an offensive rebound results from a miss. So, for every three shots a player takes, approximately one of those shots results in a continued possession.

Using that formula, Derrick Rose used approximately 33 possessions while scoring his 36 points leading to a point per possession rate of 1.1 (36/33). That's not bad, but to determine how useful it was for to the Bulls' success, we should look at his point per possession rate in relation to his other high usage teammates. The three other main contributors in terms of possessions used were Carlos Boozer, Luol Deng, and Joakim Noah. Calculating their points per possession rates the same way we get:

Points Per Possession

Derrick Rose- 1.1

Carlos Boozer- 1

Luol Deng- 0.82

Joakim Noah- 0.33

So, Rose and Boozer were relatively positive players in terms of scoring while Deng was a slight negative and Noah was extremely poor. Now that we've looked at the Bulls' scoring, is there anything else that stands out that may have contributed to the team's success?

The thing that stands out to me is that the Bulls took 6 more shots and 7 more free throws. They were slightly less efficient than the Pacers (49% true shooting to the Pacers' 50.9%), but those extra shots made up more than the difference in efficiency. Why did those get those extra shots?

Well, the Bulls turned the ball over four more times than the Pacers. But, the Bulls grabbed eleven more offensive rebounds. Even though an offensive rebound doesn't technically begin a new possession, there is obvious value in extending the possession. We'll call that an "extra" possession where the Bulls got an opportunity to put up one more shot. They lost four opportunities through their turnovers relative to the Pacers, but their offensive rebounding edge gave the Bulls a chance to put up shots in seven more possessions (11-4) than the Pacers.

As discussed previously, the Bulls true shooting percentage for the game was 49%. That equates to 0.98 points per shot. Take those seven extra opportunities to take a shot, multiply it times the 0.98 points per shot rate, and you get 6.86 "extra" points for the Bulls. They won by 6.

So, what does all of this tell us? Derrick Rose's scoring was a definite positive for the Bulls. He scored at a higher point per possession rate than any other high usage players for the Bulls, and he did it while shouldering an enormous burden (45% usage). But, the Bulls' offensive rebounding probably played an even bigger factor in determining the outcome. Boozer had 5 offensive rebounds, Deng had 3, and Noah had 6. While Deng and Noah didn't have great scoring days, they contributed on the boards. Boozer contributed in both regards and, in doing so, was arguably the Bulls' most important player in Game 2.