Warriors, Hawks Out To Prove Phil Jackson Wrong, Advance With Series Wins
Over the weekend, Phil Jackson caused a stir when he questioned how successful 3-pt shooting teams statistically are in the playoffs. But with both the Golden State Warriors and Atlanta Hawks up 3-2 in their respective series, both squads are dead set on proving the New York Knicks President wrong.
NBA analysts give me some diagnostics on how 3pt oriented teams are faring this playoffs…seriously, how’s it goink?
— Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) May 10, 2015
To be fair, at the time of Jackson’s tweet, the Warriors, lead by Steph Curry, were getting manhandled on their way to being down 2-1 by the Memphis Grizzlies. But after climbing back to take the series lead, as reported by Inquistr, behind a spirited effort from Steph, Golden State is poised to advance to the Western Conference Finals.
“You feel the energy of the crowd, and I was getting some clean looks,” Curry said after the game. “So you make a couple, keep being aggressive and just try to read the situation in every possession. I was able to get free off some great screens in Draymond and (Andrew) Bogut.”
According to the USA Today, “the reigning MVP became the first player in NBA history to have six 3-pointers and six steals in the same playoff game.”
The Atlanta Hawks also climbed back from a 2-1 series deficit to the Washington Wizards. They now stand on the precipice of advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals where they’ll face off against the Cleveland Cavaliers who took care of business last night against Derrick Rose and the Chicago Bulls. Al Horford’s game winning layup at the end of regulation countered the buzzer beater the Wizards’ Paul Pierce dropped at the end of game 4 to even the series at 2-2.
So was Phil Jackson’s tweet a bit premature in criticizing the Hawks and Warriors for their 3-pt shooting offense? In retrospect yes, seeing as how both teams can advance with wins, but Relativity Digest thinks otherwise.
Using what’s called a “classification tree,” Dr. Ikjyot Singh Kohli established that the four most important factors in breaking down the Golden State Warriors success are field goal percentage, free throw percentage, opponents field goal percentage and number of points scored by Golden State.
“We can see that for the Warriors to win games, they must shoot above 43.25 percent and ensure that their opponents shoot below 48.8 percent,” Dr. Kohli states. Dr. Kohli then goes a step further claiming his formula proves that “Anytime the [Warriors] make more than 12 3-pointers in a game, they will win, [and] anytime [Golden State] shoots less than 23.6 percent from the 3-point line, they will lose,” corroborating Phil Jackson’s claims.
In the end numbers never lie, right? Well in the case of Phil Jackson versus the Warriors and Hawks offense, they may not tell the whole truth either – if both teams can advance to the next round.
[Steph Curry photo credit: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images. Phil Jackson photo credit: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images]
