Lakers-Jazz and homecourt advantage

I commented on this post over at a Utah Jazz blog earlier today which touched on the always contentious issue of refereeing favoring the home team. It was originally supposed to be a brief comment, but it grew as I was writing it. I guess I just tend to be verbose... Anyway, since it ended up being more of a post than a comment, I decided I'd also post it here (with a few minor modifications).
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Assuming I’m reading the tables correctly (always a big assumption!), the link to basketball-reference shows that the Jazz’s opponents get 23.1 fouls called against them on the road (i.e., in SLC) and 23.0 called against them at home—in other words, no difference. The Jazz, on the other hand, get called for 24.8 fouls on the road and 23.3 fouls at home. That seems to indicate that either the refs do let the Jazz get away with a little more contact at home (1.5 fouls worth) or the Jazz simply move their feet better at home. In either case, the Jazz’s opponents do not seem to benefit from being at home in the same way.

More interesting to me is where on the court the fouls seem to occur. When the Jazz are at home, their opponents shoot 27.9 free throw attempts. When the Jazz are on the road, their opponents shoot 32.3 free throw attempts. That’s five additional free throw attempts, but only 1.5 additional fouls (from which I would expect 3 additional free throw attempts at most). So not only do the Jazz get called for less fouls at home (or more on the road, whichever way you prefer to look at it), but they also seem to commit those fouls further away from the basket (i.e. not in the act of shooting). A more energized, aggressive team (the way a team often plays at home) could certainly explain this difference, but I found it interesting.

So the Jazz seem to get some homecourt advantage related to the reffing (or at least the fouls called), but what about the Lakers?

Basketball-reference shows that the Lakers’ opponents get 23.3 fouls called against them on the road (i.e., in LA) and 21.8 called against them at home. The Lakers, on the other hand, get called for 20.6 fouls on the road and 20.7 fouls at home—in other words no difference. That seems to indicate that the refs do not let the Lakers get away with more contact at home. However, it does seem to indicate that the refs let the Lakers’ opponents get away with less contact in LA than at home (1.5 fouls worth). The Lakers’ opponents do not seem to benefit from being at home in the same way.

In terms of where the fouls are called, the Lakers shoot 29.2 free throw attempts at home and 26.1 free throw attempts on the road. This seems perfectly consistent with getting 1.5 additional fouls called against their opponents at home. The Lakers’ opponents shoot 24.3 free throw attempts in LA and 24.4 free throw attempts at home, again consistent with the number of fouls called. Now I’m even more curious about what changes in how the Jazz play defense at home vs. on the road.

Long story short: Both the Jazz and Lakers appear to benefit from the refs’ calls at home, but they benefit in very different ways. The Jazz appear to benefit because they are called differently in SLC. The Lakers appear to benefit because their opponents are called diffently in LA.

It would be interesting to know whether all so-called “physical” teams benefit in the same way as the Jazz while all so-called “finesse” teams benefit in the same way as the Lakers. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy to go through the whole league sorting teams into these categories.

Anyone else want to do it?

Jazz- Rockets

I'm sitting here watching the Jazz-Rockets Game 3. I saw a little of a previous game in which bodies were flying everywhere without whistles being blown. This game, the refs were calling it much closer. I felt like the refs were calling things tighter against the Rockets. Then the 4th quarter started, and the Jazz apparently decided to see how far they could take it physically. I think they picked up four fouls in the first three minutes of the quarter, and none of the calls were even debatable. Just very weird-- this quarter just has a much different feel to it then the previous quarters. It also happens to be a two point game right now (Jazz 79, Rockets 77), so maybe that has something to do with it.

[Pause as I watch the final nine minutes of the game]

Okay. After that timeout, things calmed back down, and the teams got down to just playing some good basketball.

It looked like the Rockets had sealed the deal on a victory when, with 1:40 left in the game, McGrady hit a jumper as Kirilenko ran over Carl Landry. The refs said that McGrady had released the shot before the foul, so the basket counted and then Landry got to shoot a free throw which he nailed to put the Rockets up 93-86.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. Korver hit a quick three with a minute left in the game, McGrady got called for an offensive foul when he pushed Kirilenko to the ground in an attempt to get free, and then Okur canned a three pointer with 40 seconds left to cut the Rockets lead to one (93-92). Even on the replay I couldn't figure out how Okur was so find open.

McGrady missed badly on the next trip down the court. Rather than call a time out, the Jazz looked to score in the flow-- basically looking for Deron Williams to create something. Houston played some great defense, but finally Williams managed to penetrate the middle of the lane. It looked like he was going to get a pretty good look at a lay-up, but Carl Landry got off his feet really quickly to make a fantastic block (making it even sweeter for Landry, he had lost a tooth earlier in the game when he'd accidentally been whacked in the mouth by a Jazz player). And then he made another great play to grab the ball before it went out of bounds and pass it to Luis Scola. Scola made one of two free throws, and after the Jazz missed their tip attempt at the buzzer, the Rockets had cut the Jazz's series lead down to 2-1.

Good game.

Reason number 2901 why I need NBA League Pass

TrueHoop put up a link today about the Sixers-Jazz game, describing the difficulties the Jazz had scoring in the 4th quarter against a "mediocre" defense (i.e. the Jazz were only getting outside jump shots). Immediately my finely-honed "how come the media always bad mouths the Sixers" mindset kicked in. After all, the Sixers have been a very good defensive team this season. According to the numbers included with the Dec. 31 NBA.com power rankings, the Sixers were the seventh best defensive team in the league (in terms of efficiency) going into this week (giving up 104.7, compared to the league average of 107.1).

I was all set to post about how, yet again, people were not giving the Sixers enough credit. But then I plugged the numbers from the Jazz game into my spreadsheet. Oops. Turns out the Sixers defense was pretty crappy against the Jazz, turning in a 121.2 defensive efficiency rating. We didn't force turnovers (12.1%), nor did we force the Jazz into tough shots (TS% = 63.3). I guess I owe Henry an apology (or would have if I'd posted my initial thoughts)-- calling the Sixers defense in the game "mediocre" was actually being generous.

If I could actually watch Sixers games this year, I'd have known how poorly the Sixers had played defense and I'd be in a much better position to not get annoyed unnecessarily. Instead, I could get annoyed from actually watching the games!