| By The Numbers: Difference Between Winning and Losing. Authored by Marten Liebster - June 3, 2005 - 2:08 am
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Assist/Turnover ratio:The player's Assist/Turnover ratio which had the greatest impact on our winning was ...
The one you're most likely thinking -- Steve Francis -- of isn't it. The oft maligned PG's ratio drops by .2 in our loses. He was our primary ball handler for most of the season, so obviously the team would have benefited if he did better in this area, even if he didn't do that badly in our loses.
Purely by the numbers, Pat Garrity's numbers drop the most when we lose. But we can throw his numbers out, as he doesn't handle the ball all that much.
Then next on the list is Jameer Nelson, primary backup and periodic starting PG. His ratio drops from 2.6 when we win, to 1.9 in our loses -- a change of .738. Jameer is someone we will rely on more as his career moves on foward. As his game matures, I'm sure he'll continue to improve.
DeShawn and Stacey were the only primary players to actually do better in this regard in our losses, compared to the wins.
Here's the list of starters and primary bench players:
(Note: for all stats, a negative "diff" number indicates a higher numbers in loses than in victories)
| Player | Wins | Losses | Diff |
| Pat Garrity | 1.75 | 0.941 | 0.808 |
| Jameer Nelson | 2.678 | 1.939 | 0.738 |
| Kelvin Cato | 1.149 | 0.5 | 0.650 |
| Grant Hill | 1.963 | 1.341 | 0.622 |
| Tony Battie | 0.947 | 0.545 | 0.401 |
| Dwight Howard | 0.717 | 0.422 | 0.294 |
| Steve Francis | 2.000 | 1.794 | 0.205 |
| Hedo Turkoglu | 1.450 | 1.392 | 0.058 |
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| DeShawn Stevenson | 1.111 | 1.441 | -0.330 |
| Stacey Augmon | 1.166 | 1.466 | -0.300 |
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| The Entire Team | 1.586 | 1.275 | .311 |
Three point shots:
In our loses, Grant hit 0 of 6 three point shots. When the Magic won, he nailed 4 out of 8 attempts. Obviously, Grant hitting threes isn't vital for our success, but it's an interesting coincidence nonetheless.
Francis had the second largest drop off of .114. This was a sub-par year for him: his career 3PT% is .342, but Francis only managed an average of .299 this season.
The numbers do show how good of an outside threat Cuttino was for us -- he shot at a .466 clip for the time he played with the Magic. The next best 3 point shooter was Hedo, with an average of .388, which was in line with his numbers of .382.
Hedo was followed closely by DeShawn, whose career average was by far superceded by the one he shot this season -- .273 for his career, .378 for the year.
Once again, DeShawn actually performed better in loses. This time around, he's joined by Jameer:
| Player | Wins | Losses | Diff |
| Grant Hill | 0.500 | 0.000 | 0.500 |
| Steve Francis | 0.360 | 0.246 | 0.114 |
| Doug Christie | 0.272 | 0.166 | 0.106 |
| Pat Garrity | 0.375 | 0.305 | 0.069 |
| Hedo Turkoglu | 0.411 | 0.349 | 0.062 |
| Cuttino Mobley | 0.470 | 0.460 | 0.010 |
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| DeShawn Stevenson | 0.272 | 0.400 | -0.128 |
| Jameer Nelson | 0.230 | 0.336 | -0.106 |
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| The Entire Team | 0.386 | 0.328 | 0.057 |
Inside the arc, we find a few more surprises:
The bench was supposed to be key for us this year. Our biggest offseason free agent acquisition, Hedo Turkoglu, was brought on as an anchor to the bench. His percentages show the importance he had to the team. When we won the game, he shot over 50%. However, his average plummeted to 36.8% in our losses.
His benchmate (at least for the large part of the season), Jameer had a reverse performance -- 48% in wins, 50% in losses. Most often our first big man off the bench, Battie has been the most consistent in wins and loses -- he recorded a change of only .006%.
As a team, however, there was only a minor drop off during losses, 3.8%. Stacey leads the list of those who performed better in loses:
| Player | Wins | Losses | Diff |
| Hedo Turkoglu | 0.509 | 0.368 | 0.140 |
| Kelvin Cato | 0.613 | 0.475 | 0.138 |
| Doug Christie | 0.442 | 0.340 | 0.101 |
| Pat Garrity | 0.507 | 0.434 | 0.072 |
| Steve Francis | 0.463 | 0.410 | 0.052 |
| DeShawn Stevenson | 0.447 | 0.395 | 0.052 |
| Grant Hill | 0.539 | 0.494 | 0.044 |
| Dwight Howard | 0.539 | 0.512 | 0.026 |
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| Stacey Augmon | 0.288 | 0.472 | -0.184 |
| Jameer Nelson | 0.483 | 0.500 | -0.017 |
| Cuttino Mobley | 0.395 | 0.405 | -0.010 |
| Tony Battie | 0.464 | 0.470 | -0.006 |
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| The Entire Team | 0.492 | 0.454 | 0.038 |
Starters:
The longer the starters were out there, the less we won. Typically a coach relies on his starting 5, the best players on the team, to dig the team out of a hole. Here are the average minutes per game by group.
| Group | Wins | Losses | Diff |
| Starters | 164.28 | 168.06 | 3.778 |
| Bench | 75.71 | 72.46 | 3.246 |
Another way of looking at the starters:
As far as points' productions goes, our bench played fairly consistently for the year. The wildest variance came from the starting 5 - their average dipped nearly 8 PPG in our loses. This can attributed to several factors, including trades, coaching changes, and injuries. As a result of these factors, we've had a several different starting line-ups throughout the season.
| Group | Wins | Losses | Diff |
| Starters | 76.20 | 68.468 | 7.732 |
| Bench | 27.77 | 26.106 | 1.665 |
| Total | 103.97 | 94.574 | 9.397 |
Player spotlight -- Dwight Howard:
Here's how our rookie of the year candidate performed in our wins and loses.
| Category | Wins | Losses | Diff |
| Unassisted FGM/G | 2.027 | 2.043 | -0.016 |
| Assisted FGM/G | 1.972 | 2.456 | -0.484 |
| Turnovers | 1.277 | 2.108 | -0.831 |
| Rebounds - Off | 3.555 | 3.913 | -0.358 |
| Rebounds - Def | 6.750 | 6.282 | 0.468 |
| Free Throw att. | 5.472 | 4.630 | 0.842 |
| Personal Fouls | 2.472 | 3.086 | -0.614 |
All season long, Dwight had been hovering around the 10rpg mark, give or take a couple per game. So it makes sense that his unassisted FGM are consistent. What's surprising is this: in our losses, he averages 1/2 an assisted shot made extra.
Interestingly, his turnovers have increased nearly by .831 a game when we lose. For the first months of the season, he averaged about 1.45 per game. For the last two, that number rose to 2.26 per game. But, as he was getting more touches during Jent's tenure as the head coach, there was more opportunities for him to turn the ball over. For the stats below, a touch is calculated as FGA + Assists + Turnovers.
| Category | Davis | Jent | Diff | % Diff |
| Games | 64 | 18.0 | | |
| Touches | 9.7 | 14.8 | 5.1 | 50.5% more touches per game |
| FGA/Game | 7.3 | 11.2 | 3.9 | 53.4% more FGA per game |
| TOs | 1.5 | 2.5 | 1.0 | 66.6% more TOs per game |
| Assists | .8 | 1.1 | 0.3 | 37.5% more Assists per game |
Final observation: it seemed to me that double teams were coming to cover Dwight more frequently as he was getting his increased touches. That's something I would expect to continue into the coming seasons as our opponents start to respect his offensive game. If the numbers at this season's end are any indication, he probably will continue to struggle handling them to start off his sophomore season in the league.
Final Magic Number:
Orlando was 4-0 in games in which they scored 117 or more.
I want to thank ORL for kindly editing my articles.
Editor's Note: Last week, we said that a piece on Brian Hill's return to the Magic would be up.
However, it was delayed due to a E-Mail problem.
Still, it is better late than never.
So, here is a link to Jason Willis' piece.
Http://magic.realgm.com/articles/15/20050603/back_here_where_we_need_ya/
We hope that you enjoy both of these pieces.
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