PRO BASKETBALL

Going inside numbers, and beyond, for Lakers and Jazz

The website 82games.com offers all manner of esoteric NBA statistics, and different ways to break down the teams' Western Conference semifinal series.
By Jonathan Abrams, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 3, 2008
This one's for you, sports junkie.

Ever wonder just how clutch is Kobe Bryant? Where does Derek Fisher rank among NBA players in drawing offensive fouls? Or what quarter the Lakers perform best in, statistically?

 
Those statistics and more data are provided by the website 82games.com, in its sixth year of unearthing details that don't exactly show up in box scores.

For the record, Bryant is second behind LeBron James in clutch production -- defined as scoring averaged through 48 minutes when neither team is ahead by five or more points in the fourth quarter or overtime.

After that sentence is read a second time to fully digest it, you'll find that James averages 56.0 points during that stretch. Bryant averages 51.8 points.

Also, Fisher led the league in taking offensive fouls this season with 54, one more than Milwaukee's Andrew Bogut.

And the Lakers led at the end of the first quarter in 64% of their games, their best quarter. They dropped off to winning the second quarter 56% of the time -- their lowest performing quarter.

The site is also valuable to see how exactly the Lakers will stack up against the Utah Jazz, their upcoming opponent in the Western Conference semifinals.

When the Lakers put Fisher, Bryant, Luke Walton, Lamar Odom and Pau Gasol on the floor, they are the league's second-most efficient unit, according to statistics that account for scores during offensive possessions and scores allowed during defensive possessions.

The league's most efficient unit?

Utah's combination of Deron Williams, Ronnie Brewer, Andrei Kirilenko, Paul Milsap and Carlos Boozer.

Another interesting tidbit: Utah scored 40 points inside the paint per game this season, second only to the Golden State Warriors.

The Jazz's leading "clutch scorer" is Boozer, who tied for 24th in the league with an average of 34.3 points. But as a team, Utah is tied with the San Antonio Spurs for the best clutch-shooting percentage at 50%. And Williams, Utah's point guard, finished with 12.6 "clutch" assists, third in the league.

By comparison, the Lakers were a surprising 14th in clutch shooting field-goal percentage at 42.3%.

Also, Utah is second-best in the league against "good teams," defined as the teams ranked among top 10 in net points per game. The Jazz outscored those teams by an average of 4.4 points a game. The Lakers are fourth in the league, outscoring those teams by 0.4 points a game.

It all makes for a bunch of head-scratching figures and maybe a bit of overload that may mean nothing when the ball actually hits the court.

But, hey, there's some downtime between each series.

jonathan.abrams@latimes.com




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