Tim Duncan's Rest

[admiralfats]

We're all pretty aware that Pop wants rest for his older guys, and as a fan base we all know that this team has everything riding on Timmy's legs. So the idea that Pop would rest Tim down the stretch is not new information.

But in jockeying for playoff position and struggling to find our stride for much of the season, I was a little scared Tim might find too many minutes, as in the overtime Atlanta loss where he played 41 minutes.

I also began to notice, as TD was on my fantasy team (christened The St. Croix Merlins, you'll be happy to know) that he seemed to be taking fewer shots in recent weeks. He seemed to be shooting a good percentage, but lots of nights where he'd be 8/8 or 5/6.

I told a few of my friends I thought that maybe Duncan's "usage" was down, as I had seen this statistic in advanced statistic sections of basketballreference.com, but didn't really know what it meant. But I was thinking that even if TD was playing minutes, maybe the team was keeping his mileage down by not asking him to post guys up and carry a huge workload all of the time. So I just checked out the numbers to see if I was imagining things or something was really different.

All of these stats are available here: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/d/duncati01/gamelog/2010/

Also, I did the FGM/FGA math mentally so there might be some minor mistakes, but I'm pretty sure they're accurate.

TD played 78 games this season. Basketballreference split the stats into 20 game chunks, which I did too.

First 20: 159/285 for 56%
2nd 20: 152/299 for 51%
3rd 20: 135/292 for 46%
Last 18: 111/196
Last 18(+2 hypothetical games): 123/218 for 56%

The last section is the last 18 games he played, so I just took the numbers, averaged them out, and added 12 assumed makes on the assumed 22 FGs he would've attempted.

I found it funny how well Duncan's first 60 games averaged out when broken into 20 game blocks. The FGA's average out to 292, as Duncan attempted 292 shots in 20 games, and then deviated by 7 in either direction in the other 2 blocks.

So in the "last 20", which again is 18 games averaged out to supposed production of 20, Duncan took 218 shots compared to the average of 292 in the previous 60 games. That's 75% of the shots.

He might be playing fewer minutes, and that might totally account for the drop in shots attempted. But I think it's nice to know that for one reason or another, less has been asked of Duncan in the stretch run to the playoffs, DESPITE needing to win games to make it and our attempt to move up in seeding. Also, despite a drop in FG% in the middle of the season, he's shot a percentage similar to the beginning of the year, at a very healthy 56%

We all know Duncan turns it up a notch in the playoffs, but if these numbers aren't fatally flawed (because i'm certainly no mathematician) then I think we can expect a great boost, since he's been taking 25% fewer shots than average in the 18 most recent games. I, for one, am looking forward to seeing us come down the floor and feed the rock to the Big Guy over and over, and watching him torture whoever tries to stop him from putting the ball through the hoop.

Tim in the post is a good thing for our chances at victory. Here's to a fifth championship. :toast

[Cane]

I think not having Tony Parker also affected the amount of shots he had since they work well together. He's been looking pretty good recently and should benefit from the recent rest, here's to a fifth championship for the Spurs! :)

[anonoftheinternets]

i thought this post would address how we need to limit duncans minutes in teh earlier mavs series so we can conserve for the strech run in the next rounds ... :) ..

[rmt]

I'm hoping that Duncan (38 mins.) can expend most of his energy on defense where it's needed most. If Dice (34 mins.) can rebound, defend decently and hit the open jump shot, that should be enough defense in the paint.

Hopefully, the others can step up and provide offense. With Jefferson added, an improved Hill and Blair cleaning up the glass, this should generate enough offense to add to Parker and Manu. I'd prefer not to have to depend on Bonner (just spot minutes) - would rather see Dice and Blair.