Patrick Mills and the Context of Making Shots When It Counts

[Mugen]

Patty is f'n great tbh.

[Joyrider]

Retire Mills jersey already. A towel/big head night NEEDS to happen in the playoffs.

[DMC]

Reasonable point but: 1) Obviously it's going to be flawed to some degree since I used general cutoffs 2) I was aiming at making a general point and it's clear that generally it's more important to shoot well in close games than it is to shoot well when the score isn't close -- we could run a leverage report and those numbers would agree with that basic assessment 3) We're dealing with a small sample size as it is; hacking it further would likely produce diminishing returns

The tl;dr of the matter is Mills has unequivocally struggled in close games and in first halves. Given his overall strong numbers, my humble opinion is that those struggles are notable and have played a role in his inability to nail down a role.

This is fundamentally flawed. If a team, which is comprised of individual percentage shooters, keeps it close, they are not only hitting shots (may not be shooting well) but playing defense adequately as well. It's not more important to shoot well in a close game. You cannot close a gap if you shoot poorly, but you can overcome poor shooting by defense in a close game and still win.

That doesn't mean your initial post isn't accurate. You cannot argue with the stats and in context they tell the story. Of course, someone here will say it's luck and mention Gauss, but we know it's a mind set.

[TJastal]

With Mills it appears to be a confidence issue only. That can be remedied by Pop showing confidence in him by giving him the job to win or lose and stop the musical chair approach to the backup pg position.