A day late and a dollar short.

When the Cavs are on offense

• Shooting

        eFG%  Rank
  Us    .480    25
  Them  .457     2

  In the most important of the Four Factors, the Celtics absolutely dominate the Cavs. That's bad. My advice: start shooting lots of threes. Why? I love threes. Also, it's better than a Ben Wallace jump-hook.
  
  
• Turnovers

        TO-r  Rank
  Us    .156    15
  Them  .177     1

  This is getting ugly. It seems even more lopsided than the match-up between the Cavs and Spurs last year.
  
  
• Offensive rebounding

       OReb%  Rank
  Us    .304     3
  Them  .256     8

  Comparative advantage alert! Offensive rebounding has been the Cavaliers' greatest non-LeBron strength for years now. I think they do a pretty good job of exploiting it. The problem is the Celtics are no slouches on the defensive boards.
  
  
• Getting to the foul line

       FT/FG  Rank
  Us    .220    20
  Them  .253    23

  I suspect that Boston's high foul numbers are a side effect of their physical defense. They might not have such good defensive shooting efficiency numbers without fouling a lot. Anyway, this is the least important factor—and it's not like the Cavs are that great at drawing fouls. As a fan though, I'd love to see them drive the lane more than they did in Game 1, though.

In light of these numbers, the Cavaliers' struggles on Tuesday shouldn't have been to surprising. LeBron's performance was a bit of a shocker, but on the whole, the Cavaliers really shouldn't score much against Boston. What do you expect when the nineteenth-best offense (107.5 points per 100 possessions) faces the best defense (100.2 points per 100 possessions)? The key to victory lies elsewhere, I feel.

No doubt, scoring tons of points would lead to victory. Focusing on offense is probably the wrong strategy, though, since you'd be attacking your opponent's strength. Also we've seen that the Cavs' coaches don't particularly excel when it comes to offensive gameplans in the playoffs.

When the Cavs are on defense

• Shooting

        eFG%  Rank
  Us    .494    11
  Them  .522    4

  Here we go again, right?
  
  
• Turnovers

        TO-r  Rank
  Us    .149    20
  Them  .170    29

  Well, maybe not quite. Like we saw in Game 1, turnovers are where they're vulnerable—especially their big men besides Kevin Garnett. Kendrick Perkins is a sieve.
  
  
• Offensive rebounding

       OReb%  Rank
  Us    .241     2
  Them  .266    18

  If the Cavs start allowing second chances, they're in trouble. The Celtics have a good but not great offense and offensive rebounds won't help the Cavs.
  
  
• Getting to the foul line

       FT/FG  Rank
  Us    .240    18
  Them  .267     3

  The only two people who I think the team can't afford to have in foul trouble are LeBron and Zyrdrunas Ilgauskas. LeBron for obvious reasons and Z for his mid-range shooting and offensive rebounding. For everyone else, there's a passable backup on the bench. I'm not worried about the disparity here.

The Celtics are weaker on offense than they are on defense, as they're "only" ninth in the league in offensive efficiency, at 112.1 points per 100 possessions. The Cavs' seeming game plan from the series opener makes sense. To upset Boston, they'll have to lock down on defense. Unfortunately, their season-long numbers suggest just a middling team defense (twelfth in the N.B.A., 108.0 points per 100 possessions).

As I've said before in this article, the Cavs need to "attack" the Celtics offense for a chance to win. Their defense is too good; it'd be unrealistic to expect the Cavs to break out against it. A low-scoring game would benefit the Cavs more than the Celtics, too. The fewer number of total points scored, the smaller the "diff"—if you will—on average. And the smaller the difference in scores, the more likely luck will factor into the final outcome of the game. In a low-scoring game, the Cavs are a good bet to be behind by four points or less with a couple minutes to go. That's certainly better than being down eight in the same situation, because the pace was faster. And yes, that's what I'm already reverting to: luck. The Cavs need to get lucky. The Celtics have been light-years better this season. Although, as we all know, all things are possible with LeBron.

I've finally found a way to combine two of my great loves, sabermetrics and Major League. (Surprisingly, this is only the third Major League-related post in this blog's history.) Using a script I found online and Christopher Shea's Win Expectancy Finder, I set out to determine who deserves the credit and who the blame in the Indians' win in their memorable one-game playoff against the Yankees, way back in 1989. In the end, I wanted to create something resembling the graphics available for each game on Fan Graphs (you may be familiar with these same charts from wrap-ups at Let's Go Tribe).

The main problem, I discovered, is that the movie only depicts snippets from that fateful contest. I was able to reconstruct the seventh and ninth innings (almost) completely. And what I couldn't deduce I simply removed from the analysis. For example, in the top of the ninth, Harry Doyle says that Eddie Harris has given up eight hits, though we've only been shown one of them. I won't worry about when those other hits occurred, since they didn't affect the score of the game. Since the online Win Expectancy Finder is based actual results from real games, I set the time period for it to check to the ten-year window centered on the release of the film, 1984–1994, for really no good reason at all. I thought it would be both a decently-sized sample and close enough to the run environment of the late eighties.

The film breezes through the first six innings, without any real highlights. But we do know that it's still 0–0 in the seventh. Therefore, I can calculate Harris's win probability added (WPA) for each of those innings, since they each started the same way they ended. I simply subtract the Indians' win expectancy at the beginning from their win expectancy at the end of that half-inning.

• Top of the 1st: .592 - .541 = .051
• Top of the 2nd: .581 - .531 = .050
• Top of the 3rd: .581 - .531 = .050
• Top of the 4th: .587 - .519 = .068
• Top of the 5th: .590 - .521 = .069
• Top of the 6th: .592 - .518 = .074

That makes for a sub-total of .362 wins heading into the seventh. Not too bad. Unfortunately, that's where Harris ran into trouble. Let's take it event-by-event. I'll list what happened followed by the Indians' updated win expectancy.

Top of the 7th

• start of inning: .509
• [not shown]
• 2 outs, runner on 2nd: .527
• Harris gives up homer: .207
• assuming Harris gets the next man out, end of inning: .218

For the inning, Harris cost the team .291 wins, bringing his current in-game total to .071. Don't worry just yet though, because the Tribe is coming to bat in the bottom of the inning, trailing 0–2.

Bottom 7th

• start of inning: .218
• Willie Mays Hayes pops out: .187
• Jake Taylor grounds out: .148
• Roger Dorn singles to left: .182
• Pedro Cerrano homers: .551
• assuming the next guy gets out, end of inning: .517

Cerrano's home run, besides showing the Indians' superior will to win, really turned the game around. In fact, it was a .369-win swing and tied the game at two.

At this point, we skip past the eighth inning—where no runs are scored—and head straight for the ninth. I'll include the eighth in my analysis as I did with the first six innings, to evaluate Eddie Harris.

• Top of the 8th: .632 - .517 = .115

Harris's WPA now stands at .186. Let's get to the good stuff.

Top of the 9th

• start of inning: .526
• [not shown]
• 2 outs, bases empty: .631
• Harris gives up single: .609
• Harris gives up double, runners on 2nd and 3rd: .489
• Harris walks batter, bases loaded: .434
• Vaughn replaces Harris, strikes out Haywood, end of inning: .654

Had Harris simply gotten that third out, he would've gone nine innings and given up two runs, ending up with a WPA of .314. Instead, he nearly blows the game and exits having added only .094 wins for the Indians. Vaughn gains .220 with only three fastballs—now that's clutch. In the words of Harry Doyle, "Can you believe this, Monty?"

Bottom of the 9th

• start of inning: .654
• [not shown]
• 2 outs, bases empty: .568
• Hayes hits infield single: .559
• Hayes steals second: .593
• Taylor bunts, Hayes scores: 1

"The Indians win it! The Indians win it! Oh my God! The Indians win it!" Sorry, but that line actually gives me goose bumps every time I watch the movie.

You know what?



Getting back to business, Taylor's bunt was the clutchiest of the Indians' many clutch plays that night, netting .407 wins, and besting Cerrano's home run by four-hundredths of a win. Jumping backwards for a moment, you many have noticed something fishy with the numbers in this inning. The Indians' win expectancy goes down after Hayes's single. Why would this happen? You'd expect that a runner on first with two outs is better than bases empty with two outs. Remember that these numbers aren't based off a model, but real-life. So, from 1984 to 1994, home teams that had the bases empty with two outs in the ninth of a tie game went on to win 56.8% of the time; home teams that had a man on first with two outs in the ninth of a tie game went on to win 55.9%. Given a larger sample size of games, I'm sure the numbers would move closer to what we expect.

I'm not so sure I want to assign all the credit from the final play to Taylor, though. It wasn't necessarily a sure thing that Hayes would make it from second base on a bunt. Frankly, I don't think I've ever seen it happen anyplace else. If Hayes had gotten a bad jump, he could've been held at third. Then the Indians would've had men on the corners with two outs—better than before, but not a sure win. So, I reran the numbers.

Alternative Analysis of the Last Play

• Taylor bunt singles, Hayes to 3rd: .686
• Hayes "steals" home: 1

Now, treating the play like a bunt and a steal, the credit is shared more evenly. Taylor gets .093 for the bunt and Hayes .314 for scoring. And, once again, Cerrano's blast reigns supreme among gutsy, clutchified plays.

You knew I couldn't resist this:



Based on all my number-crunching, the true heroes of this game were (in no particular order): Jake Taylor, Pedro Cerrano, Willie Mays Hayes, and Rick Vaughn. "What about Eddie Harris," you may be asking. "He gave up two earned runs in 8 2/3 innings!" The problem is that his WPA comes out to a measly .093. And why's that? Because he left a tie game in the ninth with the bases loaded! And WPA doesn't even account for him loading the bases in front of the best hitter in the league, the Triple Crown winner, no less.

I know this has all been in good fun, but if you'll allow me to be philosophical for a moment: fans will remember Taylor's courageous bunt and Vaughn's electric fastball and maybe even Hayes's timely base-running, but will they pay proper respects to Cerrano's power? I can't answer that for sure. If you look at the numbers though, you see that Cerrano's home run was (arguably) the most consequential play of the day for the Tribe. Once again, we see stats glorify sluggers who only sit back and swing for the fences and condemn the little guys, the run manufacturers, who seize every opportunity for gaminess and hustle to win. The numbers may be right and they may not, but it'd be impossible to deny that this team won—not just this one game, but throughout the entire season—as a result of their determination, grit, heart, desire, and clubhouse chemistry. Score one for the purists.