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You know the drill. You want a quick recap of the game, so you go straight to the box score. It tells you the basics, who won, who put up big numbers, and who didn’t. But we all know there’s so much more to the story. So many chapters that don’t make the jump from the hardwood to the stat sheet. That is, until now.
The Warriors and MOCAP Analytics want to bring you, the fan, closer to the action. We know it’s tough to tell a good sports story without getting into numbers, but we also think it’s time to add a little color to the narrative. Time to add some words and visualizations to the traditional play-by-play.
So, here we go.
We’ll use the first eight Warriors games from this season to bring you the digital-age enhancement to the print-friendly box score. Those of us who remember getting ink on our fingers as we flipped through the sports page know exactly what I'm referring to.
MOCAP Action Cloud:
If you tally up the box scores from the first eight games of the season, you’ll find the Warriors near the top of the NBA in field goal percentage (49.3 percent) and three-point percentage (43.7 percent), while also being one of the stingiest defenses in the NBA, holding opponents to 41.2 percent from the field and 27.6 percent from behind the arc. However, the box score does little to elaborate on what’s actually working on each side of the ball. The Action Clouds above provide visual representations of the offensive and defensive actions that the Warriors have had success with over the first two weeks of the season. The size of each phrase in the cloud represents the effectiveness of that particular kind of play, with larger text meaning greater success on offense (blue cloud) or defense (yellow cloud). At a glance, you’ll notice the Warriors are playing great team basketball, moving without the ball (“Cutting Lanes”), creating for others off the bounce (“Middle Drive & Kick”), and finding perimeter shooters (“Spot Ups”). On the defensive end, the Warriors are doing a great job of defending drives (“Baseline Drives”), stifling plays from the elbows (“High Post Touch”), and disrupting opponents’ “Two Man Game.”
It should come as no surprise that the Warriors are blessed with terrific shooters, but the improvement on defense this season has been a bit of a revelation. Golden State is the only team in the NBA to rank in the top six in both points per possession and points per possession allowed, and these action clouds dive deeper into explaining exactly how that’s being accomplished.
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