The Blazers and Short Shot Clocks

Great work by Ben Golliver at BlazersEdge.com, digging up some fascinating stats about the Blazers and the shot clock. Golliver credits Synergy Sports for these gems about short shot clocks — shots taken with less than four seconds on the clock: . . .

— Portland has had more field-goal attempts on a short clock (160) than any team in the league. The Utah Jazz (158) and Detroit Pistons (157) are second and third. By comparison, the Phoenix Suns have had 64 such possessions. All the numbers, by the way, were prior to Tuesday’s games.

— While the Blazers are first in the league in short shot clock field-goal attempts, they are 26th in short shot clock field-goal percentage. Portland shoots 29 percent on such possessions, compared with 45 percent from the field overall. That would suggest that it’s not such a brilliant strategy for them to work the clock for so long.

— Last year, Portland was sixth in the league in number of short shot clock attempts. But the big difference is that the Blazers shot 38 percent in such situations, rather than this year’s 29 percent.

All of this confirms what we already knew — the Blazers are simply out of synch offensively. Basketball-reference.com lists an offensive rating and defensive rating for each team, which is points scored or allowed per 100 possessions.

Portland’s offensive rating this year ranks 11th in the league, which isn’t bad; but last year’s Blazers ranked first. At least they’re consistent in one regard: Portland has played at the slowest pace in the NBA both seasons, which explains the plethora of short shot clocks.

Anyway, there are some additional insightful numbers on Golliver’s post. It’s worth a glance.