Numerophilia: Alaska tries to break through versus San Mig Coffee in Comm. Cup semis

It’s the PBA semifinals. Four teams are left standing, with one more round before the big dance. With a full conference behind us, we’ll have enough data to tinker with, and try to look at trends, developing stories and factors that could sway the series.
 
Today, we look at the matchup between the master, San Mig Coffee, and the student, Alaska Aces.

Monster Bowles

For a team that’s looking to erase the memory of a disappointing Philippine Cup showing, while optimistically aiming to defending their crown, SMC started the conference with a whimper, losing their first three games by an average margin of 20 points per 100-possessions.

That’s just bad.

But hidden behind those three losses is the fact that they did not have an import in their first game, their import was not-so-impressive in the second and they were welcoming back a new, former import in the third. Yes, one game into his PBA career and two games into the conference, Matt “Barney Stinson” Rogers was axed. And in his place came the reigning Best Import, Denzel Bowles. With Bowles, San Mig Coffee finally found the swagger that brought them a championship a season ago.

Taking out Bowles’ first game against Rain or Shine, and you'll see that SMC has been on a roll. In those 11 games, SMC allowed just 92.1 points per 100-possessions – that’s almost 4 points below league average, second best over that timeframe. In fact, even with their below-average offense (95.4 over that time span, eighth worst in that span), their incredible defense was able to give them the third best efficiency differential in that time.

Clearly, the arrival of Denzel Bowles has re-invigorated this SMC team. And along with defensive stalwart Marc Pingris and the brilliant mind of Tim Cone, they were able to roar back from a 0-3 start and get all the way to the semisfinals.

The most surprising thing about SMC over that span is their shooting. They made 47 of 149 three-point attempts over their last 11 games. That’s an incredible improvement compared to their first three games, which were a certified brickfest, only 12 makes in 55 tries.

Their triangle offense clearly operates better with Denzel Bowles. Him and Joe Devance became interchangeable parts in the triangle, with both guys able to operate in the pinch post (the big man not involved in the triangle, and usually located near or at the free throw line) and in the low post (the focal point of the triangle).

Devance in particular has blossomed as a passer, with an assist rate of 20.6 percent, 12th in the league, ranked among names such as Mercado, Ross, Casio, Tenorio and the like. That’s an impressive feat for a big like Devance and underscores just how good of a passer he is at his size.

Lost in all of this is James Yap’s conference. In the Commissioner's Cup, Yap has an offensive rating of 88.2, eight points below average. As much as I want to talk about his personal life, his persistence on settling for those long two-point jumpers has hurt not only his efficiency, but also San Mig Coffee’s.

Instead of punishing smaller players in the post (where he can use beautifully executed spin moves and up-and-unders) or hoisting it from deep (where he’s shooting a very solid 35.8%), Yap bails out the opposing team's defense with a lose-lose decision to take 22-foot, two-point jumpers. Not exactly the best of decisions, bad back or not.
 
Karate Kid and Mr. Miyagi

The student clearly has learned a lot from his master. Coach Luigi Trillo’s team follows almost the similar ideologies as Tim Cone, and the numbers bear this out.

	DRTG + Rank	Opp eFG + Rank	eFG Diff + Rank	ORB% + Rank	Opp FTR + Rank
Alaska Aces	90.7 - 1st	40.9% - 1st	2.7% - 1st	28.2% - 8th	21.7% - 3rd
San Mig Coffee Mixers	93.5 - 3rd	43.3% - 3rd	2.3% - 2nd	29.9% - 7th	19.8% -2nd

Both squads' calling cards are their defense, which relies highly on forcing their opponents into tough shots. They also do not rebound a lot of their misses and they do not allow a lot of free throws.

However there are key differences between the two. For starters, Alaska thrives on fast breaks. They use their defense to fuel a lot of easy points in transition via quick outlet passes. Alaska currently ranks as the best fast-breaking team in the league, scoring around 1.43 points per fast break attempt. They don’t do it a lot, just 6.6 fast break attempts per game, but when they do, expect them to score.
 
Alaska also does not rebound a lot of their misses because they usually leave just one big to attempt offensive rebounds. The Aces are the best team at defending the break, surrendering just 0.97 points per fast break attempt. They also allow the second least fast break attempts in the league, forcing opponents into half-court sets where they can suffocate them with Dozier’s patrolling presence, timely rotations and hard closeouts.

Dozier has been a revelation for Alaska. He’s a long, athletic, mobile and energetic big that completely changes the offensive game plan of an opponent. The fact that Alaska is the best defensive team in the league with Dozier playing all 14 games and being on the court for a little over 85% of the time, it stands to reason that he’s the biggest reason why.

While the import's block rate of 5.7 percent doesn’t even begin to show his intimidating presence, it doesn't mean he's a slouch on offense at the same time. In fact, he's also a very efficient offensive player, scoring almost 112 points per possession with a lot of those points coming from face-up action, where he punishes slower opponents with a quick drive, and on ball screens, where he’s paired with playmaker Jvee Casio and scorer Cyrus Baguio.

The Miami Heat draft pick is also the best rebounding player in the league (second if we include Evan Brock, who was replaced by Barako Bull) with rebounding splits of 13.1 percent (2nd), 24.7 percent (4th) and 19.2 (1st). Overall, his PER of 26.8 ranks second in the entire league for players who’ve played in at least 10 games and played at least 20 minutes.

Lastly, one man who has been quietly having a great conference is Dondon Hontiveros. In the Commissioner's Cup, Dondon Hontiveros made 21-of-52 three-point attempts for a 40.4 percent clip. That three-point percentage ranks fourth-best among players who took at least 40 three-point shots. If there was any man that SMC should mark from the three-point line, it’s this guy. Has anyone forgotten about his 7-of-10 explosion from deep against Rain or Shine? Probably not.

What are possible keys that can sway this matchup to one side?

Milking the break

As I said, Alaska is the most efficient team on fast breaks. And they fuel this monster through quick passes from defensive rebounds. Well, fortunately (or unfortunately if you’re an SMC fan), SMC was one of the worst at this department. Not only did they allow the third-most fast break attempts per game in the league (9.7 opponent fast break attempts per game), they also allowed opponents to score almost 1.3 points per fast break attempt, third-worst in the league.

If there’s anything that will crack this game open, it’s Alaska’s fast break points and effort-lacking jogs back on defense from SMC. SMC should make this a half court game and run back on defense whenever a shot goes up. This goes out to not just their guards but also to their bigs.

Unluckily for the Mixers, they also concede the third-most steals to their opponent and turn the ball over on 17.6% of their possessions. Steals are also one of the best ways to get out on the break. This means SMC has more reason to take care of the ball.

Free throw battle

This is probably the biggest advantage that Alaska has over San Mig Coffee (in terms of a team’s four factors). The Aces' ability to get to the line (29.9 percent free throw rate, first in the league) and concede few free throw attempts to their opponent (21.7 percent, third) will be a chore for the Mixers, a team that isn’t really that aggressive at getting to the paint and mucking it up (19.3 percent free throw rate, second worst in the league).

Luckily for SMC, they are also really good at not conceding free throws (19.8 percent, second in the league). If Alaska can get to the free throw line, San Mig is going to be in for a long night. So far, in two games against the Aces though, this has not been the case. San Mig Coffee has conceded a free throw rate of 28.4 percent in those battles, not good enough.


Tim Cone

The data overwhelmingly favors Alaska in every way, except for one – the coach. For some reason, Tim Cone just knows what buttons to press to disrupt Alaska’s offense. Is this because he knows every trick that coach Luigi will use because those tricks came from him? Probably, but you can’t deny the facts. Alaska has not won against Tim Cone in eight tries.

Alaska's defense seems to hold up. This season, they’ve allowed San Mig Cofee to score 91.2 points per 100 possessions, not far from SMC’s conference ORTG of 91.5 and not far from Alaska’s conference DRTG of 90.7. But Alaska’s offense just can’t seem to get their shots to go in when they face Tim Cone. If history was any indication, Coach Luigi Trillo will have a very difficult series in his hand, despite having the better roster.

Will the student finally surpass his master? Or does the master still have more tricks up his sleeve?

We’ll have to wait and see for the results of this best-of-five series. - AMD, GMA News




Nico Baguio holds a Masters Degree in Mathematics from the Ateneo de Manila University. He's currently a writer for SBNation's At The Hive and runs a website that focuses on using advanced statistics on the local hoops scene, Humble Bola. You can email him at contact@humblebola.com. You can also follow him on Twitter.