Bulls Pacers Summary

As each playoff series ends, I use plus-minus stats to look at who really affected the outcome of that particular series. Not that you really care, but to me, plus minus is the one measure that can capture all a player's contributions to the final score. "You won't see Perk's impact in the box score." Well, hopefully, it affects the scoreboard. Because, if what you do playing basketball doesn't affect the score in the playoffs, who cares what you're doing? Anyways, a brief summary of the system used:

1) Take the plus minus of a player for the entire series, and compare it to the team's plus minus (If you don't know what plus minus is, watch hockey sometime... it's pretty cool, and aside from Olympic hockey, the playoffs are as good as it gets).

2) Take into account the minutes played. Why? Because if two guys have a +/- of +5, one played 10 minutes, one played 40, they're not the same. Running 6 minute miles in a 5K and a half marathon are not the same thing.

Now that that's out of the way, let's take a look at the best and worst players of Bulls-Pacers.

Best Player in the Series: Luol Deng. Saying he averaged 19, 6, and 4 doesn't really do him justice. Took the assignment of guarding the other team's best scorer, and despite playing more minutes than anyone, was +62 in his time on the court. It's really not even close.

Worst Player in the Series: Danny Granger. The best player on a losing team plays a lot of minutes, and usually has a bad plus minus overall. But why was his team 21 points better with him on the bench in 5 games? Well, if Luol Deng basically matched him point for point, and Derrick Rose was on the other team, Danny probably didn't have a chance.

The Jerome James Award: Tyler Hansbrough. For all the bluster about the Game 1 performance, for all the grit and hustle and will and intangibles and want-to and (insert ridiculous hyperbole here) he displayed, his play had no bearing on team success. -36 with him on the floor, and the team was -37. I know people say that Josh McRoberts losing minutes to Hansbrough was part of the Pacers' playoff run, but Psycho T was not a positive contributor in this series. If someone tells you otherwise, just try to stand back, because they're just blowing hot air at you, and that usually doesn't feel good.

P.S. If you don't know why Jerome James is the name of this award, do five things:

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/stats/_/id/383/seasontype/3/jerome-james
1) Look at Jerome James' 2005 regular season stats.
2) Look at Jerome James' 2005 first round playoff series stats.
3) Look at Jerome James' summer 2005 signing with the Knicks.
4) Look at Jerome James' career after the 2005 playoffs.
5) Wonder why you weren't tall enough to turn 5 basketball games into $29 million.