| 03 May 2011
There was plenty of whining and complaining to be heard (seen?) on the internet about the free throw differential in favor of the Miami Heat in their Game 2 match-up against the Boston Celtics.
"It's hard to win five-on-eight!" is a personal favorite of mine. Other backhanded remarks were made about not blaming the refs despite the calls, etc. etc. But where is all of this coming from? Not only did the referees generally pass the eye-test (the Heat consistently penetrated and the Celtics got the same calls outside of some out-of-control Glen Davis drives), but the season-long statistics would also dictate that the Celtics would be on the wrong end of the free throw differential in a match-up with the Heat.
Ignoring the numbers in their regular season match-ups (for now), we can quickly see that the two teams were likely find themselves in this situation.
The Heat were 2nd in the NBA in free throw rate (free throws attempted/field goals attempted) differential in the regular season, standing strong at +6.38 behind only the Denver Nuggets. Meanwhile, the Celtics were in the bottom half of the Association (16th), at -.53 per game. Simply put, one team (the Heat) draws more fouls than it commits and the other (the Celtics) generally do not.
Using NBA.com's StatsCube to look at the Heat and Celtics free throw attempts against one another in their regular season match-ups, we again see that this was no aberration, or some NBA-mandated scheme to move the Heat into the next round. The Celtics averaged 23.5 free throw attempts per game against the Heat while the Heat shot 28.8 free throws per game against the Celtics. These numbers do not differ greatly from the two team's averages against all of the NBA (.5 more attempts per game for the Celtics, 1 full attempt more per game for the Heat).
Admittedly, things get a bit more iffy when we look into the numbers from both team's playoff games thus far. The Celtics have averaged 20 FTA/game (we're only 2 games into the series, of course, so this stuff could begin to regress to the mean) to the Heat's 34 per game. That's 14 more foul shots for the Heat per game in the series, up from only +5 FTA for the Heat in the regular season series with the Celts. Of course, the Celtics have only averaged 18 FTA per game in the playoffs so far, while the Heat have averaged 29.3. In other words, we're not looking at any kind of massive difference in free throws awarded for either team, according to the numbers from their earlier series(es?).
Celtics fans (or coaches. Or players) still might argue about a few calls against them here or there (Paul Pierce's ejection included), but it's undeniable that the Heat have earned the majority of their calls in the series and outplayed the Celtics to boot.
