MIES (Switzerland) - Every basketball fan knows that we'll never be able to either prove or disprove the axiomatic statement that defense wins championships, but it serves to ignite lively debates and as the favorite go-to phrase of coaches frustrated with their players.

After delving into the stats of the 16 teams which made it to the Basketball Champions League Play-Offs however, we found reliable evidence that defense wins berths in the postseason. Let's see what else a look at some interesting stat categories can show us.

 

Best Offense

In our 'Stats don't lie' snapshot during the Regular Season break for the holidays we had concluded that, judging from the data we had gathered from the first nine gamedays, it was safe to assume that San Pablo Burgos and Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem would be the two highest-ranked offenses. This is exactly how things turned out, with the only difference that Hapoel's offensive rating increased in the final five weeks of the Regular Season and the Israeli team surpassed Burgos for first place.

Turk Telekom's rating improved to 115.7 from 113 and consequently they leapfrogged Dinamo Sassari for third. The main reasons behind this improvement will become apparent in the section below (Offensive Indicators). Meanwhile fellow Turkish side Bandirma, who were not even in the Top-10 in the first nine weeks of the Regular Season, finished strong enough to climb to fifth place on a 113.7 rating. By stark contrast, AEK dropped to 111.4 from 114.3 as the final stretch coincided with the absence due to injury of their leading scorer, Keith Langford.

OFFENSIVE EFFICIENCY TOP-10

Team	Offensive Rating
Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem	121.0
San Pablo Burgos	118.2
Turk Telekom	115.7
Dinamo Sassari	115.6
Teksut Bandirma	113.7
Iberostar Tenerife	111.9
AEK	111.4
Telekom Baskets Bonn	110.5
Lietkabelis	109.9
JDA Dijon	109.4

Offensive Efficiency (or Offensive Rating) is defined as the number of points a team scores per 100 possessions

 

Offensive Indicators

Hapoel led the league in Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%) throughout the first ten weeks of the Regular Season and managed somehow to improve further in the final stretch, from 56.2 percent to 58.6 percent. The biggest surprise though was that this improvement proved necessary for the Jerusalem side to maintain their grip on first place, as they needed to fend off the spectacular rise of Turk Telekom. The Turkish side shot the lights out in the final weeks of the Regular Season and their eFG% rose to 57.2 percent, from 54.6 percent.

Turk Telekom combined this sharp rise in eFG% with a notable improvement in assist ratio, to 20 from 18.8, and these were two hugely important factors behind the Ankara team's impressive surge in offensive efficiency, which we noted in the previous section. Meanwhile the Assist Ratio of both Hapoel and Tenerife improved enough to see them finish in the top two, overcoming JDA Dijon and Burgos. It is worth noting that the team with the best Assist Ratio in the Regular Season, BAXI Manresa, didn't make it to the Play-Offs.

EFFECTIVE FIELD GOAL PERCENTAGE TOP-10

Team	Effective Field Goal Percentage
Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem	58.6%
Turk Telekom	57.2%
San Pablo Burgos	55.8%
JDA Dijon	55.6%
Telekom Baskets Bonn	55.5%
Teksut Bandirma	54.9%
Iberostar Tenerife	54.6%
AEK	54.5%
Dinamo Sassari	54.4%
Besiktas Sompo Sigorta	53.4%

The Effective Field Goal Percentage formula is (Field Goals Made + 0.5 X 3-Pointers Made) divided by (Field Goals Attempted)

ASSIST RATIO TOP-10

Team	Assist Ratio
Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem	20.2
Iberostar Tenerife	20.0
Turk Telekom	20.0
JDA Dijon	19.9
San Pablo Burgos	19.7
Telekom Baskets Bonn	19.4
Dinamo Sassari	18.1
Lietkabelis	17.9
Nizhny Novgorod	17.5
Teksut Bandirma	17.4

Assist Ratio is defined as the percentage of possessions that end in an assist

TURNOVER RATIO TOP-10

Team	Turnover Ratio
Dinamo Sassari	11.8
Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem	11.8
Turk Telekom	12.1
San Pablo Burgos	12.3
Nizhny Novgorod	12.8
Iberostar Tenerife	12.9
AEK	13.0
JDA Dijon	13.2
Teksut Bandirma	13.7
Lietkabelis	13.9

Turnover Ratio is defined as the percentage of possessions that end in a turnover

 

 

Best Defense

Defensive efficiency proved, by far, the most reliable metric of a team's success in the Regular Season. It is the only advanced statistical category in which a high ranking was almost synonymous with a high position in the standings - the only team with a top-10 defensive rating not to advance to the Play-Offs was Manresa, who only nearly missed out on the final gameday. To put it in even simpler terms, teams that didn't play at least average defense didn't make it out of the Regular Season.

It is important though to stress that the utility of this metric loses importance in the Play-Offs, where 'good defense' is entirely relative and you can't draw comparisons between different team pairings.

The four teams that earned the four postseason tickets from Group C (Nymburk, Tenerife, Nizhny, Peristeri) finished in the Top-5, after dominating this category throughout the season. Meanwhile Dijon dropped all the way to 104.5 from 98.2 and were surpassed by Zaragoza, in an accurate reflection of what happened also in the Group D standings in the final weeks of Regular Season action.

DEFENSIVE EFFICIENCY TOP-10

Team	Defensive Rating
ERA Nymburk	95.4
Iberostar Tenerife	95.8
Peristeri winmasters	101.2
Casademont Zaragoza	101.4
Nizhny Novgorod	104.1
JDA Dijon	104.5
Filou Oostende	104.7
Turk Telekom	104.7
Besiktas Sompo Sigorta	105.2
Dinamo Sassari	106.0

Defensive Efficiency (or Rating) is defined as the number of points a team allows per 100 possessions

 

 

No Shooting Please

We had previously marveled at the ability of Nymburk's defense to contest shots within the arc, but also assumed that keep forcing opponents to shoot below 45 percent from two-point range was not sustainable in the long term. The Czech champions however not only proudly demonstrated that this feat was possible, but went one step further by also tightening up their perimeter defense.

Nymburk ended up at the top also of the Opponents' 3-Point Shooting table, a metric in which they were only tenth overall (and seventh among teams that qualified to the Play-Offs) when there were five games remaining in the Regular Season!

OPPONENTS' 2-POINT SHOOTING PERCENTAGE TOP-10

Team	Opponents' 2PT%
ERA Nymburk	44.2%
Casademont Zaragoza	46.8%
Peristeri winmasters	47.1%
Turk Telekom	47.4%
Filou Oostende	47.9%
Iberostar Tenerife	48.6%
Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem	50.3%
San Pablo Burgos	50.9%
Nizhny Novgorod	51.2%
Teksut Bandirma	52.9%

(opponents' percentage, so lower is better)

OPPONENTS' 3-POINT SHOOTING PERCENTAGE TOP-10

Team	Opponents' 3PT%
ERA Nymburk	31.1%
Iberostar Tenerife	31.8%
Casademont Zaragoza	31.9%
Nizhny Novgorod	32.1%
AEK	32.5%
Peristeri winmasters	33.2%
Filou Oostende	33.4%
Dinamo Sassari	33.6%
Lietkabelis	34.0%
Teksut Bandirma	34.0%

(opponents' percentage, so lower is better)

 

Battle On The Glass

Everything around us changes all the time, with the exception of the offensive rebounding rate this season - Burgos, Nymburk, Zaragoza and Lietkabelis were the best teams in this category (among the 16 that eventually made it to the Play-Offs) after we passed the halfway point of the Regular Season, and not only they maintained their dominance until the end, but also finished in that same order.

The exact opposite is true on the defensive glass, as the defensive rebounding rate of Sassari surged to 72.8 percent (from 70.7 percent on the Gameday 9 snapshot) and Lietkabelis's rose to 72.4 percent from below 70. By contrast, Besiktas dropped to 71.6 percent after occupying a top-two spot among all 32 teams during the first two thirds of the Regular Season. Turk Telekom were the only team that bucked the trend of huge changes in this category, making very small but steady progress throughout the season, to climb to second place.

OFFENSIVE REBOUND RATE TOP-10

Team	Offensive Rebound Rate
San Pablo Burgos	36.8%
ERA Nymburk	35.6%
Casademont Zaragoza	33.6%
Lietkabelis	33.0%
Telekom Baskets Bonn	32.9%
Dinamo Sassari	32.7%
Teksut Bandirma	32.7%
Besiktas Sompo Sigorta	31.5%
Nizhny Novgorod	31.1%
Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem	29.9%

 

DEFENSIVE REBOUND RATE TOP-10

Team	Defensive Rebound Rate
Dinamo Sassari	72.8%
Turk Telekom	72.6%
Lietkabelis	72.4%
Filou Oostende	71.9%
Besiktas Sompo Sigorta	71.6%
Nizhny Novgorod	71.3%
Telekom Baskets Bonn	70.9%
ERA Nymburk	69.9%
Casademont Zaragoza	69.2%
Peristeri winmasters	68.7%

 

 

Complete Stats

Here is a complete table of the relevant stats of all 16 teams that advanced to the Play-Offs (in alphabetical order):

Team	Def Rating	Off Rating	Opp 2PT%	Opp 3PT%	eFG%	OReb Rate	DReb Rate	AST Ratio	TO Ratio
AEK	107.4	111.4	53.3%	32.5%	54.5%	28.6%	67.0%	17.0	13.0
Besiktas Sompo Sigorta	105.2	108.1	57.5%	34.3%	53.4%	31.5%	71.6%	14.9	14.6
Casademont Zaragoza	101.4	105.3	46.8%	31.9%	51.0%	33.6%	69.2%	17.2	14.1
Dinamo Sassari	106.0	115.6	53.3%	33.6%	54.4%	32.7%	72.8%	18.1	11.8
ERA Nymburk	95.4	107.2	44.2%	31.1%	50.7%	35.6%	69.9%	16.0	14.3
Filou Oostende	104.7	99.8	47.9%	33.4%	49.3%	29.9%	71.9%	15.3	15.8
Hapoel Bank Yahav Jerusalem	112.4	121.0	50.3%	38.6%	58.6%	29.9%	65.8%	20.2	11.8
Iberostar Tenerife	95.8	111.9	48.6%	31.8%	54.6%	27.6%	68.3%	20.0	12.9
JDA Dijon	104.5	109.4	53.8%	35.0%	55.6%	23.0%	68.3%	19.9	13.2
Lietkabelis	109.7	109.9	56.2%	34.0%	51.1%	33.0%	72.4%	17.9	13.9
Nizhny Novgorod	104.1	106.3	51.2%	32.1%	51.8%	31.1%	71.3%	17.5	12.8
Peristeri winmasters	101.2	103.7	47.1%	33.2%	50.4%	28.8%	68.7%	17.0	14.4
San Pablo Burgos	112.0	118.2	50.9%	34.4%	55.8%	36.8%	67.6%	19.7	12.3
Teksut Bandirma	110.4	113.7	52.9%	34.0%	54.9%	32.7%	67.4%	17.4	13.7
Telekom Baskets Bonn	108.2	110.5	53.0%	36.8%	55.5%	32.9%	70.9%	19.4	14.5
Turk Telekom	104.7	115.7	47.4%	35.3%	57.2%	26.8%	72.6%	20.0	12.1