Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Recently 82games.com took a quick look at points in the paint for the 2006/07 NBA season. The 82games study focused on both sides of the ball to see if interior play really correlated with winning basketball games and concluded:

The 95% CI's are huge with just a 60 team-season sample, but the basic premise is offensive points in the paint don't have a huge impact, defensive points in the paint allowed are the most connected to winning record (it's showing a negative correlation since fewer points allowed in the paint is the goal) and the net is somewhat related to record.

This is of particular concern to Raptors fans this off season with some people suggesting the need for a big shot blocking presence in the middle to protect the paint. Normalizing the 82games numbers for pace, in the 2006/07 season the top interior defenses were:

Team	Pts in Paint (Def)
Houston	37.0
Chicago	38.1
Orlando	38.4
New Jersey	39.6
Miami	40.8
Dallas	41.8
Utah	42.3
Indiana	42.5
New Orleans	42.5
Cleveland	42.6
New York	42.6
Detroit	43.2
Toronto	44.0
San Antonio	44.1
LA Clippers	44.7
Washington	44.8
Sacramento	44.8
Phoenix	44.9
Golden State	45.0
Minnesota	45.1
Boston	46.0
Philadelphia	46.1
Charlotte	46.3
Denver	46.6
Portland	47.2
LA Lakers	47.4
Milwaukee	47.8
Seattle	48.1
Atlanta	48.4
Memphis	49.3

According to the pace adjusted numbers, Toronto had the 13th most efficient defense in the paint this year.

This obviously begs a few questions. Are the Raptors somehow an average interior defending team...and are the Spurs? Is "points in the paint" too indiscriminate (IE, fast breaks count too)? Is Rasho Nesterovic the greatest C in Raptors history? Is Chris Bosh's interior D underrated?

That last question interests me. Watching the Raptors I have noticed Bosh is not pushed around down low defensively nearly as much as his message board critics like to claim. Some players seem to get stuck with certain labels like "soft" or "bad defender" and that label will stick with them throughout their careers, despite obvious improvement. Watch Dirk defend now and compare that with the Dirk of 2002, for example. I feel that Chris Bosh really stepped up his defensive game this year and was one of the big reasons the Raptors improved their overall defensive efficiency from 29th in the NBA last year, to 12th in the NBA this year, and these points in the paint numbers might help illustrate that belief.

But with that in mind, a great man once said:

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything. 14% of people know that.