Today’s game offered a pretty interesting development which we hadn’t seen yet all season – a very healthy dose of Patrick Patterson in the post. In fact, during stretches in the 4th, this seemed to be the team’s exclusive go-to option. The decision was rather curious because a) we had never seen the team feature Patterson like this in any game in his entire career and b) based on recollection, Patterson isn’t particularly good in the post.
I decided to dig a bit into the numbers via SynergySports.
This year, in 77 post-up attempts, Patterson is shooting 40% and scoring 44% of the time.
Needing a frame of reference, I deliberated for some time on who to choose. Carl Landry? Luis Scola would be pointless as I figured his numbers would eclipse Patterson’s. I decided to look regardless.
In 214 attempts, Scola has shot 41% and converted 38.8% of the time, numbers very similar to Patterson.
Granted, Scola’s is a) a much larger sample size and b) comes against much better defenders. So it would be absurd to argue that the two are on equal level of effectiveness. But what the numbers show, I think, is that with the team short-handed and already without an isolation star, Patterson might be good enough to at the very least test out in the post, as was done tonight.
