Part of managing the end of quarters is generating extra possessions. Teams do this through clock management decisions usually referred to as a 2-for-1. The idea is that, if a team starts a possession with a certain amount of time left in a quarter, it’s better to take a lower quality shot that leaves enough time for a second shot instead of working longer for a better one.

The vast majority of the time this doesn’t matter. Management of these situations is the type of “extra 2%” edge that smart teams try to generate, though. A well executed 2-for-1 is believed to create around 0.6 additional points, on average, and in some games can stack if a single team gets lucky with opportunities.

Anecdotally, the Celtics have been terrible in executing 2-for-1’s this season. It feels like every week we see Terry Rozier (usually) dribble down from 40 seconds to 22, leaving the last shot to the opponent. Isaiah Thomas seems to manage the situations well but it’s one place where Evan Turner’s presence has been missed. I’ve spent enough time complaining about it this year so I decided to look into if Boston has actually been bad at it, or if there have just been some bad examples that stand out in the memory.

To do this, I took a collection of every shot taken in the last 48 seconds of quarters 1-3 in games within 15 points. Fourth quarters play out differently as teams are in end-game so I excluded those. I also removed blow-out situations, even early in the game, so as not to capture situations with low intensity and deep-bench units. This left me with over 11,000 shot events on the season.

I defined a “2-for 1 opportunity” (somewhat arbitrarily) as one where a team attempts a field goal or free throw with 40-48 seconds left in a quarter. The last shot in that time window creates an opportunity for the opponent. If the opponent attempts a FG or FT in the “2-for-1 zone” of 30-39 seconds left in the quarter, they are considered to have successfully attempted a 2-for-1.

If they do not get off a shot of their own in that specific period of time, they failed in the attempt. A failure can come from not securing a rebound after the opponent miss, turning the ball over, shooting too quickly or too late, or any other possibility resulting in no shot attempt. I am not measuring if the team actually got more possessions than their opponent, or even made the shots they took. I’m only trying to determine what teams are good at identifying the opportunity and trying to exploit it.

I found 1,569 total shots that created a 2-for-1 opportunity under this definition. For each one, I built a shot sequence through the end of the quarter that looks like this:

In the first example, Isaiah Thomas successfully executes a 2-for-1 opportunity by shooting with 32 seconds to go, leaving 8 seconds for the team to get a second shot even if the Warriors were to run out their shot clock. In the second example, Marcus Smart fails in the execution by shooting with 27 seconds left, not leaving enough time for a good 2-for-1. In both cases, a team did also get an end of quarter heave but not an effective shot.

With all of these sequences built, I then determined which team had the opportunity and their rates of success.

2-for-1 Opportunities by Team (2016-17) Team Successful 2-for-1 Starts Failed 2-for-1 Starts Success% Toronto Raptors 37 13 74.0% Utah Jazz 39 14 73.6% Dallas Mavericks 30 13 69.8% Los Angeles Lakers 34 16 68.0% Golden State Warriors 31 15 67.4% Portland Trail Blazers 33 17 66.0% Oklahoma City Thunder 45 24 65.2% Atlanta Hawks 29 17 63.0% Houston Rockets 35 21 62.5% New Orleans Pelicans 38 26 59.4% Los Angeles Clippers 27 20 57.4% Philadelphia 76ers 26 20 56.5% Brooklyn Nets 31 24 56.4% Memphis Grizzlies 27 21 56.3% Charlotte Hornets 28 22 56.0% Cleveland Cavaliers 28 23 54.9% Milwaukee Bucks 23 19 54.8% Denver Nuggets 36 30 54.5% New York Knicks 26 23 53.1% Washington Wizards 28 25 52.8% Phoenix Suns 27 26 50.9% Boston Celtics 32 33 49.2% Indiana Pacers 27 29 48.2% Sacramento Kings 27 30 47.4% Chicago Bulls 21 24 46.7% San Antonio Spurs 25 31 44.6% Detroit Pistons 20 25 44.4% Minnesota Timberwolves 20 32 38.5% Orlando Magic 22 36 37.9% Miami Heat 16 32 33.3%

League Findings

The first thing to note is that, at the team level, samples are still small. A team can look bad because they gave up a few more offensive rebounds than normal, or took a couple of shots with 29 seconds instead of 30. Still, the gap is wide between the top and bottom so there’s probably enough to say that certain teams are good at this, or focus on it, while other are not. A few of the famed purveyors of this skill, Lou Williams and DeMar Derozan, powered their teams to the top of the standings. The Mavericks have a collection of PGs in J.J. Barea, Seth Curry, and Yogi Ferrell who are willing to jack up shots without much encouragement. The Warriors have Curry, Klay, and KD who are all able to create a quick shot on almost any trip.

At the other end, the Heat may just not care. We saw this at the end of the half in their last game against the Celtics when they received the ball with 42 seconds left, took a timeout with 32 seconds, and shot at 20 seconds, voluntarily bypassing a 2-for-1 chance. The Magic have Elrid Payton playing PG, who doesn’t exactly have a 2-for-1 friendly game. The Timberwolves have a similar disadvantage with Ricky Rubio and Kris Dunn.

The top-10 individuals players are:

A few general items to note are that there is little correlation between the quality of an overall offense and their ability to execute 2-for-1’s. There’s no correlation between defensive rebounding and 2-for-1’s, which I worried might skew this particular definition of an “opportunity.” To me, it looks to be more a philosophical choice for teams, or a function of luck, than something that teams would inherently be good or bad at. It’s looks like an advantage to have a scoring PG, but the Jazz are 2nd and don’t really have that while Boston have Thomas and are in the bottom-10 so it’s not just that.

Celtics Outlook

Boston does appear to be bad at executing 2-for-1’s, but as usual it’s not as simple as it seems. First off, Isaiah Thomas has eight successful creations on the season, tying him with seven other players for 13th. That’s not all that surprising. Much more surprising, to me at least, is that Terry Rozier is just behind him with seven successes of his own. However, all seven of these came before mid-December, meaning that he was as good as anyone in the league early on, but has been inept, or uncaring, since then. Marcus Smart has only four success on the season, one fewer than Kelly Olynyk, but his are more recent. It looks like Brad Stevens gave Terry control of the ball early in the season and he executed this well, but after a long period of poor execution, turned the responsibility over to Smart.

Again, this probably doesn’t matter all that much, but when a single playoff game can be decided by one point it’s better to be taking advantage of it than not. When Isaiah is on the court the team should be diligent about creating the opportunities and hopefully Rozier can get back to his early season level of execution. Boston could face Atlanta and Toronto in the playoffs and bleed a few points on late quarter execution. If the Celtics play the Heat and then Wizards, it’s possible everyone will just dribble the clock down as I rant on Twitter.

You can follow those potential Twitter rants at @dangercart. The shot data is courtesy of basketball-reference.com.