Sunday, April 01, 2007

The Golden State Warriors' Jason Richardson has displayed a couple of pronounced scoring spurts lately. In today's game against Memphis, Richardson scored 11 points in a span of roughly two-and-a-half minutes midway through the fourth quarter to help overcome a Grizzlies' lead and spark the Warriors to victory.

And there was last Thursday night's Golden State game against Phoenix. According to this game article:

The Warriors scored 18 points in the first 3 minutes with four 3-pointers. Golden State had 30 points in the first 5 1/2 minutes, including 16 by Richardson on four 3-pointers and 6-for-6 shooting.

In order to be truly a streaky shooter, someone must go through cold stretches, as well as hot ones. In the statistical jargon, a player's p(hit|hit) [i.e., probability of hitting a shot, given an immediately previous hit] must exceed his or her p(hit|miss) [i.e., probability of hitting a shot, given an immediately previous miss]. Stated differently, a made shot would appear to elevate a player's shooting percentage on the next shot, relative to if he or she had missed the previous shot.

Interestingly, quoting from the above-linked article on the Phoenix game:

Richardson was awful in the Warriors' previous two games, going scoreless in 29 minutes during Golden State's home loss to San Antonio on Monday. Before the game, Warriors coach Don Nelson said Richardson hasn't been fully healthy all season after undergoing knee surgery shortly before training camp.

Further analysis will need to be done, of course, but perhaps Jason Richardson can be found to be a member of that rare species: the statistically established streak shooters.

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