Regular Season vs. Playoffs Shooting Percentages
Regular Season vs. Playoffs. We know that these are two different types of contests, so to say. Throughout the years, we saw that there are players who perform very well in the regular season but disappear in the playoffs and vice versa. The case of those who are performing better in the playoffs than in the regular season is slightly limited, of course. The playoffs are loaded with much more pressure and intensity, you can’t afford to have an off night (well, only if you’re the Warriors and you have 3 different lethal weapons on the roster) because it can cost you the series. This is the time of the year where true basketball players are showing and proving themselves. In the next graphics, you can see how some of the best players of the league are shooting during the regular season versus in the playoffs. It shows how different things are when it matters most and how the superstars can handle that pressure.
So, we can see here that the players mentioned above have a pretty high percentage on their true shooting throughout the season, but let’s see how they unravel their shooting during the playoffs.
Yes, you don’t have to be a specialist in statistical charts to see that the percentages have gone down for some of them, except Kawhi Leonard, who surprisingly improved his shooting in the post-season. It’s interesting because this particular thing can show how much the intensity of defense increase while how some of the superstars of the league are reacting when the season is on the line. DeMar DeRozan is at the bottom, and that’s no surprise, because in the past years it could be seen that he tends to “choke”, as they say, in the important games. He is then followed up by Russell Westbrook, who had a drastically dropdown of his shooting percentages during this year’s playoffs, this being one of the main reasons for the Oklahoma City Thunder being eliminated in only five games by the Trail Blazers.
However, in this next graphic, we can see some of the best playoff 3-point shooting performances throughout NBA history by a player in a series.
