Owen Phillips

England

Freelance Documentary Producer at Freelance

Senior PR officer at Woodland Trust. Long-serving ex-BBC journalist & still occasional freelance sport hack…It’s not my fault, it was like that when I got here.

Articles

NBA award voters, ranked

1 week ago | thef5.substack.com | Owen Phillips

There’s a couple of interactive tables in this post that are best viewed in your web browser instead of your email client.Just click the title of this post to open it in your default web browser. Now that the NBA award ballots have been published, it’s time to conduct my ranking of award voters by how contrarian their choices were.
Another Comeback

2 weeks ago | thef5.substack.com | Owen Phillips

Last night, the Indiana Pacers trailed the New York Knicks 102-116 with 3:44 remaining in regulation of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Someone probably fell asleep on their couch thinking the game was over. It was not. The Pacers defeated the Knicks in overtime, successfully pulling off the fourth most improbable playoff comeback of the play-by-play era, according to Mike Beuoy of inpredictable.com.
It's the turnover economy, stupid

2 weeks ago | thef5.substack.com | Owen Phillips

One of the dominant themes in this year’s playoffs from my perspective has been the impact of turnovers on the outcomes of games. In this year’s postseason, teams are 46-20 when they have fewer turnovers than their opponent. That’s a 70 percent win rate — up from 58 percent in the regular season and 56 percent in last year’s postseason. Turnovers were one of the defining factors — if not the defining factor in the seven-game series between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets.
How To Make a Draft Lottery Viz

3 weeks ago | thef5.substack.com | Owen Phillips

We’re going to make two plots today. We’ll start with this one:Then, we’ll make this one:
The Nuggets Played Their Ace. Do They Have Anything Else Up Their Sleeve?

3 weeks ago | thef5.substack.com | Owen Phillips

One of the more interesting developments in this year’s playoffs has been the frequent use of zone defense. Teams like the Miami Heat have been playing zone defense for year, but in this postseason, newcomers are using it more frequently to disrupt modern offenses that have gotten too good at picking apart traditional defenses. Nowhere is this dynamic more apparent than in the series between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets.
Draymond Green's Magic Trick

1 month ago | thef5.substack.com | Owen Phillips

Draymond Green has played in eight playoff games and has already racked up a combined six technical and flagrant fouls. A popular joke on Twitter is that it’s actually smart for Draymond to pick up a technical foul early in a game so that he can do Draymond stuff with impunity the rest of the time. Seth Partnow likes to joke that a technical foul is Draymond’s “cloak of invisibility”. Draymond knows the NBA doesn’t want its marquee players ejected and he acts accordingly.
How To Write A Function To Create PvP Matchup Tables

1 month ago | thef5.substack.com | Owen Phillips

Howdy folks, Today’s tutorial is going to to show you how to write a function in R to create player-vs-player matchup tables. It can be used to show who a player has been guarded by or who they’ve guarded across a given playoff series. For example, we can use the function to see who has guarded Nikola Jokić across the first six games of the Nuggets-Clippers series. But first:Who has the strongest and weakest link in each Eastern Conference Semifinal? Also, who’s hiring in sports?
Matchup Mashup

1 month ago | thef5.substack.com | Owen Phillips

Coaches only have so many buttons they can press in the playoffs, but how they assign matchups is one worth monitoring—especially as a series progresses. So let’s take a look around some of the first-round series that are still in progress to see who has matched up with whom and what it might tell us about where each series is headed.
How To Make A NBA Jam Style Small Multiple

1 month ago | thef5.substack.com | Owen Phillips

Welcome back to The F5. Today, I’ve got a tutorial on how to recreate the following plot. I was going for a NBA Jam aesthetic mixed with a retro VHS cover. But first, let’s take a look at who’s hiring in the wider sports analytics universe.
Eight Charts That Kind Of Explain The NBA Playoffs

1 month ago | thef5.substack.com | Owen Phillips

Two games are in the books for each playoff series. That gives me the chance to make a few charts, pop off a few takes, and do my best to explain the NBA playoffs as I see it. We’ll start in the West and work our way East. The first two games of this series has been a nice piece of evidence in support of my weak link theory of the NBA. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander hasn’t looked like himself. In Game 1, he had a 46.6 True Shooting Percentage.

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Owen Phillips @owenphil

19 May 25

Well worth a listen…

West London Sport @WestLondonSport

We’re delighted to announce @1905pod as West London Sport’s Chelsea podcast. 🎙️💙 Hosted by fans Joe Kevin and Chris Sheen - mates who’ve been going to Stamford Bridge for over 30 years - 1905 brings you unfiltered takes, matchday memories and more. #cfc https://t.co/NAfJFvjBDm https://t.co/n8wf7lI2QM

Owen Phillips @owenphil

23 Mar 22

RT @CuriousUkTelly: Camberwick Green to The Sweeney https://t.co/GllR3862i2

Owen Phillips @owenphil

18 Dec 21

RT @swimireland: ⚡️2021 National Women 100m Butterfly⚡️ 🥇Ele DONEGAN 🥈Andrea COX 🥉Danielle FARRELL 🥉Kelly BROWN COM. Medal Connie PHILLIP…