The Miami Heat found something in the middle of their season that changed everything about their team. On January 6 the Heat lost to the Lakers, playing in Los Angeles and getting steamrolled in the 4th quarter.
Miami went on to lose the next three games on the road trip (against the Clippers, Warriors and Bucks). In each game the Heat put in a quality 4th quarter performance however.
Road trip over, the Heat beat the Rockets on January 17, winning the 4th quarter in a close game. Miami went on to win 12 more games in a row after this Houston win, often taking control of the game during the last quarter.
According to ManGamesLost.com the Heat rank as the most injured team for this NBA season. The healthiest teams: Houston, Phoenix, Golden State and San Antonio. The best teams are healthy (Houston, Golden State, San Antonio) but so is one of the very worst teams (Phoenix).
The Heat have been one of the best teams in the NBA since mid-January and at a health disadvantage. I think it shows that minimizing injuries is one of many optimization approaches a team can take with sports science. Miami seems to optimize for late game performance. Endurance makes the Heat 4th quarter strong but it adds to the team’s injury susceptibility. The end result has the team on the verge of making the playoffs.
The Red-Hot Miami Heat Are Erik Spoelstra’s Coaching Opus (VICE Sports, Michael Pina)
Wayne Ellington opens up about body transformation with Miami Heat (Palm Beach Post, Heat Zone blog, Anthony Chiang)
James Johnson shares the details of how he transformed his body with the Miami Heat (Miami Herald, Manny Navaro)
How and what gets measured goes hand in hand with any analytical goal, tactic or strategy in sports. The number and diversity of potentially useful metrics is, no surprise, large.
Michigan football’s NFL combine invites prove Jim Harbaugh’s success (SI.com, Joan Niesen)
The Science of Fueling for Performance (Nancy Clark RD)
Nike’s New Zoom Vaporfly 4% Made Me Run Faster (WIRED, Gear, Ed Caesar)
A Multifactorial, Criteria-based Progressive Algorithm for Hamstring Injury Treatment. (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise journal)
What Research at the 2017 MIT Sloan Conference Could Mean for Tennis (Stephanie Kovalchik, On the T blog)
A detailed quantification of differential ratings of perceived exertion during team-sport training (Journal of Science & Medicine in Sport)
Is VO2 Max Dead? (Triathlete.com, Chris Foster)
This is the impact of sugar and fat on your brain (World Economic Forum, Katie Boyd)
How much does mileage matter? (Athletics Weekly, Matt Long)
Determining the Clinical Utility of Pre-conceived Injury Risk Factors (Fusion Sport)
Effects of Mental Fatigue on Endurance Performance in the Heat. (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise journal)
Training Load Monitoring in Team Sports: A Novel Framework Separating Physiological and Biomechanical Load-Adaptation Pathways (Sports Medicine journal)
Statcast and the Future of WAR (FanGraphs Baseball, Dave Cameron)
The Rise of Performance Analysis in the MLS (Hudl Blog, Trevor Hellman)
Validity of the SPEx sports injury surveillance system for time-loss and medical attention injuries in sports (Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports)
Breakfast, fasting, snacking: Heart panel weighs in on top meal-timing questions (The Washington Post, Amby Burfoot)
Evaluating strategic periodisation in team sport (Journal of Sports Sciences)
Body Composition and Bone Mineral Density of Division 1 Collegiate Football Players, a Consortium of College Athlete Research (C-CAR) Study. (Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research)
Rise of sports analytics decreasing injuries — 6 key takeaways (Becker’s Orthopedic Review, Adam Schrag)
Screening & Assessing Breathing: A Multidimensional Approach (FMS Products, Kyle Kiesel)
Data in Sports Performance: Why Your Measurements Matter (SimpliFaster Blog, Matthew Hauck)
MLB approves on-field biometric monitoring device (ESPN, Darren Rovell)
NFL scouting is still an inexact science (Montgomery Advertiser, Alex Byington)
Data is one part of an overall strategy. The strategic dimensions of decision making in sports extend into every corner of the sports organization.
Why the Phillies built an analytics think tank with non-baseball brains (Philly.com, Matt Gelb)
Hockey’s biggest shift: Fifty years of evolution in NHL coaching (The Globe and Mail, Eric Duhatschek)
Tab Ramos to ASN: “You Have to Believe in the Team” (American Soccer Now, Brian Sciaretta)
Raptors coach reveals secret to team building (Toronto Star, Doug Smith)
From the NFL Combine to Irish rugby: Winkelman may be IRFU’s smartest hire (The42.ie)
The unregulated world of strength coaches and college football’s killing season (CBSSports.com, Jon Solomon and Dennis Dodd)
Niyo: Sanderson’s unique program makes UM bigger, stronger, faster (Detroit News, John Niyo)
Science and brutal travel led Kerr to rest stars (ESPN NBA, Tom Haberstroh)
Balance. Delegate. Set goals. Coach K, Roy Williams, Tom Izzo, and more have plenty to say (USA Today Sports, Nicole Auerbach)
Rise and grind: Turnarounds start with winter workouts (Associated Press, Ralph D. Russo)
How Economics Explains Why Clubs Don’t Give Young Players A Chance (Paul Grech, Blueprint for Football blog)
Players, teams in dogged pursuit of downtime as NBA season nears ends (NBA.com, David Aldridge)
Carroll explains why the Seahawks succeed with so many undrafted players (CoachingSearch.com, Chris Vannini)
Teams make decisions about the whole set of athletes but athletes are unique unto themselves. There are a couple of important parameters where athletes land on a point in the spectrum: injured-healthy, young-old, etc. Defining athletes is a critical part of managing them.
EXOS Athletes Excel at 2017 NFL Combine (EXOS)
Geographical Variations in the Interaction of Relative Age Effects in Youth and Adult Elite Soccer (Frontiers in Psychology)
“…but what IS a mental skills coach?” (The Micheli Center, Kelsey Griffith)
A Sports Psychologist On… Injuries (Furthermore from Equinox, Chris Carr)
Warm-Ups, Cool-Downs, What Works, What Doesn’t (The New York Times, Well blog, Gretchen Reynolds)
ACL reconstruction seen as cost-effective for competitive athletes with acute tears (Healio, Orthopedics Today)
When an article goes in-depth on an athlete it’s often because the athlete is experiencing an extreme with one or another athletic spectrum parameter.
For Club and Country: The Time is Now for BvB’s Christian Pulisic (Bundesliga Fanatic, Chris Brase)
Utah Jazz’s Dante Exum learning to live in the fast lane (ESPN NBA, Tim MacMahon)
Injured Kevin Durant details rehab process: ‘Could be a lot worse’ (San Jose Mercury News, Anthony Slater)
John Ross explains the fastest 40 in the history of the NFL combine (ESPN NFL, Dotun Akintoye)
Growing Up in the NBA (Sort Of) (The Players’ Tribune, DeAndre Jordan)
There’s new tech to build better basketball shooters. And Steph Curry is all over it. (The Washington Post, Neil Greenberg)
Félix Hernández and the Art of Rebuilding a Former Ace (The Ringer, Ben Lindbergh)
Leonard Fournette goes from disaster to dynamite at NFL combine (SEC Country, Andrew Astleford)
ASN article: Matt Miazga Discusses His Good Run in Netherlands (American Soccer Now, Brian Sciaretta)
Detroit Pistons: The impact of Reggie Jackson’s knee injury (Fansided, Piston Powered blog, Shameek Mohile)
Julius Peppers’ longevity serves as legacy, lesson for players to follow (ESPN NFL, Rob Demovsky)
The Arrival: Connor McDavid’s ascension was guided by the forces of NHL greatness (SI.com, Alex Prewitt)
How Kyrie Irving became the best dribbler in the NBA (The Undefeated, Marc Spears)
More things that I read and liked last week:
The Last of the Enforcers – As the game becomes faster and more skilled, the role of the fighter is on the decline (March 11, The Salt Lake Tribune, Christopher Kamrani)
How to build good habits, according to psychologist Adam Alter (March 12, Business Insider, Chris Weller)
Chasing Big Sports Goals, Rutgers Stumbles Into a Vat of Red Ink (March 12, The New York Times, Michael Powell)
Eight things we learned from the 2017 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (March 08, SI.com, Ian McMahan)
Kenny Atkinson: ‘I really believe that I have to pay my dues, and it’s great’ (March 09, Yahoo Sports, The Vertical, Chris Mannix)
The surprising places MLB teams get their information from in the post Moneyball era (March 07, CBSSports.com, R.J. Anderson)
Why The Destiny Of Wearables Is In Their Own Hands (March 06, ARC, David Bolton)