NBA 2024 Playoffs: Physicality Ratings

One of the coming "new stats" of the revolutionary player tracking system introduced last season by the NBA will be granular takes on physicality. Without current access to this data though we've had to make do with some old fashioned human charting of the games. The 2024 NBA Playoffs consisted of 82 games (ironic...) and we have the data for them all, including:

"Falls"	anytime a player hit the ground (we counted when a player put both hands on the court to brace himself, but noted this as a 'softer fall')
"Knockdowns"	who on the opposing team is responsible for the Fall (and like with the NFL and sacks, players can get a half credit if they shared the knockdown with a teammate)
"Physicality"	a player's Falls + Knockdowns combined (generally expressed on a per 36 minute basis)
...further details	the context of the fall (going for an offensive rebound, rim protecting, etc), whether there was a foul called, game timing, and more

When I was with the Dallas Mavericks, Rick Carlisle used to preach to the team to have a "Hit First Mentality" or to put it another way, to hit more than you get hit. Be the aggressor, the more physical team, don't shy away from contact but embrace it and create it.

In the NBA 2024 Finals it's safe to say the Celtics won that battle!

Dallas players fell to the ground 110 times over the five games... Boston players fell only 67 times.

Team style though has a lot to do with these numbers as we will see when we get to contextual matters...so let's jump right to the player leaderboards:

-- Player Physicality Ratings (Falls+Knockdowns per 36 min)
*Minimum 150 playoff minutes

Gafford tops the list with 6 physicality points per 36 on offense, 3 on defense, and 3.3 on rebounding so active in all elements. Dort is well known for his physical defense...then we get a couple of the NBA meganames, followed by wily Kyle Lowry sneaking onto the list, still doing what he's done so well for so long.

Also of note is that the Sixers had three of the top ten most physical players of the playoffs and added Paul George who ranked a respectable 28th and is ostensibly replacing Tobias Harris, who rated as the second least physical player!

On the other side, three Lakers' starters were in the bottom ten in physicality, so something perhaps for new coach Reddick to address.

Now an instant reaction from some quarters might be "players who fall a lot are just flopping" and while there may be some lowish percentage of falls that are embellished, our game charting has shown that the vast majority are actually caused by hard aggressive play. So let's head there next:

-- Player Falls & Knockdowns leaders (per 36min)

Only four of the top ten leaders in "Fall Rate" are the kind of high profile scoring guards we might have expected -- Booker, Maxey, Mitchell, Brunson. The others might be described as "scrappy" players who often get opposing players annoyed with their physical antics.

On the "Knockdowns" leaders we do find a number of rim protecting bigs, but of note is Embiid's sizable lead over the field for this year's playoffs, albeit based on only the six games Philadelphia lasted...

One name not appearing on the Falls leaders, who often gets accused of flopping is Luka Doncic. Luka was only 18th out of the 95 players who qualified on the 150+ minutes minimum.

-- Player Foul Drawing on Falls
*Minimum 20 Falls

So while Luka wsan't that high in fall rate, he did lead the league in the 2024 playoffs in percentage of his falls he got a call on. Long regarded as the "complains the most leader", perhaps all the sniping at the refs pays off at some level. Notably in the finals vs the Celtics he only got a whistle on falls at 16% of the time...

On the flip side, Tyrese Maxey might have felt he got an unfavorable whistle...and no doubt the case in the game swinging late moments of game 2 vs the Knicks, where the "last two minute report" agreed there should have been a foul called.

The situation that causes the fall also has a lot to do with the expected foul rate.

Fall Situation and Foul Drawn Rate

• Paint catch fastbreak (51%)
• Setting a screen (50%)
• Paint catch halfcourt (44%)
• Driving on fastbreak (43%)
• Dribbling around perimeter (42%)
• Movement offball (36%)
• Driving in halfcourt (34%)
• 3pt shot (26%)
• Midrange shot (23%)
• Taking a charge (44%)
• Defending on a screen (27%)
• Defending offball movement (20%)
• Defending perimeter (13%)
• Defending drive, not taking a charge (4%)
• Defending rim (2%)
• Going for a defensive rebound (22%)
• Going for an offensive rebound (21%)
• Diving on the ground for loose ball (3%)

Now Falls/Knockdowns are just one "physicality stat" we created, but they have a slightly more "objective" quality to the more in depth ratings that we will bring out a bit during the coming season..but a full assessment of the so called "intangibles" like playing hard, basketball IQ, and yes physicality is actually closer than you might think!

Also see:
- Full Player "Physicality" data table