Heat Produced: Chris Bosh vs. Elton Brand, A Tale of Two Cities

I promised statistical notes in the post-game podcast for Game Four that would provide some insight into why the Miami Heat lost their chance to sweep the Philadelphia 76ers and this post will attempt to do that.

The last article reported the series has been a tale of two quarters, but this article will focus on the matchup between Chris Bosh and Elton Brand because that's where Game Four was lost and their matchup has been a tale of two cities.


This article will use Win Score and Estimated Wins Produced, statistical models created by Professor David Berri from the Wages of Wins Journal, to measure how much a player's box score statistics contributed to their team's efficiency differential and wins. An average player produces an estimated 0.100 wins per 48 minutes (Est.WP48), a star player produces 0.200+ Est.WP48 and a superstar produces 0.300+ Est.WP48. More information on these stats can be found at the following links:

Simple Models of Player Performance
Wins Produced vs. Win Score
What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say
Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics

First, here is the spreadsheet that provides the estimated wins produced for Game 4 from the box score stats.

The most productive Heat player in the game was Dwyane Wade with an estimated 0.226 wins produced and 0.273 est.WP48 from 22  points on 21 shots, eight rebounds, four assists, five blocks, three steals and two turnovers in 39.7 minutes. Wade produced an estimated 0.351 wins in the second quarter and -0.125 estimated wins in the rest of the game.

LeBron James was the second-most productive Heat player with an estimated 0.175 wins produced and 0.193 est.WP48 from 32 points on 20 shots, seven rebounds, six assists and one turnover. Like Wade and the rest of the team, LeBron wasn't productive in the fourth quarter with an estimated -0.023 wins produced (despite scoring 12 points).

Chris Bosh was the least productive Heat player in the game with an estimated -0.130 wins produced and -0.145 est.WP48 from 12 points on 12 shots, five rebounds, two blocks, two turnovers and three fouls. Bosh was solid in the first quarter with 0.184 est.WP48 (his season average was 0.177) but he produced -0.244 est.WP48 after that. Bosh had two big blocks in the fourth quarter, but the Heat needed more than a few good plays from him down the stretch.

Bosh's production is important because the Heat need him to win his matchup in order to be successful and he was badly outplayed by Elton Brand in Game Four. Brand was the most productive player in the game with an estimated 0.241 wins produced and 0.322 est.WP48 from 15 points on 11 shots, 11 rebounds and two blocks.

For this playoff series, Brand is averaging 0.199 est.WP48 while Bosh is averaging just 0.170 est.WP48. Their matchup has literally been a tale of two cities.

This spreadsheet summarizes the Heat production in this series and this spreadsheet summarizes the Sixers production.

Bosh dominated in Miami with 0.429 est.WP48 while Brand only managed to produce 0.050 est.WP48. Bosh had a good Game One and his most productive game of the season in Game Two with an estimated 0.501 wins produced from 21 points and 11 rebounds while he and Joel Anthony held Brand and Thaddeus Young (the two Sixers that received most of the minutes at PF) to a combined 21 points and 13 rebounds.

It was a different story in Philadelphia. Brand was able to score efficiently with his fadeaway jumper and crashed the boards to produce 0.335 est.WP48 over two games while Bosh struggled with his jumpshot and rebounding and only managed to produce -0.059 est.WP48.

The Heat will probably need the "Biscayne Bay" Bosh to win Game Five in Miami. Struggling on the road is nothing new for Bosh. He produced 0.146 est.WP48 on the road in the regular season and 0.208 est.WP48 at home.

Bosh also outplayed Brand in the regular season with 0.236 est.WP48 compared to just 0.116 est.WP48 for the Sixers power forward. Of course, two of those games were in Miami.

Game Five is Wednesday, April 27 at 7 p.m.

Unless referenced otherwise, original game data used for this post was taken from popcornmachine.net and nba.com.