Tyrese Haliburton has triggered discussion and renewed a debate.
The discussion: Does the Indiana Pacers star deserve to be ranked among the most clutch shooters in NBA playoffs history?
The debate: Does “clutch’’ play even exist?
Well, one problem, according to a 2019 research paper entitled, ‘Clutch performance in sport and exercise: a systematic review,” is the following: ‘Multiple, conflicting definitions of clutch performance were identified in the literature, which consequently led to the adoption of two distinct approaches to examining clutch performance …”
So, for the purposes of this story, let’s stick with the conventional definition: making big shots with the game on the line.
“When we looked at the data, we couldn’t find real evidence of clutch players,’’ Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke who disclosed his findings in 2010, told USA TODAY Sports. “But we found lots of evidence that people believed that clutch exists.’’
That evidence is mounting thanks to Haliburton.
“One of the most clutch players we’ve seen in the postseason ever,’’ declared ESPN’s Steven A. Smith after Haliburton made the game-winning shot with 0.3 seconds in Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder.
It was the fourth time Haliburton has made the game-winning shot or the game-tying shot with less than 1.3 seconds left in regulation or overtime in this year’s playoffs. While Duke’s Ariely is no more convinced of the existence of clutch play, his position is hardly unanimous.
“Earlier studies, particularly those focusing on statistical consistency, often concluded that players do not significantly improve during high-pressure moments …’’ Vangelis Sarlis of International Hellenic University in Greece told USA TODAY Sports. “Our work suggests that while not all players elevate their performance in clutch situations, a distinct subset consistently exhibits traits — like high true shooting percentage, low turnovers, and impactful defensive plays — that do materially influence game outcomes.
“Haliburton appears to exemplify many of these traits.’’
Coach K’s role in clutch play research
Fifty-five years ago, Jerry West made a 60-foot shot after the buzzer to force overtime in Game 3 of the NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks.
Mr. Clutch, they called him.
In 2023, the NBA began giving out the Jerry West Trophy to the league’s top clutch player as measured by the league’s statistical formula – possessions in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter or overtime when the score is within five points – and voted on by 100 media members.
None of which Ariely would find persuasive.
More than a decade ago at Duke, Ariely has said, he set out to study clutch play and enlisted the help of the school’s legendary and now retired basketball coach, Mike Krzyzewski.
Krzyzewski helped assemble a group of pro coaches to identify clutch NBA players, according to Ariely, who worked with Rachel Barkan, a professor at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. The study involved comparing clutch players and non-clutch players in low-stress moments and high-stress moments. (Ariely has written that ‘high stress is when the outcome of a game is hanging by a thread.”)
“We found that the non-clutch players scored more or less the same in the low-stress and high-stress moments, whereas there was actually a substantial improvement for clutch players during the last five minutes of the games,’’ Ariely wrote in an essay for the Huffington Post. “… As it turned out, the clutch players did not improve their skill; they just tried many more times.
“Their field goal percentage did not increase in the last five minutes (meaning that their shots were no more accurate); neither was it the case that non-clutch players got worse.’’
In discussing the findings, Ariely cites research of the “hot hand,’’ the streaky shooting performance fueled by consecutive baskets.
“Research basically showed that people’s belief in hot hand is very strong, but the data for it is very weak,’’ he said. “And the same is true for clutch play.’’
‘Contributions under pressure’
Lorena Martin, an assistant professor of clinical data sciences and operations at Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, worked for the Lakers during the 2016-2017 season. Her role: director of sports performance analytics.
That season, Martin said, they researched the games’ final two minutes to determine the player best equipped to take the final shot.
A believer in clutch play, Martin said of debunkers, “A lot of individuals who are very good in the math and statistics have not played sports. If you look at it mathematically, then you think, ‘Oh, it’s just random.’ But if you play sports, you know that there is an inertia, there is momentum.’’
As an example of compelling research, Martin cites ‘A Data Science and Sports Analytics Approach to Decode Clutch Dynamics in the Last Minutes of NBA Games,’’ the study co-authored by Sarlis at International Hellenic University.
In that study, Sarlis said, he and his research team focused exclusively on the absolute impact players have during clutch scenarios instead of comparing performance in clutch vs. non-clutch moments. By analyzing 20 seasons of NBA data and applying advanced machine learning techniques, according to Sarlis, they developed the Estimation of Clutch Competency (EoCC) metric.
“A novel formula that captures both offensive and defensive contributions under pressure,’’ Sarlis said.
“In terms of application to Tyrese Haliburton, while our dataset formally ends before his breakout years, his current performances — especially his composure, shot selection, and assist-to-turnover ratios in final minutes — align with several key indicators we found to be strongly correlated with winning outcomes in clutch moments,’’ Sarlis added, “If evaluated using our EoCC framework, Haliburton would likely score highly, given his ability to create efficient scoring opportunities and minimize costly errors under pressure.’’
Expanding the measure of clutch play
Measuring clutch performances strictly by game-winning shots is flawed, according to researcher Franklin Mixon Jr., a professor of economics at Columbus State University in Georgia.
“This approach is subject to confirmation bias as fans will remember these game-winning baskets but tend to forget late-game turnovers and missed shots (free throws) by who they consider to be clutch players,’’ Mixon wrote in an email to USA TODAY Sports.
Mixon is co-author of a 2013 study – “Homo certus in professional basketball? Empirical evidence from the 2011 NBA Playoffs’’ – he says supports the notion that “clutch performance’ is generally a myth.
The study compared players’ average productivity per quarter for the first three quarters of their playoffs games to their fourth-quarter performances in those games. “We found that productivity during the first three quarters generally exceeded that during the fourth quarter of these games,’’ Mixon said.
With the same variables from the study, Mixon ran Haliburton’s numbers from Game 1 of the NBA Finals. That included field-goal attempts per minute, field goals made per minute, field-goal percentage and points scored per minute. He also factored in defensive rebounds and assists.
“Haliburton’s late-game productivity was slightly lower during Game 1 compared to what he did during the first 3 quarters,’’ Mixon wrote. “Again, however, the differences aren’t significant. Based on our approach, his performance was typical of NBA players.”