NLTP NewsRoom Hub - LBT vs. INC (B)

LBT got swept by the NIPs in Week 2 to push their record down to 1-5, but I'm not really worried about that. NIP has a strong B-Team and LBT kept halves close and won a few of them. They should be able to take care of their next opponent...

....which is the INC B-Team, who took a game off of LST last week to move their record up to 1-5 as well. They got swept by BAP in W1, which had me prematurely feeling vindicated about my ranking of them, but this past week showed me that there was some potential to be had.

Which team will be able to right the ship, and which one will go down with it?

Turns out, INC won the series 2-1, impressing me even more while giving me more questions about the LBT B-Team. LBT won the first game 4-3, then won G2H1 by a score of 2-1. Then INC took control of the match and won the next half 7-2 to take G2, then G3H1 by a score of 4-0, and took G3 quite easily as well. There were some unlikely stars for INC this week that made me appreciate the kind of depth that they had.

It was a pretty weak week for all of the offenders involved in this matchup. You can infer that from the fact that the player with the highest ONISH from this match, Zoomie, had an 80.3 ONISH, with five caps and 334 hold. LogisticMap followed closely behind Zoomie with five caps of his own, 379 hold, and the 78.9 ONISH. That duo combined for more caps than every other offender in the match combined. Hell, Zoomie almost outscored every offender by himself, not counting Logi. For LBT, hippo and shirt were their two best offenders, with two caps and one cap, respectively. In fact, the player with the most caps for LBT was gh0st, with three, which isn't ideal. shirt did led the team in hold with 409 seconds though, so that's nice?

This was definitely a defensive battle, with five defenders in this game getting 80+ DNISHs. The best defender out of the lot was actually 18, who had the 93.4 DNISH, 54 returns, and 586 prevent. I honestly didn't expect him to be the best defender here, so that's a nice surprise. After 18, you have three LBT defenders in gh0st, adam1, and GreatBambino, with the 92.1 DNISH, 86.8 DNISH, and 85.5 DNISH respectively. gh0st had 54 returns, while Bambino had 625 prevent. im a goat and BirdReynolds combined for 87 returns and 967 prevent, with goat getting the 84.2 DNISH and birdreynolds getting the 60.5 DNISH. Psychic was all the way at the bottom with a 39.5 DNISH.

Honestly if you were looking just at the stats, you would think that LBT had the definite edge over INC here. LBT had more tags, more returns, about same amount of prevent, a better team KD by 0.24 points, 16 more NRTs, and 15 less NDPs. That is six defensive stats where LBT has the edge. But, there are some stats where INC has the edge, which could've probably tilted the scales back in favor. First off, while INC has less returns and tags than LBT, INC has nine more QRs, four more KRs, and eleven RIBs. LBT ranked 10th, 12th, and 10th in those respective stats, while INC placed 5th, 8th, and 4th, so there are some disparities worth mentioning. Due to INC having more RIBs while also having less returns than LBT, the RIB% and QR% leans towards INC as well. INC's 30.48% RIB rate and 25.68% QR rate are 4th and 7th this week, while LBT's RIB% and QR% trail INC by 6% and 4%, respectively, while also ranking 9th and 10th, respectively. Plus, INC also had a better P/R ratio than LBT, by about 1.3 seconds, but both teams placed in the top five for that stat this week so it's a pretty minimal difference.

The offenses seemed to be pretty equal in most categories. Pretty similar hold, only separated by 20 seconds, pretty similar Score%, only separated by .001, pretty similar in grabs, separated by only six grabs. But there are some stats that paint a different picture. First off, LBT has the edge in H/G with an 8.403 compared to INC's 8.128 seconds per grab. INC then takes a massive advantage in F/G and GHO, leading the week in both those categories actually, while LBT places 6th and 4th respectively. LBT had seven more long holds, a better Chain% by 3%, and a better Spark% by 15%, and that's where the differences end. I do think that INC's good handoffs and very low F/G ratio set them apart here, because LBT had a pretty low RIB% and QR%, which means that the INC offense was getting out a decent amount of times. That's probably why INC won two games.

im a goat only had an 84.2 DNISH, which was the 5th best DNISH out of all the offenders in this match, but he had the 8.82 TGASP and 90.8 TNISH. That only happens if you had a sizeable contribution on the opposite position, and im a goat definitely fits that bill. He ranked 9th in prevent this week and was in the top 20 for returns, and he also four caps and 300 seconds of hold. I'm pretty sure that that was the most hold for a pure defender this week, which is amazing. For his two-way contributions, im a goat definitely deserves this card.

CONCLUSION

LBT loses two games out of three to put them at 2-7 and the bottom of the standings. Just like their A-Team, I have a ton of questions about this team, because their roster on paper looks pretty stacked. Their stats this week weren't even that bad, with the exception of the RIB% and QR% numbers. Their offense seems to be getting out well, but they just can't score. Meanwhile, INC wins the series and gets their record up to 3-6. They've gone 3-3 after W1 so there's room for improvement there, but they seem to be on the right track. They do play Weed the People next week so they should get a win or two.