of two points or more below average (minimum: 300 shots, 82 at any given position). They found that 26 percent of players, such

Wales centre Jamie Roberts is confident the team will learn from their defeat against England at Twickenham last week. Warren Gatlands side entertain Italy on Saturday looking for the victory which would secure second spot in the Six Nations table.Italy will be desperate to improve on their 58-15 defeat to Ireland in Dublin last weekend, but Roberts believes Wales can rectify some of the errors that cost the team dearly against England. It was one of the toughest losses, certainly, Roberts said. There is no hiding away from that, and the players are desperately disappointed. Roberts says team will learn from England defeat at Twickenham Its a tough one to take, losing to England and theyve won the championship. Huge congratulations to them, and best of luck to them in Paris. You have to learn from disappointments. In fact, you learn more from disappointments than winning.Thats sport. You dont win all the time, and credit to England, they played a better rugby match than us. We have to learn from it, take the loss on the chin, face the music, roll our sleeves up and play well this week against an Italian side who will be determined to turn around their loss away to Ireland.Its a new week, and we are fortunate to play a sport and do a job where we can rectify things and right a few wrongs. We are playing for second place now, and that has to be our goal going into the last week. It would be much nicer to be playing to win the tournament, but it wasnt to be. Warren Gatland has gone over last weekends loss to England We had a meeting on Monday, spoke about England and that has been put to bed. There are so many variables, and as players a lot of us have been scratching our heads as to why we didnt turn up in the first-half.Its hard to put a finger on why, but I am not going to make excuses. Thats not what we are about. We are not going to point at loads of little things. Ultimately, we lost a game of rugby, and they played better than us. Thats the black and white of it. Also See: Gatland apologises for comment Wales prop Francis banned Jones facing six weeks out Lydiate to captain Wales Wholesale Paul George Shoes . Already owning gold from competition in Vancouver in 2010, Loch posted a combined four-run time of 3:27.526. That included a track-record third run of 51. Clearance Paul George Shoes . On Tuesday, Ottawa placed forward Cory Conacher and defenceman Joe Corvo on waivers as trade rumours swirl around the Senators. https://www.cheappaulgeorgeshoes.com/ . Deulofeu injured a muscle in his right leg in Evertons 4-1 win over Fulham in the English Premier League on Saturday. Barcelona says that its team doctors will "co-ordinate" with Evertons medical staff as Deulofeu recovers. Paul George Shoes Outlet . McPhee said that Ovechkins father Mikhail is in stable condition after having the surgery this week and is no longer in intensive care. "Weve told him to stay as long as necessary with your dad," he said. Ovechkin and his Russian national team were eliminated from the mens hockey tournament in Sochi on Wednesday with a 3-1 quarter-final loss to Finland. Paul George Shoes For Sale . -- Ty Montgomery had 290 all-purpose yards and two touchdowns, and fifth-ranked Stanford held on to beat No. This story appears in ESPN The Magazines November 14 Pain Issue. Subscribe today!LeBRON JAMES HUGGING the hardwood, sobbing with joy after winning Game 7 of last springs NBA Finals? Yes, very memorable. But for statheads, another postseason image endures. Its the sight of Steven Adams, the 7-foot Khal Drogo look-alike, switching with astonishing dexterity and cutting off Steph Curry and Klay Thompson time and again in the Western Conference finals. The big Kiwi and his Oklahoma City mates didnt quite manage to take down the Warriors. But by relentlessly switching with Kevin Durant and their bigs, the Thunder did become the first team to slow down the Golden State death machine.Indeed, OKC and Cleveland each showed that you need defensive versatility to counter Curry & Co.s fast tempo, relentless movement and perimeter shooting. Now researchers are beginning to measure that skill, and smart teams are hunting for players who embody it.While traditional defensive stats are limited to steals, blocks and rebounds, real-time tracking data allows us to more closely study the huge majority of plays that dont involve a change of possession. The NBA has been collecting such info at every game since 2013, and it provided it to the 210 students from across North America who participated in the leagues first hackathon, in New York in September. Among the five finalists in the competition, two teams used the material to devise important new ways of analyzing defensive versatility.Chris Jenness and Michael Wheelock of Rockefeller University looked at how many NBA defenders were able to hold opponents across various positions to effective field goal percentages of two points or more below average (minimum: 300 shots, 82 at any given position). They found that 26 percent of players, such as Houstons James Harden, cant defend even one position well. On the other hand, just under 10 percent of defenders are proficient against opponents at three or more positions. For instance, last year LeBron James held point guards to an eFG percentage of just 39 percent (versus a league average of 48 percent), shooting guards to 37 percent (versus 51 percent), small forwards to 42 percent (versus 53 percent) and power forwards to 45?percent (versus 49 percent). Thats simple but powerful evidence of his amazing versatility.Not so long ago, defenders who could lock down a single positioon had great value.dddddddddddd But formalities such as whether youre a shooting guard or a power forward matter less today, as players must be ready to race outside to contest any opponent on the perimeter. Thats where the work of Senthil Natarajan and Chris Pickard, two writers for Nylon Calculus, comes in. At the hackathon, they began by sorting players into statistical clusters based on 19 offensive metrics. Their analysis yielded five categories for describing scoring styles, whatever a players position, so that perimeter specialists included Kyle Korver as well as Channing Frye. Then they examined how efficiently players defended against opponents of each type. Adams, for example, ranked No. 1 in the NBA at defending skilled offensive bigs. Finally, they combined scores across categories to see how well players defended multiple styles.Team Nylon named its metric the defensive range adaptability score, or DRAY for short, a nod to the NBAs most versatile defender, Draymond Green. Uniquely, Green ranked first or second in limiting opponents scoring last season, whether he was facing 3-point specialists, skilled big men or versatile wings. Just as remarkably, Serge Ibaka, Durant and Adams all placed in the top five in DRAY. The strength of the Thunder defense wasnt just their length, Natarajan says, but the depth of their length and the amount of versatile defenders they could stack on the court. Unfortunately for OKC, Durant and Ibaka are gone now, and Victor Oladipo (49th in DRAY last season) and Ersan Ilyasova (166th) arent likely to handle the kind of switching the Warriors will force even more often now that they have KD.Looking for a team suited to battle the Warriors? Keep an eye on the Timberwolves, who won just 29 games last season but are building around versatility. Karl-Anthony Towns, a big man with superb mobility (36th in DRAY), could become one of the leagues true unicorns. And Andrew Wiggins (15th) and Zach LaVine (113th) have the length and speed to defend anyone. To be sure, they havent yet-but the group is young, and now Tom Thibodeau is in charge.While Durant vs. his old team might get the most buzz this season, the Warriors against Minnesotas young corps will be fun-and instructive-for years to come. ' ' '