Matchup research
What already happened, with the sample attached
Edge publishes HoopBrief's defender-versus-scorer history: how a scorer produced during the possessions one specific defender was matched against him, next to that same scorer's rate against everyone else. It is research material for people studying matchups, and it is written for adults.
It does not forecast. There is no model here projecting a result, no price attached to anything, and no recommendation to act. What the data can tell you is which matchups have been unusual and how much evidence sits behind that. What to do with that is yours.
Read this before any number
The possession here is not the possession you know
Possessions here are partial matchup possessions, only the stretches these two were actually matched up, so points per possession runs far below the roughly 1.1 a full team scores. Every figure is meant to be read against the same player's own season rate in the same unit.
Concretely: a team offensive rating lands near 1.1 points per possession. Figures in this section run a fraction of that, and nothing is wrong. A scorer finishes only some of the possessions he is guarded on, and this unit counts all of them. Compare a matchup rate to the same player's own baseline in the same unit. Never compare it to a team number, to a per-game average, or to a figure from anywhere else.
What this is
- Tracked NBA matchup history: how a scorer actually performed during the possessions a specific defender was matched against him.
- Every figure paired with the sample behind it, the meetings and the matchup possessions, so a hot night cannot pass for a tendency.
- The scorer's own rate against every other defender, printed next to the matchup rate, because the matchup number means nothing alone.
- Descriptive language only. A gap is reported as a gap, never as a defender having shut anyone down.
What this is not
- Odds, lines, spreads, totals, or any price. None are published here and none are linked to.
- Picks, predictions, projections, parlays, or plays. This section describes what happened and stops there.
- A sportsbook. HoopBrief accepts no wagers, holds no funds, and has no affiliate or referral deal with any operator.
- A forecast. Past performance does not predict future results, and this data is not built to try.
The sample rules, stated once
A pairing is published only once it clears 3 meetings and 25 matchup possessions. Below that line a hot night and a real tendency are indistinguishable, so there is nothing honest to publish. Between 15 and 25 possessions the free lookup tool will still answer, labelled as a lead rather than a finding. Under 15 possessions it refuses to narrate the number at all and shows the raw totals instead.
A gap between a matchup rate and a baseline is not evidence that the defender caused it. Scheme, help coverage, rest, foul trouble, and ordinary shot variance all sit inside these totals, and this data cannot separate them. Treat a gap as a reason to watch the film, which is the only thing that settles the question.
Where to start
In this section
The matchup table
All 390 published pairings, filterable by player and sortable by the gap between a scorer's rate against a defender and his own baseline. Each row opens the full pairing page.
Open the tableResearch
What the data can and cannot carry
Measured analyses: how thin the matchup record really is, whether splits repeat when you test them, and what the tracking feed leaves out. Method stated beside every figure.
Read the researchMethod
How to research a matchup
The unit these numbers are measured in, the sample a split needs before it means anything, and the four questions that separate a tendency from a hot night.
Read the methodMethod note
Why defender rankings mislead
We built a points-allowed leaderboard, found that it ranks defenders by where they stand rather than how they defend, and did not publish it. Here is the check that killed it.
Read the analysisElsewhere on HoopBrief
The same data, ungated
The pairing pages and the free lookup tool are general basketball pages outside this section. They carry no betting framing, and none of the material in Edge appears on them.
Where the numbers come from
NBA player-matchup tracking, aggregated per scorer and defender pair, with each scorer's totals across every defender he faced used as the baseline. Figures describe what happened while two players were matched up. They do not isolate one player's effect on the other, and no adjustment is applied that would imply they do.
The tracked data was last refreshed on 7 June 2026, and no live in-season update is running at present. Treat every figure here as a completed-season record rather than a current one, and assume nothing played since that date is reflected.