The relationship between physiological and mechanical load indicators and offensive team efficiency in junior male basketball

Abstract

The aim of this investigation was to identify the players physiological and mechanical load demands in association with the offensive teamwork structure and efficiency at the junior level of basketball performance. Sixteen elite male junior (age 17,4 ± 1,2 years; height 193,7 ± 7,4 cm; mass 84,4 ± 11,1 kg) Estonian basketball players volunteered to participate in this study. The data were gathered from 197 ball possessions in three competitive games played in division 1 of Estonian Championship. The heart rate and mechanical activity values of each player partakes in team ball possession were obtained by the physiological status monitoring device Zephyr™ BioHarness™. The technical/tactical indicators of the team offensive activity, „teamwork intensity“ and outcomes were notated to the Microsoft Office Excel table. The last stage of data processing provided the analysis of aggregated data by Data mining method. The sample of associative rules for the team scoring (depended variable) more than the average 0,90 (predicted value) highlights the role of the point guardś high level of heart rate (181 BMP on average) for increasing the offensive efficiency. Furthermore, the efficient possessions are characterized by the high values of mechanical activity (>1) and heart rate (165-191 BMP) of forwards accompanied by a high teamwork „intensity“ indicator (0,83-. 1,55). Based on these results, we can conclude that the players higher mechanical activity and heart rate values ensure a higher offensive efficiency of a basketball team.