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Bucks aren't as good as standings indicate

By John Hollinger
ESPN Insider

It's funny how a single play can be so indicative of a season. On Nov. 12, Milwaukee's Maurice Williams heaved up a 3-pointer at the buzzer and drew nothing but net, handing the Bucks a shocking 103-102 win over Indiana after the Bucks had trailed by 14 points in the fourth quarter.

That game symbolized what has been a trend for both teams, though in opposite directions: the knack (or lack thereof) of winning close games. Milwaukee is a ridiculous 13-1 in games decided by five or fewer points this season, keeping the Bucks afloat in the playoff race and sending the folks at Elias scurrying toward the microfilm room. Meanwhile, Indy is only 4-8 in such contests. By contrast, the Pacers are 14-9 when the game is decided by double digits.

Ask the Bucks, and they'll tell you that confidence is the difference. "Being in those situations so many times gives you so much confidence," said the team's leading scorer, Michael Redd. "It started with our game against Philadelphia, we were in a close game and pulled it out [Bucks won 117-108 in overtime in their opener], and we kind of rode that wave through the season. The more times you do it, the more confidence you get."

Whether it's confidence or something else, it's helping the Bucks in the standings quite a bit. Through Tuesday, the Bucks are 21-19, half a game ahead of the Pacers. That might give you the impression the two teams are roughly of the same quality, perhaps even that Milwaukee is better.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth, as the Pacers amply showed in a 112-88 demolition of Milwaukee during the teams' rematch two weeks ago. Indiana, despite standing just a game over .500 at the midway point of the year, is one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference. And Milwaukee, despite seemingly heading toward a playoff season, is actually no better than many clubs who appear destined for the lottery.

The latter conclusion might shock a lot of people, especially those on the shores of Lake Michigan, so let me explain my reasoning. It all starts with a tool I call Expected Wins. Expected Wins measures how many games a team can expect to win based on how many points it scores and how many it allows. It works off the "Pythagorean Projection" developed by baseball researcher Bill James (James, in turn, named it after a little-used Greek big man named Pythagoras who ran his own version of the triangle offense).

It turns out the relationship in basketball is similar to the one in baseball (Warning: Math approaching. If you require evasive action, go down a paragraph). To determine a team's expected winning percentage, take the points scored and raise them to the 16.5 power (i.e., multiply it by itself 16.5 times). That's your numerator. Then, in the denominator, raise the team's points scored to the 16.5 power, raise the points allowed to the 16.5 power, then add those two products. Finally, to convert from an expected winning percentage to Expected Wins, multiply by the team's games played.

Expected Wins = Games played * [Points16.5 / (Points16.5 + Points allowed16.5)]

Looking at Expected Wins, it's amazing how different the Central Division race looks. I've posted two sets of standings below. The first is the real standings through Sunday's games; the second is the standings using Expected Wins. As you can see, Indiana and Milwaukee diverge quite a bit.

The Pacers, who are behind the Bucks in the real standings, are comfortably ahead in Expected Wins. And using Expected Wins, the Bucks fall behind Chicago into the bottom of the Central Division. In fact, they don't only slip behind Chicago -- as the Expected Wins standings show -- they also take a back seat to Philadephia, Utah, New Orleans, Minnesota, Golden State, Washington, Orlando, Sacramento and Boston.

Yes, Boston. Overall, Milwaukee, with the league's 12th-best winning percentage, is just 23rd in Expected Wins, just a whisker ahead of Houston and Toronto.

Indiana, on the other hand, passes the Bucks, Nets, and Clippers once we look at Expected Wins, and nearly catches up to Cleveland and Miami. Throw in the fact that 23 of the Pacers' 41 games have been on the road, and nearly half have been against the powerful Western Conference, and it adds legitimacy to their claim of being an Eastern Conference contender even without Ron Artest.

I know what you're thinking: "But the good teams are the ones that win the close games." Actually, that isn't true -- the lucky teams win the close games. The good teams win by 20 and spend the final minutes cheering on little-used teammate Darko.

We know this for a couple of reasons. First, Expected Wins are a better predictor of future results than real win-loss records. Look at a few recent playoff series, for example. We'll start with the 2004 Pistons. They won 54 games in the regular season, the Pacers 61 and the Lakers 56. But in terms of Expected Wins, Detroit won 62, compared with Indy's 61 and Los Angeles' 54. Thus, their wins in the final two series were much less of a surprise than the standings indicated.

Similarly, Expected Wins proved a much better predictor than real wins in last season's Western Conference finals. The Suns had 62 Expected Wins, matching their real win total. The Spurs won only 59 games but had a league-best 66 Expected Wins. Viewed that way, San Antonio's five-game stampede wasn't such a shock.

There's another way we know the difference between real wins and Expected Wins comes from luck rather than skill: The same teams don't exceed their Expected Wins total from year to year, not even when their personnel is unchanged. If teams really "knew how to win close games," we'd expect them to repeat the feat from year to year. Instead, a team like Detroit can keep the same personnel for three straight seasons, but go from underperforming their Expected Wins total in 2003-04 to matching it in 2004-05 to greatly exceeding it this year; or in New Jersey's case, do the exact opposite between 2001-02 and 2003-04. In fact, no team has been able to exceed its Expected Wins consistently for a period of years. Thus, we're left to conclude that doing so is mostly luck.

Especially since we can't pinpoint one reason why the Bucks have fared so well in close games this year. "It hasn't been one thing," coach Terry Stotts said. "Sometimes it's timely shooting, timely defensive plays. Maybe a little bit of luck was involved, but I believe you make a lot of your own luck ... I look at it as a positive that you win games. Certainly they could have gone either way."

So unless you think the Bucks own some magic close-game elixir that will enable them to go 26-2 in those games this season, get ready for their results to mirror their Expected Wins record more closely. Although Bucks fans might take offense, they should just be glad those 13 wins in close games will be part of their record the rest of the way. If the Bucks go through their final 42 games playing like the 15-25 team Expected Wins says they are, they'll end up with 37 wins -- which might be enough to squeeze out a playoff berth in the perennially pathetic East. Had they gone a more reasonable 7-7 in those games, they'd be staring at 31 wins -- a one-game improvement on the year before.

Here's another reason the Bucks should care about Expected Wins. With the trade deadline looming, Expected Wins provides important information for Milwaukee's brass. The Bucks might look at the standings and think they're one player away from being a real threat in the East, but the standings are effectively lying to them. As a result, the Bucks shouldn't be making short-term moves that will cost them young players or draft picks because they're still among the league's weaker teams.

Similarly, Indiana is in a much stronger position than we might have thought. Looking at Expected Wins, it doesn't seem so unreasonable that the Pacers want immediate help in return for Artest instead of draft picks or developing players. Should injuries befall the Pistons, one could argue Indiana would be the one team most likely to benefit and end up winning a weakened Eastern Conference.

In sum, Expected Wins can tell us what the standings won't: that the Pacers are for real and the Bucks a mirage. Lady Luck has masked those differences so far, but there's no reason to expect Milwaukee's good fortune -- or Indiana's bad luck -- to continue.

John Hollinger writes for ESPN Insider. His book "Pro Basketball Forecast: 2005-06" is available at Amazon.com and Potomac Books. To e-mail him, click here.