Will Mavs and Spurs survive even first round?

[dirno2000]

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By John Hollinger
ESPN Insider

Before the playoffs began, I made a chart of the odds teams faced based on their regular-season results. Like any good economist, I built this chart based on certain assumptions. Most importantly, I assumed that a team's regular-season results accurately portrayed its relative strength heading into the playoffs.

Unfortunately, we know what happens when you assume.


I mentioned in passing that the numbers I used aren't aware of factors like injuries and hot streaks, but perhaps I should have made that point more stridently. In at least three cases, we have a darn good reason to believe that the odds given to a team are far different from what the chart shows.

One of those is obvious -- Washington's odds in the chart are slim anyway, but in reality they're subzero thanks to the injuries to Gilbert Arenas and Caron Butler. But the other two may not be as apparent, even after Sunday night's games.

Neither Golden State nor Denver was given much of a shot by my method, which made sense given that they faced perennial Western Conference powers Dallas and San Antonio.

However, my method may have greatly underestimated them. Although I used the Hollinger Power Rankings as the basis for my model, a method which weighs recent performance more heavily, one can argue the weight in this case wasn't nearly heavy enough. The mediocre results for both teams in the first two-thirds of the season dragged down their rating despite impressive finishes.

Consider the Nuggets, for instance. They hit several bumps at midseason between the 15-game fighting suspension for Carmelo Anthony, the trade for Allen Iverson, and the almost immediate injury to Iverson after he arrived.

When the dynamic duo finally took to the court together, it took some time for the chemistry to build. Denver lost seven of its first 10 games with the vaunted A.I.-Melo pairing, leading some to wonder if the two could coexist on the court.

But if you look at the recent history, you'll get a completely different story. Since March 11, the Nuggets are 17-6 -- 17-5 if you throw out the Toronto game, a Raptors layup drill which, not coincidentally, Marcus Camby missed with back spasms. While we're at it, the three games after Denver clinched the No. 6 seed in the West aren't worthy of our interest either, so let's throw those out too.

If you do that you're left with 19 games -- nearly a quarter of a season -- in which Denver's three best players (Iverson, Anthony and Camby) all participated and the team had something at stake. Tally up the numbers from those contests and you'll get some interesting results. For starters, Denver is 15-4 in those games, including Sunday's Game 1 upset in San Antonio. That's a 65-win pace if you're scoring at home.


Moreover, the Nuggets' statistical profile starts to look rather Mav-ish. In those 19 games their defensive efficiency improved to 101.9 -- a figure only seven teams bettered in the regular season. So much for those "enver" jokes -- they actually have been playing some decent defense. It's just been masked by their frantic pace -- at 99.2 possessions a game, they're the second-fastest team in the league.

Meanwhile, the offense has been clicking. Denver's offensive efficiency of 107.9 would rank third in the league for the full season -- only Dallas and Phoenix have been better. Clearly, the Iverson-Anthony combo is beginning to hit on all cylinders, as the Spurs found out in Game 1.

All told, Denver has outscored its opponents by 112 points over its past 19 games, a scoring margin of 5.9 points per game. What makes it more impressive is that 12 of the 19 games were on the road.

If we consider that as Denver's "true" strength rather than its full season results, this series starts to look a lot more interesting. The Nuggets would have entered as an underdog still, but with a 21.6 percent chance of the upset -- better than any underdog except New Jersey.

And after the Game 1 road win, you have Denver entering Game 2 with 42.2 percent odds of taking the series. In other words, it's nearly a toss-up at this point.

But Denver has nothing on Golden State. Perhaps it's fitting that Jessica Alba will be in Oakland this weekend, because the Warriors are smoking hot right now.

Consider: The Warriors were 26-35 on March 4 after Don Nelson's technical foul at the buzzer cost them the game against Washington. Since then they're 17-6, including a surprisingly easy Game 1 win at Dallas. It's not a coincidence that this is also when guard Baron Davis returned to the lineup, giving the Warriors a healthy backcourt for the first time all season.

Yes, a couple of these games get an asterisk -- particularly those in the final week, which consisted of a blowout of Dallas' scrubs and routs of the Tankerwolves and Tank Blazers. On the other hand, Davis missed a game in that stretch which accounted for one of the five losses, and he only lasted 11 minutes in a squeaker over Memphis.

Let's throw all of those out and just focus on the games Davis started and finished since he came back, and games played against teams that actually were trying to win. That gives us 17 contests to work with, and the Warriors' record in those games was 13-4.


Surprisingly, the small-ball Warriors have become competent defenders in that stretch -- even with Al Harrington masquerading as a center. Golden State's defensive efficiency in those 17 games is 102.3, which would rank ninth in the NBA. This tends to be obscured by the fact that they play the league's fastest pace, so occasionally they'll give up big point totals -- Golden State allowed 110 or more points five times in those 17 games. But the return of Davis, who is an awesome defender when motivated, clearly has pumped up the D.

And, like Denver, the Warriors have put together a devastating offensive attack. Golden State's offensive efficiency in this stretch is 108.8, which for the season was bested only by Phoenix. That's doubly impressive considering the 17-game stretch included several elite defensive teams: two games against the Spurs and Mavs, for instance, and one each against the Rockets and Pistons.

Golden State's victory margin in that time is even more impressive than the Nuggets': An average of +6.6 points per game -- nearly matching the +7.2 that Dallas rang up during its 67-win season. And as with Denver, it was a slightly road-heavy slate, with nine contests away from home.

Throw those numbers into the machine, and suddenly the Warriors-Mavs series gets a lot more interesting. The Warriors entered the series with a 37.8 percent chance of winning, and after the Game 1 upset -- get this -- there's a 59.6 percent chance of Golden State taking the series. In other words, the 67-win team is now the underdog.

So with that said, here's the big question: How much faith do we put in these late-season surges, and the revised odds that flow from them? Certainly the exercise above puts both the Nuggets and Warriors in the best light possible, evaluating them only with 100 percent healthy lineups and only during their most recent runs of success.

Nonetheless, it does seem to have some relevance. In both cases, the evaluation period is nearly a quarter of a season, so it's not like our sample size is absurdly small. Additionally, there's a valid reason for evaluating these teams when fully healthy -- they're both fully healthy right now, and we're trying to determine how they'll fare in the immediate future.

All told, then, I would venture to say that these numbers are a lot closer to reality for the Warriors and Nuggets than their original puny odds. And if that's the case, one has to consider another set of odds. Multiply the probabilities above and you'll find a 1-in-4 chance that both Dallas and San Antonio -- the two favorites to win the title -- fail to make it out of Round 1.

Who said the first round wasn't going to be interesting?

[kg_veteran]

The 67-win team is now the underdog.

What a shame. I used to hold Hollinger in such high regard.

[left texas]

Sounds like Hollinger is back tracking on his ranking system. Does he now see a flaw? Seems we have been telling him that all season.

Now, I tell him have faith in your system it will all work.

[alexamenos]

there's nothing easier, or more useless, than tweaking a statistical model to predict events which have already happened.

[hyphyhoopster]

mavs will not survive. NELLIE WANTS HIS REVENGE.

[LonghornDub]

There such an arbitrary nature to this whole "picking a segment of the season" to base a team's quality on. Sure, Denver is a different team with AI and Carmelo gelling. But how in the hell do you determine when the cut off point is for when they "gelled"? Whenever they started winning?

Hollinger's logic is circular and self-serving. He's picking points in the season to start "counting" a team's record based on when the starting winning, and then coming up with justifications for his cutoffs after the fact.

[EricaLubarsky]

Originally Posted by hyphyhoopster

mavs will not survive. NELLIE WANTS HIS REVENGE.

quoted for reference

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by ProdigyDub

Hollinger's logic is circular and self-serving. He's picking points in the season to start "counting" a team's record based on when the starting winning, and then coming up with justifications for his cutoffs after the fact.

Exactly.

[GP]

You'd think that Hollinger would have re-evaluated his power ranking system as it had some really funny results and his rationalizations were proven to be erroneous. I really have to wonder if this guy is truely mathematically literate. I think he is an abuser of descriptive statistics. This talk of sample sizes, etc. it meaningless. We have the entire population recorded and the Mavs lead that with a 67-15 record. Nothing else matters.

I really thought that the Warriors were going to be tough and that Denver would actually beat the spurs. Unfortunately, since Hollinger is always wrong then both the Spurs and Mavs advance in a cakewalk. Seriously, though the Spurs have an aging/old team that features 3 outstanding players and a bunch of junk. Denver has a very solid team and Allen Iverson. I don't think the Warriors have much of a chance unless Johnson and his staff continue to outcoach themselves. If the Warriors do pull off the upset I think it will be all coaching or an unfortunate injury.

My take: Mavs in 6. Denver in 6.

[alexamenos]

Originally Posted by GP

....I think he is an abuser of descriptive statistics....

I agree. Also, I think "abuser of descriptive statistics" is one of the least frequently hurled accusations to ever cross Dallas-Mavs.com.

[Usually Lurkin]

I'd thought this was his way of admitting the faults of his computer ranking system. Everyone kept railing the computer approach because it couldn't take into account momentum and injury and trades and stuff.

Originally Posted by GP

We have the entire population recorded and the Mavs lead that with a 67-15 record. Nothing else matters.

actually, right now this means a whole lot less than it did before the mavs lost game 1. While it does mean that the mavs have been playing well longer, they gave up a huge advantage that they had earned by that record. I'd say that the 0-1 record that they have now should mean as much to these mavs as the 67-15. They need to play like they have to earn the wins.

[Big Shot Rob]

Will he back-track again tomorrow if both the Mavs and the Spurs blow out their opponents by 20 points or more?

[Usually Lurkin]

Originally Posted by Big Shot Rob

Will he back-track again tomorrow if both the Mavs and the Spurs blow out their opponents by 20 points or more?

my guess is that he'll say his glorious computer system predicted it, that all is right with the world, and that the questions he was asking earlier (in the column above) were meek fear of objectivity and a bigotry against robots.

[Windmill360]

if not then it's the worse loss in sports history.

[New.Stuff.BT]

Originally Posted by kg_veteran

The 67-win team is now the underdog.

What a shame. I used to hold Hollinger in such high regard.

I'm sorry but whoever held any high regard of Hollinger is a complete idiot. His system is flawed and his articles are a joke.

[nowhereman]

uh, i still hold hollinger in high regard, and he's still the best nba analyst in the world. you ever read his pro basketball prospectus? and his PER calculations are the best rate to production statistical measures ever used in basketball.

but here's my problem with the article. if the mavs came in at 2-1 favorites, one game doesn't change that. they weren't 2-1 favorites to sweep. a line such as 2-1 for a series is really an amalgamation of the transforming numbers as the series progressed. so for every game we're 59% underdogs in the series, there are 2 where we are 59% favorites. and one of those was already game 1.