[FiveThirtyEight] Every NBA Team's Chance of Winning

So we play our best during the 4th quarter but choke at the end of games.

 

That seems very different from what the eye test says, we've won plenty of games in the last 2-3 minutes of games

Grizzlies, Mavericks, Suns all come to mind..

 

Nice charts.

The bulls and blazers find ways to win. They are amazing 4th Q team. The Spurs have a last spark at the end (to be expected).

The Rockets play best 3rd thru 2nd half of 4th and choke last half of 4th but redeem themselves in the last few mins... still an overall flat 4th. The Harden effect.

Rockets and the Bucks are the only winning % teams that chock in the 4th.

 

Yeah.. interesting... looks like the Rockets's peak plateaus from about 3/4 to 1/2 way through the 4Q

 

538 always undervalues the Rockets because their metric is largely based on point differential. If you look at their power rankings they have consistently put teams like the Suns ahead of the Rockets. Ask any team who they wanna face, the Suns or Rox and they will say Suns every time (well except the Clips and the Warriors).

 

Rox peak about 4 minutes into the 4th quarter. What happens then? The big starters for both teams come back in. I'd say our second unit is killing it in the second half and not doing as well in the first half.

Why? Guessing: the first half of the second quarter slumps on the chart. This is the time of McHale's standard "bench" rotation. In the second half, we don't exactly get the "bench" rotation but a little more of the "closers" rotation (who's on the floor at the end of the game: maybe Smith or Brewer or even Terry). They do well, but when the other team's biggest guns come back in, we come down to earth. That's my read.

 

harden makes the highly improbable happen

 

No, the odds of winning just increase as time runs out, e.g. if you lead by 6 with 2 minutes left, your chance of winning is higher than if you lead by 10 with 6 minutes left.