maybe it takes into account the playoff experiences of our team. and portland has a better record and better closer in roy than us. they have a better chance of advancing.
One problem I have with Hollinger's approach is that even though he factors in strength of schedule, he doesn't do it in the right way IMO. Suppose Team A beats the Clippers by 20 and loses to the Lakers by 5. Suppose Team B beats the Clippers by 5 and beats the Lakers by 10. Both teams have played the same schedule, and both teams are +7.5 over that schedule. According to his power rankings, they'd get rated the same way. But I'd conclude that Team B had a better 2-game stretch from that information.
what does his model of SOS really have to do with that though? isn't that just a small sample size problem? the only thing i would take from those 2 games is that team B is inconsistent as it is unlikely that over 60 games they will play the very best teams 5 points better than the very worst team. from those 2 games i would have them ranked the same but with a much bigger standard deviation on team B (assuming i took opponent strength into consideration) and thus little confidence as to how good team B is.
Playoff experience and team intensity are very different. Boston struggled through the playoffs last year because they KNEW they would win. Once they were in the finals, they focused completely on their A game and clobbered the Fakers. Teams like the Rockets will never make it very far. You can not run up a lead in the first 3 quarters and slumber through the 4th. This is not talking about the bulls game ... this is talking about the last 10 years of Rocketball. It seems as if everyone knows our weakness but our players.
I used an extreme example. Suppose over a two month period two teams played the same schedule. Suppose one team played consistently well against both good and bad teams, but didn't really blow out any one. Suppose the second team got a number of big blow out wins against the bad teams, and generally struggled against the better teams. It's possible that, overall, they get the same point differential or maybe even the second team has a better point differential. But I'd like the first team's chances more against playoff competition.
I do not believe on any statistic like this. I know one thing this year we will go as deep as final four.
The odds are to make the playoffs. Don't forget to think while you read. That goes to the other posters too.
