A look at Celtics, Lakers, Spurs, Pistons easiest 20 game stretches

Good info CCR. See how productive you can be when you are bored at work. Yea, the stength of schedule argument by some media types is really tired. They are foaming at the mouth for the Lakers to break the streak. Nothing would be a better "I told you so" for those idiots. After beating the Lakers on Sunday, I have total confidence that the house will be rocking again after the Celtics leave town. Talk about your pre-playoff type atmosphere, it will be Summitesk.

 

damn good thread. it proves a point. i like it.

 

The Celtics had an easier schedule than we have, really.

 

Love this post. Great work.

 

just goes to show how difficult it is to win 20 games consecutively in the NBA... only 3 teams have done it in history... you have to be focused and playing consistently at a high level... amazing, amazing accomplishment... let's keep this baby going!!!

 

It's crazy how they downplay our streak

8 out of 20 of our games were against winning records?

Well with the OP's selected schedule Boston only played 9 out 20, SA 8 out of 20, and Detroit only played 7 out of 20.

There are only 30 teams in the league half of which have winning records. We've played almost every team. Is it our fault that half the league has losing records? Our streak wins consist of 40% against teams with winning records. Close enough for me.

It's okay though. I like being counted out. Only way to go but up when people want to keep you down all the time

 

Sounds a lot like this BBS for a lot of people.

Nice post by the OP.

 

Great post!!!

You should e-mail these to the "experts" over at ESPN, SI, Foxsports, MSNBC, and SportingNews!

I think they can learn a thing or two about how a real sports article should be written, not the same old crap that is constantly being throw out over and over again!

 

Great thread. 10 Stars.

 

SEND THIS **** TO ESPN!

damn bastages

 

Interesting. From the number of opp. shot attempts, the Spurs seem to be the most slowly paced team. (That, or they are really good at creating turnovers and/or defensive rebounding.) We are close to Detroit in terms of pace. Anyways, all of these teams except the Lakers are known to be very good defensive teams. We are among the elite defensively.

 

This is a fantastic post! If only the "experts," had the ability to look back like this. Oh wait, they do....

5 stars bro!

 

i don't think most sport analysts have time to watch the rockets, so they probably just assumed the rockets were beating up on easy teams during the streak by looking at the stats everyday.

it's only after watching them play do they realize that they're playing good basketball and not just beating up on easy opponents.

so now that they're forced to watch us, because fans will expect to know something about one of the best stories in the NBA right now, they now realize that we're actually pretty good...

 

Awesome thread man!

Just on a slight tangent do you think the Lakers or Celtics would get as much flack as we have from the national media??

 

Great thread. Thank you for sharing with us CCR.

 

Great info. The question had crossed my mind earlier and now I have the answer. Thanks.

 

The streak is amazing because it is almost a mathematical impossibility.

Suppose we have a 90% chance to win against the bobcat tomorrow. That's pretty good as far as winning a single game goes.

Yet if we had 90% chance to win against all 20 teams the Rockets played, we would only have 12% chance to accomplish this feat.

But even Jordan's Bull didn't play 90% ball. If we play like a conference leader with 80% win rate(66 wins), then a 20-wins stretch occurs 1% of time. If we had a 70% win rate(57 wins), then it is down to 0.08%. A 60% win rate(49 wins)? 0.0037%.

I'm talking about average win rate here, which hides some of bumps a streak has to overcome. Suppose a a team plays two games, where it has 70% of winning each game, it has 50% chance to win both games 50%. But if one game is 50% and the other is 90%? The percentage drop to 45%. What this means is that whenever the streak is on the line in an unfavorable scenario, let say a tough back-to-back road game where the team only wins 50% of time, the probability the streak would continue is exponentially more unlikely.

And if the team is missing important players, and is the underdog in some of the games? Forget it. Unless it's the Rockets!

If we also account for the consecutive double digits win streak, my head would explode. Note that leader of the double digits list is not the leader of the winning streak list, and vice versa.

I really like our players' attitude toward the streak, because the best way to make it continue is to downplay it. They should forget that it even exists, and thus a loss is never due. Just play hard every game and let the result speak for itself.

The bottom line is all critics suck at math.