The sample size for these statistics/predictions is way too small. We will win this series because we are the better team, not because a few other teams have done it in the past when they were in a similar situation. Hollinger likes to waste time apparently.
Um, every series goes like that. For the most part the better team wins. A 3 game series used to be small enough to allow a road team to steal the series with a win on the other team's floor. Not really so a 5 or 7 game series.
With the Mavs up by 10 early and playing their pace, and Boston crushing Chicago by more than 20 to all but return homecourt advantage before halftime I thought I would give myself props. (Actually I don't think the Spurs losing will kill them--though I think they won't recover if it gets to 3-1 making game 4 a must for them if they don't catch up this game. The Bulls however are in trouble, I think this shows the Celts can raise the intensity and focus to another level than the Bulls are capable of)
So you are giving yourself props for picking the Bulls to advance to the 2nd round, but the Celtics to pull their series out with grit and experience??
I think this can be summed up as Road team split 1-1 with point differential advantage -> Road team's BETTER -> Road team's more likely to win. We are better than Portland(at least Head to Head). Hence we have a better shot of winning given that it's now a Bo5 with us having homecourt. That's really all there is to it.
I believe what I see. I don't think these odds or predictions make difference to the final outcome of the series. Rockets is the team capble of beating Blazers by 30pts, and also able to blow away 20 pts 4Q lead. Yao is dominant offensice center, but he can be stopped easily by fronting. Sad to say but it is a reality.
Interesting take, but the huge blowout of the first game obviously skewed the probability to our favor, which IMO can be deceiving. You'd also have to consider that the big win came with Mutombo as a big factor, and unfortunately he is out of the equation from now on.
Yes, the Rockets are doomed, as its far more likely for Roy and Aldridge to combine for 70 points and Yao to only get 6 shots again than the two teams to fall somewhere in between and the Rockets win this series.
You misunderstand me. I'm saying the blowout game makes it too easy for Hollinger's point-differential theory to fall in our favor, not that the Rockets will lose.
Size of the point differential doesnt mean anything. It was road team with higher differential. Basically the stats show the same if you make game 1 margin of victory higher than 4. So 105-100 Rockets in game 1 would still show us having a better differential after the 2 games. The blowout doesnt alter the stats in anyway.
This is inane. As Hollinger readily admits at the end of the article, this analysis is basically meaningless. The sample size is too small, and random things can happen in a basketball game. Say, for example, that someone catches fire, or someone gets in foul trouble, or someone gets injured, or an adjustment radically alters match ups and completely changes the nature of a series. All these things have happened in JUST THE FIRST TWO GAMES of this series, and all are things that a metric based on road-team-point-differential ignores. Besides, Hollinger's basis for his prediction is that "11 of 20 teams in Houston's situation have won." If I flip a coin 20 times, and get 11 tails and 9 heads, that doesn't mean that tails is likely to win...based on the sample size and the minute difference, it's fair to say that the "mathematical advantage" Hollinger thinks we have is statistically insignificant. Hollinger is a smart guy. Some of his numbers (PER, for one) are incredibly useful, and his analysis is often pretty good. Sometimes, though, I feel like he is locked in a basement at ESPN and forced to write math-y articles so ESPN seems cutting edge, and so he doesn't step on the toes of the "analysts" (cough, Jalen Rose, cough) who couldn't write a statistics based article if their lives depended on it. Sometimes it's useful, sometimes it's pure sophistry. This is sophistry. In the words of Mark Jackson, YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT! Go Rockets. /end rant //debated competitively in college, warrantless arguments make me sad
Sound statistical anaylisis However, a case study for Rox(Rox's playoff history stats) is needed in order to predict the outcome of this series basing solely on historical stats
Your Roy/Aldridge comment threw me but you were right on this point. I need to brush up on my reading skills. I still think there are too many other variables for this stat to have much weight, though.
Nice catch on my phrasing. I guess I was initially kinda thinking the Bulls had the edge (with the road split and both Celts PFs gone), then I said to myself, nah, Boston is the champ and Pierce/Allen/Rondo will gut out this series (until they eventually get worn out by Orlando) and overwhelm the Baby Bulls 2 on grit. I was thinking the popular feeling at the time--Chicago will likely knock them out--was overblown because they played two good games and Boston would toughen up. But my pick of the Mavs had no such ambiguity I'll lay out so more picks the next series games--these are my gut/feel picks: Tonight: Cavs win @ Det to effectively end that series Magic win @ Phily to retake homecourt Rockets win at home, relatively easy/give up the points. Game 4 I think gets stickier with Portland having a better chance because of game 3 tactical and crowd adjustments (game 3 will be an environment the young Blazers will have no experience with, by game 4 they should be more ready). Plus, as a younger team with more bigs (fatigue should play more of a role with Yao getting pounded on, Battier/Artest having to work so hard on Roy, and Scola picking up extra minutes), they will be fresher than us because of the only 1 day off. So I see game 3 tonight solid for an inspired Rockets team, game 4 as a toss-up--with the winner taking the series. Saturday: Hornets win Mavs win (total series command) (If I had to pick I would go with the Heat and Jazz as well, but not confident enough to state) Sunday: (I don't have a feel for any of these yet, depends a lot of tonight--energy expended of winners/losers and momentum from tonight's games, and Boston's health/freshness)
I want to confer with this. The statistical implications are not solid. If the 1st two games we a random sampling of the 7 games it would make some sense, and I suppose if your predicting say all the series a given year it might be OK. But any one series has way too many variables at stake. Momentum, injuries, depth/age, adjustments, pace. As you saw with Boston-Bulls, it was more a matter of the better team playing down and the lesser team playing up the 1st two games. When those teams played more to their level, boom, the favored/better team won. I think we will see the same with Orlando/6ers. Further, the Rockets Blazers series is hard to predict. So much depends on the pace of the game. So of that is impacted on calls, some on just how well and focused the teams play that day. I do think the Rockets need to win the series by 6, the longer it goes the younger/deeper/more athletic team gets tougher. Think of the Mavs-Rockets a couple years back.
4/5 friday and saturday, not bad. Today's hunches: @Bulls over Celts Cavs over @Pistons (sweep) Magic over @6ers @Rockets over Blazers I really only feel solid about the Cavs & Magic picks though. In the Rockets game, ordinarily I would say we must be ahead before the 4th quarter starts, because we have lost all 3 4th quarters. But the pressure will be on Portland, so I think we just need to be relatively close at the 4th quarter start and they might tighten up. The key IMO are Portland role players. If they get subpar production from Outlaw/Fernandez/Blake, which allows us to collapse on Roy/Aldridge, we will win.
After that 4/4 Sunday I got to keep things rolling now, 1st day I get 50% or less I'll quit Today's hunches (granted these are not that hard): @NO over Nugz @Mia over Atl @LAL over Utah (I think Utah keeps it closer than people think for 3.5 quarters)
