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Odds of Rockets' Miracle Comeback: < 1 out of 1 million!

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by lancet, Dec 11, 2004.

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  1. lancet

    lancet Contributing Member

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    From the feedbacks, I redid the calculation on the odds's of Rockets miracle comeback against the Spurs. The result is:

    Less Than 1 out of 1 Million!

    Basically don't expect another one until about after 1,849,573 NBA games, which is roughly 1,503 NBA seasons, or the year 3908 AD! :D :D :D

    Here are the methology:
    1. Only count plays after T-Mac's last miss with 52 seconds left.
    2. For a play adding Rockets score, it's odds are multiplied to the final odds.
    3. For a play adding Spurs socre, it's odds are divided to the final odds.

    Play, Odds, Reason
    1. Yao offensive rebound, 0.264, Rockets missed 53 FGs, but has 14 offensive rebounds
    2. Yao's putback, 0.95, Near basket dunk
    3. Padget steals the inbound pass, 0.106, Spurs total position is 104, Rockets had 11 steals
    4. Padget dunks, 0.95, Near basket dunk
    5. Duncan makes 1st FT, 0.668, Duncan's FT% this season
    6. Duncan makes 2nd FT, 0.668,
    7. T-Mac's 1st 3 pointer, 0.2, Bumped lower compared to T-Mac's 29.1% season 3pt%, since these are all off-balance and closely contested
    8. Brown makes 1st FT, 0.886, Brown's FT% this season
    9. Brown makes 2nd FT, 0.886,
    10. T-Mac's 2nd 3 pointer while bumped, 0.05, Extremely unlikely
    11. T-Mac makes the FT, 0.737, T-Mac's FT% this season
    12. Brown makes 3rd FT, 0.886,
    13. Brown makes 4th FT, 0.886,
    14. T-Mac 3rd 3 pointer, 0.2,
    15. Brown loses the ball, 0.02, Extremely unlikely, since Brown only needs to hold the ball and wait to be fouled
    16. T-Mac's 4th 3 pointer, 0.2, [/list=1]
      Total 0.00000054 = .264 *.950 * .106 *.950 * .200 *.050 *.737 * .200 * .02 * .200 / (.668 * .668 * .886 * .886 * .886 * .886)
     
    #1 lancet, Dec 11, 2004
    Last edited: Dec 11, 2004
  2. sums41

    sums41 Contributing Member

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    can you help me with my Collage Algebra Final?
     
    #2 sums41, Dec 11, 2004
  3. ds888

    ds888 Contributing Member

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    Don't forget JVG burning all the time outs to make the last 3 possible. If we had a timeout, JVG would've called a play that would've fell apart, and if it didn't, we'd tie at best.

    JVG burning all the time outs 75% =)
     
    #3 ds888, Dec 11, 2004
  4. Stack24

    Stack24 Contributing Member

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    I take it you work with math in one way or another lol....statistics...got to love it...

    or your lobbying for a job to be a statistics person for a sports team =)
     
    #4 Stack24, Dec 11, 2004
  5. lancet

    lancet Contributing Member

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    I had a statistics minor back in college. :)
     
    #5 lancet, Dec 11, 2004
  6. Stack24

    Stack24 Contributing Member

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    Kinda figured :D
     
    #6 Stack24, Dec 11, 2004
  7. clove

    clove Contributing Member

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    wow

    I thought I had a lot of time on my hand.

    Very thoughtfully done though.
     
    #7 clove, Dec 11, 2004
  8. m_cable

    m_cable Contributing Member

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    You probably shouldn't be listing Padge's dunk at being a 0.436 chance. That wide open of a dunk has to be a 95+% chance of going in.
     
    #8 m_cable, Dec 11, 2004
  9. Stack24

    Stack24 Contributing Member

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    But to get a steal on an inbounds play on your side of the court that leads to the dunk is a very low probability.
     
    #9 Stack24, Dec 11, 2004
  10. m_cable

    m_cable Contributing Member

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    But he already computed the steal portion of that play separately. The steal part was very unlikely. The dunk park was easy.
     
    #10 m_cable, Dec 11, 2004
  11. Stack24

    Stack24 Contributing Member

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    good point..now i am going to back to not worrying about statistics....im better at calculus and other math that has no business in my real life job =)
     
    #11 Stack24, Dec 11, 2004
  12. littlefish_220

    littlefish_220 Member

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    Man, you have tons of time:)

    Academically, you have to take into account the spurs' free throw shooting percentage. If they miss a copule, we probably don't need the final triple to win.
     
    #12 littlefish_220, Dec 11, 2004
  13. Stack24

    Stack24 Contributing Member

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    yeah figure out the odds that Duncan would shoot that darn well from the line and that crappy from the field.
     
    #13 Stack24, Dec 11, 2004
  14. RocketKid

    RocketKid Member

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    wouldn't that figure more represent the odds of that PARTICULAR sequence of events happening again?
     
    #14 RocketKid, Dec 11, 2004
  15. Varunan

    Varunan Contributing Member

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    Hmmm, I'm really not trying to be difficult, but I'm not sure how revealing the 1/1,000,000 stat is.

    You seem to imply that the chances of a comeback as drastic as the one we saw on Thursday is 1/1,000,000, but doesn't your equation just calculate the probability of all of those things happening in the last minute of a game EXACTLY as they occurred in the last minute of the Spurs game?

    For example, if you were to once again calculate the probability of all of those things occurring consecutively, this time with Yao missing the putback near the beginning of the comeback and the Rox losing by 1 (with .510 replaced with .490, and assuming everything else would have happened exactly as it did in real life), wouldn't the end result of the calculation still be roughly 1/1,000,000 (even though the Rockets would have lost)?

    Perhaps a better stat would be how many times a team has come back to win a game down 10 with under a minute to go, divide that by the total number of games played in the NBA since these stats have been kept, and voila. Not perfect either, but whatever. :)

    Again, not trying to be difficult, just sharing thoughts. :)
     
    #15 Varunan, Dec 11, 2004
  16. kaleidosky

    kaleidosky Your Tweety Bird dance just cost us a run

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    he's absolutely correct. And I'm sure a guy with a stat minor will agree when he reads it
     
    #16 kaleidosky, Dec 11, 2004
  17. lancet

    lancet Contributing Member

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    I am trying to calculate Rockets' odds to come back to win in regulation time since T-Mac missed his last layup with 52 seconds to go. As far as I know, it has never happened before in NBA. So the existing statistics wouldn't tell the real story because the sample size is too small (just one). The comments on Spurs FT% and Yao/Padget's dunks are legit and I need to take them into account.
     
    #17 lancet, Dec 11, 2004
  18. snowmt01

    snowmt01 Contributing Member

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    :) Cool. How about make it more rigorous:

    Yao offensive Rebound Yao's OR/Total missed FG?
    Yao putback putback has a higher FG%
    Padget steal on inbound pass Steals are more common in 4th Qt
    Padget scores Should be padget's dunk%

    :D
     
    #18 snowmt01, Dec 11, 2004
  19. Panda

    Panda Member

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    My thought is that the example shows the probability of a 12 points comback in the final minute yet still lost by one. :D
     
    #19 Panda, Dec 11, 2004
  20. Kenrui

    Kenrui Contributing Member

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    Obviously you did not consider the FT which were made by the spurs and therefore the probability you calculated is not correct.
     
    #20 Kenrui, Dec 11, 2004
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