Playoff odds

[Supergirl]

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/playoffodds

Now, I know everyone has weighed in on what they think of Hollinger's method, but I do think it's interesting that as of today, he has the Spurs and Utah with the best odds out of the West of being the champion.

And currently the Magic in the East have the best odds of being the champion.

[phxspurfan]

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/playoffodds

Now, I know everyone has weighed in on what they think of Hollinger's method, but I do think it's interesting that as of today, he has the Spurs and Utah with the best odds out of the West of being the champion.

And currently the Magic in the East have the best odds of being the champion.

I'm guessing that his formula puts higher weight on recent performance, as a sort of momentum factor. Utah and SA are both 7-3 in their last 10 games, according to nba.com. Other than that I think our most recent wins against playoff caliber teams (the elite lately, especially) also factor into a section of his calculation and give us even more momentum. We beat LA, Denver and Boston pretty handily.

[Johnny RIngo]

I'm guessing that his formula puts higher weight on recent performance, as a sort of momentum factor. Utah and SA are both 7-3 in their last 10 games, according to nba.com. Other than that I think our most recent wins against playoff caliber teams (the elite lately, especially) also factor into a section of his calculation and give us even more momentum. We beat LA, Denver and Boston pretty handily.

Point differential plays a large part too(Jazz and Spurs happen to lead the Western conference in that category).

[HarlemHeat37]

Hollinger ALWAYS owns the Mavs..he knows them better than anybody in their own organization..if the Spurs play the Mavs, we'll see what his prediction will be, I'll have my $ ready..

[Seventyniner]

Hollinger's recent performance metric takes into account the last 25% of the season, not just the last 10 games. That would be 20 games, which takes you back to early March. Over the last 20 games, the Spurs are 14-6 against a rather tough schedule with a point differential of +8.15 (an elite mark if done over an entire season). I don't feel like looking up the rest of the conference over the last 20 games, but I doubt any of them are better than that.

[TD 21]

At this writing, the Spurs are the best team in the West. All of the numbers since the beginning of March suggest as much. The Nets loss was due to Ginobili not playing, the Suns loss was due to fatigue and the Grizzlies loss was due to poor coaching. None of these three things will be the case in the playoffs (right now, Ginobili is healthy and the type of poor coaching I'm referring to is over managing minutes and playing all twelve guys, which barring a blowout isn't happening). The last time they were cleanly beaten was the Lakers game.

The Spurs are not in the Lakers bracket, which means that they won't face each other until the conference finals, should they both make it that far. Let's face it, they are the worst match-up for the Spurs, so with them out of the picture at least until then (I wouldn't be shocked if they're eliminated in the second round, depending on who they face), the Spurs are eminently capable of reaching at least the conference finals.

If anyone's been paying attention, that shouldn't come as much of a surprise. A slight one, because they'd be without home court for both rounds, but they're really not your typical six-seven seed. Not even close. They were expected to be better than the teams 2-6 and because it took a while for that to come to fruition, it doesn't bear itself out in the standings, but the Spurs are the best of that bunch (at least right now).

[Thompson]

If Hill and Parker are 100% these playoffs could be a lot of fun to watch.

[Mavs<Spurs]

At this writing, the Spurs are the best team in the West. All of the numbers since the beginning of March suggest as much. The Nets loss was due to Ginobili not playing, the Suns loss was due to fatigue and the Grizzlies loss was due to poor coaching. None of these three things will be the case in the playoffs (right now, Ginobili is healthy and the type of poor coaching I'm referring to is over managing minutes and playing all twelve guys, which barring a blowout isn't happening). The last time they were cleanly beaten was the Lakers game.

The Spurs are not in the Lakers bracket, which means that they won't face each other until the conference finals, should they both make it that far. Let's face it, they are the worst match-up for the Spurs, so with them out of the picture at least until then (I wouldn't be shocked if they're eliminated in the second round, depending on who they face), the Spurs are eminently capable of reaching at least the conference finals.

If anyone's been paying attention, that shouldn't come as much of a surprise. A slight one, because they'd be without home court for both rounds, but they're really not your typical six-seven seed. Not even close. They were expected to be better than the teams 2-6 and because it took a while for that to come to fruition, it doesn't bear itself out in the standings, but the Spurs are the best of that bunch (at least right now).

This.

That's what I have seen over the last month.

Spurs have definitely been playing the best basketball in the West and in all of the NBA over the last month or so. It seems extremely difficult to dispute that.

I think that we have a really good chance of winning it all. It is not about seeding; it is about who is playing the best basketball and right now, that would be the Spurs. By a country mile.

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