HarlemHeat37
08-17-2010, 05:48 PM
From bballreference..
There are a lot of attributes that I've looked into as the hallmarks of great teams, including dominant wins, ideal usage allocations, and superior playoff point differentials. But here's another characteristic to throw onto that heap -- season-long performance vs. playoff teams.
Since the playoffs only feature the league's best teams -- a.k.a. those through which the path to a championship runs -- you could argue that we should judge a good team's ability by its performance vs. fellow postseason participants. Or at least that's the premise here: for every season since 2000, I whittled down the NBA schedule (regular-season and playoffs) to just include games between 2 playoff teams. Then I ran the Simple Rating System formula on those games, adjusting for a home-court advantage of 3.3 PPG and setting the results relative to the overall league average of 0.0 (to keep things on the familiar SRS scale).
Read More.. (http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=7213)
It's scary to think how good this team would have been had Timmy stayed healthy IMO..he was still in his prime, Manu had blossomed, TP was good enough to be a legit #3 option on a title team, Bruce was the best perimeter defender in the NBA, good shooters and defenders to surround them, Pop at the top of his game..
The fact that they beat 2 dominant teams in the Pistons and Suns, when they both had contrasting styles, makes it even better..it sucks that they don't get the credit they deserve..
There are a lot of attributes that I've looked into as the hallmarks of great teams, including dominant wins, ideal usage allocations, and superior playoff point differentials. But here's another characteristic to throw onto that heap -- season-long performance vs. playoff teams.
Since the playoffs only feature the league's best teams -- a.k.a. those through which the path to a championship runs -- you could argue that we should judge a good team's ability by its performance vs. fellow postseason participants. Or at least that's the premise here: for every season since 2000, I whittled down the NBA schedule (regular-season and playoffs) to just include games between 2 playoff teams. Then I ran the Simple Rating System formula on those games, adjusting for a home-court advantage of 3.3 PPG and setting the results relative to the overall league average of 0.0 (to keep things on the familiar SRS scale).
Read More.. (http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=7213)
It's scary to think how good this team would have been had Timmy stayed healthy IMO..he was still in his prime, Manu had blossomed, TP was good enough to be a legit #3 option on a title team, Bruce was the best perimeter defender in the NBA, good shooters and defenders to surround them, Pop at the top of his game..
The fact that they beat 2 dominant teams in the Pistons and Suns, when they both had contrasting styles, makes it even better..it sucks that they don't get the credit they deserve..