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04-20-2007, 02:11 PM

Updated: April 20, 2007, 11:43 AM ET

What are the odds? Team-by-team playoff chancesBy John Hollinger
ESPN Insider

You want to know why it was such a big deal that the Bulls lost to New Jersey on Wednesday night? I'll tell you why: It cut their chances of making the conference finals in half.

How do I know this? Because I created a model of the NBA playoffs that calculated each team's odds to advance through the four rounds of the postseason. And based on this model, the impact of that one regular-season game is looking positively enormous.

I'll get to the nitty-gritty in a minute, but let me give you a quick overview. This model's best and worst attribute is the same thing -- it's entirely based on a team's results during the regular season. It doesn't know about injuries, or playoff experience, or any other factors; on the other hand, it doesn't bring any subjective biases to the table that can throw us humans off the scent.

What it does know is that the larger a team's average margin of victory the more games it is likely to win, and that's as true in the playoffs as it is in the regular season. Additionally, we know that teams that play well late in the season tend to fare a little better in the postseason.

Fortunately, we have a tool that already combines exactly those two bits of information: the Hollinger Power Rankings.

I used that as the basis to create the chart below, but with one caveat -- I took the rankings through games of April 9, since the final week of the season featured so many games in which teams obviously weren't playing to win. That prevents games like Golden State's blowout of Dallas' scrubs on Tuesday from impacting the model.

Using the difference between each team's rating and a 3.5 point advantage for the home team in each game, we can calculate the odds of a team's winning any individual game. From that, in turn, I built the odds of winning a given series, and eventually of winning the championship.

Not surprisingly, the San Antonio Spurs -- who were No. 1 in the power rankings for most of the second half of the season -- come out with the best odds of winning the championship, at 37.0 percent.

Of course, having the best odds doesn't mean they automatically get the ring -- just ask Detroit a year ago. I did the same exercise last year at this time and the team with the fifth-best odds, Miami, was the one that came out on top.

Nonetheless, there's a lot we can learn from this chart. Take a look and then we'll discuss below:

2007 NBA Playoffs: Likelihood of winning (based on probability model)
Likely path to title First round Conf. semis Conf. finals NBA Finals
San Antonio Spurs
vs. DEN, at PHX,
at DAL, vs. DET 93.3% 63.6% 42.9% 37.0%
Dallas Mavericks
vs. GS, vs. HOU,
vs. SA, vs. DET 95.4% 70.2% 33.4% 25.5%
Phoenix Suns
vs. LAL, vs. SA,
at DAL, vs. DET 97.4% 35.2% 16.4% 11.6%
Detroit Pistons
vs. ORL, vs. CHI,
vs. CLE, at SA 90.9% 57.4% 41.1% 10.8%
Cleveland Cavaliers
vs. WAS, vs. TOR,
at DET, at SA 89.4% 74.1% 30.8% 5.5%
Chicago Bulls
vs. MIA, at DET,
at CLE, at SA 89.1% 39.7% 24.0% 5.2%
Houston Rockets
vs. UTA, at DAL,
at SA, at DET 84.1% 27.5% 6.9% 4.1%
Toronto Raptors
vs. NJ, at CLE,
at DET, at SA 70.9% 17.2% 2.7% 0.1%
Washington Wizards
at CLE, at TOR,
at DET, at SA 10.6% 4.5% 0.5% 0.0%
Orlando Magic
at DET, at CHI,
at CLE, at SA 9.1% 1.5% 0.4% 0.0%
New Jersey Nets
at TOR, at CLE,
at DET, at SA 29.1% 4.2% 0.3% 0.0%
Miami Heat
at CHI, at DET,
at CLE, at SA 10.9% 1.3% 0.3% 0.0%
Denver Nuggets
at SA, at PHX,
at DAL, at DET 6.7% 1.2% 0.2% 0.0%
Utah Jazz
at HOU, at DAL,
at SA, at DET 15.9% 1.7% 0.1% 0.0%
Golden State Warriors
at DAL, at HOU,
at SA, at DET 4.6% 0.6% 0.0% 0.0%
Los Angeles Lakers
at PHX, at SA,
at DAL, at DET 2.6% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%

CONCLUSIONS

Only seven teams have a realistic shot at winning the championship.
If you look at the chart, there's a fairly glaring break between Houston (odds of winning: 4.1 percent) and Toronto (odds of winning: 0.1 percent). Oddly, the three Western powers have the best odds, and in keeping with the Western-domination theme, there's only a 21.7 percent chance that the East team will win once we get to the Finals. San Antonio and Dallas are the most likely champions, combining for the majority of the potential outcomes.

Miami isn't one of those teams.
The low odds for Miami in this chart probably will shock a lot of people. Yes, that says "0.0%" although technically Miami's odds don't come out as absolute zero -- they're 0.00015383 percent, which means we'd expect the Heat to win once for every 6,500 times we replayed the postseason.

I don't think anyone estimates Miami's odds of repeating to be quite that low, just based on history. However, there's nothing in the Heat's regular-season record to suggest any hope of extended playoff success. Nada. Zilch.

If they were to defend their conference title successfully, they'd be the first team since the 1958-59 Minneapolis Lakers to win a conference while giving up more points than they scored … and those Lakers did it in a four-team bracket. And if they were to repeat as NBA champions, they'd be the first team ever to win a title with a negative scoring margin.

In fact, according to this chart the Heat face a daunting task just to make it out of the first round. They face a Chicago team that rated sixth in the power rankings, and they won't have home-court advantage. The model estimates their probability of advancing at just 10.9 percent.

Additionally, Miami's postseason path is much more difficult than it was a year ago. The Heat's likely opponents are the three best teams in the East. Even if you give Miami an absolutely enormous benefit of the doubt and say they're just as good as those other three teams -- something, mind you, they've provided absolutely no evidence for in the past 10 months -- you'd be looking at only a 9.3 percent chance of winning the East. The cumulative difficulty of taking three straight against tough opposition, without home court in any series, is daunting.

So in terms of Miami's odds of repeating, I'm not sure if the right answer is 1 in 6,500 or more like 1 in 500, but I do know this: The Heat have put themselves in a position where they are a serious, serious long shot.

And make no mistake, there is absolutely no comparison between this season and last season. Last season the Heat had the second-best record in the East, played just as well as top-seeded Detroit after midseason, and had a much easier path to the Finals. If you're cavalierly expecting them to catch lightning in a bottle again, proceed at your own risk.

New Jersey has the best chance for a first-round upset.
What's striking about this year's chart is how clear-cut the first round appears. Seven of the eight series have an 84 percent chance or better of seeing the home-court team advance -- only two had such strong odds a year ago, and three were legitimate toss-ups (Nuggets-Clippers, Nets-Pacers and Cavs-Wizards). The one exception to the rule this time around is the Nets-Raptors series, in which Toronto has the upper hand but at "only" 70.9 percent.

Chicago's loss to New Jersey was a killer.
Chicago would have been better off losing a home playoff game than losing to the Nets on Wednesday. Seriously. Check out their chart in comparison to Cleveland's -- the Cavs' odds of reaching the conference finals are nearly double Chicago's, and that's despite Chicago having a stronger power ranking.

The Cavs' path is so easy that they have the best odds of any team in the league of reaching the conference finals, at 74.1 percent -- better even than Dallas. So expect to see a lot of LeBron this spring.

And expect the Bulls to be muttering "that coulda been us" to their TVs if they can't get past Detroit in Round 2. The Bulls would have had the best odds of winning the East if they had beaten New Jersey; now they're just third.

On the other hand, the Cavs' odds of winning the East have never looked better. With light sledding until the conference finals, they can wait unscathed for the Detroit-Chicago survivor -- and as an added plus, they'll have home court if the Bulls prevail.

John Hollinger writes for ESPN Insider. To e-mail him, click here.