this was hollinger, didn't see it posted
Why I'm spurning the Spurs
posted: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 | Feedback | Print Entry
filed under: NBA, San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Lakers
SOMEWHERE IN THE AIRSPACE BETWEEN NEW ORLEANS AND ATLANTA -- With the flight gods blowing up my usual chat schedule, I thought I'd address a couple topics that have come up repeatedly in my mailbag and, presumably, would in the chat as well.
For starters, I've been swamped with email from Spurs supporters questioning my motives. Inevitably, fans of some teams come to feel that I (or other writers) have some kind of vendetta against their favored club. Since emotions run highest at the start of the year and at the end, this is when those sentiments tend to be strongest.
Anyway, Spurs fans think that since I picked them to lose in the first two rounds that I must harbor some vast reservoir of ill will toward the team. Or perhaps they just feel betrayed, since I picked San Antonio last year, and the year before that, and the year before that.
As much respect as I have for what the Spurs have done and continue to do, I saw the Phoenix and New Orleans series as essentially 50-50 propositions with a slight edge going to San Antonio's opponents. Obviously, it didn't work out that way. As I noted at the beginning of the Western Conference playoffs, this was a year in which it was going to be easy to be wrong a lot, and actually I'm pleased to get out of Dodge with those two as my only blemishes in the West thus far.
On a similar note, Spurs fans seemed to think my writing two columns on the Hornets from Monday's Game 7 was the result of my Spur-blindness. Actually, it was my assignment -- Marc Stein handled the San Antonio side of things.
Oh, and there's one other thing that has Spurs fans upset …
Lakers in 5?
The hardest part of picking a series isn't the winner but the games. Essentially, there are two different questions at play -- one is what the average expectation is, and the other is what the most likely outcome is. Those two questions often don't produce identical answers.
For example, in a series where the better team also has home-court advantage, the most likely outcome is that they'll win in 5 -- taking three at home and one on the road. Having three of the first five at home makes this outcome very possible even in scenarios where you wouldn't normally think one team would win 80 percent of the games.
That said, it's not much more likely than the home team winning in six or seven, and the ulative probability of those two outcomes is much greater -- it really depends on whether they can get a split out of Games 3 and 4.
We saw this twice in the earlier rounds with series that seemed fairly evenly matched -- San Antonio-Phoenix and Detroit-Orlando -- just as we did last year with both Utah-Golden State and San Antonio-Utah. In each case, once the favorite got a split on the road it was over faster than anyone expected.
As a result, it's much easier for a series to end in five games than most believe. So if you're trying to predict the most likely outcome, L.A. in five makes sense. That's what I was gunning for.
But if you're picking along a continuum from "Lakers in four" to "Spurs in four" and looking for the median outcome, L.A. in five is laughable -- it's skewed way too far to the L.A. side. Lakers in six or even seven makes a lot more sense in that event. If you allow that there's some percentage chance of San Antonio winning outright, and just a very small chance of a Laker sweep, than even if there's a large chance of L.A. winning in five, it wouldn't be enough to make it the "average" outcome of the series.
Alas, in the spirit of the Stat Geek Smackdown, I'm trying to peg the games exactly. And my chance of doing that is better if I go five games, even if I don't think the disparity between the teams is as large as that prediction suggest.
So why do I hate the Spurs?
I don't. Really. But as to why I'm off the Spur bandwagon in the first place, the answer is the same reason I was on it the past three years -- point differential.
San Antonio's average scoring margin this year was much worse than in previous season at +4.8 points per game; by comparison, the Lakers were +7.3. That's proven to be a better indicator of future success than win-loss record. The Spurs' margin was similar to the Hornets' (+5.3) and Suns' (+5.0) in the first two rounds, which is what made those series toss-ups in my estimation. In the case of L.A., it's not. And if you only include the 36 regular season and playoff games in which L.A. had Pau Gasol, their margin balloons to an impressive +10.3 (and their record an equally impressive 30-6).
The playoffs have given us similar results. San Antonio was +0.0 against the Hornets and +0.8 against the Suns, while the Lakers were +13.3 against the Nuggets and +3.0 against the Jazz. Since Utah was, in my estimation, the strongest threat besides L.A. to win the conference, (and had the West's second-best regular-season victory margin at +6.9), the latter number is especially impressive.
So that's how I ended up with L.A. in five. It could just as easily be six or seven. But I do expect the Lakers to win.
CP3 for MVP?
Interestingly, Laker fans are also convinced I hate their team (which makes for an interesting dilemma in the conference finals -- how will I root against both sides?)
In this case, it was the first time I've ever been flooded with emails about a player I didn't mention in a story. When I nominated Chris Paul as MVP of the playoffs last week, the Kobe fan club was furious. How could I overlook his 33.3-6.8-6.3 averages?
In this case, it was just that Paul had been so unbelievably good in his first 10 playoff games. And he did against better defenses -- Dallas and San Antonio were eighth and third, respectively, in defensive efficiency during the regular season, while Denver and Utah were only ninth and 12th.
Obviously, what happened since I wrote the story tilts the scales towards Kobe, and if I were writing the story today he'd be the choice. But at the time, Paul's case was the strongest. If Lakers fans weren't watching the Hornets-Mavs series, that ain't my problem.
On the 0-21 (uh, make that 1-22) mark
Based on the emails, several fans seemed confused by I stat I brought up last week mentioning that teams which lost the first two on the road, won the next two at home, and had a negative scoring margin through four games were 0-21 since the NBA-ABA merger. Folks wrote in talking about Utah-Houston a year ago or the Lakers-Spurs series in 2004, where teams came back from 0-2 down to win.
However, those series weren't part of the 0-21 -- the key qualifier was that the team without home court had to have been outscored over the first four games. The teams who did manage to outscore their opponent had a much better mark, winning nearly 40 percent of their series -- including the 2007 Jazz and the 2004 Lakers (and, on the losing side, the Cavaliers this week).
At any rate, it's now 1-22. Utah fell to Los Angeles, as the rule predicted, but San Antonio defied the odds by outlasting the Hornets Monday night. Inevitably, somebody was going to break the rule, just as it's inevitable that somebody will eventually come back from 0-3 down. It's a credit to the Spurs' resilience and adjustments that they were first.
Incidentally, San Antonio is now the seventh team to come back from a 2-0 deficit in the past five years … after it only happened seven times in the previous history of the NBA. Much like the question of home-team dominance in the second round, one wonders if there's an underlying cause.
Certainly having so many more best-of-sevens is a factor -- stretching out the first round in 2002 more than doubled the number of seven-game series each year from 7 to 15. The fact we're in an era of relative parity may be another -- there's no Jordan or Russell, or even a Bird-Magic duopoly, lording it over the league at the moment. At any rate, it appears being down 2-0 isn't quite the death sentence it used to be.
Celtics in 7?
Finally, I've been told there's a playoff series going on in the East as well. This was a tough one to predict. Before the playoffs I would have said the Celtics and not thought twice about it, but Boston's struggles in the second round against Cleveland obviously are worrisome.
The Celtics were outscored on the series and in truth were lucky to survive; they squeaked by in three of their four home games and absorbed a 108-84 beating in Game 3. That this happened against a team with a fairly unimpressive resume -- Cleveland was itself outscored on the season and didn't exactly dominate its first-round match-up against Washington -- makes you wonder if the Celtics are leveling off at the worst time.
For now, I'll stick with Boston. A lot of the evaluation depends on how much of that series you think was the Celtics playing worse, how much you think was the Cavs playing better, and how much you think was random noise.
My instinct is that it was more a case of Cleveland playing better, as the assorted pieces of the midseason blockbuster trade finally gelled and the Cavs could take advantage of being able to play LeBron nearly the entire game. So my thinking is the Celtics can use the home-court edge to outlast one more opponent and win the conference -- though I'm guessing they'll need a road win this time.
But if I'm wrong and it was a case of Boston declining, then the Celtics are toast.
Funny that he feels he has to explain himself.
Here's a stat, Holly: 0 for 2.
You can't argue math.....
Just did.
Who do people try to apply logic and mathematics to events where there are so many more variables in place that defy logic? This guy's whole outlook and perspective is flawed beyond belief.
I bet he's one of the 98% of men who try to apply logic to meeting and attracting women, you know - by buying them dinners and gifts and being NICE guys. Because logically, that would seem the thing to do. What a dumb ass.
I think it's worth it paying attention to Hollinger. Stats are interesting and can help determine how things are going to sway. But at no time should you use stats to completely determine the outcome of a future game, like Hollinger does. There's always the chance that the original used stats had odd variables that affected the gameplay at that time, and there's always the chance that the future game will have an odd variable that will affect the gameplay.
So while I would pay attention to him, I definitely wouldn't agree blindly with his predictions. But taking stats into account is always interesting.
And I don't think he hates the Spurs.
Problem with this guy is that he's a numbers guy, that's all. His argument of point difference is so flawed a 4 year old could contest it any day. He also brought it up in the hornets series when he said point differential on spurs losses was less than in hornets losses so therefore the spurs had only 10+ % to win game 7 or something like that. Again he isn't counting the 4 quarters of a blown out game where the starters just sit and the rest is garbage time, therefore taking the blowing out to more closer numbers. This is very characteristic and a trademark of the Spurs where they rarely blow out teams.
The point most believing fans have been trying to make during all these past weeks is that theres something more to the spurs that can't be explain by any pundit. One day, they will realize it, or not.
I forgot, what's the mathematical value for heart?
For a rotation full of championship experience?
throw all the #'s out the window
Hollinger and all these writers can't please everyone.
If they want to go against the Spurs, let them be.
If the Spurs win, they have no choice but to backpedal and praise. Which is the most satisfying part.
And not a very good one. He calculates a lot of numbers, but I've never seen anything he's written that gives an indication he knows the slightest about hypothesis testing, correlations, or statistical significance. He basically depends on bamboozling people who understand less about math than he does.
Depends on his degree and if he's even applying any of the basic statistical meaning stuff. But yeah, it's a lot of bunk (Especially the article above.) and arbitrary arithmetic on his part.
Even though he screwed up on the Spurs, I think he was right on all the other series.
He always had Utah high even through their major suck period and it turns out they were much better than their early season record indicated.
His team Power Rankings are surprisingly quite accurate.
Didn't he pick the Jazz against the Lakers in the 2nd round, too?
Sometimes he fails to see the forest for the trees. If Utah was so good, why did they have the 5th seed ? They played in a weak division too. Try scrambling some of those numbers. The Jazz regressed from last year and didn't build on anything.
He changed his mind right before the series started saying he didn't have enough statistics on the Lakers post-Pau so he grudgingly picked the Lakers. Utah fans wanted to burn him at the stake.
Throw this chump in the stack too.
Celtics-Cavs Game 7 was not memorable for him. New Orleans should beat San Antonio. Kobe vs. Chris Paul will be great. Ric likes the Pistons to beat the Celtics.
More from Ric Bucher
Hollinger stands by the theory:
The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong---but that's the way to bet.
stats schmats
Maybe we should give him a list of stats we just proved wrong by winning the last series the way we did.
Stats are just half of the story; the other half is Ginobili, Parker, Duncan, Bowen, and Pop.
Nobody picked Bill Russell's Celtics to win 1968 and 1969 championships.
That's why it was so sweet, and that's why Bill Russell burst into tears after the 69 win.
I believe Spurs will repeat this year against all odds.
Thanks, Mr. Hollinger.
So Utah is the 2nd best team in the conference because of PPG differential? Does any sane fan think that Utah would have outlasted SA or NO?
So LA having a +7.3 PPG diff against SA's +4.8 means that LA wins in 5 games? Ok, then I guess:
- Boston had a +10.3 PPG diff compared to Atlanta's -1.8 PPG diff. Boston should have won in 3 games with Atlanta not showing up for game 4
- Golden State in 2007 (PPG diff = -0.2) shoulda been swept by the Mavs (PPG diff = +7.2)
- Miami in 2006 with a PPG difference of +3.6 (6th best in the league) shouldn't even have sniffed the Finals, much less win it all
- In 2004, the Lakers (+3.9 PPG diff) should have been swept by the Spurs (+7.2 PPG diff)
- In 2003, when SA won it all, the Kings and Mavs had better PPG differentials
I could go on and on, but I guess we all get the point. Playoff series are about matchups. They are about experience. They are about strategies, counters and adjustments. Hollinger honestly doesn't understand playoff basketball, never will
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