First-Round Results Were Deceptive

By JOHN HOLLINGER
May 6, 2008

It has often been mentioned in this space that win-loss records in the regular season can be misleading. For instance, teams can finish far better than .500 despite giving up more points than they've scored, but those teams rarely see their good fortune last long in the postseason. Conversely, teams with huge average scoring margins tend to enjoy great success regardless of their win-loss record.

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Elsa / Getty

Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics celebrates in the second half against the Atlanta Hawks during Game Seven of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals during the 2008 NBA Playoffs on May 4, 2008.

If regular-season win-loss records are misleading, the postseason takes it a step further. Fans to tend to judge how "close" a series was by how many games the winning team needed to wrap things up, but this is an extremely sloppy indicator that can be greatly distorted by one or two last-minute finishes.

In the first round, for instance, the Spurs and Hornets both won their series in five games, making it seem as though both played about as well.

In reality, their performances were quite different. San Antonio beat Phoenix in five, but nothing about that series was indicative of the 4-1 final margin. The Spurs won once in double overtime and twice in the final minute; they could just as easily have lost the series 4-1. Over the five games, three of which were at home, they outscored Phoenix by a total of 10 points.

New Orleans, meanwhile, played five games against the Mavericks, but Dallas only had a chance in two of them. The Hornets registered three double-digit wins, including a 24-point rout in Game 2, and held a +44 scoring margin for the series.

The difference is that, if Phoenix had won one of those close games, they might still be playing; had Dallas somehow won the one nail-biter, Game 5, the win only would have prolonged the agony.

Based on those results, it shouldn't have shocked people too much when the Hornets cruised past the Spurs 101-82 in Game 1 of the conference semifinals. But because our minds matched up "Spurs in five" against "Hornets in five," it did.

In fact, nearly every national expert picked the Spurs, even though the Hornets had a better regular-season victory margin, had home-court advantage, and played better in the first round. San Antonio might very well win, because the margin between the teams isn't large, but no rational analysis could have concluded they had the upper hand entering the series.

Of course, Hornets vs. Spurs is just the tip of the iceberg. For a real look at how the series score can sway us, check out the Celtics-Hawks series. Boston won four games to three, and certainly it was an amazing story that the lowly Atlanta squad was able to extend the series for so long.

However, this was the most one-sided seven-game series ever. Atlanta's three wins were all closely contested, with margins of nine, five, and three. And they never even came close to getting win no. 4. The Hawks lost the four games in Boston by 23, 19, 25, and 34, margins which show the vast difference in quality between the two teams.

For the series, Boston outscored Atlanta by 84 points, or 12.0 per game. That's even better than Boston's +10.3 average scoring margin during the regular season, which itself is one of the best marks of all time. Despite being the only team extended to seven games, Boston had the best average scoring margin of any team in Round 1 — better even than the Lakers, who swept the Nuggets in four games with an average margin of +10.8.

Heading into the next round, a lot of pundits have cast doubt on the Celtics because of the appearance that they were struggling to beat a poor Atlanta team. But the struggle was mostly in our heads — we struggle to equate scoring margin with success rather than win-loss record, even when scoring margin is the better indicator of a team's

future win-loss record.

Do the Celtics have some worries? Of course. Kevin Garnett's inability to step up as a crunch-time scorer has been an oft-cited concern, as has Doc Rivers's inability to choose a rotation and stick with it. Both issues came up during the Atlanta series and probably will again further down the road.

But those were problems in the regular season, too, and the Celtics still won 66 games. I don't think this series provided any damning information about Boston going forward.

However, it does create the illusion of a competitive series against the defending Eastern Conference champion, Cleveland, in the second round.

The Cavaliers are just the opposite of Boston. They won 45 games in the regular season, which gives the illusion of being a quality team, but they're not. They gave up more points than they scored, and they survived the first round chiefly because they drew an opponent who was in the same boat (Washington, Cleveland, and Atlanta were the only three playoff teams for whom this was the case).

Cleveland has a wonderful star in LeBron James, who is probably the best player in the game, and this gives them a slight advantage compared to the regular season because in playoff games the Cavs can play him virtually the entire game.

However, that's a drop in the ocean when one considers the huge disparity in play between these teams during the regular season. Boston, on average, was nearly 11 points better than Cleveland on any given night — their average margin was +10.3, against Cleveland's -0.4. That gives the Cavs no hope on the road and makes them a heavy underdog even at home.

Looking at first-round performance, Cleveland compares nearly as badly: +3.3 in six games against Washington, compared to the Celtics' +12.0 in seven games against the Hawks.

But the view that Cleveland's win was "easier" because it took fewer games is a tough one to shake. As a result, many people are expecting a competitive series when the numbers tell us it's likely to be a laugher.

It's an important concept that few people seem to have grasped fully at this point. While a superior scoring margin doesn't make a team infallible, it does give them strong odds — making it a much better indicator than simply looking at how many games a team needed to advance.

Particularly this year. Boston's seven games against Atlanta were much more impressive than the Spurs' five against Phoenix, for instance. But you probably won't be able to convince anyone of that for another 10 days or so.

jhollinger@nysun.com