Comments on: BBR Rankings: (Almost) Post-Round 1 Schedule-Adjusted Offensive and Defensive Ratings

By: Matt, Colombia

Matt, Colombia — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:51:30 +0000

What about just for the playoffs so far?

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:17:59 +0000

Oh, for sure -- I was just kidding about how I'm probably not going to be moving on from this gig quite yet. Although I would give you a hearty recommendation if I did. Platoon you with a pure stat guy, and we'd have a championship team.

By: Jason J

Jason J — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:52:34 +0000

Well, lucrative or not, it's still pretty awesome to be writing articles for the Times.

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:49:04 +0000

That day could be soon, given the state of my incredibly lucrative baseball writing career. (Not.)

By: Jason J

Jason J — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:19:33 +0000

I get paid by the word. Or I will once Justin hires me.

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:24:13 +0000

And that was the long explanation.

By: Jason J

Jason J — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:09:39 +0000

@ 2 & 3 - Matchups. When you don't have to double Dwight Howard, and you don't abandon the dribbler on the Howard pick and rolls (see the Celtics last year), Dwight's teammates become fairly useless. Nelson may be the only other player on the team capable of getting his own. The pundits kept saying, "Well this good a three point shooting team can't keep missing so many." The problem with that analysis is that it ignores the fact that the Magic were a good 3 points shooting team because they had open three point shooters all season. No double on Howard, no open shooters. Ta-da! Bad shooting. The reason this sort of strategy didn't work against other bigs is that they had better creative scorers around them (Manu, Parker, Kobe, Wade, Penny, Drexler, Magic, Oscar, West, etc.), or in the case of the 1994 Finals, the other team couldn't create any offense either so it was a wash. On the other side, the Magic have a decent team defense because they funnel to Dwight, and he changes everything. But Atlanta was able to score in isolation because the Orlando perimeter defenders aren't great and Johnson and Crawford are streaky unguardable. They didn't do a great job creating points, but it was enough.

By: Owen

Owen — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 16:17:56 +0000

How often has the top team by efficiency differential won the title in the past 30 years? It's some absurdly high number right?

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:58:35 +0000

The short explanation: sh*t happens sometimes.

By: Dan

Dan — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:35:36 +0000

I find it very interesting how the Hawks rate in the bottom half of the league, but managed to take down Orlando in 6.