Um, which is what point differential is for in the first place?

This is just annoying now. Congratulations for being 3-0 against the Heat, in which two of those wins CAME AGAINST AT TEAM THAT HAD BARELY PLAYED TOGETHER ON THE COURT early in the season and another win at home by an epic smackdown of three points. Funny how the hypocrites in the media bash the Heat for their record vs. Boston and yet talk about the Lakers being favorites in a series with the Spurs in a series, with SA taking both games they've played this season. And then use the Lakers titles from PAST SEASONS (which are irrelevant to the current season) as the rationale for their pick.

You've seen posts on point differential being the best predictor of wins, and another post about the importance of HCA (which is implicity linked to point differential, since higher PT usually translates to more wins and helps you obtain HCA). Boston is a great team and can take a series against Miami...but so can Miami.

#1 Yeah, your "reality" was probably not nuanced enough to rank them properly in November.

If Miami loses to the Wizards in December (they stole that game), and beat the Celtics by 1 in their last game, what does that mean? People don't want to admit it but a small point differential comes down to luck. If Boston is really better they'll keep decisively beating Miami, and I don't see that.

It favors Miami because the point differential isn't far enough to exclude luck. In your case Boston has won two close games, and the Heat are better than at the beginning of the year. When they lost 2 of those 3 games.

What do you mean by predictive, Neil? If you mean that present point differential predicts future point differential, then you're probably right.

But I think of power rankings as meaning something like the chances a team can win a championship, or the likelihood it can beat other teams in the playoffs. Miami has had trouble with Boston and I don't see how having a better point differential is going to change that. That Miami can beat Cleveland by 28 while Boston only beats them by 19 is nice for Miami but I don't see how predictive it is in something like a power ranking.

One prominent example would be the year Jordan hit "The Shot" to get past Cleveland. The Cavs actually swept the season series (Jordan then guaranteed Chicago would win the playoff series, so it's a good thing he made that shot...).