Comments on: The Finals Are Even… But Are They Really Even?

By: Coach Rowe

Coach Rowe — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 18:06:47 +0000

Any way to try and figure out the total with SCHOENE type methods now that Kendrick Perkins is out.

Any numbers that show game 7 to be higher or lower than average score or mean average of first 6 games?

By: marc

marc — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:24:30 +0000

Never underestimate to Celtics to come though in a clutch situation, Remember they where supposed to lose to Cleavland and Orlando, but here they are at game 7. Go Celtics!

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:47:42 +0000

Thanks, Neil. Some nice additions in Bill Reynolds comments as well.

By: tread

tread — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:42:20 +0000

I'd also like to see if Avg MoV @ Home (in the series) shows anything about how a game 7 plays out. In LA, the Lakers outscored Boston by 26 pts in 3 games (Avg = +8.66). Boston outscored LA by 6 points in the 3 games at the Garden (Avg = +2). Looks pretty good for the Lakers.

By: AHL

AHL — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:08:34 +0000

Err, just for simplicity, could you add a column for "Won Game 7 by this many points" or something? I guess "G7 Margin".

By: Bill Reynolds

Bill Reynolds — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 18:06:43 +0000

If you look at all series, including the Finals, the team in the Lakers' position (scored more points through first 6 games, have game 7 at home) has gone 44-8 in game 7. The C's can take hope from the 82 Sixers, who won game 7 in the Boston Garden despite being outscored by a whopping 47 points over the previous 6 games!

By: Bill Reynolds

Bill Reynolds — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:48:12 +0000

In the Finals, when the team that has scored fewer points in the series through 6 games is also the road team for game 7 (as is the case for Boston this year), that team has won game 7 only once in 8 tries. The one team to do it was the 1969 Celtics, who had only been outscored by 5 points total over the first 6 games. And they only won game 7 by two points.

Great stuff, Neil.

By: downpuppy

downpuppy — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 17:33:44 +0000

Only 17 out of 59 series have gone 7 games.

If you look at the most similar series, this looks like 1969. How convenient that it's the only series where the road team was down on points & won.

By: P Middy

P Middy — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:25:09 +0000

If it's another blowout (which I highly doubt) this could go from the middle of the pack, to being one of the most disparate?

By: Neil Paine

Neil Paine — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 16:04:53 +0000

That's why I suspect the extraneous "ability" variables (margin, srsdiff) weren't significant -- HCA is really important, but ability is also captured simply by knowing the Lakers had home-court in the series. The team who wins more regular-season games is usually the better team (ability-wise) anyway.