Good News: You Won Game 7; Bad News: You’re Less Likely to Win Round 2

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http://fivethirtyeight.com/features...-7-bad-news-youre-less-likely-to-win-round-2/

NATE SILVER

A close call in the first round of the NBA playoffs doesn’t always doom a team. In 2008, the Boston Celtics, coming off a 66-16 season, needed seven games to get by an Atlanta Hawks team that had gone 37-45. But they wound up winning the NBA title.

Those Celtics, however, may be more the exception than the rule. In fact, an extended first-round series is often an ominous sign for the winning team. If recent history is any guide, then this year’s Indiana Pacers, who needed seven games to defeat this year’s Hawks, may be no better than even money against the Washington Wizards, whom they begin playing Monday night.

Since the NBA went to a best-of-seven first round in 2003, teams that swept their first-round series won their second-round series 76 percent of the time. Teams that needed five games to beat their first-round opponent won the next series 60 percent of the time. But those teams that needed six games to win the first round won the second round only 34 percent of the time, and those that took the full seven games did just 36 percent of the time.

Pretty cool article by Nate Silver about the odds of a team winning round 2 after playing an extended game round 1. Good news for us we went from a 1 in 4 dog to almost a 1 in 3 dog. Its progress!

 

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What's interesting to me is that teams that won in six won at two percentage points lower than teams that won in seven.

 

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San Antonio needed seven games to beat Dallas, but Portland took six to beat Houston in a very competitive series. Part of this, however, is that the Spurs had more to lose, since they were heavily favored against Dallas while Portland wasn’t against the Rockets.

That actually makes a lot of sense, but I would like to interject that the Blazers still had a lot of pressure. Possibly more pressure than the Spurs.

1.) Aldridge was an uncertainty of resigning with the Blazers. He made it clear that he would like to make it to the next round so there is progress. Losing round 1 would only hurt our chances of resigning him.

2.) 14 years people! The fans, the players, the coaches shit everyone knows this. If we lost another 1st round match-up, especially winning the first 2 games on the road would have been a total disaster.

I think the expectations of this franchise trumps the expectations of the spurs franchise. Think about it... The spurs are a multi-champ team, that was a rebound away from winning another. It's not like this playoffs was there only shot. They've always been "in it" since Duncan was a rookie.