| A Team Made For The Playoffs Authored by Andrew Perna - March 16, 2006 - 2:43 am
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Many of the Indiana faithful are ready to throw Coach Rick Carlisle under the bus, trade away key parts of the roster, and declare the team a disgrace to the basketball capital of the world. However, I see things much differently.
This team brings their best basketball when it’s needed most. With all do respect to the NBA’s cellar-dwellers, the Pacers could probably get by without playing their absolute best basketball and defeat teams like New York and Charlotte, or at least come close to it.
Things are different when you’re up against the likes of the Spurs or Pistons. The Pacers have posted wins against all seven of the other current Eastern Conference playoff teams, but they have failed to beat several lottery bound teams including the Raptors, Hawks, and Celtics.
The Pacers are 15-10 against the superior Western Conference, while they have a dismal record of 17-19 against their competitors in the East. A more telling statistic is Indiana’s record against teams with winning records, as opposed to their record against the NBA’s losing teams.
They have nearly identical records against the league’s winning teams (16-15) as they do against the league’s losing teams (16-14). At first glance, you might say that the Pacers are consistent, and that all the statistic means is that they have the same chance of winning any game regardless of whether they’re playing the Pistons or the Bobcats.
While the latter is mathematically true for the 2005-2006 season thus far, the Pacers are far from consistent. They have had losing streaks of both four and six games, while they have also posted wins in five out of six games four times – including a two week stretch in February where they won six out of seven.
At 32-29 Indiana is a winning team. A typical winning NBA team posts an average record against the league’s top teams, and beats up on the league’s less successful franchises.
Let’s take a look at the NBA’s top two teams, Detroit and San Antonio. I matched them up against the league’s six worst teams (Toronto, New York, Orlando, Atlanta, Charlotte, and Portland). The Pistons are 13-1, and the Spurs are 10-1 against those opponents. Indiana is a combined 7-7 in games against those six teams.
Calculating Indiana, Detroit, and San Antonio’s winning percentages without including games against those six teams I came up with interesting results. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to realize that subtracting the Pacers seven wins and seven losses from their record has no effect on their winning percentage of .517.
The Pistons have a winning percentage of 0.93 against the six worst teams in the league. Their percentage against the rest of the league falls to just over 0.75 percent. In other words, the Pistons chance of winning a game in the playoff mathematical should be considerably lower in the playoffs. The same is true with the defending champion Spurs, who have a winning percentage of 0.91 against the worst teams, and a percentage of 0.75 against the rest of the NBA.
While the effect could be considered minimal on these elite teams’ records, it is important in making my analysis of the Pacers complete.
The playoffs are the perfect place for the Pacers.
Teams like the NBA’s last two champions, Detroit and San Antonio, are expected to beat up on lowly competition such as the league’s worst teams. This is what makes them great, and it’s what separates them from the rest of the contenders and pretenders. This is exactly why the Pacers should thrive in the playoffs.
While it may be, and often times should be considered as, a problem of inconsistency, the Pacers have had the same chance of winning each and every game (0.517) this season, regardless of what caliber of NBA team they are playing.
Therefore, when the Pacers enter the playoffs against their fellow East contenders, they’ll be in the same shape as if they were playing the pretenders.
If these statistics don’t excite the Pacers or their fans, the fact that they won’t be facing the Raptors, Hawks, or Celtics in the playoffs should. |
