Projections after 3/29

by jscot on Mar 30, 2009 1:37 AM PDT

Projection explanation in my Sched Ahead Threads.

Projections

1	L.A.	65.5
2	S.A.	53.9
3	Denver	53.9
4	Houston	52.4
5	Portland	51.6
6	N.O.	50.4
7	Utah	48.9
8	Dallas	47.4
9	Phoenix	44.5

Well, the battle for #2 is still alive, but there are probably only two teams in it. Nice win for N.O. -- amazing FT shooting.

The Suns went down in the west, and that story is over. They can still play spoiler, though -- here's hoping they can knock off Houston when the Rockets come to town. We could be ahead of the Rockets by the time we face them on Sunday, but we've got a couple tough tests ahead of us.

I think anyone who thought Dallas was likely to catch us can put that one to rest. It could happen, but they'll need an almost miracle finish. Anyone who thought N.O. was dead can also put that one to rest. We still should beat out the Hornets -- their closing schedule is too tough. But we'll have to beat them out, they aren't going to roll over and die.

Utah, Utah, Utah. They begin their schedule of death tonight -- 10 games, six on the road, all six against winning teams, two of which are back to backs. Four home games, all against losing teams, but two of them are back to backs. The first of those two is against Minnesota on the fourth of five nights after a brutal game at Denver the night before. The second is against G.S., whose style is really hard to face on a back to back.

We have played hard all year and won enough games against the toughest part of our schedule to give us a significant edge over the Jazz. Tomorrow, we play them, on a back to back, after they spend all evening tonight chasing the D'Antoni dash up and down the court.

Lose this game, and you give them hope -- hope that they can win the tough games on their schedule. Hope that they can pass us in the seedings battle. Lose it, and you give back a lot of that edge you've built up over the course of the season. You go on the road with only 3 wins out of your last six. A loss tomorrow, and we drop behind Utah and New Orleans in the standings. The schedule would still give us a chance to make that up -- a very good chance against Utah. But it would make it a lot tighter than it is now. Our likely prospect is 50-51 wins, maybe 52, and a fifth or sixth seed.

Win this game, and you tear the heart out of them. They still can't win on the road against good teams. They start out their schedule of death doing exactly what is expected -- losing. And they have no great prospects of the losing stopping. They drop behind us in the standings, with a remaining schedule that gives them virtually no chance to make it up. Win this game, and Utah will almost certainly face either the L@kers or Spurs in the first round, without home court advantage. A good chance it will be the L@kers, since Utah still has to go to Dallas, too. I like that prospect. L@kers vs. Jazz in the first round.

They are all big games. You just don't want to lose any of them. But just like the Phoenix game, this one is a chance to effectively bury one of our rivals. Bring that intensity that showed in the Phoenix/L.A./S.A. games, and put these guys away. Keep sending out that message -- you don't want to have to play playoff games in Portland.

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Comments

fur....

…st? I mean first. This is my first “first” post. Insomnia, I suppose, has it’s merits.

This playoff race feeling is so alien to me at this point. It’s felt like such a long time ago that the Blazers had any real chance of making some serious noise in the playoffs. Now it looka like HCA is a real legit goal and every game makes me nervous!

Gimmicks don't make dynasties

by WarEaglePDX on Mar 30, 2009 4:29 AM PDT reply actions

Teams should be worried if the Blazers win home court

You have to pwactice.

by tominhawaii on Mar 30, 2009 4:46 AM PDT reply actions

teams will be losing

if the blazers win home court.

The goal is not to be better, the goal is to be the best.

by ratbastird on Mar 30, 2009 10:25 AM PDT up reply actions

when we play our first playoff game

i’ll consider it the first game of the second round. These games are just as meaningful.

by northwestj on Mar 30, 2009 6:43 AM PDT reply actions

The only big target now is the 4 seed.

Any big losses from here would be unfortunate but not crushing.

If the Blazers get red hot and finish in the 4, that’s gravy.

Pontiff of the Pryz for Prez Posse...

by timbo on Mar 30, 2009 9:54 AM PDT reply actions

ret hots, gravy mmmm you are make me hungry

hungry fer the playoffs.

by appel82 on Mar 30, 2009 12:32 PM PDT up reply actions

New Orleans "not undead yet"

Remember, NO was SUPPOSED to beat the spurs (at least according to my system of figuring in my parallel post). They are still projected back a bit of the 4/5 race between Houston and Portland, even with this weekend’s events. They don’t have as tough an outlook as Utah and Dallas, but aren’t really likely to challenge us, either, unless we slip up, or they play over their heads. I have them locked into the 6 seed, at this point.

Kermit on the inbounds play, inbounds....BATES at the horn, HE SCORES!! HE SCORES!!!! And they are all over Billy Ray Bates! My, oh my!!!

by blazer91 on Mar 30, 2009 9:59 AM PDT reply actions

I still have N.O. at 6, too

But there was a reasonable chance they would lose that game, with all their injuries (and they almost did, if they would have missed any free throws). If they lost it, they were done. By holding on, they keep within striking range.

When I rule the world, everyone will know how to use Excel.

by jscot on Mar 30, 2009 10:48 AM PDT up reply actions

New Orleans also got some home cooking from the refs down the stretch

Not even Pop’s relentless ref-working helped.

"We don't back down to nobody." --Joel Przybilla

by hurryup09 on Mar 30, 2009 12:06 PM PDT up reply actions

do these projections have Portland winning at Houston or San Antonio?

by cloudydays on Mar 30, 2009 10:37 AM PDT reply actions

Not mine.

Doubt any projections would assume that, whether mine or Jscot’s.

Kermit on the inbounds play, inbounds....BATES at the horn, HE SCORES!! HE SCORES!!!! And they are all over Billy Ray Bates! My, oh my!!!

by blazer91 on Mar 30, 2009 10:39 AM PDT up reply actions

That would sure be a bonus, though!

Kermit on the inbounds play, inbounds....BATES at the horn, HE SCORES!! HE SCORES!!!! And they are all over Billy Ray Bates! My, oh my!!!

by blazer91 on Mar 30, 2009 10:39 AM PDT up reply actions

These projections are stupid

Maybe that’s why people like them so much. :)

They are based on past performance. Portland has won 3 and lost 16 road games against winning teams. That means that we win about 16% of that kind of game. So the spreadsheet tells us to expect 0.32 wins out of those two games.

We have won 13 and lost four in road games against losing teams. That means we win just over 76% of those games, so in our 3 remaining games like that, the spreadsheet expects us to win 2.29 games.

We are 12-6 in home games against winning teams. That means the spreadsheet projects precisely 2 wins out of our 3 remaining such games. At 18-1 in home games against losing teams, the spreadsheet gives us 0.95 wins in our one remaining game in that category.

Thus, according to the spreadsheet, we should get another 5.5 wins.

At this point in time, I prefer blazer91’s game by game breakdown as a more useful predictor. But this still has the advantage of recognizing the possibility of stealing wins you shouldn’t get, and of dropping wins you should get.

Sometime over the summer, I’ll try to run graphs of the different teams’ projections to see how they varied, and how well they predicted the final results.

When I rule the world, everyone will know how to use Excel.

by jscot on Mar 30, 2009 11:00 AM PDT up reply actions

Don't beat yourself up

Your stuff is still more popular…

And it is useful, as it is clear that my “black or white” approach has its failings, too.

Kermit on the inbounds play, inbounds....BATES at the horn, HE SCORES!! HE SCORES!!!! And they are all over Billy Ray Bates! My, oh my!!!

by blazer91 on Mar 30, 2009 11:14 AM PDT up reply actions

I'm not beating myself up

I said from the beginning they were the Stupid Sched Projections.

It’s all for fun, anyway. I’m looking at individual games (like you are doing) much more than I am at this. But it’s still fun, and people are enjoying it, so I keep posting (while I can, anyway).

When I rule the world, everyone will know how to use Excel.

by jscot on Mar 30, 2009 11:19 AM PDT up reply actions

Nobodies projections are perfect

You’d have to look at injuries, current playing, matchups, and everything! It’d be impossible. This works as well as any can, even if it has the .5 factor in there.

by Zaig on Mar 30, 2009 12:56 PM PDT up reply actions

Looking back at the early stuff...

around the break or so, your projections haven’t changed dramatically. Utah climbing higher is the biggest change. Overall, this method has given much better results than I expected.

Hopefully by the time of the season long CBA lockout, the computers can just project the standings, playoff results, etc. I would assume that KP and company are looking at future draft prospects soley based on their ability to fit into a category that the computer projections will find beneficial to winning.

I’m going to pre-order my “Portland Trailblazers: 2012 Virtual NBA Champions” T-shirt.

The cowards never started
The weak died along the way
Only the strong survived
They were the Trailblazers

by lukeyhere on Mar 30, 2009 11:19 AM PDT up reply actions

Yeah, there's been some up and down

but nothing dramatic.

Utah’s improvement was to be expected once they got healthy. They still could improve over their projections — I expect them to get at least one of those tough road games.

When I rule the world, everyone will know how to use Excel.

by jscot on Mar 30, 2009 12:13 PM PDT up reply actions