Game 77 Preview: Blazers vs. Grizzlies

That Rudy Gay doesn’t have 20 inch arms and scarred knuckles. Junior high must have been ROUGH!

That is a strange stat.

I’ve agreed with you on this all along. I’ve been waving the “bring on Denver” flag as much as anyone here.

I would like to see point dif vs +500 teams though and see if we’re still second. Wouldn’t surprise me if we still were courtesy of Miami, but I think that would be even more telling in playoffs than just point dif.

But I agree point differential is important.

The best writers use both the actual and the stat world to complement each other. Stats are wonderful and enlightening but must be used as window dressing to the NBA window and not the blindfold one covers their eyes with, so to speak. They still found a way to win 4 games in a row, even if the one blow out loss in those 5 games offsets their point differential. One is not more correct than the other, but since records are judged by W’s and L’s and not point differential, the 4 W’s matter more than a big fat ZERO for PD over the last 5 games.

It does mean they haven’t actually REALLY been playing a lot better perhaps, but for a team like that, a W is a W and bound to inspire confidence.

Our point differential is really good, obviously, but we’ve had a lot of blow out victories for someone with our record, including more 30+ type blowouts than anyone. That shows we can be flat out DOMINANT some games. But, it also obscures how we can’t manage to play consistently on the road against good teams, as far as point differential come playoff time goes.

Our point differential against the entire league is great, but against the teams that matter (right now, Houston and the Spurs unless we go 5 and 1 (and even then)) we aren’t the 2nd best in the West, I betcha.

As far as expecting who is gonna get into the playoffs, point differential seems like a GREAT predictor, since you play everyone to get in the playoffs and struggles on the road against good teams don’t matter as much (if we didn’t struggle against those teams, we’d have close to 60 wins after all, and that means we’re a contender).

Point differential does not account for CONTEXT, so it should only be used in general ways.

I have no doubt we can win on the road in the playoffs, it’s just a matter of winning one (sounds easy enough, right?). Everyone in the playoffs is great at home (we’re just a lil’ greater), but we got some special players who are out to prove themselves. I can’t see teams like the Mavs, Jazz, even the Rockets (teams that know they ain’t gonna win anything, really) being as “into it” as our young dudes…

I can’t remember where we talked about it in another thread, but matchups is the whole reason we don’t wanna play Houston. Even though our point differential is .75 better (and over 3 points lately), we don’t want to face them because they got not one, but TWO guys who can effectively guard Brandon Roy. That is called a “match up”, and in a game played on a basketball court it matters, because we use Roy to win most games and if someone has a player who can either offset or make Roy not as good as his average play is, it will cause us troubles.

Match ups matter in an actual game more than point differential. Point differential matters when getting a vague idea of how well a team has played, and is a good predictor of future success.

I think you were arguing this in relation to the troubles Dallas had with Golden State, if it refreshes your memory. I was using them as an example of a bad matchup for a good team, but they aren’t really the point.

Denver’s record is better, but we would love to play them because we have an answer for everybody they got. Even if we end up with the 4th seed, I don’t wanna see Houston… I think you agree to that, and (like usual) our disagreement is over splitting hairs.

Mortimer

Should net him player of the week, assuming Kidd doesn’t up his number to 12/15 or something.