Holy cow are we average. 27-27, having played exactly half our games at home. Even by advanced stats we are average. Basketball-reference.com provides an SRS number, which is a numbers-derived power rankings stat representing each team's point differential corrected for strength of schedule. Under that stat, we are 0.16, which is the closest to the league average of any team.
As we all know, we have a tough schedule ahead of us after the break. How tough? In my opinion, this much:
Team | Remaining SoS | Difference | Like playing... |
Portland Trail Blazers | 1.62 | 0.00 | |
Utah Jazz | 1.18 | -0.44 | Sixers instead of Suns |
Dallas Mavericks | 0.85 | -0.78 | Wizards instead of Knicks |
Houston Rockets | 0.55 | -1.07 | Clippers instead of Cavs |
Memphis Grizzlies | 0.38 | -1.24 | Suns instead of Nets |
In this table, SoS is the average of weighted SRS scores of the remaining teams on each team's schedule, adjusted for home court advantage.
I used basketball-reference's algorithm for determining SRS, but I weighted each game on a curve, making the first game of the season worth 0.2 the weight of the most recently played game of the season, with the games in the middle weighing somewhere between 0.2 and 1.0. This recognizes that recent play is more indicative of how good the teams will be going forward, which in turn affects the SoS numbers.
So a Blazers remaining SoS of 1.62 means that, on average, accounting for home-court advantage, our opponents can be expected to have a point differential of 1.62 points higher than the average (mean) NBA team. That's the 3rd-highest (hardest) SoS in the league, and the highest among those teams that we will be realistically competing with for the next 28 games.
The good news is that we are better than all of those other teams, save the Jazz. So assuming we keep playing like we do and we don't suffer significant injuries, we should be able to snag one of those last playoff spots.
The toughest schedule in the league? OKC by a long shot, at 2.82. They already have the toughest schedule without the myriad adjustments, but they also have a ton of road games left to play.