NBA In-Season Tournament 2023 Discussion and Gamethread

HomeRunBaker

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It would be amazing if the Cs learned how to play better with leads because of this.


That would be interesting but it's more of an owner/fan benefit than a player benefit. Seems to me that if the players are playing hard just for the $500K, the incentives are fine. Maybe throw some money at the runner-ups too once this takes off.
I don't think the Celtics play with leads any worse than other teams....and probably better. It seems this way because we almost always have multiple possession leads throughout the 1H so we are spending nearly all of our time on the floor playing with the lead. Teams are going to make runs to overtake us more often than against teams who rarely have 1H leads.
 

MyDaughterLovesTomGordon

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Lots to learn this year and to take forward, but the biggest one IMO has to be scheduling. It would mean ensuring there are an even number of teams in each group, but they have to find a way to make sure that all teams play their final game at the same time. The only team that should be annoyed about last night's Celtics/Bulls game are the Magic - It's one thing to say "point differential counts, go all out for the full 48," but it was a major competitive advantage for Boston to know exactly how many points they needed to get past Orlando.
I think this is a good point. If I'm the Magic, I'm definitely in my feelings. But I think it's a little different in ensuing years when teams really get it.

Early in the tourney, it seemed like only some teams understood the need to rack up as many points as possible. I noticed a couple of teams going all out till the end, not dribbling out the clock but continuing to play at pace, but there were definitely early round games that just ended like normal games end. I think next year even the first game of the tourney is an all-out points grab till the end.

I get it creates weird situations, but that's what I liked the most about it. The better prepared teams SHOULD be rewarded. I love that Joe knew what was up and went for it all out. TNT having 5-6 scores on the screen at all time made it feel like legit March Madness-level stuff, which is pretty hard to do in year one of a new idea. Huge success.
 

Ale Xander

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I hate it. The Larry O’Brien (nee Walter brown) trophy is all that should matter

it’s fun though I admit

But I am even extra anxious about injuries affecting the real prize

of course I would feel different if I wassay a Pacers fan with no hope to win the real thing
 

RSN Diaspora

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I find the suggestions to add extra incentive to the in season tournament wrongheaded. as it is it's a Kantian end in itself, which players value because it's a competition and they are competitors. if you make it have a treat at the end towards some future competition then it becomes instrumental. which I don't like.

caveat that yes, they do dangle the monetary bonuses for winners.
But they compete all season long. I think the tournament is incredibly stupid and they should just play regular season games without the nonsense of a tournament where the only prize is money, but if there is no monetary prize and you gain nothing in terms of playoff seeding, then what the hell is the point?
 

lovegtm

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But they compete all season long. I think the tournament is incredibly stupid and they should just play regular season games without the nonsense of a tournament where the only prize is money, but if there is no monetary prize and you gain nothing in terms of playoff seeding, then what the hell is the point?
They definitely do not compete all season long, at least not at 100%. These games have consistently had extra intensity.

People can theorize all they want, but the empirical fact is that players have been competing in the IST. The format works. The league should now be tweaking that to improve, because they nailed the core mechanic.
 

slamminsammya

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But they compete all season long. I think the tournament is incredibly stupid and they should just play regular season games without the nonsense of a tournament where the only prize is money, but if there is no monetary prize and you gain nothing in terms of playoff seeding, then what the hell is the point?
what the hell is the point of any of it?

and judging by the very visible intensity difference in these tourney games and the other November regular season games, they don't compete all season long, not to the same level.

I don't understand how people say what's the point when the point of any sports thing is totally made up. a famous man once said you play to win the game.
 

Euclis20

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They definitely do not compete all season long, at least not at 100%. These games have consistently had extra intensity.

People can theorize all they want, but the empirical fact is that players have been competing in the IST. The format works. The league should now be tweaking that to improve, because they nailed the core mechanic.
Yeah there's no way to view the IST as anything other than a resounding success so far, and we haven't even gotten to the really good stuff. I'm sorry for the people who don't like this, but y'all are missing out.
 

HomeRunBaker

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and judging by the very visible intensity difference in these tourney games and the other November regular season games, they don't compete all season long, not to the same level.
100%! Basketball players need carrots when you are playing a ton of basketball to where it is so easy to go through the motions on occasion. I used one example earlier in the year on final exhibition game of the season between Golden St and Sacramento when it had as much intensity as last nights game and as much as a playoff game in the 4Q.....of a preseason game! Give the players something special to play for and they will become more motivated to play for it. This has been going on in the NBA in particular for decades and won't be stopping anytime soon. These quarterfinals will have playoff intensity and the Vegas games are going to be bonkers with teams likely competing who won't be sniffing an NBA Finals....to them, this IS their Finals.
 

snowmanny

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I don't think the Celtics play with leads any worse than other teams....and probably better. It seems this way because we almost always have multiple possession leads throughout the 1H so we are spending nearly all of our time on the floor playing with the lead. Teams are going to make runs to overtake us more often than against teams who rarely have 1H leads.
All I’m asking is that the Celtics blow out all the teams that aren’t as good as them (which is all of them) and never blow a lead and never make me nervous that they are going to blow a lead. That doesn’t seem like that big of an ask.
 

InstaFace

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Lots to learn this year and to take forward, but the biggest one IMO has to be scheduling. It would mean ensuring there are an even number of teams in each group, but they have to find a way to make sure that all teams play their final game at the same time. The only team that should be annoyed about last night's Celtics/Bulls game are the Magic - It's one thing to say "point differential counts, go all out for the full 48," but it was a major competitive advantage for Boston to know exactly how many points they needed to get past Orlando.
A modest proposal to solve this:

- League expands to 32 teams, or invites 2 out-of-league teams somehow to make up the numbers*.
- 3 groups-of-5 per conference changes to 4 groups-of-4 per conference
- Instead of 2 home + 2 away, you play home-and-away vs the other 3 teams, so 6 group-stage games
- Top 2 in each group advance to the Round of 16; group winners are seeded and will host a group runner-up in the R16
- No wild cards, so no tiebreakers across groups are necessary
- Groups' final games are played simultaneously, which should be easy because there's only 2 at a time that could affect each other and they're all in the same conference

* Bring in Real Madrid and Olympiacos or Maccabi Tel Aviv, they'll say yes before you even finish asking the question. Make them play their "home" games in cities the NBA aspires to expand to, maybe Seattle or Vegas or Nashville or Raleigh or Mexico City or Montreal. This means 6 teams would be short 2 regular-season games, so they'd have to figure that part out.
 

HomeRunBaker

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All I’m asking is that the Celtics blow out all the teams that aren’t as good as them (which is all of them) and never blow a lead and never make me nervous that they are going to blow a lead. That doesn’t seem like that big of an ask.
I know this is said tongue in cheek but with so many opportunities to blow leads, because we always have them, we are going to be expected to blow more leads than any other team if all else is equal. To me, it "seems" equal if not leaning the other way....numbers on this would be interesting. If you could filter the number of minutes each team has held say a 15+ pt lead and lost it....or play with those numbers anyway you want. That would be interesting but again I don't think it will show the Celtics have a propensity for blowing these leads more than anyone else aside from them having more opportunity to do so. This is a league of runs and a 15-pt lead isn't considered, or at least shouldn't be considered, a "big lead." Golden State lost a 24-pt lead last night and at no point did it seem as though the Kings were out of the game. That's todays NBA with the 3-point shot so impactful.
 

Pablo's TB Lover

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I don't think the Celtics play with leads any worse than other teams....and probably better. It seems this way because we almost always have multiple possession leads throughout the 1H so we are spending nearly all of our time on the floor playing with the lead. Teams are going to make runs to overtake us more often than against teams who rarely have 1H leads.
Honestly when we as fans think they are "blowing leads", it is simply regression to the mean with shooting accuracy.

'Why don't we just shoot 65% for the WHOLE game, then we could keep that 30 point lead every night.'
 

joe dokes

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They definitely do not compete all season long, at least not at 100%. These games have consistently had extra intensity.

People can theorize all they want, but the empirical fact is that players have been competing in the IST. The format works. The league should now be tweaking that to improve, because they nailed the core mechanic.
I keep hearing about this "extra intensity," but other than keeping the pedal down to score points, is last night's Bucks/Heat or GS/Sac game any different than their regularly tight regular season games? Or was last night's Bulls-Cs game any different? There were 3 blowouts last night and 3-4 close games.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Honestly when we as fans think they are "blowing leads", it is simply regression to the mean with shooting accuracy.

'Why don't we just shoot 65% for the WHOLE game, then we could keep that 30 point lead every night.'
I agree on the regression part for sure but cannot fully discount teams with large leads taking their foot off the gas, getting sloppy with the ball and loverall osing their edge. This occurs frequently as well as does teams trailing showing an extra sense of urgency. There are a combination of all these factors most games it occurs.
 

lovegtm

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I keep hearing about this "extra intensity," but other than keeping the pedal down to score points, is last night's Bucks/Heat or GS/Sac game any different than their regularly tight regular season games? Or was last night's Bulls-Cs game any different? There were 3 blowouts last night and 3-4 close games.
I don't like to appeal to the eye test, but in this case, I have to, because it is so obvious when watching the IST games across the league. Final score margins don't tell you much about intensity: there are plenty of blowout game 7s in the playoffs.
 

tims4wins

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I keep hearing about this "extra intensity," but other than keeping the pedal down to score points, is last night's Bucks/Heat or GS/Sac game any different than their regularly tight regular season games? Or was last night's Bulls-Cs game any different? There were 3 blowouts last night and 3-4 close games.
I don't like to appeal to the eye test, but in this case, I have to, because it is so obvious when watching the IST games across the league. Final score margins don't tell you much about intensity: there are plenty of blowout game 7s in the playoffs.
Plus, one of the blowouts - the Celts game - was due to one team having a ton to play for, and the other, not. I'd argue that on a normal night the Celts only win that game by like 10-15.
 

Ronnie_Dobbs

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Jul 12, 2023
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It would be amazing if the Cs learned how to play better with leads because of this.


That would be interesting but it's more of an owner/fan benefit than a player benefit. Seems to me that if the players are playing hard just for the $500K, the incentives are fine. Maybe throw some money at the runner-ups too once this takes off.
Runner ups get 200K
 

NomarsFool

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Honestly when we as fans think they are "blowing leads", it is simply regression to the mean with shooting accuracy.

'Why don't we just shoot 65% for the WHOLE game, then we could keep that 30 point lead every night.'
But once the lead is established, regression to the mean doesn't mean that it should diminish, the points are in the books. Just because a team shoots 65% in the first half doesn't mean they should be expected to shoot 35% in the second half to balance it out. You'd more expect them to shoot 50% in the second half, and the lead would be maintained at 30 (and not go to 60, for example).
 

Rusty Gate

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A modest proposal to solve this:

- League expands to 32 teams, or invites 2 out-of-league teams somehow to make up the numbers*.
- 3 groups-of-5 per conference changes to 4 groups-of-4 per conference
- Instead of 2 home + 2 away, you play home-and-away vs the other 3 teams, so 6 group-stage games
- Top 2 in each group advance to the Round of 16; group winners are seeded and will host a group runner-up in the R16
- No wild cards, so no tiebreakers across groups are necessary
- Groups' final games are played simultaneously, which should be easy because there's only 2 at a time that could affect each other and they're all in the same conference

* Bring in Real Madrid and Olympiacos or Maccabi Tel Aviv, they'll say yes before you even finish asking the question. Make them play their "home" games in cities the NBA aspires to expand to, maybe Seattle or Vegas or Nashville or Raleigh or Mexico City or Montreal. This means 6 teams would be short 2 regular-season games, so they'd have to figure that part out.
Bill Simmons proposed 5 groups of 6 instead of 6 groups of 5 as a solution to this problem. Then all groups can have their final 3 games played simultaneously.
 

snowmanny

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I agree on the regression part for sure but cannot fully discount teams with large leads taking their foot off the gas, getting sloppy with the ball and loverall osing their edge. This occurs frequently as well as does teams trailing showing an extra sense of urgency. There are a combination of all these factors most games it occurs.
My biggest complaint about the Celtics with a big lead - more last year and we will see how this year plays out - is that, to my eyes and perhaps only to my eyes, is that they sometimes seem to start to take sort of “lazy” 3’s. A quick contested three, or they run down the clock without much ball movement and then take whatever three they are left with. No attempt to even look for a cutter or go to the basket. Annoying.

I sort of figure that will be less of an issue this year just because Hauser and Kristaps shooting the three is better than Marcus and Malcom shooting the three.

And Al/Tatum/Brown are never going to go 26-119 on 3’s in the ECF again. Right?
 

tims4wins

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My biggest complaint about the Celtics with a big lead - more last year and we will see how this year plays out - is that, to my eyes and perhaps only to my eyes, is that they sometimes seem to start to take sort of “lazy” 3’s. A quick contested three, or they run down the clock without much ball movement and then take whatever three they are left with. No attempt to even look for a cutter or go to the basket. Annoying.

I sort of figure that will be less of an issue this year just because Hauser and Kristaps shooting the three is better than Marcus and Malcom shooting the three.

And Al/Tatum/Brown are never going to go 26-119 on 3’s in the ECF again. Right?
Completely agree on the lazy 3s. It especially seems to be a problem when they build a lead by hitting say 10 of their first 20 3s.
 

HomeRunBaker

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My biggest complaint about the Celtics with a big lead - more last year and we will see how this year plays out - is that, to my eyes and perhaps only to my eyes, is that they sometimes seem to start to take sort of “lazy” 3’s. A quick contested three, or they run down the clock without much ball movement and then take whatever three they are left with. No attempt to even look for a cutter or go to the basket. Annoying.
Agreed. This is what "taking foot off the gas and losing your edge" looks like. We do it, all teams do it. We do it more because we have more leads to do it with. This was the Warriors last night with a 20+ pt lead as the Kings were still grinding hard every possession.....lazy pass, turnover, quick lazy 3 w/o ball movement (aka flow/rhythm).
 

PedroKsBambino

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Agreed. This is what "taking foot off the gas and losing your edge" looks like. We do it, all teams do it. We do it more because we have more leads to do it with. This was the Warriors last night with a 20+ pt lead as the Kings were still grinding hard every possession.....lazy pass, turnover, quick lazy 3 w/o ball movement (aka flow/rhythm).
Ditto.

For me, while all teams do it, this is the single biggest difference between a 'mature' contender or champion and where Celtics are....they just are too quick to take the foot off the gas, and they aren't always disciplined about building a really big lead before they fall into that mode.

Fingers crossed they get better at it?
 

joe dokes

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But once the lead is established, regression to the mean doesn't mean that it should diminish, the points are in the books. Just because a team shoots 65% in the first half doesn't mean they should be expected to shoot 35% in the second half to balance it out. You'd more expect them to shoot 50% in the second half, and the lead would be maintained at 30 (and not go to 60, for example).
That's an interesting point. Not a math guy. Assuming equal ## of shots in both halves, if a team that shoots 50% per game hits 65% in the 1st half, which 2nd half is the statistically right one to expect? Is it 50 (as though the 2nd half is a new and independent data set)? Or is it 39 (which would bring them back to their season average)? Or am I asking the wrong question?
 

Euclis20

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Bill Simmons proposed 5 groups of 6 instead of 6 groups of 5 as a solution to this problem. Then all groups can have their final 3 games played simultaneously.
If it's 6 teams per group and everyone plays each other once, you get a different problem - half the teams will have 3 home games, the other half will just have 2. That's not fair either.

Maybe 5 groups, 6 teams, everyone plays their whole group twice (once at home, once on the road). That's a much larger group stage (10 games instead of 4), but I'm not against that at all. Everyone gets the same number of home/road games, everyone can play on the last day of the group round, and point differential is less of a factor because presumably there will be fewer ties with a larger game sample. Still have a knockout round of just 8 teams (the 5 group winners and 3 wild cards).
 

InstaFace

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That's an interesting point. Not a math guy. Assuming equal ## of shots in both halves, if a team that shoots 50% per game hits 65% in the 1st half, which 2nd half is the statistically right one to expect? Is it 50 (as though the 2nd half is a new and independent data set)? Or is it 39 (which would bring them back to their season average)? Or am I asking the wrong question?
Shots are generally viewed as independent events. Leaving aside that some have different context that makes them not fully equal rolls of the dice (corner 3 vs above-the-break, nearest defender distance, catch-and-shoot vs pull-up), and that teams' overall averages are a blend of different players' take rates and make rates and the # of minutes each player has will affect that... "your season average over a large enough sample" will be a much more reliable estimate of the % chance of making the next shot, than "the % that your team has made in this one game up to this point". Stability of averages over different sample sizes, law of large numbers, and other such things. A good game will bring your season averages up, but your median expectation for next game will still be those (new) season averages.

The reason I say "generally viewed as" independent events, rather than "are", is because there are some subtleties here. I recall a discussion on the Port Cellar within the last year of a study that suggested that in-game percentages might be more meaningful than we think, in that "hot hand" and/or tactical approach for a game and/or matchup advantages might a real thing - they might be revealing themselves through the results, to a limited and debatable extent. The "independent events" viewpoint also fails to take into account the extent to which players are not robots, and someone who hit the clubs all night, or is playing at 5280 feet (or 7349' for that matter), might not be at their usual effectiveness. Or, someone got a lot of sleep, had an epic film study session, and is in a great position to outperform their averages on a given night. All of that could, in some cases, arguably be captured better by current-game numbers than by season averages. So there might really be something to the idea that (for example) first-half percentages blended with season averages with a certain weighting could be a better predictor of second-half percentages, if the weightings are chosen well (though you run into all sorts of other confounders like game state).

edit: but even if so, the answer to your question would be something closer to "they'll continue to shoot the percentage they have already shot in the game, to an extent", not "they'll shoot below their season averages in order to even it out". Reversion to the mean happens because of the law of large numbers - new data reflecting the long-term average swamping any short-term anomalous data in the overall averages. Not because of some sort of cosmic mirroring that pulls you back down.

...So the short answer to your question is "the first one, 50%", that's the classical statistical approach. It just might not be the best answer we can possibly discern, if given enough data and good enough experimentation.
 
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kieckeredinthehead

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That's an interesting point. Not a math guy. Assuming equal ## of shots in both halves, if a team that shoots 50% per game hits 65% in the 1st half, which 2nd half is the statistically right one to expect? Is it 50 (as though the 2nd half is a new and independent data set)? Or is it 39 (which would bring them back to their season average)? Or am I asking the wrong question?
Great answer above. Just wanted to add that, all else being equal, the latter question is the gambler’s fallacy. If you toss six heads in a row, your expectation is not that the next six should be tails to get back to the mean. Regression to the mean means more like your first option, the second half they should be expected to shoot 50%.

The problem with binomial outcomes is they’re really random. Much more than we intuit. A team whose true shooting ability is 0.42 and who takes 18 3’s per half will on average have at least one game where they shoot 22% in the first half and one where they shoot 60%. It makes it basically impossible with no other information to know if the guys are on a heater or just (un)lucky. And then the converse is also a problem - even if you knew for sure the players’ talent that night was at 60% from 3, they could still go out and only hit 25% of them just by random chance.
 

slamminsammya

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also, teams actually do regress to the mean in the way people misunderstand the term, because they don't try as hard with a 20 point lead as they do with a 5 point lead.
 

radsoxfan

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Lots of good ideas on tweaks here and elsewhere.

It’s inherently difficult to filter 15 teams into 4 with just 4 games so I agree adding a game or two somehow makes a lot of sense. Point differential would be slightly less important that way.

Another schedule tweak to get more teams in the same group playing at the same time on the last day would help as well, the Celtics did get a nice break over Orlando in that regard.

I think soon players like Jaylen and coaches like Donovan will understand the “unwritten rules” of basketball etiquette just don’t apply to these games. It’s not that hard to understand and players should just get over it. For these qualifying games every point matters, teams can decide how they want to approach that. But don’t complain if a team goes all out for 48 minutes.

I still think they want to end this before Xmas but larger groups and up to 6 qualifying games might be a sweet spot.
 

kieckeredinthehead

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Comparing three point shot percentage by half is an interesting opportunity to test how much 3 pt shooting percentage is nested by game. So I went and (manually) entered the 2022-23 Celtic's 3 point shooting percentage for each game, split by half. First off, this is what regression to the mean looks like; x-axis is first half 3 pt shooting percentage, y axis is the change from first to second half (so positive means they shot better in the second half):
74508
As you'd expect, when they shoot really well in the first half, their shooting in the second half is lower; and when they shoot terrible in the first half, their shooting in the second improves.

Now, if each three point shot is truly independent, there should be no relationship between shooting in the first and second half. If three point shooting is partly a function of the game, they should be positively correlated (i.e. if they shoot above average in the first half, they should be expected to shoot above average in the second). Here's what that actually looks like:
74509
Weak, but positive correlation (r=0.14). But again, these are inherently noisy data; in each game, we're dealing with such small samples that there's going to be really different outcomes even if the "true" shooting percentage varies a lot. So I started simulated different scenarios to see what the outcome looks like if we know that shots are truly independent or nested by game.

First, here's an 82 game season simulated where each 3 pt shot has an independent probability of 0.37:
74510
Zero correlation (r=0.01). Now, here's an 82 game season where the 3 pt shooting % for each game is randomly drawn from a normal distribution with mean=0.37 and sd=0.078 (the values for last year's Celtics team):
74511
Stronger correlation (r=0.19), higher than observed for the C's last year. I did that a couple times, and the correlations for the independent trials and the nested trials kept changing quite a bit. So then I just simulated each type of season 1,000 times and recorded the correlation coefficient for each; red is the histogram for the truly independent outcomes; blue is nested; the vertical line is the observed correlation coefficient:
74512
Ack. The observed correlation between first and second half 3 pt % shooting for the Celtics last year is right in the middle of the two hypotheses; it's a 90th percentile outcome for the independent shots and a 7th percentile outcome for the nested. Make of all of that what you will. Maybe 3 point shooting is a function of game but the coaches and players adjust after the half (e.g., as suggested, take their foot off the gas if they're up big, bench a player who's missing, player takes a bunch of stupid heat checks because he thinks he's on fire, etc.), plus regression to the mean.
 

InstaFace

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Yeah that jives with my (imperfect) recollection: neither hypothesis explains observed behavior in games very well (in its strong form, anyway), so there's clearly a lot we don't know in the space between "independent events, random variables using season averages" and "games have their own %s, themselves random around the season average" (aka "nested").

Furthermore, even if the correlation were exactly in line with one of your distributions, it would suggest a good hypothesis to iterate further on, but it still wouldn't prove that its model was a correct representation of how shooting works in a game (correlation != causation, yadda yadda). If we add a bunch more features to work with here, some data on game state, 3-pointers as a % of all shots taken, adjustments for which players weren't playing that night, etc, I bet I could come up with a model that also shares a correlation within spittin' distance of that number (not least because r=0.14 ain't much). Throw enough data in there and you can use 1H % to get a pretty good prediction of 2H %. And maybe once we start getting some higher accuracy metrics on a ML like that, then we'd be getting closer to uncovering some true understanding.

(maybe doing something like that is like an entrance exam to get a job in an NBA front office at this point, table stakes, I dunno. But it's hard for me to sit here tonight and watch Michael Porter Jr sinking 3 after 3 after 3 and continue to tell myself "these are all independent events! random independent variables!" with a straight face.)
 

Five Cent Head

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On the Bulls' broadcast, Stacey King was lobbying for, rather than point differential, you count who has won the most quarters as a tie-breaker. On one hand that doesn't encourage running up the score; on the other, I don't think it would resonate with the fans.
 

lovegtm

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On the Bulls' broadcast, Stacey King was lobbying for, rather than point differential, you count who has won the most quarters as a tie-breaker. On one hand that doesn't encourage running up the score; on the other, I don't think it would resonate with the fans.
It's also a bit bizarre to me that people keep trying to fix what was an extremely successful element of the tournament. Like, it wasn't a given going in that point differential would work as well as it did, and now we have strong evidence that it achieves the league's desired effect really well.
 

Cornboy14

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It's also a bit bizarre to me that people keep trying to fix what was an extremely successful element of the tournament. Like, it wasn't a given going in that point differential would work as well as it did, and now we have strong evidence that it achieves the league's desired effect really well.
Agreed. Point differential was fine - it works everywhere else in the world. Another year or two and no one will get their feelings hurt.
 

lovegtm

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Agreed. Point differential was fine - it works everywhere else in the world. Another year or two and no one will get their feelings hurt.
If anything, we'll soon see teams trying for point differential in games 1-3, now that they see how big a deal it is later. The Celtics absolutely could have run the score up against Brooklyn in game 1, had they wanted.
 
Point differential is a tiebreaker with regard to who qualifies for the EuroLeague and EuroCup playoffs, FWIW - mainly in terms of H2H point differential between teams that split their two regular season games, but occasionally across the entire league as well. (This has thrown me off as a commentator several times, getting to the final possession of a game that isn't close and not seeing a team dribbling out the clock but instead running a proper offensive sequence and trying to score.)
 

Lose Remerswaal

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On the Bulls' broadcast, Stacey King was lobbying for, rather than point differential, you count who has won the most quarters as a tie-breaker. On one hand that doesn't encourage running up the score; on the other, I don't think it would resonate with the fans.
The old “Seven point game” plan. I forget what league had that (NBDL?) where you got one standings point for each quarter won, plus three points for winning the game.
 

joe dokes

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I appreciate all the thought-out answers to the 3pt question.
My head was ready to accept the "coin-flip" independent comparison.
But also this rings true:
But it's hard for me to sit here tonight and watch Michael Porter Jr sinking 3 after 3 after 3 and continue to tell myself "these are all independent events! random independent variables!" with a straight face.)
 

HomeRunBaker

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The old “Seven point game” plan. I forget what league had that (NBDL?) where you got one standings point for each quarter won, plus three points for winning the game.
Eastern League. Those Scranton/Wilkes-Barre matchups were nuts! Damn you're old ;)
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Eastern League. Those Scranton/Wilkes-Barre matchups were nuts! Damn you're old ;)
Wikipedia tells me it was when they were the Continental Basketball League in the late 1970s and 1980s when the 7 point system came into play, but I think some other league used it this century as I remember discussing it awhile back with the son of a friend who is 28 years old now.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Wikipedia tells me it was when they were the Continental Basketball League in the late 1970s and 1980s when the 7 point system came into play, but I think some other league used it this century as I remember discussing it awhile back with the son of a friend who is 28 years old now.
I always confuse those two leagues. I remember watching afternoon games with 23 people in the crowd when I could catch one of a regional channel back in the day.
 

Leon Trotsky

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I got an email from the Celtics that if they win on Monday, people that have tix for the game (me) will get a credit back, as there will not be 41st home game. If they lose, and the Knicks lose, they play Friday at Garden. The way the email is worded it sounds like C's would still play at home on Friday if they lose and Bucks also lose, even though Bucks are higher seed. I wonder how they deal with those weird quirks for the quarterfinal teams?

Regarding the points differential tie breaker, I think its great. It really gives both teams incentive even in blowouts - the losing team can be the spoiler and at least they have a little something to play for.
 

joe dokes

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To bring my own comments back to the topic at hand, I dont think they should change the point differential thing. My biggest gripe is that, for all the hype, the games count in the standings like all the others, and create scheduling and travel difficulties along the way. (Lots of others' MMV, I realize). But the point thing is one undeniably different thing. For that reason alone it should stay. Because the games count, there's not much they can (or should) do to the gameplay itself, IMO.
 

Cornboy14

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I got an email from the Celtics that if they win on Monday, people that have tix for the game (me) will get a credit back, as there will not be 41st home game. If they lose, and the Knicks lose, they play Friday at Garden. The way the email is worded it sounds like C's would still play at home on Friday if they lose and Bucks also lose, even though Bucks are higher seed. I wonder how they deal with those weird quirks for the quarterfinal teams?
The Bucks won't host the Celtics because that would give them a 42nd home game, and would give the Celtics 42 road games. They're trying to keep it to 41 with the scheduling. If the Celtics and Knicks lose, I read that the Celtics will host because MSG is booked on Friday.

The other thing that would prevent a clean 41/41 home road split for all teams is if both quarterfinal home teams lose - that would require one of them to host a 42nd game.
 

Five Cent Head

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It's also a bit bizarre to me that people keep trying to fix what was an extremely successful element of the tournament. Like, it wasn't a given going in that point differential would work as well as it did, and now we have strong evidence that it achieves the league's desired effect really well.
Remember that it was Stacey King, Bulls' broadcaster, who was saying this. Someone who, along with his partner, seemed to be in physical pain whenever the Bulls tried to play "defense." I think that the Bulls and their fans did not enjoy the experience.
 

jon abbey

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Jul 15, 2005
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Only two teams:

1) made at least the second round of the playoffs last year, 2) are in the final 8 in the IST, and 3) have one of the top 8 records in the league currently.

The Celtics and, yes, the Knicks.