Standings Watch: Race To The Playoffs

It’s a shame we lost 2 games to missed FTs by AD and 4 games to the refs this season. That 6 game swing would of had us 38-28 and in play for the second seed.

 

The 1st 3 seed would be barbecue chicken for a healthy Lakers team.

Weirdest season ever in the West

 

Go for 13 out of 16

 

ok, hear me out.....

recent play in the last 10 games of 7-3 had me curious and looked into the remaining schedule of 16 games to see what I could see. A couple of basic notes, we have 9 home games remaining, and 7 away games.

One thing that stood out to me was the home and away records of certain teams. Golden State is great at home, and wow super poor on the road. Our road record actually stacks up to teams higher up in the standings to us. I think that bodes well for the playoffs to lengthen series out.




I had fun with a spreadsheet making a few HUGE assumptions. But just for fun anyways, as that is all projections can be.

• We are 7-3 in the last 10 with our revamped roster. That is a winning percentage of .700. Our current winning percentage for the entire season is .485. I am adding .100 to our winning percentage due to our improved roster and play to more accurately reflect our current squad and play just to see what things looked like.
• This assumes our opponents winning percentage remains the same - which of course it won't, but it gives us a baseline. I do think it's fair to say we improved more than most teams, so that adder of .100 may end up being fairly accurate overall. It may be conservative if we had all of our parts playing.
• I compared OUR home or winning percentage against the OPPONENT'S home or winning percentage based upon the location of the game. This included our current winning % plus that adder of .100.
• The spreadsheet calculates projected wins and losses only based upon the higher winning percentage for the individual team for that game, and how that might look as the games progress
• This shows we may be able to go 12-4 in the final 16 games if all things remained the same with the assumptions above (They won't)
• The final record comes back as 44-38 and a winning percentage of .537
• If all other teams continued to win at the same percentage (They won't), that actually puts us in the 5th spot based upon current win percentages.

Plenty of variables this doesn't account for. If / When Lebron comes back, will there be a couple of losses due to an adjustment period to minutes/roles, etc?
Will more ankles roll?
Will other teams get hot and go on runs? Example, NY is 9-1 in the their last 10 as shown above, and their away record is 20-12. Our little bump of .100 shows us coming out on top, but of course any team can win on any given night, etc.
No account taken of back to backs for us or opponents
No account taken for "strength of schedule" for competition or their projected W/L record changing by the time we play them.

Nice to have a team that invites this type of curiosity vs the garbage we had to watch earlier in the year. Thank you Kurt and Rob and Linda x 1,000 (Insert sly smile)

 

It would be nice, but hard to believe. But, I have learned to not make predictions, just hope for the best outcomes, game by game.

 

Things will play out how they will play out, but I was effectively able to avoid real working for about an hour. That’s OK because I’m the boss, but I had fun with it anyways and wanted to share.

 

Oh, I love the analysis, just learned to harden my heart and brain over the years. Never get too high or too low. This game will turn you into a yoyo if you can't keep your mind calm. LOL

 

Should be some helpful ones tonight:

Blazers vs C Bags: Boston should take that one
Mavs vs Pelicans: Luka should be able to help us here.
OKC vs Suns: shouldn't even be close. But also f*** the Suns
Raptors vs Clipps: not hopeful here, maybe Russ will lose it for them

 

This is the safe play to root for. But...optimistically, we are already ahead of the Pels, and only 2 games behind the Mavs. They have a losing record since getting Kyrie, and we play them next week - we win that, and if all else goes well, we overtake them in the standings!

I have faith in Russ!

 

as always, pels loss is most important to me.

lots of conflicted emotions in the other games, as i don't want the suns or C Bags to win, but sort of need them to.

can't imagine the raps beat the clippers, which also sucks for us as we get the raps next.

i think we're riding high because we got a couple wins, but the next three games won't be easy. raps and knicks have both been playing better and should be at full strength, then it's at NO, who will play like it's game 7 of the finals for that one.

this is why i'm mostly in "root for the teams behind us to lose" mode.

 

These first round matchups would be pretty epic IMO.

 

first half of these is looking promising

 

Wtf MAVS!

 

looks like luka had to exit the game early?

oh c'mon man. this is really how it's going to go for us all year long?

 

Dallas about ready to tie their game!

Edit: that didn't last long!

 

For anyone concerned about DLo, Ingram left with a rolled ankle that didn’t even roll. Injuries are weird sometimes.

And I’m 100% on board with the Mavs losing. Pels have been trash for a while, so they’ll lose plenty more. With Luka’s injury, let’s go catch the Mavs and maybe others. Just get into the top 8.