FanPost

Game 2 previews: Good Win/Bad Win




The clock reads 1.5 seconds, the home team is down 2. Inbounds, rush to half court and throw up a prayer, the ball sails through the air and....

Who cares about the end result. If you make that shot its a bad win, you can't rely on half court heroics to bail you out in the future. In the regular season, or in a game 7 it doesn't matter, but in game 1 it matters for hope and expectations of the rest of the series.

Game 2s

Cleveland vs Indiana. You might think Cleveland's win against Indy was a bad win since they just as easily could have lost on the final shot, but you would be wrong. Lots of breaks went the Pacers way in that game which they can't control going forward. Shooting 46% from 3 is about 2 made 3s over their expectation, the Cavs shooting 51% from the line is also outside of their control and on an average night would be worth ~5 more points. Depending on how rebounds bounced on those misses and makes that is ~ 10 pt swing. After ending the season as the 24th best offensive rebounding team at 21.8%, Indy won that battle by a large margin grabbing 33% of their opportunities. That is probably a 4-5 point swing itself. This highlights the gap between the two teams, Indy had 3 major things go right for them and still needed a 4th (the Miles miss into a make) to earn a win by a single point.

Utah vs LAC. Tough call. Losing your best player 30 seconds in and still managing to steal a win on the road as an underdog is indisputably good. On the other hand you lost your best player and it took Joe Johnson's 4th highest scoring game of the year and a 75% TS mark without earning a single FT to do so. They are going to constantly need some role player to have a big game to hold out until Gobert returns.

SAS vs Memphis. Great win. Whipped a decent team without anyone having to put in 33 mins of play.

Milwaukee vs Toronto. Mediocre win. The 14 point gap was due to two factors, first Milwaukee (a below average team at avoiding TOs) only committed 5 TOs all game against a Raptor team good at forcing them (7th). The Raptors also shot terrible (22%) from 3. The Raptors offense got all the looks they wanted, and just missed them. They took 33 FTAs and 23 3pt attempts, and only about a dozen mid range 2s. There is no way Milwaukee can count on that happening across multiple games and winning.

Chicago vs Boston. Good win. The Bulls managed to leverage their strongest offensive characteristic into a win. 20 offensive rebounds against a team that was 27th in preventing them during the season, which means while 20 isn't going to happen every night Chicago has a shot at keeping games in Boston close. Defensively they were unable to limit Boston's best team asset (3pt attempt rate, 3rd), allowing 38 attempts in what was not a fast paced game. Chicago showed that their specific skill set can keep them in games, but they also showed a lot of weaknesses and squeaked out a 2 pt win in what will likely be their best offensive rebounding performance of the series.

GSW vs Portland. Good win. Even with Lillard and McCollum going off it wasn't enough even to just lose by single digits. They will need big games from those two + an effective return from Nurkic just to win a game or two.

Houston vs OKC. Very good win. Both teams struggled to shoot, but Houston won both the TO and Reb battle by a large margin.

Washington vs Atl. Decent win, with major flaws. Atlanta got to the rim, and the FTL with ease (38 attempts) and had a 32% oreb rate, but lost because they committed TOs (7 more than Was) and were unable to finish around the rim. ATL struggled with TOs all year (28th) but generated almost as many as they gave up (2nd), Washington also excelled at forcing TOs (3rd) and were average (17th) at giving them up. Look for them to continue to win this battle, but by a smaller margin going forward. Washington also shot worse from 3 relative to their regular season, so while both teams were at a poor 28%, Washington is more likely to have a large improvement.

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