LeBron's odds of beating the Magic...maybe no so insurmountable?

My Dad sent me a very interesting article calling into question whether or not the Cavaliers odds of beating the Magic were as bad as we all thought.

Teams that were once down 3-1 in a seven game series in the NBA have come back to win said series only eight times in 187 tries. Which is a winning percentage of roughly 4.

Yikes.

However, this article brought into question whether or not those numbers are actually reliable when comparing them to the current series.

Consider that in a large numbers of those series that the team that was supposed to win (the favorite) most likely held the 3-1 lead. They were probably led by All Stars, MVP's, and future Hall of Famers. I doubt Magic or MJ would ever relinquish a 3-1 strangle hold on a series.

So after a little digging, I found a neat little article (from a Cavaliers fan) that details and gives a short synopsis of the previous eight instances.

Here's a brief rundown of how they broke down:

• 7 of the 8 times the team held home court advantage.
• The one time the team didn't hold the home court advantage was the 1995 defending NBA Champion Houston Rockets against the Phoenix Suns. The Rocket were led by a guy named Hakeem and another named Clyde (who was acquired from Portland in a midseason trade). They'd go on to win their second title in as many years.
• Three times it was during the Eastern Conference Finals.
• One time Orlando was the loser.
• Three times the team that won the series went on to win the NBA title.
• The winners of these series had some of the greatest players to ever step foot on a basketball court. The names included: Elvin Hayes, Steve Nash, Tim Hardaway, Alonzo Mourning, Sam Jones, Robert Parish.
  
  But then there were guys like Clyde, Hakeem, Wilt, Russell, Bird, Havlicek, Baylor, West, McHale.

LeBron certainly has his work cut out for him, but the precedent has been set, and it is not an impossible task. Considering he's got home court, playing in an eastern conference final, and will be one of the best to ever play the game, at least he's pushed the odds a little more in his own favor. It will definitely not be easy, but it is certainly within reason considering the players and teams that have done it before him.

Here's to hoping that the Cav's win tonight and we all get treated to another Game 7.

Nightly recap: Oddities and other fun stuff

Basketball

The Cleveland LeBron's actually had a close game last night against the Atlanta Hawks. And by close I mean they only won by 10 points, 84-74. King James came through with 27-8-8. Which is almost exactly what he averaged during the regular season.

In such a low scoring game, those numbers are pretty unbelievable. LeBron either made or assisted on 17 of the Cavaliers 30 baskets. Meaning he was directly involved with 56% of his teams field goals! That's unreal.

To contrast that, in the Nuggets-Mavericks game (119-117 - Mavericks) last night two players scored over 40 points. Carmelo Anthony had 41 for the Nuggets and Dirk Nowitzki 44 for the Mav's. Respectively contributing 47% and 42.5%.

Granted, this is a pretty inexact science considering it doesn't take free throws into effect (and thus, overall points), as well as many other factors that make up a basketball game, but it just goes to show you how much LeBron means to that team.

Baseball

There were only 4 games played last night, but some pretty neat things still happened.

Randy Johnson got the win, in a 11-7 Giants victory over the Nationals. Making it win number 298 for his career. He's inching closer to 300, but I imagine it's like watching an 65 year old former Olympic gold medalist run (walk maybe?) a 10k race. You know they're going to finish, and it'll be great when they do, but it's kind of painful to see them agonize their way through it. Kind of makes you wish they'd hang up the Asics and do something a little different.

Same thing applies to watching the 45 year old Johnson who has had chronic back problems for the past couple of seasons trying to make it to the magical 300 win plateau. The man has won 5 Cy Young awards, he doesn't need to prove anything else to get into Cooperstown.

Bronson Arroyo pitched well enough for the Reds to get another victory, bringing his record to 5-2 on the year (really good). Too bad he has an ERA hovering around 7 (really bad). Think anyone has ever had a winning percentage higher that 70% with an ERA higher than 7, with over 6 games started? If I worked at ESPN, I'd be able to tell you the answer to that, but I don't. I still really doubt anyone has.

Meanwhile the New York Mets as a team last night gave up 8 runs against the Braves, and only 3 of them were earned. Poor Johan Santana got the big L, even though he didn't allow an earned run, bringing his record to 4-2 on the season.

So a guy with an ERA of 0.78, a WHIP of 0.95, and 11.7 K's/9 innings, is on pace for fewer wins then a guy with an ERA of 7.02, WHIP of 1.61, and 5.0 K's/9?

That just ain't right.

I know no one would argue Arroyo is having a better year, but still, something about that just bothers me. But I guess that's just how the cookie crumbles, and as always, the stats don't lie.

Rockets Rout the Lakers: A Showcase in Heart & Hustle

Today the Houston Rockets took down the Los Angeles Lakers 99-87. The Rockets were missing their best player Yao Ming, who was out with a broken foot.

After the Rockets stole the first game in Los Angeles, they promptly responded by getting blown out in the next two. Facing a 2-1 series deficit and missing their best player, the Rockets could have easily mailed in the next two games and started their summer vacation a few days early.

But they didn't. This afternoon the Rockets jumped out to an early 9-0 lead that they never relinquished. They started strong and showed the Lakers that they had no intention of laying down after Yao was declared out for the rest of the series.

In a post game recap for ESPN, former Laker great Magic Johnson said "The Lakers embarrassed themselves, the organization, and the Laker fans."

Clearly Earvin was not happy, and he had every right not to be.

Led on offense by minute guard Aaron Brooks (34 pts. 12/20 shooting) and supposed defensive specialist Shane Battier (23 pts. 6/12 shooting) the Rockets made all the plays necessary to take down the Lakers.

But the story here lies in the Rockets out-hustling the Lakers for loose balls, rebounds, and simply (using a cliché) wanting it more.

One can look no further in the box score to see where things went wrong for the Lakers. The Rockets out rebounded the Lakers 43-37 and 11-8 on the offensive glass, even without 7 foot-6 Yao Ming in the lineup.

Over the course of a game 6 rebounds, doesn't seem like much, but in reality, it is. During the regular season, Portland led the league in rebound differential at +5.4 per game and Golden State had the worst at -5.1 per game.

But those numbers don't tell the whole story. After doing a little math (check it out - Spreadsheet Here), I discovered that the average height of a player on the floor (on a per minute basis) for the Lakers was 6 feet 7 1/2 inches. The average height of a Rockets player was 6 feet 5 inches.

The Rockets gave up 2 1/2 inches per player! Over an entire foot of height for the whole team on the court!! And the Lakers were still out rebounded at a margin that would have been the best in the Association this season? How is that possible?

6-6 power forward Chuck Hayes pulled down the same amount of rebounds (9) as 7 foot Pau Gasol. 6-9 Louis Scola grabbed almost as many boards (14) as the top two Laker rebounders combined (15).

Those numbers are indicative of one team simply exerting more energy and trying harder. Basketball is a game where hustle can trump skill, and the Rockets clearly displayed that they wanted nothing more than to take down the mighty Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers were content to let this happen, as they stood idly while the Rockets were determined to out worked them for the win. Because when you're almost 3 inches taller than your opponent, there is no excuse for losing the battle on the boards.

The Rockets may not win this series, because often talent trumps effort, but tonight they overcame the odds and won a game they had no business winning. Let's hope they can do it twice more.

Author's Note: Take a look at the spreadsheet, I did a little more than adding up every player's height and dividing it by the minutes they played. It's a pretty cool document.

Guess who's back...

I'll give you a hint, it's me!

After an admittedly long hiatus from blogging, I've decided that it's time to dust off the old keyboard and start writing again.

This past semester was pretty busy for me, but hopefully this marks a turnaround where I update Stats Don't Lie a few times a week.

I'm not entirely sure how to recap everything that I've missed, considering this is my first post of 2009, so I wont even try. Going over 5 months of sports would be a daunting task for anyone, including myself.

So, I'll leave it with a few final thoughts:

The SEC is the greatest football conference, and Florida will be even better next year.

The Tar Heels were the best basketball team all year and proved it in the tournament.

The Steelers played great, but I'll probably remember the Cardinals and Kurt Warner more than anything.

LeBron James is the best basketball player on the planet, no matter what happens in the post-season (sorry Kobe).

It's way to early to declare anything about this baseball season, except that the steroids scandal is not going away anytime soon, and it probably never will.

Tiger Woods is not back yet, but golf sure is more fun when he's involved.

Regrettably I couldn't tell you anything about hockey, but I do know that Hurricanes "fans" are out in full force around my stomping grounds.

And lastly, Brett Favre just needs to hang up the cleats and stay retired. I can't deal with another summer where SportsCenter only leads with stories about him. It might force me to do more productive things with my time, and who wants that?

Bad week for Boston? Great week for the rest of us.

 

I'm not going to lie, I don't really like Boston sports. In fact, I borderline hate every team located in Massachusetts. Other than the Bruins, because I don't watch enough hockey to care.

Writing this I tried to come up with which of the major three teams I like the least, and I've concluded that I dislike them all equally and I dislike them all...a lot.

So this week was naturally a good week for me, because it was a bad one for them.

Well I guess it was more than a week ago, but on the 23rd the Red Sox lost out on the Mark Teixeira sweepstakes to their not so beloved cross town rival Yankees. Granted the Red Sox were not hurting for offense, but Tex going to the Yankees helps their lineup astronomically, which is probably not what the Sox wanted to have happen.

Granted, it remains to be seen how that deal will turn out, so most of Boston turned their attention on the Pats. On the 28th they would have been delighted after a win against Buffalo, to give them their 11th of the year. However the Dolphins and the Ravens also both won, which insured that the 11-5 Patriots missed the playoffs, while the 8-8 Chargers made it in.

To add injury to insult on Monday the 29th the Patriots got the wonderful news that Tom Brady's knee injury was not healing, had been infected, and he could miss all of next season as well! At least they'll only have to give Matt Cassel a huge new contract or franchise tag him (which takes up more money) if they want to keep the soon-to-be free agent around as an insurance policy for next season.

Meanwhile during all of this on the 25th, 26th and 30th the Celtics lost to the Lakers, Warriors, and Blazers, respectively. For a team that had lost twice since November 1st, losing three times in five days probably was not the easiest thing to handle.  There goes all that talk about 72 wins. KG, Paul Pierce, plus Ray Allen and friends are probably not too happy.

At least some of us are still laughing!

Happenings in Basketball

 

There was some great basketball played yesterday. Unfortunately I was only able to watch a few games. I was able to catch most of the Syracuse-Memphis game, a decent amount of the second half of the Michigan State-Texas game, and the final few minutes and overtime of the Connecticut-Gonzaga game, and the first five minutes of the Davidson-Perdue game (that's all I wanted to watch).

Plus there was Duke-Xavier, Minnesota upsetting Louisville, and 3 games with unranked teams loosing to ranked teams by 3 or less.

And there were what looked like to be a bunch of great games in the NBA. The Lakers lost to the Magic...whoops.

So after looking through all the box scores (a favorite past time of mine) there were some things that stuck out to me.

I guess I'll start with Davidson. I love this team, Steph Curry is awesome. However he did not have a good night. 5 of 26 for only 13 points. Purdue got out to a huge lead with a real physical defense and that was pretty much the end of that. Plus Curry was matched up against Big-10 defensive player of the year Chris Kramer. I saw a stat on Sports Center that said Davidson has lost 52 or 56 consecutive regular season games vs. ranked opponents. I found that hard to believe and cannot find it online, but I don't think ESPN would lie to us.

Michigan State pulled off a big win against Texas. Funny thing about that game was that the Michigan State bench outscored their starters. I can't imagine there have been many times a team ranked 5th in the nation (or better) has fallen when that has been the case.

Jodie Meeks of Kentucky scored 46 points on only 14 made field goals. Talk about efficiency.

And I'm sure there were some other pretty cool things that I've missed.

No player on the Bulls last night had more than 3 assists and they still managed to get a win against the Jazz.

Eight players for Milwaukee scored in double figures. Talk about balance.

Kobe scored a season high 41 points last night. And the Lakeshow still lost their second game in a row.

Chris Paul had 34 points and almost had a triple double with 9 assists and 8 steals against the Kings. The Hornets as a team only had 6 turnovers, meaning Chris Paul forced more turnovers by himself then the Kings did as a team.

Jamal Crawford scored 50 points against the Bobcats, and made 17 of 18 free throws. The Charlotte Observer reported the Warriors and Bobcats were talking trades involving Raymond Felton. He played 45 minutes shot 6 of 19 (32%), had 8 assists, 2 rebounds and 4 turnovers. Not the best audition in the world. But maybe he doesn't want to go play for Don Nelson's squad and played poorly to try and scare the Warriors away. But maybe not.

Dwayne Wade had his 4th 40+ point game of the season.

Andre Miller had a triple double in a losing effort against the Pacers.

Finally I have to mention running back Gartrell Johnson of Colorado State. 27 rushes for 285 yards and 2 touchdowns and 5 receptions for 90 yards. It was the most combined rushing and receiving yards ever in a bowl game and the second most rushing yards in a bowl game as he led the Rams to a win against Fresno State.

And that's all I've got for today.

Where is Evansville?

 

Tonight I went to see the Evansville Aces vs. UNC Tar Heels in men's basketball at the Dean Dome. I've grown up about 10 minutes from the arena, so I'd gotten the chance to see a lot of basketball games there. I've never been to a Duke-UNC game though, that's on my list of things to do eventually, but I have been lucky enough to see a good amount of games there.

I went with a few of my friends, and on the ride to the game we got to talking about where exactly is Evansville? I said Indiana, my three friends said Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky. It turns out that it is in Indiana. One point for me.

We got to the game roughly three hours before tip off. We were going to sit in the student section and we had to get there early to get prime seats. I've got a student ID there because I took a summer school class, but it has since expired. I gave it to the guy so he could scan my the ID so I could get a ticket, and it definitely did not work. He looked, saw that it had it expired, smiled, and handed me a ticket.

Thanks bud.

We got to our seats (around two hours before tip off) which were about 10 rows up from the court. Definitely worth the wait. I started looking around and sometimes the history of that place gets lost on me.

Looking in the rafters is a spectacle. Countless ACC championships, 5 NCAA championships, even more NCAA tournament appereances. 15 Final Fours. It's pretty amazing the history there. Seeing UCLA's gym must be pretty awesome too. What always gets me are the names in the rafters. Jordan. Worthy. Ford. Jamison. Rosenbluth. McAdoo. Daugherety. Davis. Stackhouse. Wallace. Carter. And more recent guys like; Forte. McCants. May. Felton.

One more name will be joining all those soon. Tyler Hansbrough - 50. Put him next to 33 (Jamison), who is next to 52 (Worthy), who is next to 23 (The Greatest) as some of the only players to have their number actually retired. All you have to do for that to happen is win National Player of the Year.

That's some elite company.

The reason I bring all this up is because tonight was the night I watched Tyler Hansbrough break Phil Ford's record for the most points in a career at UNC. 2290. Out of all of those great players, his name now sits at the top of the list. That's incredible.

You can argue that his isn't nearly the talent of the 20 guys below him on the list, that he flops, his game is ugly, he wont be a good pro and countless other things. But what you can't argue is his production. Tyler will go down as the most prolific scorer in UNC history, and depending on his numbers for the rest of the season he may also be the most prolific scorer in ACC history.

Think about that. The most points. Ever. More than all the greats that came before him.

Being the best scorer at one of the most storied basketball institutions in the nation is extraordinary, no matter what you think of Tyler. Simply put, he is one hell of a player.

And when you look at his numbers, the stats don't lie.