The Nuraman Thread

[nuraman00]

4. Sunday's Worst


Boston Celtics: The Kings defeated the Celtics, 118-96, making this the third straight game Boston lost in a blowout. According to Elias, this is only the second time in team history that the Celtics have lost three consecutive games by 18 or more points. The first was in December 1977.

 

[nuraman00]

9. Stat Check
By Elias Sports Bureau

The San Antonio Spurs' 111-86 victory at American Airlines Center tied their largest margin of victory in a road game against the Dallas Mavericks. The Spurs' only other 25-point win at Dallas was a 117-92 victory at Reunion Arena in 1994, led by David Robinson (37 points) and Dennis Rodman (20 rebounds).

 

[nuraman00]

15
Minnesota
14-13

1
Last Week: 14 That it happened against struggling Phoenix dulls some of the shine, but it's still noteworthy that Sota, according to Elias, is the first team all season with all three members of its starting frontcourt (Nikola Pekovic, Andrei Kirilenko and, of course, Kevin Love) scoring 20-plus points in a non-OT game.

 

[nuraman00]

17
Utah
15-17

2
Last Week: 15 Only one team out there can boast that it managed to run up a double-digit lead on the Clippers during L.A.'s rep-changing run of 17 wins in a row. The Jazz have done it twice this month, actually, only for the Clips to win both games in SLC in a building that has long been a torture chamber.

 

[nuraman00]

19
Toronto
11-20

3
Last Week: 22 A friendly stretch of schedule has undeniably been a factor in the Raps' revival, but a 35-point win on the road -- against anyone under any circumstances -- is one of the "wow" scores of the season. That rout in Orlando took Toronto to 9-6 when Jose Calderon starts, 2-13 when he doesn't.

 

[nuraman00]

26
Phoenix
11-20

2
Last Week: 24 An editor back in Bristol -- the same one obsessed with Andre Drummond -- pointed out to me that this might be the first season since the inception of the Mavericks in 1980-81 that neither Phoenix nor Dallas sees the playoffs. Just not sure why he thinks I'd lump those two teams together.

 

[MHSL82]

4. Sunday's Worst

Boston Celtics: The Kings defeated the Celtics, 118-96, making this the third straight game Boston lost in a blowout. According to Elias, this is only the second time in team history that the Celtics have lost three consecutive games by 18 or more points. The first was in December 1977.

Wow, I didn't realize these were consecutive - I guess I haven't paid too much attention to the league. I start focusing more on basketball, now that the football season is a month or so from finishing.

 

[nuraman00]

I didn't realize all three were by 18+ points.

 

[MHSL82]

17
Utah
15-17

2
Last Week: 15 Only one team out there can boast that it managed to run up a double-digit lead on the Clippers during L.A.'s rep-changing run of 17 wins in a row. The Jazz have done it twice this month, actually, only for the Clips to win both games in SLC in a building that has long been a torture chamber.

The collapse from double digit leads was not caused by the refs, but they should have won one if not both of them if the last minute were officiated correctly. No, I don't care about the first 47, unless we have some bad calls, and if then, only the ones against us are unfair.

 

[nuraman00]

I'm not surprised that SA won at Dallas. I feel like those guys always win on each others' court, and lose at home.

The 2006, 2009, 2010 series were all won by the road series team too.

 

[MHSL82]

19
Toronto
11-20

3
Last Week: 22 A friendly stretch of schedule has undeniably been a factor in the Raps' revival, but a 35-point win on the road -- against anyone under any circumstances -- is one of the "wow" scores of the season. That rout in Orlando took Toronto to 9-6 when Jose Calderon starts, 2-13 when he doesn't.

Makes me feel less good about our win against the Magic - but it was on the road and on a back-to-back. BUT, since the first of the back-to-back was a blowout, we got to rest, and therefore it was not part of the back-to-back curse.

 

[MHSL82]

I'm not surprised that SA won at Dallas. I feel like those guys always win on each others' court, and lose at home.

The 2006, 2009, 2010 series were all won by the road series team too.

How could they win on each other's court and lose at home? Just kidding, my logical deductions are stronger than that. (It's like head I win, tails you lose.)

 

[nuraman00]

How could they win on each other's court and lose at home? Just kidding, my logical deductions are stronger than that. (It's like head I win, tails you lose.)

I don't know if I ever pasted these posts, but during the 2011 playoffs, Maxell-CDR from the Magic board wrote a script to do some queries for me.

Do you remember me posting about these?

I might not have pasted them on the Jazz board, due to my perceived lack of interest from most about this kind of stuff.

1) I asked him to find every series in which the winning team won 0 road games, 1 road games, 2 road games, 3 road games, or 4 road games.

He printed out all of the data from 1979 playoffs +. And he grouped them from whether the higher seed won or the lower seed won.

He then printed out certain sets of data that I wanted to know more about, like all of the times in which the winning team won 3 road games.

(Spurs were involved in a lot, especially losses, in the 80s).

His data also included which games were the ones that were won. So for example, for the subset of lower seed winning the series by winning 2 road games, this is what percent won game 1, what percent won game 2, 5, and 7.

Or for the higher seed winning winning 2 road games, what % won games 3, 4, and 6 each.

Yes, he later pointed out series like the 2006 Denver-Clippers one, in which the higher seed, Denver, didn't have homecourt. There were only a few such cases anyways.

2) I asked him to print out all series in which the winner of the playoffs series had lost the regular season series.

Again, I think he took it from 1979+.



Unfortunately, ESPN reset the boards later in 2011.

And, he doesn't save the input file that he uses for his queries. (The input file has all of the box scores from the playoffs games).

He did save a screen shot of the final output, but it's not as fun without being able to follow up with some of the subsets of data about the series or games.


I'm thinking of asking him to recreate those. Of course, he would have to recreate the input files, which he said took an hour. (I think he can use the same file for both queries -- wait, nevermind, he has to add the regular season games for the 2nd query, probably in another file.

And, he could add 2 more years of data.

Plus, THIS TIME, I'll ask him to use rapidshare or something to send me the input files, so I can keep them. That way, I can add onto them, and if I want him to rerun it, I can just send him the updated input files.


Would you be interested in anything like these, if he were to recreate the queries? (Unless I really did post them / send them to you before.)

 

[MHSL82]

I haven't read your last post and I have to leave. I did see you asked me a question about preferences (read the last line) - will come back.

 

[nuraman00]

we got to rest, and therefore it was not part of the back-to-back curse.

Just because it's a blowout, it doesn't mean the Jazz got to rest in the first game.

See, I TOLD YOU there's no curse, the Jazz won a back-to-back. And they proved that winning the 1st game is harder, by losing the first game.

This 300% proves there's no curse. Case shut, book slammed, door closed.

 

[nuraman00]

While I wouldn't ask him to do a query for this (because I feel I've already asked him enough), I do wonder if Dallas and San Antonio win games each other on the road more than other rivalries. Regular season and/or playoffs included.

I suppose if he were to answer such a question, he'd have to set a minimum number of games that teams have played against each other. For example, teams have played at least 20 games against each other in the playoffs, and 60 in the regular season?

More specifically, since I'm referring (implied) to the Duncan vs. Nowitzki era, he should probably limit such encounters to a limited time period. So maybe Boston and Philly meeting in the 1950s shouldn't be relevant to 2000+.

So maybe, include everything, but only in the past 20 years (and having played 20 playoffs games each other). That way, it would be focused on the modern era.

Wait, that would get ridiculous. Then he'd have to include box scores for every game played in the past 20 years. Before he could filter out whether two teams have played also played at least 20 times in the playoffs.

I suppose, start out there. Find out which teams have met for 20 games in the playoffs in the past 20 years, then take all of their regular season series games too in the past 20 years, and find the road winning % for each team.

But, this is all moot. As I said, I already asked him at least 2 time-consuming queries during the 2011 playoffs, and I don't want to ask him more ones. There might have been 3 queries too.

He does like doing this stuff though. During season, he'll post random stats that he wrote a script for, to compare. For example, I asked him how many 37+ point quarters the Magic have had from 2004+. (Since I noticed the Magic had already had 2 this year).

And I also asked him how the defense was in the Gortat-Howard pairing. It was very limited, but not good.

He also has a basic script, which he just adds additional logic too, so it's not like he's writing from scratch every time.

If I had 1-2 months off, I'd probably try something like this.

 

[MHSL82]

Just because it's a blowout, it doesn't mean the Jazz got to rest in the first game.

See, I TOLD YOU there's no curse, the Jazz won a back-to-back. And they proved that winning the 1st game is harder, by losing the first game.

This 300% proves there's no curse. Case shut, book slammed, door closed.

Ah, you forgot to lock the door. But silly me, I lost the key. (The Miami game wasn't a blowout, so I was wrong.) I'll find the key and open the door, then I will burn it. Or maybe I should just burn it? Save the time of finding the key. ... Oh, and "it" is the door, not the key.

 

[MHSL82]

Would you be interested in anything like these, if he were to recreate the queries? (Unless I really did post them / send them to you before.)

If he does it, yes, I'd like it. But I may ask you to interpret it for me, depending on the formatting and all that. I'm good at figuring it out, but if you give me your thoughts on it, it'd be easier to compare my thoughts with yours than for me to start from scratch. The framework of what the data shows can be seen in many different ways. I'll look at it fresh, too, to see if I see anything that pops out at me - but you're the expert at these things. I'm just interested in the conclusions and the process to get to those conclusions, not really the figuring out what process to use. (I learn from example unless I need to learn on the fly, like in a job or something.)

 

[MHSL82]

While I wouldn't ask him to do a query for this (because I feel I've already asked him enough), I do wonder if Dallas and San Antonio win games each other on the road more than other rivalries. Regular season and/or playoffs included.

I suppose if he were to answer such a question, he'd have to set a minimum number of games that teams have played against each other. For example, teams have played at least 20 games against each other in the playoffs, and 60 in the regular season?

If you do decide to ask him, I would think of the rivalries that you want to check rather than giving him a blank check or asking him to check every combination (and filtering those out to minimum standards of games). You know, like the Jazz-Pacers rivalry. Oh, those damn Pacers! Just kidding, I don't think we have a rivalry with them. If we do, someone ought to have told me.

If you include 20 games as the minimum, you're eliminating cross-conference rivalries like Lakers-Celtics - unless the Finals games are enough. Let me guess, you don't see the Lakers-Celtics as a rivalry, except in the Finals, because the limitation of effect on playoff seeding (conference games break ties but games against the other conference don't), two games per year is weaker than 4, and the media is the one who builds them up. Is Brooklyn and Knicks increasing their rivalry due to the move, or was it always strong as it is now/will be?

 

[MHSL82]

More specifically, since I'm referring (implied) to the Duncan vs. Nowitzki era, he should probably limit such encounters to a limited time period. So maybe Boston and Philly meeting in the 1950s shouldn't be relevant to 2000+.

So maybe, include everything, but only in the past 20 years (and having played 20 playoffs games each other). That way, it would be focused on the modern era.

Wait, that would get ridiculous. Then he'd have to include box scores for every game played in the past 20 years. Before he could filter out whether two teams have played also played at least 20 times in the playoffs.

I suppose, start out there. Find out which teams have met for 20 games in the playoffs in the past 20 years, then take all of their regular season series games too in the past 20 years, and find the road winning % for each team.

But, this is all moot. As I said, I already asked him at least 2 time-consuming queries during the 2011 playoffs, and I don't want to ask him more ones. There might have been 3 queries too.

He does like doing this stuff though. During season, he'll post random stats that he wrote a script for, to compare. For example, I asked him how many 37+ point quarters the Magic have had from 2004+. (Since I noticed the Magic had already had 2 this year).

And I also asked him how the defense was in the Gortat-Howard pairing. It was very limited, but not good.

He also has a basic script, which he just adds additional logic too, so it's not like he's writing from scratch every time.

If I had 1-2 months off, I'd probably try something like this.

Your passion for this and thought process cracks me up (not in a condescending way). It's the thoroughness you have in your evaluations that make you reliable for information but also interesting to see how one can be so into it. Nerd. Just kidding, I like stats and logical questions to determine how the NBA works, too. Maybe I'm a poor-man's nerd?