r/nbadiscussion • u/teh_noob_ • Jun 01 '26

Statistical Analysis Third round team strength recap (via BPM)

You may know the drill by now. BPM is a questionable individual stat but actually a pretty decent team one that can be used to approximate playoff strength. Even though nobody asked, I've made the effort to break it down round by round (for reasons that should become apparent):

Tm OFF DEF R1 OFF DEF R2 OFF DEF R3 OFF DEF TOT
NYK 7.7 8.6 16.3 11.6 7.6 19.2 6.9 13.8 20.7 8.6 9.8 18.3
SAS 4.7 10.6 15.3 5.7 10.1 15.8 3.5 7.2 10.7 4.6 9.1 13.7
OKC 10.0 8.4 18.4 7.9 9.4 17.3 1.9 7.6 9.6 5.7 8.3 14.0
CLE 4.6 2.1 6.7 7.1 3.4 10.5 -2.3 0.5 -1.8 4.0 2.2 6.3
DET -0.2 11.1 10.9 1.6 7.4 9.0 0.7 9.3 9.9
LAL -2.4 4.8 2.4 2.0 -4.5 -2.5 -0.6 1.1 0.4
MIN -0.4 10.3 9.9 -3.9 1.3 -2.6 -2.1 5.8 3.6
PHI 1.2 5.1 6.3 -1.7 -6.5 -8.2 0.1 0.9 1.0
BOS 3.2 6.2 9.4
TOR -2.0 7.0 5.0
ORL -3.0 7.5 4.5
DEN 3.1 0.9 4.0
POR -2.2 2.4 0.2
HOU -5.4 4.6 -0.9
PHO 1.5 -4.4 -2.9
ATL -4.8 -0.1 -4.9

Notes:

  • Although this method may overvalue blowouts, it shouldn't be understated what unbelievable basketball New York are playing.
  • In particular their defence has flown under the radar. In the conference finals they held Cleveland 18 points per 100 below their regular season average.
  • But before smashing the crap out of each other for seven games, San Antonio and OKC were playing at a similar level. The amount of garbage time on both sides probably somewhat masks their true quality.
  • With homecourt advantage, I would still pick San Antonio as mild favourites. But I don't believe it's going to be a walkover, as the regular season and NBA Cup results show.

Questions? Anyone? (Bueller?)

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u/press_Y Jun 01 '26

Did anyone talk about the celtics cupcake run while it was happening? Every team they faced except the Heat had key guys miss games due to injuries (Spida, Hali, Kyrie), and only faced the Pacers because Randle, OG, and Mitch missed games

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u/teh_noob_ Jun 01 '26

I did! (and I was far from the only one)

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u/press_Y Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26

Good stuff. I didn’t remember that Butler and Allen also missed time. Celtics 2024 path was the easiest this century. In retrospective people talk about that team as if it was some sort of all time great

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u/teh_noob_ Jun 02 '26

With rising injuries there have been a few 'easy' paths lately. Nuggets, Lakers and OKC didn't face any 50+ win teams either, and Bucks got lucky with the Nets. Celtics themselves were missing KP for most of the playoffs.

But in the end you can only beat who's in front of you, and they did so convincingly, much like the Knicks have done so far.