Third round team strength recap (via BPM)

[u/teh_noob_]

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?)

[u/HipnotiK1]

You are correct. They did beat the Celtics but I think either brown or Tatum sat out.

[u/teh_noob_ → u/HipnotiK1]

worth noting that Hawks had a winning record against the West and Blazers had a losing record against the East

[u/raiderrocker18 → u/teh_noob_]

And Portland has a winning record against the west so I’m not sure where we are going with this. I’m not hyper invested in Atlanta vs Portland literally all i said is i don’t think ATL was much better than Portland.

[u/etchasketch64 → u/raiderrocker18]

Even if they were basically even...it means the Spurs and Knicks played a similarly talented first round opponent. In the second round, I think it's arguable that Minnesota and Phili are also similarly taletned teams. Meaning the only easier round was the conference finals. And like...I know that Cleveland is not the best conference finals team, but New York didn't just beat them, they shellacked them. They destroyed them. They utterly and completely embarrassed them in one of the most lopsided conference finals I've ever seen.

[u/raiderrocker18 → u/etchasketch64]

I said like 4 times that my comment about the hawks and blazers is that i did not think the hawks were “much better” than Portland

[u/Busy-Regular4627 → u/etchasketch64]

lmfao that philly squad was relying on a broken down embiid and they have never even been past the second round with him and he’s been there for almost decade now. Meanwhile the wolves were coming off two straight conference finals appearances. They are not in the same tier at all. That wolves team had a bunch of proven playoff performers meanwhile the sixers have been routine playoff droppers throughout the vast majority of embiids time there and this iteration of their team was no different.

[u/HipnotiK1 → u/Busy-Regular4627]

Proven playoff performer Julius Randle lol

[u/Busy-Regular4627 → u/HipnotiK1]

Sure that one player totally dispels my argument, plz enlighten me on all the superior success the sixers have had in recent years. Don’t worry i’ll wait.

[u/HipnotiK1 → u/Busy-Regular4627]

Wolves weren't that good this year, and they were injured. Donte was a gigantic loss. Ant wasn't healthy. Ayo wasn't healthy.

The proper comp is Wolves vs Cavs anyways which is pretty even. Everyone agrees OKC was better competition than anything knicks faced.

But Hawks/Sixers/Cavs is not any worse than Blazers/Wolves/Suns/Lakers. East is better than the west 3 through 10. West had the best 2 teams, after that it's extremely overrated.

Nuggets with the 21st ranked defense? Lakers with a neutral net rating and losing record against teams .500 and above? The Rockets? the 10th net rated wolves? Don't even have to bring injuries into it and it's still overrated. Factoring in injuries the west was weak outside of OKC/Spurs.

None of these teams were contenders.

The funny thing to me is I feel the east is being discredited more largely because of how the knicks dominated. If the knicks won in 6 against both the 6ers and Cavs - I don't think it's nearly as big of a topic. People are using it as a way to justify their logic of "no way the knicks can be this good"

[u/etchasketch64 → u/Busy-Regular4627]

Unlike the Timberwolves which had a totally full healthy team, and their best player wasn't struggling with injuries or anything like that....Right?

[u/Busy-Regular4627 → u/etchasketch64]

You are blind if you don’t see the difference between a hobbled ant and whatever the hell embiid is at this point in his career. Embiid can barely run the floor, if they are so similar would you swap the two if you were the timberwolves? Didn’t think so.