StatGPT - Give Me Some Crazy NBA Stats From The Past Couple Nights
Boston Globe. Getty Images.It's been a wild start to Round 2 of the NBA Playoffs. A postseason that has been historically awesome entertainment which is just what the doctor has ordered for the state of the NBA. There's animosity. Shit talking. And (at least in round 1) a lot of good defense. I should mention the Lakers also played.
Round 2 hast been straight up wild. Lots of crazy stats out there so I figured I'd try a new bit and assume the role of AI before it eventually assumes mine. I'm sure you could ask ChatGPT, Copilot, Grok, Perplexity, ChuckGPT, or whatever else for some crazy stats, but don't forget little ole me playing the John Henry role and running code myself for lookups it's not capable of thinking of. Yet.
We'll start this thing by piggy-backing off Tom Haberstroh's nugget showing the overall theme of Round 2 so far:
StatGPT:
While indeed no season saw all road teams win Game 1 of the Semifinals before, only five seasons have come close with three of the four road teams taking game 1. 2023. 2020. 2015. 2011. And way back to 1977. Road teams were 59/216 overall leading up to this season - just 27%. Only slightly better than Round 1 road teams (25.5%). I'd have thought that was a little higher considering the trash teams 1-seeds get in the opening set, but let us not forget we were not always blessed with play-in teams like the Heat or Grizzlies to make a playoff comic relief cameo.
The fact that all the road teams won was hardly the crazy part though. It was the colossal choke jobs from the home teams. The Nuggets led by 14 deep in the third quarter. The Celtics by 20. Ditto for the Cavs. And they all lost. Once Minnesota bricked their way to being down 20 in the final game, I thought that was the sign they were clearly going to win.
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What a joke Minnesota was. You simply can't convince me Ant, DiVincenzo, and the gang weren't getting absolutely blitzed during their extended break from the Lakers. I have too much respect for these guys as shooters to think anything otherwise. But then again - there were signs even in Game 5 that something was off when they went 7/47 from three. The worst three-point performance for any playoff game with a minimum of 40 attempts (probably fewer too). Tack last night's game on and we have by far the worst rolling two-game three point performance in NBA history (min 75 attempts):
50 worst rolling two-game 3-point percentages
The Timberwolves have been straight awful behind the arc in the past two games. Keep in mind that the graph above cuts off all but the 50 worst rolling two-game performances of any playoff team in history. StatGPT flexing some rolling mean querying. Never great when you shoot 5/29 for 17% from three and it's almost twice as much of an improvement on your prior game. That's how you get crushed by a mostly Steph Curry-less team with Jimmy Butler the best option despite refusing to risk falling on his messed up back the entire game.
This leads one to wonder. Were there any "Had the Lakers just gotten a better draw in Round 1" takes out there this year? Seems like an annual calendar reminder for everyone at ESPN. The Timberwolves would be laughed out of LA Fitness playing like they've been playing, but that was good enough to beat the snot out of the Lakers. Never forget I was the only person defending Nico Harrison's assessment of Luka Doncic as a fat unserious player who will fail in the playoffs (while maintaining my position that the process of the trade was still quite dumb).
Another crazy story comes from the Pacers straight up stealing wins they have no business winning.
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Speaking of this game, the Cavs have swiftly gone from being the #1 team in the East with a 64-18 record to being down 0-2 with both losses coming at home. This is not great. But yes - teams in this position have come back to win the series. The Clippers over the Mavs in 2021, Celtics over Bulls in 2017, Mavs over Rockets in 2005, Rockets over Suns in 1994, and Lakers over Warriors in 1969. Almost a little chain reaction here to some extent. The Rockets bullied the Suns in '94 only to get bullied by the Mavs in '05 who would then go on the get bullied themselves in 2021. Guess that means the Clippers should have been next to get bullied but that would mean they'd have to care enough to win the first two games on the road.
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