92’ Bulls lost the most playoff games of any Bulls title team

[SportsGuru08]

I think it mostly just comes down to the fact that sometimes a team isn’t in its best form in the playoffs. For most great teams, they don’t win a title in those years. But Jordan and the Bulls were so good that the team not being in the best form just resulted in the title being less easy than normal.

Of course, it doesn’t help that they faced good opponents.

The Blazers were a genuinely really good team that had averaged 7.30 SRS in a three-year span. Beating them in six games was honestly about what you’d expect, and I don’t regard this as an underperformance. So it’s really about the earlier series.

The Knicks had a great defense and probably were a better team than their record and SRS would suggest (and they did do better in those regards in the next couple seasons), but it was still a bit surprising that they took the Bulls to 7 games and IMO that did in part reflect the Bulls not playing their best. Another factor with the Knicks series is that teams that are inferior but have really good defense can often slow the pace down a lot and thereby make close games more likely and then hope to squeak by through winning close games. That’s essentially what the Knicks did. The pace of the series was a glacial 83.1 (in a league context that hadn’t gotten particularly slow yet), and the Knicks were outscored by a good bit overall but took it to 7 games in large part by winning a couple close low-scoring games. It’s a good strategy for an overmatched team to take (because the fewer possessions there are, the more random the result will be, and therefore the higher the overmatched team’s chances of victory). And it came somewhat close to working, even though the Bulls were suited well for slow-pace games. So, basically, with the Knicks I think it came down to a combination of the Bulls not playing their best and the Knicks having a good strategy to try to grind the series out against a stronger opponent.

Dropping two games to the Cavaliers was a bit of an underperformance from the Bulls, IMO. The Cavaliers were a 5.34 SRS team and winning in six games is relatively comfortable, but it was pretty close for a six-game series, and I think the Bulls were good enough to beat those Cavs in 4 or 5 games. So I think the Bulls taking six games to beat the Cavs was reflective of the Bulls not being in their best form.

Ultimately, the end result of this was still a title, but I do think if the 1992 Bulls had been in the type of playoff form that most of the other Bulls title teams were in in the playoffs, they probably would’ve dropped 2-4 fewer playoff games that year. A team isn’t going to be in its best form in the playoffs every year though. The way dynasties happen is when a team is so far above the other teams that it can underperform in the playoffs and still win the title. That’s what happened with the 1992 Bulls.

Oddly enough a weaker Bulls team in '93 had less trouble with both the Cavs and Knicks in the playoffs, and that's despite the latter being the No. 1 seed and having homecourt advantage. Even with the 0-2 hole, the Bulls didn't need to go the distance with the Knicks in '93 like they did in '92. And in '93 the Cavs couldn't even manage to take one game from the Bulls.

[lessthanjake]

I think it mostly just comes down to the fact that sometimes a team isn’t in its best form in the playoffs. For most great teams, they don’t win a title in those years. But Jordan and the Bulls were so good that the team not being in the best form just resulted in the title being less easy than normal.

Of course, it doesn’t help that they faced good opponents.

The Blazers were a genuinely really good team that had averaged 7.30 SRS in a three-year span. Beating them in six games was honestly about what you’d expect, and I don’t regard this as an underperformance. So it’s really about the earlier series.

The Knicks had a great defense and probably were a better team than their record and SRS would suggest (and they did do better in those regards in the next couple seasons), but it was still a bit surprising that they took the Bulls to 7 games and IMO that did in part reflect the Bulls not playing their best. Another factor with the Knicks series is that teams that are inferior but have really good defense can often slow the pace down a lot and thereby make close games more likely and then hope to squeak by through winning close games. That’s essentially what the Knicks did. The pace of the series was a glacial 83.1 (in a league context that hadn’t gotten particularly slow yet), and the Knicks were outscored by a good bit overall but took it to 7 games in large part by winning a couple close low-scoring games. It’s a good strategy for an overmatched team to take (because the fewer possessions there are, the more random the result will be, and therefore the higher the overmatched team’s chances of victory). And it came somewhat close to working, even though the Bulls were suited well for slow-pace games. So, basically, with the Knicks I think it came down to a combination of the Bulls not playing their best and the Knicks having a good strategy to try to grind the series out against a stronger opponent.

Dropping two games to the Cavaliers was a bit of an underperformance from the Bulls, IMO. The Cavaliers were a 5.34 SRS team and winning in six games is relatively comfortable, but it was pretty close for a six-game series, and I think the Bulls were good enough to beat those Cavs in 4 or 5 games. So I think the Bulls taking six games to beat the Cavs was reflective of the Bulls not being in their best form.

Ultimately, the end result of this was still a title, but I do think if the 1992 Bulls had been in the type of playoff form that most of the other Bulls title teams were in in the playoffs, they probably would’ve dropped 2-4 fewer playoff games that year. A team isn’t going to be in its best form in the playoffs every year though. The way dynasties happen is when a team is so far above the other teams that it can underperform in the playoffs and still win the title. That’s what happened with the 1992 Bulls.

Oddly enough a weaker Bulls team in '93 had less trouble with both the Cavs and Knicks in the playoffs, and that's despite the latter being the No. 1 seed and having homecourt advantage. Even with the 0-2 hole, the Bulls didn't need to go the distance with the Knicks in '93 like they did in '92. And in '93 the Cavs couldn't even manage to take one game from the Bulls.

Yeah, what happened in the next year’s playoffs gives me more certainty that the 1992 Bulls simply underperformed a bit in those series against the Knicks and Cavs. That said, I’m not sure whether the 1993 Bulls were actually weaker than the 1992 Bulls, rather than just sleepwalking a bit through the regular season after having won the title twice in a row. Even if the 1993 Bulls weren’t really weaker than the 1992 Bulls, though, I think the point about the relative underperformance against the Knicks and Cavs in 1992 holds.

[VanWest82]

It’s just incredible how many inaccuracies can accumulate over two measly pages. It’s a full time job correcting 80s/90s Bulls takes on the PC board and I don’t have the energy anymore.

[DirtyDez]

It’s just incredible how many inaccuracies can accumulate over two measly pages. It’s a full time job correcting 80s/90s Bulls takes on the PC board and I don’t have the energy anymore.

Give us a couple sentences at least…

[AEnigma]

I would love to be paid to be a constant Bulls whitewashing presence. Could probably do a better job of it too.

[Lost92Bricks]

The '92 Knicks are the toughest defensive team I've seen.

The entire Bulls team was shook of them.

[OhayoKD]

In Round 1, they did face a putrid Lakers team, but had a +14.8 average MOV. Not much can be said about a series against a team that wasn’t good, but a +14.8 average MOV is certainly at least consistent with the Blazers being a great team. In Round 2, the Blazers had a +3.2 average MOV against a team with a regular season 5.68 SRS (the 4th highest SRS in the league that season), which is also quite consistent with the Blazers being a great team. Next, in Round 3, they had a +6.5 average MOV against a team with a 5.70 SRS (which was the 3rd highest SRS in the NBA that season—behind only the Bulls and Blazers). That’s great too. Overall, that’s like a 11.52 SRS in the first three rounds of the playoffs—including fairly easily beating the 3rd and 4th highest SRS teams in the league. And that’s after having a 6.94 SRS in the regular season. The 1992 Blazers were a genuinely really good team.

I would be using Portland SRS as a standard/baseline and not 0 when comparing Portland's MOV to different teams in the post-season, just as I would any post-season team.

That would make sense if you were trying to compare if they overachieved/performed or underachieved/performed versus RS based expectations.

But the initial claim that you disputed was " They had a 10+ SRS eq in every round of the WC playoffs beating several good teams on the way."

For an equivalent of a 10 SRS, there's probably some wiggle room and opponents won't always play at RS strength over a small sample (and sometimes, when trusting the playoffs heavily for rating one team, then trusting the RS entirely for a baseline for another doesn't seem fair - but as a first glance tool here that isn't saying playoffs is all, which I don't think anyone has here...), but requiring opponent SRS and your per game margin to sum 10 makes some intuitive sense, I think, at least without a deep dive.

Now it was said "in every round" not across all rounds cumulatively so using LessThanJake's numbers one could quibble with round 2. And maybe you say "several" is a woolly choice to hide a more specific and accurate "two" good teams.

I think everyone here understands this but for posterity, playoff srs(especially rolling) skews substantially higher than regular-season srs. Case in point: Portland's playoff srs was 2-points higher than its regular season srs, but the playoff score ranks lower historically(45th vs 75th). Similarly Chicago's srs went up but it ranks lower(9th vs 35th).

Just something to keep in mind.

[lessthanjake]

I would be using Portland SRS as a standard/baseline and not 0 when comparing Portland's MOV to different teams in the post-season, just as I would any post-season team.

That would make sense if you were trying to compare if they overachieved/performed or underachieved/performed versus RS based expectations.

But the initial claim that you disputed was " They had a 10+ SRS eq in every round of the WC playoffs beating several good teams on the way."

For an equivalent of a 10 SRS, there's probably some wiggle room and opponents won't always play at RS strength over a small sample (and sometimes, when trusting the playoffs heavily for rating one team, then trusting the RS entirely for a baseline for another doesn't seem fair - but as a first glance tool here that isn't saying playoffs is all, which I don't think anyone has here...), but requiring opponent SRS and your per game margin to sum 10 makes some intuitive sense, I think, at least without a deep dive.

Now it was said "in every round" not across all rounds cumulatively so using LessThanJake's numbers one could quibble with round 2. And maybe you say "several" is a woolly choice to hide a more specific and accurate "two" good teams.

I think everyone here understands this but for posterity, playoff srs(especially rolling) skews substantially higher than regular-season srs. Case in point: Portland's playoff srs was 2-points higher than its regular season srs, but the playoff score ranks lower historically(45th vs 75th). Similarly Chicago's srs went up but it ranks lower(9th vs 35th).

Just something to keep in mind.

It’s an inherently much lower sample size of games, so there will be more variance (and therefore more very high scores posted). That doesn’t mean you can expect to play equally well and systematically get a higher SRS in the playoffs. Rather, what you’re talking about basically just reflects that more teams have played really well over a small sample of games than over a much larger sample—which is obviously unsurprising. The bottom line is that the 1992 Blazers were playing really well in the playoffs prior to facing the Bulls (after having also played really well in the regular season).

[OhayoKD]

That would make sense if you were trying to compare if they overachieved/performed or underachieved/performed versus RS based expectations.

But the initial claim that you disputed was " They had a 10+ SRS eq in every round of the WC playoffs beating several good teams on the way."

For an equivalent of a 10 SRS, there's probably some wiggle room and opponents won't always play at RS strength over a small sample (and sometimes, when trusting the playoffs heavily for rating one team, then trusting the RS entirely for a baseline for another doesn't seem fair - but as a first glance tool here that isn't saying playoffs is all, which I don't think anyone has here...), but requiring opponent SRS and your per game margin to sum 10 makes some intuitive sense, I think, at least without a deep dive.

Now it was said "in every round" not across all rounds cumulatively so using LessThanJake's numbers one could quibble with round 2. And maybe you say "several" is a woolly choice to hide a more specific and accurate "two" good teams.

I think everyone here understands this but for posterity, playoff srs(especially rolling) skews substantially higher than regular-season srs. Case in point: Portland's playoff srs was 2-points higher than its regular season srs, but the playoff score ranks lower historically(45th vs 75th). Similarly Chicago's srs went up but it ranks lower(9th vs 35th).

Just something to keep in mind.

It’s an inherently much lower sample size of games, so there will be more variance (and therefore more very high scores posted). That doesn’t mean you can expect to play equally well and systematically get a higher SRS in the playoffs.

The Bulls SRS went from +10 to +11 while their rank dropped from 9th to 35th. It is not just a "small sample" thing(though given worthy's injury i suppose that played a role here).

"The bottom line" is that taking the number in a vacuum misrepresents where it scales historically.

[Djoker]

A 20-ish game sample which is a single postseason is very noisy. It may not be a sexy explanation but the 92 Bulls may have very simply hit a cold streak in the playoffs. As opposed to say the 91 Bulls who may have hit a hot streak. There may not be anything more to it than that. Or there may be something substantive to explain it but variance is normal. As lessthanjake said, dynasties form precisely because a team is so good that they can win even when they are below form.

By the way, being 35th in playoff SRS is actually quite impressive especially in the context of "underachieving".

[lessthanjake]

I think everyone here understands this but for posterity, playoff srs(especially rolling) skews substantially higher than regular-season srs. Case in point: Portland's playoff srs was 2-points higher than its regular season srs, but the playoff score ranks lower historically(45th vs 75th). Similarly Chicago's srs went up but it ranks lower(9th vs 35th).

Just something to keep in mind.

It’s an inherently much lower sample size of games, so there will be more variance (and therefore more very high scores posted). That doesn’t mean you can expect to play equally well and systematically get a higher SRS in the playoffs.

The Bulls SRS went from +10 to +11 while their rank dropped from 9th to 35th. It is not just a "small sample" thing(though given worthy's injury i suppose that played a role here).

"The bottom line" is that taking the number in a vacuum misrepresents where it scales historically.

I’m not sure what point you’re making here. Small samples lead to higher variance, which means more numbers at the very high end. You’d expect more super high SRS values in the playoffs than in the full regular season just like you’d expect more super high SRS values a quarter of the way through the season than you would by the end of the season. So yeah, the same SRS will be a lower historical ranking in the playoffs than in the regular season. But that doesn’t mean the quality of play of a team posting a really high SRS in the playoffs is lower. It just means that more teams have played at that really high level in the smaller sample of the playoffs than have done so over the course of an entire regular season. The Blazers were playing at a really high level in the first three rounds of the playoffs. They were, by all accounts, a really good team that was in particularly good form in the playoffs. The Bulls were an even better team and beat them in 6 games, which seems about right. It’s really the Knicks and Cavs series where I think one would’ve reasonably expected the Bulls to generally win more easily than they did.

[Traejefferson]

The 90s was such a weak era ,Tom Chambers,Kevin duckworth,Mark eaton,vlade vivac,AC Green,elden campbell

Rofl at the Blazers being a good team facing weak front court and backcount players

[OhayoKD]

It’s an inherently much lower sample size of games, so there will be more variance (and therefore more very high scores posted). That doesn’t mean you can expect to play equally well and systematically get a higher SRS in the playoffs.

The Bulls SRS went from +10 to +11 while their rank dropped from 9th to 35th. It is not just a "small sample" thing(though given worthy's injury i suppose that played a role here).

"The bottom line" is that taking the number in a vacuum misrepresents where it scales historically.

I’m not sure what point you’re making here. Small samples lead to higher variance, which means more numbers at the very high end. You’d expect more super high SRS values in the playoffs than in the full regular season just like you’d expect more super high SRS values a quarter of the way through the season than you would by the end of the season. So yeah, the same SRS will be a lower historical ranking in the playoffs than in the regular season.

It is not just variance, the scale in general is higher because of how rolling srs is calculated. If you are winning playoff games, the cieling is much higher without a similar lowering of the floor(you rarely see negative srs teams). The blazers were a very good team by psrs, but +10-+14 srs eq is not the same as it would be in a regular-season only sample regardless of variance

But that doesn’t mean the quality of play of a team posting a really high SRS in the playoffs is lower. It just means that more teams have played at that really high level in the smaller sample of the playoffs than have done so over the course of an entire regular season.

It indicates worse performance when compared to other teams both contemporarily and historically. That's why you need to look at ranks. The numbers only mean anything with a frame of reference

[OhayoKD]

The 90s was such a weak era ,Tom Chambers,Kevin duckworth,Mark eaton,vlade vivac,AC Green,elden campbell

Rofl at the Blazers being a good team facing weak front court and backcount players

they were good for the time period (though even then talent distribution will generally inflate srs during expansion periods(not to mention playing the lakers with worthy injured)). +10-+12 is still very good for a non-champion and the finals was probably chicago's best performance those playoffs all considered

[Cavsfansince84]

The 90s was such a weak era ,Tom Chambers,Kevin duckworth,Mark eaton,vlade vivac,AC Green,elden campbell

Rofl at the Blazers being a good team facing weak front court and backcount players

They also had Adelman as hc which is a factor in how good they were at the time. He's one of the forerunners of a lot of offensive strategy used today. I also think people are too quick to write off some players based on how they appear. Had Jokic played in the 90's I think people would be laughing at him too saying how chunky and unathletic he looks and how he'd be lucky to start today.

[lessthanjake]

The Bulls SRS went from +10 to +11 while their rank dropped from 9th to 35th. It is not just a "small sample" thing(though given worthy's injury i suppose that played a role here).

"The bottom line" is that taking the number in a vacuum misrepresents where it scales historically.

I’m not sure what point you’re making here. Small samples lead to higher variance, which means more numbers at the very high end. You’d expect more super high SRS values in the playoffs than in the full regular season just like you’d expect more super high SRS values a quarter of the way through the season than you would by the end of the season. So yeah, the same SRS will be a lower historical ranking in the playoffs than in the regular season.

It is not just variance, the scale in general is higher because of how rolling srs is calculated. If you are winning playoff games, the cieling is much higher without a similar lowering of the floor(you rarely see negative srs teams). The blazers were a very good team by psrs, but +10-+14 srs eq is not the same as it would be in a regular-season only sample regardless of variance

But that doesn’t mean the quality of play of a team posting a really high SRS in the playoffs is lower. It just means that more teams have played at that really high level in the smaller sample of the playoffs than have done so over the course of an entire regular season.

It indicates worse performance when compared to other teams both contemporarily and historically. That's why you need to look at ranks. The numbers only mean anything with a frame of reference

Yes, it is true that overall average playoff SRS is higher (when weighted by games played by each team), when calculated based off opposing teams’ regular season SRS. This is because virtually every playoff team has a positive regular season SRS, so adding in the strength-of-schedule component basically increases virtually’s everyone’s SRS compared to what their MOV was. And since the overall MOV of all teams inherently averages out to 0, if the strength-of-schedule component virtually always adds to that, then the average playoff SRS is going to be above 0, whereas that’s not the case for regular season SRS (where the strength-of-schedule component essentially averages out to zero). So yes, playoff SRS not only involves higher variance, but also higher mean SRS.

But then we have to ask ourselves what that actually means. Does it mean that a playoff team with a certain playoff SRS wasn’t playing as well in the playoffs as a regular season team with that same SRS did in the regular season? No, not really. If we’re talking about SRS as a measure of how well a team played, then we’d *expect* overall playoff SRS to have a higher mean than regular season SRS, because the teams in the playoffs actually are better teams on average than the whole pool of regular season teams. It’s inherently a set of the better teams in the league, and so they are almost certainly playing better basketball on average! As an example of this, a team with a +0 MOV in the playoffs would almost certainly have a higher playoff SRS than a team with a +0 MOV in the regular season would have a regular season SRS. Is this an example of playoff SRS somehow being unduly inflated? No. A team that has a +0 MOV in the playoffs was almost certainly playing better than a team that has a 0+ MOV in the regular season, precisely because the opponents in the playoffs are almost certainly better than the average regular season opponent. So, while you’re hitting on a point that’s mathematically right, I think it’s kind of missing the point when the subject matter is how well a team was playing in the playoffs. The fact that playoff SRS is higher on average reflects that the pool of teams is better, not that playoff SRS somehow inflates SRS compared to regular season SRS and makes a team playing equally well look better. In other words, I think a team with a +10 playoff SRS was probably playing about as well in the playoffs as a +10 regular season SRS team played in the regular season. The difference is just that that +10 playoff SRS team likely couldn’t sustain that good form over a much longer time period, and so we see a lot fewer +10 regular season SRS teams than +10 playoff SRS teams.

Anyways, I’m not sure this really substantively matters in this thread. You’re agreeing that the Blazers were “a very good team by psrs” and they were also unquestionably a very good team in the regular season that year. They were a very good team, and I think a historically great team like the Bulls beating them in 6 games is about what we’d expect. I’m not actually seeing you disagree with that. So I think we probably agree that the 1992 Bulls’ playoff underperformance was more specifically in the Knicks and Cavs series.

[OhayoKD]

I’m not sure what point you’re making here. Small samples lead to higher variance, which means more numbers at the very high end. You’d expect more super high SRS values in the playoffs than in the full regular season just like you’d expect more super high SRS values a quarter of the way through the season than you would by the end of the season. So yeah, the same SRS will be a lower historical ranking in the playoffs than in the regular season.

It is not just variance, the scale in general is higher because of how rolling srs is calculated. If you are winning playoff games, the cieling is much higher without a similar lowering of the floor(you rarely see negative srs teams). The blazers were a very good team by psrs, but +10-+14 srs eq is not the same as it would be in a regular-season only sample regardless of variance

But that doesn’t mean the quality of play of a team posting a really high SRS in the playoffs is lower. It just means that more teams have played at that really high level in the smaller sample of the playoffs than have done so over the course of an entire regular season.

It indicates worse performance when compared to other teams both contemporarily and historically. That's why you need to look at ranks. The numbers only mean anything with a frame of reference

Anyways, I’m not sure this really substantively matters in this thread. You’re agreeing that the Blazers were “a very good team by psrs” and they were also unquestionably a very good team in the regular season that year. They were a very good team, and I think a historically great team like the Bulls beating them in 6 games is about what we’d expect. I’m not actually seeing you disagree with that. So I think we probably agree that the 1992 Bulls’ playoff underperformance was more specifically in the Knicks and Cavs series.

I'm not disagreeing, I'm putting out a disclaimer for any lurkers who read those numbers. Hence why I said "i dont think anyone here doesn't understand this, but for posterity because +10 srs normally denotes goatish basketball

[OhayoKD]

The 90s was such a weak era ,Tom Chambers,Kevin duckworth,Mark eaton,vlade vivac,AC Green,elden campbell

Rofl at the Blazers being a good team facing weak front court and backcount players

They also had Adelman as hc which is a factor in how good they were at the time. He's one of the forerunners of a lot of offensive strategy used today. I also think people are too quick to write off some players based on how they appear. Had Jokic played in the 90's I think people would be laughing at him too saying how chunky and unathletic he looks and how he'd be lucky to start today.

i think the immediate bird comparison might bolster his rep if anything. His defense might hyped alot more actually.

[Cavsfansince84]

i think the immediate bird comparison might bolster his rep if anything. His defense might hyped alot more actually.

With some it would but there's always a segment who see 'slow white player' and think they wouldn't cut it in the modern nba. I mean Bird was even getting that talk back when he was winning mvps.

[SportsGuru08]

The 90s was such a weak era ,Tom Chambers,Kevin duckworth,Mark eaton,vlade vivac,AC Green,elden campbell

Rofl at the Blazers being a good team facing weak front court and backcount players

I would suggest you avoid message boards until you take the training wheels off your bicycle. The adults are talking here.