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this discussion came up in another thread using the 2016 spurs as an example

the question was who were the better team in the series oklahoma who won the series 4-2 by winninh 2 really close coinflip games or spurs who outscored the thunder thanks to a blowout game 1

the question is about series where the losing team outscored the winning one

there are subtle examples like 2013 spurs, 2016 thunder 2002 kings, 2005 pistons, 96 jazz or 2000 blazers all of which lost a close 7 game series where they slightly outscored their rival

other more extreme examples are the 90 suns who lost in spite of heavily outscoring the blazers, or the 82 celticd that significatively outscored the sixers

is accurate to say that the best team is the one that wins the series?

No.

Original example is especially terrible, though. OKC had the better lineups in the RS already. SAS were the kings of garbage units that were always gonna have zero play in the PS.

Jaivl wrote:2016 Thunder starters were much (and I mean MUCH) better than the Spurs even in the RS. +16 for their most used lineups (1200 minutes) vs +9 for the Spurs' (1000 minutes). Add on that the great matchup in OKC's favour and... I'm confused by how that would be a fluky series in any shape or form.

In any case, small sample size favors San Antonio with that lucky G1 blowout.

I don't even think the team outscoring a team in a losing series is necessarily a "better team." If you want to know who the better team was you can't use 1 series to evaluate who the team was.

You look at the entire year's worth of data. And yes the data that year overwhelmingly supports the idea they were better than the Thunder.

Outscoring over the breadth of a series means that over a short sample, you had a couple games where you won by a larger margin. Lots of stuff could go into that and it surely isn't an objective measure of superiority relative to the winning team.

That 2016 series. Spurs won by 32, lost by 1, won by 4, lost by 14, lost by 4 and lost by 14.

So a big first game win led to the point differential. The Thunder shot quite poorly that game and the Spurs shots above 60% from the field and were 9/15 from 3. They were hot. It happens. They also turned around and lost 4 of the next 5 games. It doesn't mean anything.

Median wins again!

falcolombardi wrote:this discussion came up in another thread using the 2016 spurs as an example

the question was who were the better team in the series oklahoma who won the series 4-2 by winninh 2 really close coinflip games or spurs who outscored the thunder thanks to a blowout game 1

the question is about series where the losing team outscored the winning one

there are subtle examples like 2013 spurs, 2016 thunder 2002 kings, 2005 pistons, 96 jazz or 2000 blazers all of which lost a close 7 game series where they slightly outscored their rival

other more extreme examples are the 90 suns who lost in spite of heavily outscoring the blazers, or the 82 celticd that significatively outscored the sixers

is accurate to say that the best team is the one that wins the series?

Well, clearly the true answer is that while a Best of 7 removes much luck from the equation compared to a Single Elimination Game, it doesn’t eliminate all.

But in general, outscoring your opponent while losing should make us ask “Why wasn’t the mojo working when everything was on the line?”

Sometimes the answer is an injury, sometimes it’s a choke, sometimes it’s luck - such as unsustainably hot shooting. But sometimes it’s the end of an arms race where after all the counters, one team has found something the other team doesn’t have an answer for.

Tangent: I tend to find it more interesting looking at key players with a positive plus minus on a losing team.

Of current players, I’d say Embiid has been the most known for this, and there I don’t think the answer has ever been that the opponent has figured him out so much as figure out has to kill the team when he goes to the bench.

If we’re looking for the player I’ve noticed being in this boat the most: Vlade Divac.

Also a shout out to Arvydas Sabonis against the Lakers in the 2000 Portland series. Basically no one had an answer for Shaq except for old man Sabas and had he played more minutes, the Lakers lose that series.


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Maybe in close 7 game series. In 2016 Spurs Thunder, the Thunder had better series, the only reason they got outscored is Game 6 beatdown ends up at only 14 points due to Spurs garbage time play, while the Spurs game 1 blowout was particularly savage. The Thunder are +15 from games 2 to 5 in between the two blowouts.

I do think series like 2013 Heat Spurs and 2016 Cavaliers Warriors are basically ties, the difference is likely luck such as a role player hitting an extra shot. That is the main flaw of ring counting, Allen and Kyrie clutch shots basically got Lebron 2 more rings, otherwise he has West's finals record, and has to deal with way more crap from the GB-ers and Skips of the world. Likewise Draymond nut punching tendencies and Barnes probably cost Curry one.

Barring an injury to a major player, it is really hard to say that the winner of any series of 6 or 7 games is definitely the better or worse team.

Doctor MJ wrote:But in general, outscoring your opponent while losing should make us ask “Why wasn’t the mojo working when everything was on the line?”

This is a good way to look at it, surely. And in a sport like basketball, sometimes a single player is able to elevate performance across the breadth of a series. Or two, as was the case with the Thunder series. Durant and Westbrook torched them. Well, Durant torched them and Russ shot a lot, but was moving the ball for assists well, anyhow. Steven Adams shooting 70% FG didn't help SAS, and Ibaka going 12/24 from 3 helped. And of course the Thunder's offensive rebounding was very helpful at offsetting their turnover rate.


Regardless, they played 6 games and were pretty even in the regular season as well, so over a 10-game sample, OKC had the slight edge and one blowout game can mean only so much as far as what that does to differential. What you've posited as far as "why wasn't it working when it mattered" is also relevant.

In 2016, the Spurs were 4th in the league at just over 110 ORTG and 2nd in eFG% at 52.6%. They were the top defense at 99.0.
The Thunder were the 2nd-ranked offense at a shade over 113, and 13th ranked on D at 105.6, with 52.4% eFG (4th). They were also the best offensive rebounding team in the league at 31.1% ORB, which was 4.1% better than the 2nd-ranked Pistons. The Spurs were 23rd, at 23.0%.

In series:

SAS: 109 ORTG, 49.9% eFG, 18.9% ORB, and +0.5 PPG.
OKC: 108.5 ORTG, 49.7% eFG, 28.0% ORB

So even with their big blowout to open the series, they barely managed a positive scoring differential, and were otherwise pretty much neck-and-neck with the Thunder, apart from the dominant gap in ORB that OKC displayed through the series. AFTER the first game, the Thunder were +5.8 PPG over the remainder of the series.

Also of note:

Kevin Durant

Game 1: 16/8/6 on 47.7% TS
Games 2-6: 31.0, 6.4 and 3.6 on 61.8% TS.

So there's a major factor right there, right? Durant torched the beans out of them, especially in games 4 and 6. They just couldn't contain him, and while San Antonio had some scorers, Kawhi sucked in Game 6 (one of 3 games in the series where he shot under 40% from the floor, as it happens), Aldridge didn't get to the line the whole game (plus was trash in games 3 and 5), and they were buried.

So you can see pretty clearly that the series unfolded in a fashion very different from the way the first game went. San Antonio couldn't maintain enough offense to keep up, and their D wasn't able to contain the Thunder (particularly Durant).

The Spurs couldn't score on a team playing Kanter at PF beside Adams. No sympathy.