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I was thinking about how last postseason boston vs brooklyn was a oddly close sweep all thinghs considered and wondered how many of these "deceptively close" or "deceptively npt that close" there are

Like series that go to 7 even with lopsided net ratings where the winning team wins big and loses close

Series where the losing team outscored their rival by a fair margin

Series that go 4-1 but where one close game may hace changed the whole result

Stuff like that

Series that ended 4-1 but it was way closer than the final score

2009 NBA finals(LAL vs ORL)
2011 Celtics vs heat second round
2011 Heat vs Bulls ECF

Homer38 wrote:Series that ended 4-1 but it was way closer than the final score

2009 NBA finals(LAL vs ORL)
2011 Celtics vs heat second round
2011 Heat vs Bulls ECF

This is also a daily reminder that beating a strong team in 6 or 7 may give you more credit that beating them in 5 tbh

Weird how it works sometimes

For appears close but not close (losers actually better)
'56 Lakers vs Hawks 1-2 (2-2)
Hawks officially win actual series 2-1. Hawks officially net outscored by 56. Won by 1, lost by 58, won by 1.
Lakers before the series beat the Hawks in a special tie-breaker for second place (and presumably HCA) in a game played in St Louis. Sadly for the per game points margin, if you wanted to include it, they only won that one by 6.

Owly wrote:For appears close but not close (losers actually better)
'56 Lakers vs Hawks 1-2 (2-2)
Hawks officially win actual series 2-1. Hawks officially net outscored by 56. Won by 1, lost by 58, won by 1.
Lakers before the series beat the Hawks in a special tie-breaker for second place (and presumably HCA) in a game played in St Louis. Sadly for the per game points margin, if you wanted to include it, they only won that one by 6.

Wow. Just wow

I think we have a winner here

For a 7 game series, Boston-Atl in 08 comes to mind. Atl won all of their games just barely and Boston beat Atl by like 25+ in most of their wins.

Celtics/Hawks 2008

Raptors Cavs 2016 ECF
Bullets Warriors 1975 Finals

Great idea for a thread. And yeah you are right the Celtics-Nets was closer than the sweep looks.

Non-basketball example but this is one one of my favorite crazy sports facts. The most lopsided World Series in baseball history is the 1960 World Series. NY outscored Pittsburgh by 28 runs . . . and lost. To give you a frame of reference, The next largest world series by run differential in which the leader lost the series is the 96 World Series in which the Yankees won despite being outscored by 8 runs.

Bucks vs Lakers in 72 is a decent candidate.

capfan33 wrote:Bucks vs Lakers in 72 is a decent candidate.

Fitting that a capfan would call this series out and it is a fine pick. You can make a great case that we remember the entire history of the NBA differently if the Bucks win that series.

1. The early 70s Bucks get remembered the way they should.
2. Kareem is seen as a guy who was the lead on multiple GOAT level teams early on and then played a major role in establishing a dynasty in another city.
3. Wilt/West fade a lot further away in the comparison to Kareem/Oscar.

2018 Cavs vs Pacers is a case where the winner was clearly outplayed. Cavs were outscored by 40 points in the series but won four close games, and three of those close wins took Lebron scoring 44, 45, and 46 points on hyper efficiency.

Not sure if there's been another 7 game series were the winner was outscored by more than that.

toodles23 wrote:2018 Cavs vs Pacers is a case where the winner was clearly outplayed. Cavs were outscored by 40 points in the series but won four close games, and three of those close wins took Lebron scoring 44, 45, and 46 points on hyper efficiency.

Not sure if there's been another 7 game series were the winner was outscored by more than that.

at the time, i'm pretty sure they said +40 was the record for the losing team in a 7 game series.


that +1, -58, +1 almost seems made up. to not just win a series with one of the largest (the largest?) MOD's ever but to perfectly maximize it with only 1 point wins.

2013 spurs/grizzlies doesn't have a very small MOV but it was a sweep where every game seemed like a dogfight while you were watching it.

Both the 08, 09 Lakers finals were closer than final results. As was the WCF series against '09 Nuggets.

Series that were closer than they appeared: 2005 WCF, 2009 Finals, 2011 Heat/Celtics, 2011 ECF, 2012 Finals

Series that were less competitive than they appeared: 2008 Finals, 2009 Lakers/Rockets, 2013 ECF, 2016 ECF, 2020 Finals

The 2019 ECF with the Bucks/Raptors saw Toronto win 4-2 but the *shudders* Game 3 went Triple-OT and the rest of the games were competitive as hell, but Kawhi was legendary and Vanvleet turned into Steph Curry North.

Last year's Mavs/Suns series was an odd one. Went 7 with only one road win(Dallas in game 7) but no really close games. Game 1 score looks close, but that was garbage time run by Dallas. And final 3 games the smallest margin of victory was 30 points.

Kings beat the Mavs in 04 4-1, but the last 3 wins Dallas was shooting to tie or win the game in each of them with each of their 3 stars, Nash, Finley, and Dirk failing to score with oddly enough Peja defending every possession. Dallas actually outscored the Kings in the series with their one win a blowout.

Spurs didnt get outscored in a single series between 2013 and 2016

2013 finals, 2015 loss to clippers and even 2016 loss to okc in 6. All had spurs outscoring their rival

Making that era of spurs the "kings" of losing series they arguably should have won (i would disagree as the game 1 vs okc distorts how the series actuallt went, but the argument is there)