Disturbing 1st Quarter/1st Half Trends

[countryboi]

Poor starts finishing Bobcats early

The Observer crunched the numbers.....

Did they - or did they just rip the observation made by vorbis and then just lift all his numbers????

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/0 ... bcats.html

I like to think they got the idea from us.

[vorbis]

1/19 vs Kings - down 46-36 in 2nd quarter although it was just for a minute or so.
1/23 vs Hawks - down 28-18 for about 20 seconds at the end of the 1st quarter. guess i'll count it?
1/26 vs. timbertrolls - down 29-11 in the 1st, down 10+ throughout the 2nd quarter. (bobcats eventually came back to win)
1/28 vs. bulls - down 40-26 in the 2nd quarter.
1/30 vs. spurs - down 48-33 in the 2nd quarter.

new tally - 23/45 games. over half the games bobcats have been down double digits in the 1st half. they have won 2 of those 23 games, far as i can tell.

[vorbis]

2/2 vs rockets - down 60-49 in the 2nd quarter. 24/46 games

[vorbis]

2/6 vs cavs - down 65-37 in the 2nd quarter. 25/48 games

[nodeal]

Teams let up when they have big leads. That explains why the bobcats are better in the 2nd half than the 1st and better in the 4th than any quarter. If you bet on games you know if the cats are 9 point dogs for the game, go down 70-40 at the half they would be favorites to win the 2nd half. If they somehow have a 5 point lead at the half instead of being favorites they would be about 9 pt dogs for the 2nd half alone.

Its even worse in the 4th because the good team lets up and benches their starters. if the bobcats are down 20 entering the 4th they are basically favorites against any team in the league for the 4th quarter.

This explains

1st quarter scoring margin -4.6 (30th)
2nd quarter scoring margin -2.5 (29th)
3rd quarter scoring margin -1.6 (26th)
4th quarter scoring margin +0.7 (9th)

basically the 1st half gives you a good idea of what the bobcats at their best do against other teams at their best.

[vorbis]

on Feb 22 the bobcats fell behind the Chicago Bulls 40-19 in the 2nd quarter, to break a season-long streak of 6 straight games without falling behind double digits in the 1st half.

tonight, march 1, bobcats fell behind utah jazz 47-24 in the 2nd quarter. 2nd time in last 10 games.

all in all they have substantially improved in this particular area. 27/58 games.