The NBA Playoffs Are Completely Unpredictable

over the last two NBA Seasons I have

made a prediction on who I think will

win the NBA title and I use strictly

numbers and potentially predictive

metrics to narrow down my decisions

overall I think my predictions went all

right in 2022 I chose the Celtics to win

it all and they came within two games of

doing just that last season I chose the

Celtics again and if it weren't for the

heat being the greatest eight seed ever

assembled that might have panned out as

well so this season I considered

predicting the eventual NBA champs once

again by the way I think it's going to

be the Nuggets but as fun as these

experiments are the reality is numbers

will never get you all the way to the

correct conclusion no matter how many

metrics you factor in the game is just

too unpredictable and just a week into

the NBA Playoffs we all got a jarring

reminder of just how unpredictable it

can be but game two of the Lakers

Nuggets Series in particular really

crushed my hopes of ever being able to

pin down any sort of coherent prediction

after being down 20 points in the third

third quarter the Nuggets crawled back

and completed one of the largest

comebacks in playoff history joic is

nearly perfect as usual to close out the

game Jamal Murray summoned his inner

Prime Michael Jordan for the millionth

time to put a dagger in the hearts of

Lakers fans and we were all stunned but

why did this comeback feel inevitable

the Nuggets were dead in the water at

one point in this game and yet I never

felt like they were completely out of it

in no Universe should a Miami Heat team

without Jimmy Butler and Terry Rosier

beat a 64- win Celtics team by double

digits and yet was this game really all

that surprising has the NBA and

specifically the playoffs become more

unpredictable than ever before in the

past it always felt like there were

teams who skated past the first round

teams that seem to be levitating above

others on their way to the Conference

Finals but in today's NBA all bets are

off any team can win at any moment

regular season performance becoming more

and more irrelevant to postseason

success but why is this here's a

relatively normal win probability chart

the line starts in the Middle where both

teams have a 50/50 chance of winning the

closer the line gets to the top or the

bottom the better one of the teams

chances of winning becomes in this game

the Bucks took an early lead and held on

to it until the end of the game this is

normal game two of the Sixers Nick

series was not

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order is lead safe in the NBA today 10

points isn't nearly enough of a cushion

a 20-point win is considered a blowout

by any metric and yet as long as there's

time left on the clock a 20-point lead

can be chipped away relatively quickly

in the NBA today the Nuggets overcoming

a 20o deficit in game two against the

Lakers was remarkable but you know

what's even crazier with a minute and 15

seconds left in this game the Nuggets

had 92 points they ended the game with

101 that's nine points in 76 seconds to

close out a playoff game according to

ineda win probability model the Nuggets

had just an 18% chance of winning this

game with a minute and 27 seconds left

in the fourth even crazier a more

unlikely comeback happened on the same

exact night take a look at the clock

there's just 30 seconds left in this

game the Knicks have 96 points when the

clock hit zero they had 104 the Nicks

scored eight points in just 28 seconds

to clinch a playoff win you cannot

predict this there's no metric that will

see this coming there's no game plan or

scheme to prevent this the Knicks had

just a

1.7% chance of winning this game with 47

seconds left on the clock a couple

three-pointers and free throws later and

those chances were all but irrelevant

and even when games don't come down to

the wire like this they are still

completely unpredictable in game two of

the Celtics Heat series Boston was

favored by 15 points going into this

game they lost by 10 points one of the

best regular season teams in NBA history

lost to a team missing two of their

starters at home by double digits the

NBA is as volatile and unpredictable as

it's ever been in predictable. comom win

probability model not only gives a

play-by-play breakdown of How likely a

team is to win or lose it then uses this

data to identify the most statistic

statistically unlikely comebacks

throughout NBA history given a point

deficit time remaining and ball

possession their comeback metric shows

How likely a team was to win or lose

based on how other teams have fared in

that exact scenario over the past 10

years a comeback score of 50 would be

considered highly unlikely this Nick's

win over the 76ers in game two had a

comeback score of

56.8 now here's a chart of every game

that featured one of these highly

unlikely comebacks from year to year

dating back to the 1997 season for many

years these comebacks were limited to 10

maybe 20 a season but year after year

the number of crazy comebacks continues

to climb with the most in a single

season coming this year with 32 as Pace

continues to increase in the NBA and

teams incorporate more three-pointers

into their game plan the outcome of

these games has gotten more and more

unpredictable the NBA has always been a

make or Miss league but as offenses have

become more potent so has the potential

for comebacks upsets and unforeseen

results in any given NBA game there are

four statistics known as the four

factors that have the highest

correlation to winning basketball games

how well a team shoots the ball

turnovers offensive rebounds and how

often a team is getting to the line how

well a team does in these four factors

will usually determine the outcome of a

game but in today's NBA most games boil

down to just one factor here's a chart

of how often team teams won a playoff

game over the years when they made more

three-pointers than the opposing team

over the last three postseasons when a

team makes more threes than their

opponents they end up winning the game

over 70% of the time peing in this

year's playoffs where teams that make

more threes than the opposing team have

won the game 81% of the time more than

rebounding more than getting to the line

it's simply making or missing threes

that have become the overwhelming factor

that is deciding these games when

compared to the traditional four factors

making more threes than the opposing

team is actually a better indicator of

which team will win the game than any

other metric right now and you might be

thinking well of course the team that

hits more threes wins the game the

majority of the time but this wasn't

always the case in fact in the past

hitting more 3es had almost no

correlation to whether a team was going

to win or not from 1990 to 1994 when a

team made more threes than their

opponent they won about 45% of the time

so not only were threes not prioritized

teams that relied more on three-pointers

actually performed worse than other

teams from 2010 to 2014 the win rate for

teams that hit more threes than their

opponent in the playoffs jumped to about

55% so just a decade ago making more

threes gave teams a slight Edge over

their opponent but it was still just one

of many variables that would determine

the outcome of a game in the past

three-pointers were viewed as almost a

home run a game breaker even if the shot

was a good open look teams didn't take a

lot and they didn't make a lot but over

the last decade the shot has not only

become the focal point for many offenses

it has become the deciding factor in the

majority of these playoff games how many

games have you watched where your team

gets out to a 10 15 even 20o lead and

despite a massive cushion they still

can't relax knowing that all it would

take is a few long bombs to shift the

momentum and turn the game around these

long bombs used to be improbable get

yourself a double- digigit lead and

holding on to it late in a game was

relatively manageable but now a 15-point

lead in the NBA is nothing teams can

close that Gap in the blink of an eye in

2012 just over a decade ago the Miami

Heat won a playoff game without making a

single three-pointer in those same

playoffs the Grizzlies had a game where

they didn't make a single three and beat

the Lob City Clippers by double digits

here's a Series in 2012 where the Jazz

hit N9 threes throughout the entire

series go back even further and you'll

see shooting volatility and the Reliance

on three-pointers dip even further in

1994 the Celtics and hornets combined

for 13 made three-pointers throughout an

entire playoff series the Miami Heat

just hit 13 threes in one half of a

single game three-pointers are a high

variance shot inherently high risk High

reward when a team is only shooting 10

of them a game this variance plays a

marginal role on the outcome the result

of the game is a bit more expected but

when teams are shooting 35 403s a game

and hitting half of them the game isn't

just affected by these shots the entire

game hinges on the outcome of these

shots a team can miss a handful of shots

and find themselves on the bad end of a

15-point run and then flip the script

hit a handful of Threes themselves and

seemingly out of nowhere they have the

lead in their first three games against

the nuggets the Lakers have held a

double digigit lead at some point in the

game and yet when watching these games

the score might as well be tied with how

explosive the Nuggets offense is and

this volatility has seen a spike in the

postseason in comparison to the regular

season this year usually in the

postseason teams score less than they do

in the regular season the game slows

down teams have an entire series to prep

for the opposing team schemes and sets

scoring gets more difficult but over the

last few seasons this discrepancy from

regular season performance to play play

off performance has only grown larger

between an increase in games missed from

key players injuries going into the

playoffs in the previous mentioned

variance in shooting and scoring a team

doing well in the regular season has

become more and more nonpredictive of

how they will do in the playoffs over

the last 20 seasons on average teams are

scoring about three to four less points

in playoff games than they do in regular

season games so far in the 2024 playoffs

the league is averaging 10.5 less points

scored SC per game than they did in the

regular season that is an unprecedented

Gap this fallof in playoff scoring shows

just how disconnected the regular season

has gotten from the playoffs this has

always been the case but it is far more

prevalent now than ever before here's a

moment in game two of the Bucks Pacers

series with less than 11 minutes left in

the fourth quarter the Pacers had a

four-point lead on the Bucks that's a

onep possession game 5 minutes and 23

seconds later the Pacers were up by 23

points here's game one of the Suns

t-wolf Series where the suns were down

15 points with about 10 minutes left in

the fourth within 2 minutes of game time

they were down by 25 game one Heat

versus Celtics with 332 left in the

third quarter the heat were down 17 a

lot but still very manageable 3 minutes

later the heat were losing by 32 points

these kinds of scoring outbursts are

happening all the time now and they end

up being the exciting factor of these

games more and more often Andrew Lopez

of ESPN wrote a great article on this in

March of this year detailing the change

in scoring variance the league has seen

over the last few years and how some

players and coaches are reacting to

these scoring explosions Victor wanyama

said during his time in the NBA so far

he's learned a 20-point lead is nothing

Minnesota head coach Chris VCH was also

quoted saying you see a lot of

unpredictable results regardless of the

point differential and the margins of

the score like like wow how that team

beat that team and then you look at the

column and they made 22 threes there was

a time where you weren't taking 23es in

a game it's all down to that but the

most eye-opening part about this article

was this stat when Steve Kerr began his

tenure with golden state the Warriors

strung together

114 consecutive wins when holding a lead

of at least 15 points now the longest

active streak when taking a 15-point

lead is just 35 No lead is safe and any

team can win at any time I heard a

really good analogy about how scoring

volatility has altered the NBA and it's

probably the simplest way to understand

exactly what's going on in these games

you ever play Mario Kart yeah the racing

game for children well in that game

whenever you get out to a massive lead

the game will artificially speed up the

AI Racers so they can catch up to you

and make the race more competitive and

if you fall behind the AI Racers will

slow down so you can catch up this is a

mechanism built into the game called

rubber banding the mechanism exists so

if you're really good at the game it

Still Remains challenging and if you're

not so good at the game you still have a

chance to win no matter the gap between

you and the other Racers the game will

close it and make the races competitive

scoring variance three-point volatility

and shot making has triggered this

rubber banding in the NBA when a team

jumps ahead by too much the other team

comes racing back got a team that is the

deepest most talented team in the league

yeah well we have three-pointers and we

know how to use them just went on a hot

streak hit a bunch of shots got out to a

lead that's all right you'll eventually

get cold and we'll hit an improbable

amount of three-pointers in a row to

close the gap a team can meet all the

prerequisites to be a title Contender

they could check all the boxes that P

Champions checked off they could be the

clear favorite in any given series and

still the NBA is as unpredictable as

ever where no lead is safe and no team

is safe

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