The first of the 19 NBA playoff weekends is almost already in the books, but I want to explain my Finals prediction of a few days ago.
The West: Most observers have this pegged as a three-team race, the winner of which will probably take the championship. I see no real reason to disagree. (Those three teams are the Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks, and San Antonio Spurs.)
Let's start with Dallas. The Mavericks were an amazing 67-15 this year, one of the best records in NBA history. They were 36-5 at home, best in the NBA. Their road mark, 31-10, was also a league-best. Only six teams in the league, including Dallas, were even above .500 on the road, so that's incredible.
The Phoenix Suns also had a fine year, finishing at 61-21. The Suns are led by what's undoubtedly the league's best point guard tandem in Steve Nash and Leandro Barbosa. They, along with usual suspects Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion, each averaged more than 17.5 points per game as Phoenix, of course, led the league in scoring.
The San Antonio Spurs got almost-20 and 10 from their unstoppable big man, Tim Duncan, and healthy contributions from a capable and sometimes spectacular supporting cast. Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Robert Horry, Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley-many of these names are familiar from years past, and most of them are playing the exact same role.
The Spurs went 58-24 this year. Not as good to look at but, in my mind, they're the best of the bunch. Have you ever heard of a Pythagorean winning percentage? It's a Bill James formula used in baseball that attempts to predict a team's winning percentage based on the numbers of runs it scores and the number of runs it allows. The idea is that this number would give you a better idea of a team's true quality than would the winning percentage they actually earned on the field.
Personally, I think it's a cool idea. I like it especially because, unlike so many other stats we hear, it teaches you something about the game of baseball. According to the Wikipedia page I just linked to, people are using a puzzling version of it in basketball, too. I've never used those, and I'm not sure I want to start now. The point is, I think scoring differential says more about a team than their actual record.
Why do I bring this up? Well, the Spurs outscored their opponents by 8.4 points per game this year. The Suns did so by an average of 7.3 points; the Mavs by 7.2. Spurs games, as you might have guessed, were lower-scoring than Mavs and Suns games, so the Spurs were winning by an even bigger percentage, if that makes any sense. I think the Spurs outclassed most of their opponents all season, I think they still have the game's best player and the most clutch player of the three teams in Duncan, and that's why I think they're going to win the West.
The East: I just said that only six teams had winning records on the road this year. Five of them play in the West. The other is the Detroit Pistons.
The Pistons' scoring differential actually wasn't as good as Chicago's, but I think experience gives Detroit the edge over them. Cleveland's the No. 2 seed. I think people were unnecessarily hard on LeBron this year, but I don't think he's close to ready to take a team to the Finals. The other team that could surprise is the defending champion Miami Heat. They were probably too beat-up this year, but anything's possible, especially if D-Wade can get half the calls he got last year.
In the end, I pick the Pistons from the East, and I pick the Spurs as NBA champions.
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