The Bucks Would Be In Big Trouble Without Brook Lopez
Aaron Gash / AP Photo
When two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo tumbled to the court in the first quarter of the Milwaukee Bucks’ series-opening loss against the Miami Heat, the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference knew it would need to rally around the rest of its core.
“Everyone’s ready,” said center Brook Lopez of the challenge. And as it turned out, Lopez was the one leading the charge — as has often secretly been the case for Antetokounmpo’s slightly taller (and mostly overlooked) teammate.
Thanks to Lopez’s efforts, the Bucks responded decisively in Game 2, demolishing Miami in a 138-122 victory. The 7-footer scored a game-high 25 points on 12-for-17 shooting, delivering a jolt of offense Milwaukee might have worried would be missing without its superstar. And on the other end of the floor, Lopez easily led all defenders by contesting 19 shots, while as the primary defender he held Bam Adebayo to 8 points on 4-for-10 shooting. The win may have helped stabilize the series for the Bucks, who now have a 64 percent chance of advancing to the second round even after accounting for Antetokounmpo’s unclear status going forward.
Anchoring a team at both ends, and especially on defense, is nothing new for Lopez. But sometimes a player like him is best appreciated in absentia, which happened when Lopez missed nearly the entire 2021-22 regular season after he underwent back surgery in December 2021. To that point — and with a healthy Lopez available for coach Mike Budenholzer — Milwaukee had led the NBA in defensive rating twice in three years.1 But with Lopez limited to 13 regular-season games, the Bucks fell back to No. 14 in defensive rating and were eliminated by the Boston Celtics in the second round of the 2022 NBA playoffs.2
Milwaukee fashioned a top-five defense this season in part due to the return of Lopez, who appeared in 78 games, led the league in blocked shots (193) and finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting. “Whatever happens, if someone comes at the rim, I’m going to try to be there to stop them from putting the ball in the basket,” Lopez said. “That’s a pretty simple answer, I guess.”
To turn away a shot, a defender must first make the choice to contest it. Nobody made that split-second decision this season more than Lopez (17.5 per game, 45 percent more challenges than any other player), who led the league in contested shots by an appreciable margin.3
All told, Lopez contested 526 more shots inside the arc than any other NBA player — and 400 more than the combined output of the most recent Heat starting lineup Lopez and the Bucks squared off against in the first round of the playoffs. And not all of his contested shots were at the rim. Lopez also contested 135 3-pointers, more than perimeter-centric defenders like Russell Westbrook (133), Tyrese Haliburton (125) and Devin Booker (115). Overall, opposing shooters saw their percentage drop by nearly 5 percentage points when Lopez served as the primary defender.
This effort matters to Milwaukee’s bottom line, of course. Without Lopez on the court, the Bucks allow 113.0 points per 100 possessions, or the equivalent of the 10th-best defense in the league. When Lopez plays, Milwaukee opponents score just 106.6, which would be the league’s best defense by a huge margin of 3.3 points per 100 possessions.
The Bucks have asked more of Lopez than just his defense. They also needed help on offense. Most championship teams over the past decade were near the top 10 in both offensive and defensive rating. Milwaukee’s offense finished the regular season ranked No. 15, and in absolute terms that left their efficiency closer to No. 22 than to No. 10. While the Bucks’ offense has performed at the sixth-best rate in the league since the All-Star Break, much still depends on the health of Khris Middleton, who has played in just 33 games this season and is currently nursing a knee injury (which didn’t prevent him from playing in Games 1 and 2, but threatened to).
Middleton was the second-leading scorer and fourth-quarter closer on the Bucks’ 2021 championship team, and even though his scoring has dipped this season, he still contributes 15 points per game for an at-times stagnant offense. With him in and out of the lineup, Lopez’s scoring (15.9 per game) ended up the highest it had been since the 2016-17 season, and he shot a career-best 37.4 percent from beyond the arc on a diet of 3-point attempts nearly double his career average. In total, Lopez’s true shooting percentage of 63.0 percent represented the most efficient shooting season of his career.
A career-best output is hardly the expectation for a 15-year pro with more than 30,000 career minutes played. Lopez turned 35 earlier this month and finished fourth in block rate (6.7 percent). The three players ranked ahead of him4 have played a combined 10 NBA seasons and are each at least 11 years younger. That a breakout season from a veteran on the oldest roster in the league might swing this year’s NBA title race is an odd reality. But it was one that was on clear display when the Bucks needed someone to pick up the slack in Antetokounmpo’s absence and help turn a series around.
Check out our latest NBA predictions.
]]>Busting 4 Major Myths About Referees In The NBA Playoffs
Randall Benton / AP Photo
The NBA playoffs come with an intensified microscope on everyone, referees maybe most of all.
Typically an afterthought (with some exceptions) during the regular season, NBA officials tend to be thrust into the limelight in the spring. Seemingly every postseason comes with a new incident or think piece on the sad state of NBA officiating. Fans learn the names of refs they’d barely registered the existence of until recently.
Most of this is innocent enough. NBA officials don’t mind the “heel” role they’re destined to play on social media or the inevitable boos when a home crowd feels wronged. Hell, some might even say acting irrationally about officials is part of being a sports fan(atic). But sometimes these conversations become more serious — such as when prominent players publicly raise issues about player-ref relationships and the quality of league officiating.
When that happens, several major misconceptions tend to seep in, and they’re worth unpacking as the most intense part of the season kicks into gear.
Myth No. 1: “Refs should be perfect!”
High-level basketball is impossible to officiate perfectly. It’s a far more dynamic game than, say, baseball, where nearly every decision is black-and-white in nature — there’s more subjectivity and gray area than any other major sport.
Even casual fans are likely aware of this, but may not grasp the basic arithmetic at play.
A typical NBA game features 500 to 550 material calls (or non-calls) made by the officiating crew, per sources within the NBA’s referee grading program.5 And while the league has shied away from touting raw accuracy percentages — i.e., the share of possible calls that refs got right in the moment, according to the letter of the rulebook — in recent years, those numbers hovered between 92 and 95 percent in the past, when that approach was more common. If a crew hits that 95 percent mark in a game with 500 decisions required, that still leaves 25 expected “misses.”
And some of those 25 will invariably occur at more important moments than others. “You can’t miss a call in that spot” is a common refrain from frustrated parties, but think about it for a moment: If officials could simply will themselves into never missing in high-leverage spots, wouldn’t they just do that for all situations instead?
None of this makes missed calls — especially the more obvious-looking ones — any less frustrating when they happen during a key sequence of a tense playoff contest. No one likes their team being disadvantaged by factors outside players’ control.
Broadly, though, accepting that misses are part of the game makes handling their inevitable occurrence a bit easier.
Myth No. 2: “Refs aren’t held accountable for errors!”
This one is a straight-up falsehood, sadly perpetuated by some media members in addition to casual fans.6
The reality: NBA refs are graded on every single decision by third-party evaluators. Those grades, as I also reported on last season, are a major factor in who gets promotions to crew chief roles, salary increases and playoff assignments (which carry further financial bonuses). Refs are sometimes fined for misapplication of rules; those who consistently fall below league standards are dismissed.
Some feel this accountability should be more public in nature, which is a fair position — though one with some nuance involved.7 Internally, though, tying financial outcomes directly to performance is about as good an example of accountability as one can find.
Myth No. 3: “The NBA assigned (insert ref name — usually Scott Foster) to a game on purpose to lengthen the series!”
Likely the most common implication among the NBA’s tinfoil-hat-wearers is this one: That in response to a couple of early blowouts in a series, the league will assign one of its “fixers” to guarantee the underdog a victory and, therefore, secure extra games and increased revenue.
A bit of logistics, per multiple league sources: Officiating crews are pre-assigned for Games 1 through 4 of every NBA playoff series ahead of time, in part to avoid criticisms just like this. Refs also are paid by the playoff round they reach,8 rather than by the game — so even if an official calls only one game in a given round, they receive the full bonus for that round. Again, this is so there’s zero incentive, conscious or subconscious, for a ref to do anything but call a game straight.
True conspiracy theorists are perhaps undeterred by this news; because the league is forced to assign refs on a game-by-game basis later in a series, they could still dictate outcomes!
But at the risk of giving this nonsense more attention than it deserves, the idea that a profitable and public sports entity would risk its entire legitimacy and a league-altering scandal for a few extra million here or there through any means9 is, frankly, laughable from a risk-reward standpoint. It’s especially so with Tim Donaghy’s rogue game-fixing incident, which current and former ref ops staff have worked very hard to recover from, not even two decades in the past. If the people running the league were this dumb, they’d have been caught years ago.
Let’s move on.
Myth No. 4: “(Team X) shot way more free throws than (Team Y) in that game — surely there’s something afoot!”
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Well over a decade ago, NBA officiating leadership moved away from the “game management” approach — that is, the idea that the rules are flexible depending on game situation or any other factor beyond whether or not an infraction took place. But there are many examples of misconceptions influenced by this thinking that still hang over the sport: That star players should be officiated differently purely based on status, not on merit; that certain calls should be whistled early in a game, but not if it’s close down the stretch; that a ref “owes” a team a call if the last several went against them; etc. Each is its own slippery slope toward bias and unfairness, and this myth is among their ilk.
In truth, call discrepancies mean refs are doing the job the right way. Some players and teams foul more than others! That should often be reflected in foul and free-throw totals.
The NBA’s officiating program, and its individual referees, are far from perfect. Legitimate critiques are an important part of improvement — but they’re tougher to discuss earnestly when faulty presumptions cloud the conversation.
But hey, if booing officials is your thing, boo away! They’ll live.
Check out our latest NBA predictions.
]]>How Mikal Bridges Went From Supporting Player To Star
Mitchell Leff / Getty Images
The Brooklyn Nets dropped both Games 1 and 2 of their series with the Philadelphia 76ers on the road, and they face a tough climb to come back and make this a competitive series — let alone advance to the second round. The Nets were heavy underdogs coming into the matchup, so their 2-0 deficit is not all that surprising. But one bright spot for Brooklyn is that, despite his team losing both games, Nets wing Mikal Bridges has showcased the holistic development of his game, carrying over to the postseason much of what he did upon arriving in Brooklyn in the Kevin Durant trade.
If you’ve been paying attention to the NBA over the past few months, you have almost surely heard all about Bridges’s explosion in volume, but the numbers are wild enough that they need to be repeated.
After setting a career high with a 15 percent usage rate last season with Phoenix, Bridges saw that figure rise to 19.2 percent during his 56 games with the Suns prior to the trade (and to 24.6 percent across his final 12 games as a Sun), but it exploded to 30.3 percent with the Nets. Prior to this season, Bridges had actually never attempted more than 18 shots in a single game.10 Across his 27 regular-season games with Brooklyn, Bridges averaged 18.6 field-goal attempts per game.
Even more impressive than the added volume, though, was Bridges’s apparent ability to handle it while maintaining his strong efficiency. Among the 57 non-rookies during the 3-point era11 who have attempted at least 18 shots a night in their first 27 games with a new team, Bridges’s 60.7 true shooting percentage was tied for the third-best mark. And among the top-10 such players, only Adrian Dantley in his first season with the Utah Jazz had made a larger jump in field-goal attempts per game from his previous team to his new one. The others had mostly already proved they could handle the higher volume.
Bridges showed he could still be efficient as a volume scorer
Highest true shooting percentages among non-rookies who attempted at least 18 shots per game in their first 27 games with a new team, 1980-present
| Rank | Player | Team | Season | TS% | FGA/Gm | Prev FGA/Gm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Adrian Dantley | UTA | 1980 | .656 | 19.3 | 12.2 |
| 2 | Donovan Mitchell | CLE | 2023 | .640 | 20.7 | 20.5 |
| 3 | LeBron James | LAL | 2019 | .607 | 20.0 | 19.3 |
| 4 | Mikal Bridges | BKN | 2023 | .607 | 18.6 | 13.6 |
| 5 | Kawhi Leonard* | TOR | 2019 | .606 | 19.0 | 17.7 |
| 6 | Kyrie Irving | BKN | 2020 | .603 | 20.6 | 18.5 |
| 7 | Anthony Davis | LAL | 2020 | .597 | 19.5 | 18.3 |
| 8 | Brandon Ingram | NOP | 2020 | .596 | 18.4 | 14.0 |
| 9 | DeMar DeRozan | CHI | 2022 | .592 | 19.2 | 15.1 |
| 10 | Amar’e Stoudemire | NYK | 2011 | .591 | 19.0 | 15.4 |
Incredibly, just about all of Bridges’s added volume came in the form of self-created shot attempts.
During his time in Phoenix, Bridges was rarely tasked with creating for himself. Being that he played on the same team as Chris Paul and Devin Booker, plus a former No. 1 overall pick in Deandre Ayton, and that he was never a high-volume player even in college at Villanova, it made sense that Bridges was largely asked to be a play-finisher during his time with the Suns. That began to change during the span where Booker and Paul missed time with injuries this season, but even that doesn’t compare to the work he was tasked with upon arriving in Brooklyn — the first stretch of his career in which fewer than half of his shots came off of a potential assist (according to Second Spectrum).
Bridges made his own opportunities in Brooklyn
Rates of assisted and unassisted field-goal attempts and self-created shooting fouls (SCSF) per game for Mikal Bridges by season of his NBA career
| Year | Team | Assisted* | Unassisted | Total | % Assisted* | SCSF/Gm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | PHX | 5.0 | 1.9 | 6.9 | 72.7% | 0.29 |
| 2020 | PHX | 4.9 | 1.7 | 6.6 | 73.6 | 0.19 |
| 2021 | PHX | 6.9 | 2.4 | 9.3 | 74.7 | 0.25 |
| 2022 | PHX | 7.3 | 3.2 | 10.5 | 69.2 | 0.54 |
| 2023 | PHX | 7.4 | 6.2 | 13.6 | 54.5 | 0.86 |
| 2023 | BKN | 7.5 | 11.1 | 18.6 | 40.2 | 2.33 |
As you can see, Bridges averaged almost exactly the same number of assisted (or potentially assisted) field-goal attempts per game in Brooklyn as he did in Phoenix earlier this season, and in each of the previous two. What changed was the volume of unassisted field-goal attempts, which accounted for 4.9 of the additional 5 shots per game he attempted as a Net. And it wasn’t just the shots — Bridges’s creation responsibility extended to the ability to get himself to the free-throw line. During the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons combined, Bridges drew 62 self-created shooting fouls,12 according to Second Spectrum. In just 27 regular-season games with Brooklyn, he drew 63 such shooting fouls. As a result, Bridges’s free-throw rate exploded, and the rates at which he used possessions and drew fouls were in line with those achieved exclusively by star scorers in recent seasons.
With the ball in his hands more often, Bridges has thrived as a creator. His pick-and-roll volume had already spiked early this season in Phoenix, then it more than doubled upon his arrival in Brooklyn. Still, when either he or a teammate one pass away finished the play (with a shot, turnover or foul drawn), Bridges maintained sterling efficiency. His isolation volume had already more than doubled in Phoenix, and it more than tripled again when he got to the Nets. Yet he achieved a level of efficiency on par with players such as Jalen Brunson and Trae Young.
Bridges has the ball in his hands a lot more now
Volume and efficiency for Mikal Bridges on direct* pick and rolls and isolation plays by season of his NBA career
| Year | Team | Per 100 | Pts/Direct | Per 100 | Pts/Direct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | PHX | 3.5 | 0.84 | 0.4 | 0.65 |
| 2020 | PHX | 1.7 | 0.78 | 0.4 | 0.92 |
| 2021 | PHX | 1.9 | 0.77 | 0.7 | 1.04 |
| 2022 | PHX | 2.5 | 0.95 | 0.8 | 1.05 |
| 2023 | PHX | 9.5 | 1.09 | 1.7 | 0.96 |
| 2023 | BKN | 19.2 | 1.01 | 5.8 | 1.08 |
Bridges is still developing his repertoire as a passer. His assists per game actually dipped a bit in Brooklyn from where it was in Phoenix earlier this season, although that figure on its own is at least somewhat misleading. The shots he created for his Brooklyn teammates, according to Second Spectrum, were the highest-value looks he’s created in his career to date. They carried an expected effective field-goal percentage of 53.0; his fellow Nets just missed a lot of the same shots his Suns teammates had made.13 Playmaking development can often be the last thing to come along when a player scales up his usage (and some big scorers just never actually become high-level creators for others), so it’s promising that Bridges has shown the ability to create quality shots for his teammates, even if not necessarily at all that high a volume just yet.
Beyond all of this, though, perhaps the best sign regarding Bridges’s evolution is that he leveled up like this while (a) being guarded by better defenders; and (b) maintaining his defensive role against opposing teams’ best (or second-best) offensive players.
“He’s probably going to be guarded by the No. 1 or No. 2 defender,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn noted earlier this season, while explaining the new burden Bridges had to shoulder. “So, we played Chicago, [Alex] Caruso’s guarding him, Pat Williams is guarding him. Where, when he was with Phoenix, Coby White might have been guarding him — not as distinguished a defender compared to those other two.”
That was borne out by the numbers. Using Second Spectrum matchup data and BBall-Index’s D-LEBRON, we can see that Bridges spent the significant majority of his career being guarded by relatively weaker defenders. Upon arriving in Brooklyn, though, that changed:
Opponents have been throwing tougher defenders at Bridges
Average defender quality* and share of possessions spent guarded by different defender types, according to BBall-Index’s classification system, for Mikal Bridges by season
| Year | Team | Defender Quality* | Point of Attack | Wing Stopper | All Others |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | PHX | -0.28 | 21.7% | 21.7% | 56.6% |
| 2020 | PHX | -0.19 | 29.2 | 19.4 | 51.4 |
| 2021 | PHX | -0.28 | 23.6 | 17.6 | 58.8 |
| 2022 | PHX | -0.28 | 21.3 | 16.3 | 62.4 |
| 2023 | PHX | -0.21 | 23.3 | 23.9 | 52.8 |
| 2023 | BKN | +0.01 | 37.5 | 24.3 | 38.3 |
And it wasn’t just the quality of defenders that increased, but also the type of defender. In previous seasons, opposing teams would have their best perimeter defenders guard Paul and/or Booker, while defending Bridges with whomever was left over or who needed to be hidden on a less-threatening offensive player. Looking at BBall-Index’s metrics, you can see that Bridges faced players classified in defensive-minded roles14 significantly more often when he got to the Nets. In other words, teams were more likely to defend Bridges with their version of Bridges, whereas before he might have been defended by, as Vaughn said, the Coby White types.
We’ve seen this so far during the series against Philadelphia, where the significant majority of his possessions have come against De’Anthony Melton and Tobias Harris. If he were still playing alongside Paul and Booker, Bridges would be much more likely to be guarded by James Harden or Tyrese Maxey. That type of thing likely won’t happen all that often anymore. Even with the more difficult matchups, though, Bridges still dropped 30 points on just 18 shots in Game 1. (He did get off just two shots after halftime, because when you score 23 points in the first half, the opposing team does tend to focus even more on denying your opportunities.) Bridges again saw Harris and Melton check him (along with Jalen McDaniels) for the majority of Game 2, and the Sixers also sent a second defender his way quite often. He was limited to 21 points as a result, but he managed to pick up seven assists — and could have had more had the Nets not shot so poorly. (Bridges had 14 potential assists.)
At the same time, Bridges is not, say, camping out on P.J. Tucker in the corner so he can conserve his energy for the offensive end of the floor. Bridges was not on Harden (the toughest perimeter matchup) all that often in Game 1, but he was in Game 2; and when he hasn’t been on the Sixers’ lead creator, he has spent most of his time guarding Maxey or Harris. That’s roughly in line with how Brooklyn used him after the trade, when he actually was tasked with the toughest half-court defensive matchups (according to BBall-Index’s O-LEBRON) of his career.
Bridges’s breakout is still in its nascent stages, and it remains to be seen how he handles the burdens of two-way stardom over the longer term. The difference between a good player and a great one is the consistency with which they produce at a star level, and the difference between a great player and a superstar is their ability to succeed even under disadvantageous circumstances. Bridges has shown he can reach star heights, in a way that came as a surprise even to the team that made him the centerpiece of the Durant trade. The question now is whether he can maintain this level of play, and do so while remaining one of the league’s best defenders and arguably its most durable player. Whether the Nets ultimately come back or fall flat in this series, Bridges has proved that the requisite skill set is there. The key moving forward is accessing the right parts of it on a consistent basis.
Check out our latest NBA predictions.
]]>Our New Live In-Game Win Probabilities Are Here For The NBA Playoffs
But first, check out how it worked for the regular season’s most exciting contests.
FIVETHIRTYEIGHT
The NBA playoffs are almost here, with the play-in tournament tipping off later tonight. But while the regular season was careening toward a dramatic finish, we were hard at work creating a live in-game win probability model — and we’re pretty damn excited to share it. We officially added this model to our forecast page this morning, and you can read more about the ins and outs of how it works here.15
With this shiny new feature, we can see how likely each team is to win every game in real time — and how their odds to bring home the Larry O’Brien Trophy are impacted by each play as well. We’ve even backfilled in-game win probabilities for all 1,230 games played in the 2022-23 regular season. So to give you a sense of what to expect from the interactive during the playoffs, let’s take a look back at some of the most exciting and memorable games this regular season to see what our new win probability model thought about each contest.
Donovan Mitchell’s explosive performance in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ improbable overtime win over the Chicago Bulls on Jan. 2 was one for the books. Not only were his 71 points the eighth-highest game total in league history and most in Cavaliers team history, they also propelled an inspired comeback. The Bulls took the reins as in-game favorites early on, first earning the edge up 32-26 with 31.9 seconds left in the first quarter, with an Alex Caruso steal16 pushing their win probability up to 54 percent. The Bulls would hold onto their win probability advantage for the next solid three quarters. But the Cavs clawed back to tie the score, and Bulls guard Zach LaVine missed a 28-foot stepback 3-pointer with 50.4 seconds left in the fourth quarter, giving the Cavs a 55-45 percent edge in win probability.
The Bulls quickly wrestled back the advantage, though, earning a 130-127 lead and 91 percent win probability with 7.4 seconds left in regulation. But sending Mitchell to the line a few seconds later came back to bite the Bulls. After making his first free throw attempt with 4.4 seconds left in the game, Mitchell intentionally missed his second attempt, corralled his own offensive rebound and made his quick-release putback attempt. This game-tying flurry with the clock stopped improved the Cavs’ win probability by a whopping 38 percentage points. After Bulls guard DeMar DeRozan airballed a buzzer-beating 3-pointer, the game went into overtime — where the Cavs scored the first 10 points and cruised to an 11-point win, capping off one of the more exciting and drama-filled comebacks in the league this season.
Luka DonÄiÄ’s 60-point triple-double and last-second, game-tying bucket that fueled the Dallas Mavericks’ wild comeback against the New York Knicks on Dec. 27 might be one of the few bright spots for Mavs fans in what was an otherwise incredibly disappointing regular season. When DonÄiÄ stepped to the line to shoot two free throws with 4.2 seconds left at the American Airlines Center, the Mavericks were down by three points with only a 7 percent chance to win the game according to our new model. But Luka hit his first free throw,17 intentionally missed the second,18 corralled the loose ball19 and hit a game-tying bucket20 in a dramatic sequence that ended up forcing overtime.21 Finishing the season outside the play-in tournament was a disaster for a franchise with title aspirations, but Mavs fans can at least look back fondly on this game and their superstar’s performance.
The marathon double-overtime game between the Sacramento Kings and Los Angeles Clippers on Feb. 24 had pretty much everything you could want in an NBA game22 — two overtimes, multiple dramatic moments,23 a close finish and the second-highest point total in NBA history. The Kings may have not outplayed the Clippers throughout their game at Crypto.com Arena, but they certainly outlasted them.24 They fought for four full quarters and almost two full overtimes as underdogs before our win probability model thought they had a better than 50 percent chance to win, when they were up 176-175 with 29.8 seconds left in double overtime and Kawhi Leonard missed a 17-foot stepback jumper. This impressive win showcases the kind of stick-to-itiveness this young, exciting Kings team needed to finally end a 16-year playoff drought, the longest in NBA history.
With 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter of the Los Angeles Lakers’ Feb. 7 clash with the Oklahoma City Thunder at Crypto.com Arena, LeBron James hit a 14-foot fadeaway jumper — a shot he’s worked so hard to add to his scoring arsenal throughout his career — to break Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time NBA scoring record. These 2 points were a landmark in the career of one of game’s all-time greats, but ultimately came in a futile effort for the Lakers. After James’s historic shot, the Lakers were down 104-99 with only a 33 percent chance to win according to our model. They briefly retook the edge in the first few minutes of the fourth quarter, but ultimately let the game slip away. It was a discouraging loss for a superstar-laden team that came into the year with a title-or-bust mentality, but now finds itself needing to survive the play-in tournament to avoid missing the playoffs for a second straight season.
The Chicago Bulls’ double-overtime road win against the Philadelphia 76ers on March 20 was a thrilling, back-and-forth contest. The Sixers came into the game on an eight-game winning streak and were pretty hefty favorites according to our model, which gave them an 80 percent chance to win. But Joel Embiid, James Harden and company ran into a frisky Bulls team fighting for one of the last play-in spots in the East. The two teams went back and forth all game, with neither team leading by more than eight points throughout the entire game.
Our model’s favorite flipped back and forth a whopping 31 times during the second half and both overtimes. Ultimately, Zach LaVine’s offensive rebound after a Patrick Beverly missed 3-pointer with 57.8 seconds left in double OT turned the tide in Chicago’s favor for good. The Bulls held a 55 percent win probability after the rebound, and kept the edge until they finished off the Sixers by four points. It was a crucial win that helped them stay afloat in the playoff hunt in the Eastern Conference at the time.25
Those were just a handful of the games from a wildly entertaining NBA season. Lucky for us, our new win probability model does the same thing for each and every contest, analyzing how each play influenced each team’s odds to win. It will also be updating live over on our NBA forecast page during upcoming play-in and playoff games, allowing you to see how each turnover, stepback three and buzzer-beater affects your favorite team’s26 chances to be crowned world champions. We hope you’ll follow along with us!
Check out our latest NBA predictions.
]]>No Play-In Team Has Won An NBA Playoff Series. Will That Change This Season?
David Berding / Getty Images
