Analysis The Race for Home-Court Advantage - 25/26 Playoffs Seed Tracker

[spursistan]

Wolves are not an ideal match up but it’s the WCSF and I’d still prefer them over Denver.

Agreed. Their ceiling is high but they are less consistent than Denver and Jokic is the superior and the more reliable playoffs performer than Ant. At the end of the day, you got to beat a good team in the West Conf semis.

 

[spursistan]

Lakers can't tank that last game if they tried (vs Jazz who are gunning for top 4 lottery odds), that is if they prefer Houston over Wolves in R1. So Spurs-Denver will decide everything.

 

[mudyez]

I expect both teams to go for it, but not showing their bag of tricks, as this might become an 8 game series.
Denver can't afford to make their players feel like they want to avoid any opponent even if they actually would be smart to do so (not facing Wolves while going against OKC asblong rather earlier/fresh).
On the other hand, Spurs will try to avoid Denver at all costs. The easiest road still would be POR-LAK-OKC.

 

[Dbreiden83080]

So are we playing Denver for real or NOT? Lakers and Spurs playing at the same time on Sunday..

It is a tough call IMO.

 

[Ice009]

I'd like to play it for real. I don't like that Victor is 1-4 against them/Jokic or whatever the record is. Not sure how much the Spurs care about it and/or if they're even looking as far ahead as who the second round opponent would likely be (DEN or possibly MIN). I don't like the idea of looking ahead to round 2 before even starting the playoffs.

However, I do believe in going through any team and not trying to get a specific opponent (I'm still mad about Memphis trying to get us in the first round in 2011 and then Manu getting hurt opening the door for them further - so that is another thing to think about), and that beating the better teams can set you up to be better prepared in the later rounds against the best teams, so I'm not sure what the call should/would be. Another poster did mention a week or so ago that it's smarter to get some easier matchups if you're trying to win a Championship. It's a pretty good point as I'm always looking to win no matter who the team plays, but as impressive as it would be, I tend to overlook how taxing it can be trying to go through all the best teams.

The Spurs have tried to win every game they play this season regardless of who plays or not, so maybe they should just keep doing what they've been doing. If I was pressed for an answer, that is what I would say to continue to do.

 

[spursparker9]

So is see we want T-wolves or Denver in the 2nd round....

tbh I will take T-wolves

 

[NASpurs]

It feels like every game this year, the Spurs were up by double digits only for the Wolves to come back. Although it seems like most of the those games came when our team were going through the infamous "turd" quarter episodes.

 

[spurraider21]

Play if for real but with predetermined minutes restrictions. Don’t need to overextend anybody and play 35+ min

30 min hard cap on everybody maybe

 

[BatManu20]

It feels like every game this year, the Spurs were up by double digits only for the Wolves to come back. Although it seems like most of the those games came when our team were going through the infamous "turd" quarter episodes.

We still go through those pretty often tbh

 

[SpursFan86]

It feels like every game this year, the Spurs were up by double digits only for the Wolves to come back. Although it seems like most of the those games came when our team were going through the infamous "turd" quarter episodes.

Just generally speaking (not even just with Minny)…I’d actually be interested to know how many of our 19 losses involved us being up by double digits at some point. I seriously feel like half of them were games where we blew sizable leads.

 

[Fabbs]

And Jokic has to play to hit 65 games

I would think Jokic almost might believe he has a chance for the MVP.
Even tho the media IQ is set to give it to FTAs.

Legitimately it's between he and Wemby. I mean to observers with BB brain cells.
So while i myself would not tip it to Joker with a monster final head to head game, some might.

 

[scott]

So is see we want T-wolves or Denver in the 2nd round....

tbh I will take T-wolves

But do you want T-Wolves coming off an easy sweep of the Lakers… or DEN/MIN coming off a tough series against one another?

 

[scott]

Just generally speaking (not even just with Minny)…I’d actually be interested to know how many of our 19 losses involved us being up by double digits at some point. I seriously feel like half of them were games where we blew sizable leads.

Per Paul Garcia (from his tweets yesterday) who is definitely the go to guy for this

Spurs are 30-1 this season when having a 20 point lead (Denver was the sole loss)

44-4 when leading by 15

52-14 when leading by double digits. So, 14 of our 19 losses to answer your question.

 

[SpursFan86]

Per Paul Garcia (from his tweets yesterday) who is definitely the go to guy for this

Spurs are 30-1 this season when having a 20 point lead (Denver was the sole loss)

44-4 when leading by 15

52-14 when leading by double digits. So, 14 of our 19 losses to answer your question.

Nice…good info. That seems pretty insane but maybe in these days it’s somewhat normal with how many comebacks you see due to teams getting hot from 3.

Only 5 losses this year where we weren’t up by double digits at some point!

 

[scott]

Nice…good info. That seems pretty insane but maybe in these days it’s somewhat normal with how many comebacks you see due to teams getting hot from 3.

Only 5 losses this year where we weren’t up by double digits at some point!

I am digging through his feed to try to find our record when trailing by double digits, but it’s been awhile so it might take me a bit… but here are some other fun facts I’m coming across along the way.

I also realized, those records above were in-game before we officially beat the Mavs, so add one win to all of them.

When we beat Portland, we improved to 41-8 when winning or tying 2s and 44-10 when winning or tying FTs

We are now 50-13 as favorites (so 12-6 as underdogs)

After the win over Philly we improved to 40-8 when winning or tying 3s

5 days ago (after DEN loss), he posted this stat: Before Feb 1, the Spurs played 24 crunch time games, 8th most in the league, going 17-10 (6th best record). Since Feb 1, only 9 crunch time games (7th fewest), going 7-2 (2nd best record)

This was the best I could find on trailing by double digits… on 3/19 Garcia tweeted that the Spurs were 11-12 when trailing by double digits. That’s pretty impressive.

 

[NASpurs]

1st game early in the season on the road against Minny:
Largest lead for the Spurs: 10 points in the second quarter.
Had a 9 point lead in the third quarter with 3:12 left.
Ended up losing by 13
Ant had 32 points

2nd game in January on the road again
Largest lead for the Spurs was 19 with 7:11 left in the third quarter
Spurs had a 14 point lead going into the fourth
Ended up losing by 1
Ant had 23 points

3rd game at home on January 17th
Largest lead for us was 25 points to end the first half
Wolves cut it down to 12 to end the turd quarter
Spurs won by 3 despite Minny actually leading in the 4th a couple of times
Ant had 55

 

[NASpurs]

Basically we've had double digits lead against them three times out of the three times played which resulted in two losses and barely winning one despite leading by 25.

 

[scott]

Basically we've had double digits lead against them three times out of the three times played which resulted in two losses and barely winning one despite leading by 25.

Game 2 is when they spotted us a 16-0 lead, right?

 

[Fabbs]

Basically we've had double digits lead against them three times out of the three times played which resulted in two losses and barely winning one despite leading by 25.

Highly distrurbing trend. What gives? Or rather give'd?
Need to snuff this ish out next game.