Numbers that mean something

[indeedproceed]

Number of games won by teams on the road this round:

1, Pistons with dramatic 1 point win in Orlando

Number of games decided by 7 points or more this round:

13 of 16

Number of those games won by teams on the road:

0


What do those numbers mean? It means virtually every time the home team has won, and 81% of the time its not been close. Also if the visiting team does win, then it was a really tight one, and the home team could've won.

Keep those numbers in mind today when reading the posts about how "A Message was Sent" (thanks ESPN.), or how "This Series was over when.." or posts already decrying our demise and planning for next year. If we as fans demonstrated half as much poise and character in the face of adversity as we expect the players on the team to have, we'd realize these playoffs are going exactly to script, and this round nobody has separated themselves from the pack. We are capable, and in position to win this series, and nothing we've seen so far this round inclines us to show that we can't.

Is next game a must win? Probably. Was last night? well it would've put the ky-bosh on Cleveland's hopes but no.

So everyone who feels like last night or Saturday for that matter doomed us to an early exit do yourself a favor: Walk outside, breath deep, and look up. The sky is not falling.

This team has showed remarkable heart. Give it and the players the credit and faith they deserve. And go buy more jerseys and memorabilia. They like that. 

[CT34]

I think you overlooked the biggest number of all 0-5.  That's the Celtics road record in the play-offs.  I have a another number for you 3.  That the number of road games won by every NBA championship team in the history of the league. Nobody has not won a championship with out winning at least 3 road games. 

So I did take a walk outside, I took a deep breath, and I look up.  NO the sky wasn't falling but the hope of the Cs making a lont play-off run did fall. 

[MetroGlobe]

I couldn't have said it any better myself.  There is no way Joe Smith and Daniel Gibson are going to come into Boston and shoot 90% from the field.  Just like our role players completely choke in the opponent's gym, so will theirs.  And so has every other teams' in the NBA this year.  There is no reason to panic.  We will win our home games unless something goes horribly, horribly wrong.

And if you're a conspiracy theorist, you can also take solace that the NBA stands to profit much more by advancing the Celtics than the Cavaliers. 

[Redz]

Well said IP.  Just win the series.  Doesn't have to be pretty.

[Bahku]

Number of games won by teams on the road this round:

1, Pistons with dramatic 1 point win in Orlando

Number of games decided by 7 points or more this round:

13 of 16

Number of those games won by teams on the road:

0


What do those numbers mean? It means virtually every time the home team has won, and 81% of the time its not been close. Also if the visiting team does win, then it was a really tight one, and the home team could've won.

Keep those numbers in mind today when reading the posts about how "A Message was Sent" (thanks ESPN.), or how "This Series was over when.." or posts already decrying our demise and planning for next year. If we as fans demonstrated half as much poise and character in the face of adversity as we expect the players on the team to have, we'd realize these playoffs are going exactly to script, and this round nobody has separated themselves from the pack. We are capable, and in position to win this series, and nothing we've seen so far this round inclines us to show that we can't.

Is next game a must win? Probably. Was last night? well it would've put the ky-bosh on Cleveland's hopes but no.

So everyone who feels like last night or Saturday for that matter doomed us to an early exit do yourself a favor: Walk outside, breath deep, and look up. The sky is not falling.

This team has showed remarkable heart. Give it and the players the credit and faith they deserve. And go buy more jerseys and memorabilia. They like that. 

Indeed, Indeed, (sorry ... been wanting to do that for a while). I'm completely on your side here, and a TP for the effort!

[indeedproceed]

I think you overlooked the biggest number of all 0-5.  That's the Celtics road record in the play-offs.  I have a another number for you 3.  That the number of road games won by every NBA championship team in the history of the league. Nobody has not won a championship with out winning at least 3 road games. 

So I did take a walk outside, I took a deep breath, and I look up.  NO the sky wasn't falling but the hope of the Cs making a lont play-off run did fall. 

He's what I think about the road record: Who cares? We won that series. We'll win this series. We're having trouble winning on the road, but we're winning at home. Who cares.

If 3 games is the magic number we need to hit in order to win an NBA championship well my answer is this: We've got one more guaranteed road game this series and a possible 6 more on the road to the finals. There is plenty of time still to reach our quota of 3.

[CT34]

I think you overlooked the biggest number of all 0-5.  That's the Celtics road record in the play-offs.  I have a another number for you 3.  That the number of road games won by every NBA championship team in the history of the league. Nobody has not won a championship with out winning at least 3 road games. 

So I did take a walk outside, I took a deep breath, and I look up.  NO the sky wasn't falling but the hope of the Cs making a lont play-off run did fall. 

He's what I think about the road record: Who cares? We won that series. We'll win this series. We're having trouble winning on the road, but we're winning at home. Who cares.

If 3 games is the magic number we need to hit in order to win an NBA championship well my answer is this: We've got one more guaranteed road game this series and a possible 6 more on the road to the finals. There is plenty of time still to reach our quota of 3.

I have one more number for you and that's the number 1.  In order to win this series the Cav only have to win 1 game in Boston.

[Redz]

I think you overlooked the biggest number of all 0-5.  That's the Celtics road record in the play-offs.  I have a another number for you 3.  That the number of road games won by every NBA championship team in the history of the league. Nobody has not won a championship with out winning at least 3 road games. 

So I did take a walk outside, I took a deep breath, and I look up.  NO the sky wasn't falling but the hope of the Cs making a lont play-off run did fall. 

He's what I think about the road record: Who cares? We won that series. We'll win this series. We're having trouble winning on the road, but we're winning at home. Who cares.

If 3 games is the magic number we need to hit in order to win an NBA championship well my answer is this: We've got one more guaranteed road game this series and a possible 6 more on the road to the finals. There is plenty of time still to reach our quota of 3.

I have one more number for you and that's the number 1.  In order to win this series the Cav only have to win 1 game in Boston.

That would be assuming they can beat the C's in Cleveland

[Who]

I think you overlooked the biggest number of all 0-5.  That's the Celtics road record in the play-offs.  I have a another number for you 3.  That the number of road games won by every NBA championship team in the history of the league. Nobody has not won a championship with out winning at least 3 road games. 

So I did take a walk outside, I took a deep breath, and I look up.  NO the sky wasn't falling but the hope of the Cs making a lont play-off run did fall. 

He's what I think about the road record: Who cares? We won that series. We'll win this series. We're having trouble winning on the road, but we're winning at home. Who cares.

Because the number has meaning

The players look scared/confused/stiff/tight/whatever word you want and it's in their heads now. They need a road win. The longer this goes on the worse it's going to get. I expect it to effect their home form at some point too.

Atlanta is over but they struggled just the same against Cleveland. They don't get seperation when they do the exact same thing 5 times in two different series against two completely different teams.

It's a relevant number and an important number.

I have one more number for you and that's the number 1.  In order to win this series the Cav only have to win 1 game in Boston.

Absolutely. The margin for effor is minimal. They're backing themselves into a corner unneccessarily with this terrible form on the road.

[indeedproceed]

I think you overlooked the biggest number of all 0-5.  That's the Celtics road record in the play-offs.  I have a another number for you 3.  That the number of road games won by every NBA championship team in the history of the league. Nobody has not won a championship with out winning at least 3 road games. 

So I did take a walk outside, I took a deep breath, and I look up.  NO the sky wasn't falling but the hope of the Cs making a lont play-off run did fall. 

He's what I think about the road record: Who cares? We won that series. We'll win this series. We're having trouble winning on the road, but we're winning at home. Who cares.

If 3 games is the magic number we need to hit in order to win an NBA championship well my answer is this: We've got one more guaranteed road game this series and a possible 6 more on the road to the finals. There is plenty of time still to reach our quota of 3.

I have one more number for you and that's the number 1.  In order to win this series the Cav only have to win 1 game in Boston.

The Cavs are no more likely to win a game in Boston than we are to win a game in Cleveland. No matter how this is looked at you've got to give the edge to Boston because we have 2 of the 3 possible games coming up at home in a series in which neither team has won on the road. Would you say Cleveland "sent a message" that they can win in Boston? Was it any stronger than that 16 point message we "sent" them in game 2? Come on. 

I simply choose to believe that we'll win tomorrow night at home. I also choose to believe that we'll win in Cleveland in 4 days. But if you want to play a numbers game, you ought to believe that We'll win the next 2 of 3 games because they happen to occur in Boston.

I think you overlooked the biggest number of all 0-5.  That's the Celtics road record in the play-offs.  I have a another number for you 3.  That the number of road games won by every NBA championship team in the history of the league. Nobody has not won a championship with out winning at least 3 road games. 

So I did take a walk outside, I took a deep breath, and I look up.  NO the sky wasn't falling but the hope of the Cs making a lont play-off run did fall. 

He's what I think about the road record: Who cares? We won that series. We'll win this series. We're having trouble winning on the road, but we're winning at home. Who cares.

Because the number has meaning

The players look scared/confused/stiff/tight/whatever word you want and it's in their heads now. They need a road win. The longer this goes on the worse it's going to get. I expect it to effect their home form at some point too.

Atlanta is over but they struggled just the same against Cleveland. They don't get seperation when they do the exact same thing 5 times in two different series against two completely different teams.

It's a relevant number and an important number.

I have one more number for you and that's the number 1.  In order to win this series the Cav only have to win 1 game in Boston.

Absolutely. The margin for effor is minimal. They're backing themselves into a corner unneccessarily with this terrible form on the road.

I did take the number out of context somewhat and yes I understand that they've backed themselves into a corner, but to say that the bad play on the road is anything but par for the course in the second round of the playoffs is untrue. I don't want to make assumptions as to where the players heads are at but i had to I'd assume especially for the younger players the longer we go without a road win the less steady their hand will be.

But, I think through 82 games this season they've proved they can be better than that, and while 0-5 has relevance, doesn't 6-0 carry the same weight?

[CT34]

Yes 6-0 does carry some weight.  But we can't hold our hat to that.  What if the unthinkable happens and the Cs was to drop game 5 tomorrow. Then what, you have faith in them going into Cleveland to win game 6? Right now I don't.  Right now I hope they win tomorrow  and hope the win on Friday.  But then again I hope they would get games 3 and 4. 

[Roy Hobbs]

I think you overlooked the biggest number of all 0-5.  That's the Celtics road record in the play-offs.  I have a another number for you 3.  That the number of road games won by every NBA championship team in the history of the league. Nobody has not won a championship with out winning at least 3 road games. 

So I did take a walk outside, I took a deep breath, and I look up.  NO the sky wasn't falling but the hope of the Cs making a lont play-off run did fall. 

He's what I think about the road record: Who cares? We won that series. We'll win this series. We're having trouble winning on the road, but we're winning at home. Who cares.

Here's why you should care: the players are feeling it.  Doc has admitted the team is feeling "stress", KG is pointing fingers, and Pierce acknowledged that there's a monkey on the team's back due to the road losses. 

That pressure is going to mount.  Now, let's assume we win each of our home games, and lose our road games, throughout the next round.  We're going into the Finals with three consecutive emotionally draining Game 7s, and we've played 21 high-pressure games.

We're then playing a series against San Antonio, LA, Utah, or New Orleans with the 2-3-2 format.  That means, if we maintain the status quo, we're going back home facing two straight elimination games.  If you think the pressure is bad now, wait until we're on the brink of being knocked out.

I think it's very important to win a road game as soon as possible.  The thinking that we'll continue to win all of our home games is a fallacy, I think.

[Who]

and while 0-5 has relevance, doesn't 6-0 carry the same weight?

6-0 does have great weight but it also carries a higher risk for complacency. Of relying on the power of home court instead of their skills/game plan.

Whereas 0-5 carries a higer risk for losing confidence.

The Cavs are no more likely to win a game in Boston than we are to win a game in Cleveland. No matter how this is looked at you've got to give the edge to Boston because we have 2 of the 3 possible games coming up at home in a series in which neither team has won on the road. Would you say Cleveland "sent a message" that they can win in Boston? Was it any stronger than that 16 point message we "sent" them in game 2? Come on. 

I think Cleveland sent the stronger message. They were leading with under 2 minutes to play and had the chance to send the game into overtime with a layup by their best player.

They also won here during the regular season. They've also won bigger playoff games on the road as a unit than the Celtics have.

I think Cleveland sent the bigger message and that's they can win on Boston's homecourt.

Also, I agree with you that the edge is with Boston. They've two home games and ..... if they didn't they are still the better team and if they play like they're supposed to, they'll win, simple as that.

[wdleehi]

Boston, only team left in the playoffs not to win on the road. 

[Roy Hobbs]

6-5 (.545) against two inferior teams.