Another Old Team with 4th Quarter Problems

[Brickowski]

From RealGM's account of last night's Portland-San Antonio game:

"The short-handed Portland Trail Blazers (30-22) stormed back in the fourth quarter to defeat the San Antonio Spurs (28-20) at the Rose Garden....... Portland shot 51% and outrebounded San Antonio by nine."

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

[Evantime34]

From RealGM's account of last night's Portland-San Antonio game:

"The short-handed Portland Trail Blazers (30-22) stormed back in the fourth quarter to defeat the San Antonio Spurs (28-20) at the Rose Garden....... Portland shot 51% and outrebounded San Antonio by nine."

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

yeah that sounds about right. I think our healthy starters are better than theirs and our bench is deeper but I'd say they are like a slightly worse version of us.

[Drucci]

Useless thread, this loss had nothing to do with the age of the Spurs.

Blaming poor execution and collapses on age is easy but it's not close to reality, especially since the Spurs are not that old.

[thirstyboots18]

It was a road game for San Antonio, not sure if it was the second of a back to back....the Trail Blazers are a good team and this should not be an indictment of the Spurts.   

The Celtics are on their way to another championship (in my hopeful opinion) and have been beaten by worse teams "at home"!
Any one game means nothing.  Any team can win a game...the Spurs are one of the few teams that knows how to win a series.

[scoop]

Point differential margin through 3 quarters:

1. LA Lakers  (38-12)     +6.3     
2. Cleveland  (40-11)     +6.3
3. Boston (31-16)    +5.4    
4. Utah (30-18)    +4.0    
5. San Antonio (28-20)    +3.9

Point differential margin in 4th quarter:

1. Denver (33-16)     +2.4 
2. New York (19-29)    +2.0
3. Orlando (33-16)    +1.6    
4. Portland (30-22)    +1.5    
5. Golden State (13-35) +1.5
(...)
12. San Antonio (28-20) +0.6
(...)
19. Boston (31-16)     -0.2
 
I think you may be on something. I'd run some regressions league-wide to estimate a correlation coefficient, but how does one define the "age" variable? Average age can be extremely misleading.

[Brickowski]

Well, you can start by limiting the age statistic to the first eight guys in the rotation.  That will give a more meaningful (albeit imperfect) number.

[Boris Badenov]

Point differential margin through 3 quarters:

1. LA Lakers  (38-12)     +6.3     
2. Cleveland  (40-11)     +6.3
3. Boston (31-16)    +5.4    
4. Utah (30-18)    +4.0    
5. San Antonio (28-20)    +3.9

Point differential margin in 4th quarter:

1. Denver (33-16)     +2.4 
2. New York (19-29)    +2.0
3. Orlando (33-16)    +1.6    
4. Portland (30-22)    +1.5    
5. Golden State (13-35) +1.5
(...)
12. San Antonio (28-20) +0.6
(...)
19. Boston (31-16)     -0.2
 
I think you may be on something. I'd run some regressions league-wide to estimate a correlation coefficient, but how does one define the "age" variable? Average age can be extremely misleading.

Construct a weighted average age, where the weights are minutes played (or seasons played, perhaps).

I would not estimate a correlation coefficient. I suspect that differentials are not linearly related to age (they may be most negative for very young and very old teams).

[Brickowski]

Well the Spurs are going through a bad stretch, just like the Celtics did.  Popovich has been ranting about it, and his words sound very familiar... we didn't rebound, didn't execute down the stretch, etc. etc.

[Andy Jick]

it's the annual "Spurs Rodeo Road Trip" - I saw the other night they've fared pretty well in the past during this trip.  but they're older now, so I'll be curious to see how this ends up.