Statistically Speaking: '10 Miami Heat are a top team in the NBA

[soap07]

I think their record against good teams reflects that. The've split with orlando (and the second game wasent close, no coincidence the magic abused them with DH)  gotten swept by us, and been dominated by the mavericks, and split with utah.

The first game with Orlando wasn't close either - it went the other way. In both games that we've played against them, the Heat played as awful as they can possibly play and STILL were in the game with less than a minute left. That is telling. In the loss against the Jazz - that game came down to Paul Milsap hitting 3's. Meh, the Heat are much better than their record.

[BballTim]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=8159

  Is this what you were looking at?

  "In the NBA, dominating good teams is clearly the best indicator of postseason success."

[housecall]

Why wouldn't we expect them to score a lot of points aganist teams who never heard of the word defense unless it was being reference to the gov't's Dept of Defense.Team wise it is not helping you when its time to play teams that they can't get into transition as often.They haven't figured out how to play a halfcourt offense consistently good or stop a team with decent bigs in the paint.In the playoffs the fastbreaks will not come as frequent,the defense will have some players who actually put a body and have some hands in their face.I watched the game last night aganist the Warriors.Daivd Lee still having some physical issues.#2.There second leading scorer was out with a ankle sprain#3the Heat probably would have beaten them but the stats wouldn't have been as onesided.

[BballTim]

I think their record against good teams reflects that. The've split with orlando (and the second game wasent close, no coincidence the magic abused them with DH)  gotten swept by us, and been dominated by the mavericks, and split with utah.

The first game with Orlando wasn't close either - it went the other way. In both games that we've played against them, the Heat played as awful as they can possibly play and STILL were in the game with less than a minute left. That is telling. In the loss against the Jazz - that game came down to Paul Milsap hitting 3's. Meh, the Heat are much better than their record.

  The Heat aren't much better than their record. Claiming that they were still in the games against us in the final minutes is extremely generous. We were firmly in control of both games from early on with double digit halftime leads that we never relinquished.

[soap07]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=8159

  Is this what you were looking at?

  "In the NBA, dominating good teams is clearly the best indicator of postseason success."

I was focusing more on this part - "But the second-most predictive attribute of "final four" success was having more stomps -- that is, destroying the league's weaker teams. And having more stomps was actually a better indicator of success than having more guts (close wins against good teams), just like Schatz found in football."

This is more applicable because the Celtics haven't dominated good teams so the first predictor doesn't much apply.

[barefacedmonk]

Guts and Stomps....that's what makes Miami a threat now?..lol. What a joke!

[soap07]

The Heat aren't much better than their record. Claiming that they were still in the games against us in the final minutes is extremely generous. We were firmly in control of both games from early on with double digit halftime leads that we never relinquished.

Are you kidding? With 1:09 left in  the season opener, the Heat had the game within 3 points. It is generous to say that they were still in the game in the final minutes? Man, how early do you usually give up when the Celtics are down? In the second game, with 13 seconds left, the Celtics led by 3 points - 110 - 107.  It is generous to say that being down one possession late in the game means you're still in the game? Revisionist history here.


http://espn.go.com/nba/playbyplay?gameId=301026002

http://espn.go.com/nba/playbyplay?gameId=301111014&period=4

[barefacedmonk]

Defending/sticking up for Miami....it's the cool thing to do now.

[indeedproceed]

Defending/sticking up for Miami....it's the cool thing to do now.

This is the part that is annoying. People (the media, not saying fans here) I feel like just want soooo bad to right about Miami. They all said this summer they were going to be amazing, and than they all overreacted when they were down. Now that they're winning, they're pretending they were right all along.

Annoying.

[crownsy]

I was just about to post that, Fan from VT - thanks for beating me to it. Point differential is far more indicative of how the Heat will perform down the road. I should note - both Bosh/Z have above average PER numbers. All this talk about the bad Heat front court is very much exaggerated.

No, it isn't

Explain to me goatherds undersiEd front court doesn't et abused byrne magic, celtics and lakers, then I'll take that comment seriously

[soap07]

This is the part that is annoying. People (the media, not saying fans here) I feel like just want soooo bad to right about Miami. They all said this summer they were going to be amazing, and than they all overreacted when they were down. Now that they're winning, they're pretending they were right all along.

Annoying.

Agreed - although, the same was probably during the C's 2008 run. Remember how the media/NBA fans reacted after the first loss to the Pistons? The one where TA bit on the Billups' upfake?

[soap07]

Explain to me goatherds undersiEd front court doesn't et abused byrne magic, celtics and lakers, then I'll take that comment seriously

I'm not sure what you're saying here...

[crownsy]

Wow flatheads? I really just need to quit postin from my iPhone. Between safari not being able to show what your typing and autocorrect being awful it just isn't readable

[Fan from VT]

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=8159

  Is this what you were looking at?

  "In the NBA, dominating good teams is clearly the best indicator of postseason success."

Soap pointed it out.

In general, Final Four (postseason) success is best predicted by:
1. Blowing out Good teams
2. Blowing out Bad teams
3. Winning close vs. Good teams
4. Winning close vs. bad teams

'losing close vs. good teams' not really having much bearing compared to the above 4.

However, the above generalization does not take into account the possibility of specific matchups in which one team can consistently exploit an achilles heal of the other; in Miami's case, this year, it could turn out to be size mismatch's; we all will be rooting for this to be the case!

[angryguy77]

Only stat that matters-0-2 against Boston

That's not true at all.  The Cavs were 2-0 versus the Spurs in 2006-2007.

Their head to head match ups with the Celtics this year makes me confident if they meet in the playoffs. That doesn't mean they're not a top team in the NBA.

The way we beat them speaks volumes. Reg season wins may not mean much, but when a team has had flaws exposed by multiple teams I think its safe to say our wins do point to something positive.