The only teams in the East in the top 10 of defensive ratings are the Hawks, Heat, and Hornets. Can we assume then that only one of these teams will make the finals? The Cavs have the 3rd best offense in the league and they didnt have Love, Korver, and Smith for large parts of the season. They are ridiculously stacked and getting healthy at the right time of the year imo.
This shows what a complete and utter fail this thread is
This is both silly and factually incorrect. Toronto is 8th in defensive efficiency at 104.9, and Boston is literally .1 from being a top-10 defensive team (11th at 105.3). This is completely consistent with this argument, and we were as high as 9th just a couple of days ago, iirc.
according to bball reference the Raptors are 11th at 107.9 opp points per possession. Boston is tied for 13th at 108.3. The Wizards are 18th at 108.6. The Cavs are 22nd at 110.4. The only 4 teams in the East in the top 10 are in order the Hawks, Heat, Pistons, and Hornets.
The problem with the analysis is that it says teams not in the top 10 won't make the Finals, yet the top 4 teams in the East are not in the top 10, so unless the OP is going to go out on a limb and claim the Hawks, Heat, Pistons, or Hornets is making the Finals, then the entire premise of the thread is a fail.
Pretty sure those numbers are way off, and I think bball reference is always a bit off in that regard.
Both ESPN and NBA.com have the same numbers with the Raptors at 8th at 104.9, Boston at 11 at 105.3, Washington at 18 at 106.1, and Cleveland at 22 at 108.1.
http://www.espn.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/defensiveEff
http://stats.nba.com/teams/defense/#!?sort=DEF_RATING&dir=-1
Yeah I trust NBA.com definition of a possession, thus there possession based numbers, over BBall-Ref.
Didn't realize Toronto was actually a top 10 defense. I guess this mean Toronto is 100% guaranteed to make the Finals this year. They are the only top 10 defense in the East, thus the only team that can make it. No one else has any chance.
Oh wait, teams outside the top 10 have in fact made it before, including 2 out of the last three year. And guess, what, those teams team had LeBron.
Having a top 10 defense does not guarantee a Finals appearance. Not having a top 10 defense does not guarantee you will not make the Finals. I doubt goodness of fit test would really support the claim being made here by the OP, based on the data. Remember, a guarantee is 100%. No way the confidence interval here would be 100%. Not even close.
It was a hyperbolic statement based on loose data. Cleveland's bad defense may in fact hold them back, but let's not act like that is guaranteed. I'd guess there is probably way more data that would support the Cavs making the Finals (I'm not actually going to look that up).
Oh, of course the guarantee was hyperbolic, and nobody should take any type of guarantee like that serious since nobody can really guarantee anything like that.
I was primarily defending the logic of the argument, which is sound. And the arbitrary cut-offs of "top-10" don't really matter. What matters is that both Toronto and Boston are much better defensively, especially recently, than Cleveland, which has historically been more associated with playoff success than not.
And with all that being said, I'd still put Cleveland at around a 50% chance of making the Finals versus the field of Boston, Toronto, and Washington. I think they're still the (slight) favorites for a single team to make the Finals in the East simply because they have the single best player in the world right now, but it's certainly not crazy to think that one of those three teams could knock them off in the second or third round with how they're playing now.
I think people are giving the Cavs a bit too much credit lately. They're simply playing bad ball right now, and it's not nearly as much about "effort" as people claim. They're in very real danger of not making the Finals this year if they get a bad roadmap in the Eastern playoff standings.
Topic: The Cleveland Cavaliers will NOT make the NBA Finals. Here's why (Read 4737 times)