After an atrocious first couple months of their NBA season, the Philadelphia 76ers have rebounded well and are playing some of the hottest ball in the league. Currently, the Sixers are the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs. If the playoffs started today, the Sixers would play the Chicago Bulls in the first round. However, with 16 games to play both the six (0.5 games behind) and even the five (4 games behind) seed seem to be obtainable goals for the Sixers.
As we all know the teams above the Sixers right now are the New York Knicks and the Atlanta Hawks. Today, I wanted to take a look at each teams remaining schedule and schedule strength to see how it looks for our Sixers between now and the end of the season.
A note on my numbers: As the Sixers have played better and better ball each month, I did not look at records from the beginning of the season to calculate these numbers. The winning percentages used for these numbers are for games played from January 1, 2011 through February 27, 2011 (I haven't gotten the games updated since the 27th, sorry)
Team Performance January 1, 2011 through February 27th, 2011
Team |
Win Pct |
HOME Win Pct |
Away Win Pct |
Philadelphia |
.654 |
.786 |
.500 |
New York |
.480 |
.615 |
.333 |
Atlanta |
.625 |
.556 |
.667 |
Team Remaining Schedule
Team |
Home Games |
Away Games |
SOS |
Philadelphia |
8 |
9 |
.495 |
New York |
10 |
8 |
.445 |
Atlanta |
11 |
6 |
.468 |
SOS Breakdown (Home/Away)
Team |
SOS (Home) |
SOS (Away) |
Philadelphia |
.349 |
.626 |
New York |
.327 |
.592 |
Atlanta |
.453 |
.495 |
So, let's get the obvious out of the way first. The Sixers have played better ball overall than either the Knicks or Hawks since January 1, though the Hawks are better on the road (and better than they are at home, which might just be a function of their schedule or might just be Atlanta's lack of fans). There's a lot to probably extract from a detailed look at all this, but I want to focus on the thing that was most pronounced to me when I started looking at these numbers; the Sixers road schedule SOS of .626.
Part of that really high road strength of schedule is away games against Boston, Chicago and Miami in the next seventeen. Each team has a win percentage at home of at least .800 since January 1, and each team is still playing for seeding, and might be doing so all the way to the end of the season so resting players might not be something the Sixers get to take advantage of. However, those three teams alone do not account for the .626 road strength of schedule.
There are only two teams left on the Sixers road schedule that have played under .500 ball at home since January 1. Utah (.462) and Sacramento (.273) are those two teams. What about the Clippers you ask? Well the Clippers have played .750 ball at the Staples Center since the calendar flipped from 2010 to 2011.
I'm not going to delve deeper into a lot of this (but will in the comments if people have specific questions), but what I think is that the Sixers can (and will) catch the Knicks but I believe the Hawks (even with their questionable play recently) are beyond the Sixers reach due to the ease of their schedule as the season winds down. The Sixers do have one game (at home) against each of these teams, but I don't think that alone will be enough to help them catch the Hawks.
And in the putting my money where my mouth is:
Sixers - 10-6
Knicks - 9-8
Hawks - 8-8
As always when I do this, while my numbers and ability to extract them from data is good, I realize my analysis needs work. Comments are welcome and any questions regarding how I got the numbers (or numbers you want to see) are invited.
Well the obvious problem with the logic is that the numbers are unfortunately updated up until February 27th. The Hawks have played much much worse since, they are 2-5 in the remaining games with 5 games at home.
That being said, i don't expect the Sixers to catch the Hawks. Never have, although i am secretly hoping for that to happen. It would take a major meltdown by the Hawks for that to happen.
I have the Hawks at 7-9, the Knicks at 8-9 and the Sixers 10-6, which puts the Sixers one game behind the Hawks. Lets see what happens...
Appreciate the hard work.
Love the compilation of discussions about the Sixers and find this post extremely informative as well.
For anyone interested, here is the schedule from here on out. In bold are away games.
Mon, Mar 14, 2011 @ Utah Jazz
Wed, Mar 16, 2011 @ Los Angeles Clippers
Fri, Mar 18, 2011 @ Sacramento Kings
Sat, Mar 19, 2011 @ Portland Trail Blazers
Wed, Mar 23, 2011 Atlanta Hawks
Fri, Mar 25, 2011 @ Miami Heat
Sun, Mar 27, 2011 Sacramento Kings
Mon, Mar 28, 2011 @ Chicago Bulls
Wed, Mar 30, 2011 Houston Rockets
Fri, Apr 1, 2011 New Jersey Nets
Sat, Apr 2, 2011 @ Milwaukee Bucks
Tue, Apr 5, 2011 @ Boston Celtics
Wed, Apr 6, 2011 New York Knickerbockers
Fri, Apr 8, 2011 Toronto Raptors
Mon, Apr 11, 2011 Orlando Magic
Wed, Apr 13, 2011 Detroit Pistons
Here's my take on these:
Mon, Mar 14, 2011 @ Utah Jazz
Wed, Mar 16, 2011 @ Los Angeles Clippers
Fri, Mar 18, 2011 @ Sacramento Kings
Sat, Mar 19, 2011 @ Portland Trail Blazers
Love to say 3-1, but to be conservative lets say 2-2
Wed, Mar 23, 2011 Atlanta Hawks - W, sixers on three days rest, hawks second night of a b2b
Fri, Mar 25, 2011 @ Miami Heat - L (but a W would be sweet)
Sun, Mar 27, 2011 Sacramento Kings - W
Mon, Mar 28, 2011 @ Chicago Bulls - L
Wed, Mar 30, 2011 Houston Rockets - W
Fri, Apr 1, 2011 New Jersey Nets - W
Sat, Apr 2, 2011 @ Milwaukee Bucks - W (revenge game)
Tue, Apr 5, 2011 @ Boston Celtics - L
Wed, Apr 6, 2011 New York Knickerbockers - W (just has to be)
Fri, Apr 8, 2011 Toronto Raptors - W
Mon, Apr 11, 2011 Orlando Magic - L (unless they rest the starters)
Wed, Apr 13, 2011 Detroit Pistons - W
I have them at 10-6 - what do you guys think?
I have L at Milwaukee and a W hosting the Magic. 10-6 total, but 11-5 is within reach if they can go 3-1 on the remaining 4 games on the road trip.
Sixers looking to keep winning on Western Conference trip:
http://ow.ly/4dVAY
Sixers aim to tune up Jazz:
http://ow.ly/4dXkv
I only get schedule updates every week and have been a bit busy, I can update the numbers again today after work.
This was written Saturday, so these prediction were based on the sixers beating the Bucks and the Knicks beating the Pacers (neither of which happened)
Good work.
Monday's are hell for me, sorry it took me so long to join the conversation.
I think the relative ease of their home schedule is important. They need to dominate those games.
It's pretty crazy that a .500 record from here on out would mean 42 wins. Part of me is really worried this Milwaukee game could linger if they don't nip it in the bud tonight. We've come to expect them to put away bad teams, no matter what the circumstance, but if they have a hiccup, and go 1-3 on the rest of this trip, 10-6 would be unattainable, imo.
I agree, tonight they really 'have' to win I believe. I was surprised that the knicks lost to the pacers last night, but the knicks have two more games against the pacers (yup, 3 in the last 17 against a non divisional opponent - strong scheduling NBA guys) that I think they'll probably win, I'll chalk last night up to Chauncey rust.
The margin for error in catching the Knicks I believe was slim, and Saturday night was one of those errors. To get a 3-2 road trip now they'll have to win a game I didn't think they'd win (Clippers probably being the best chance of the upcoming games).
My 10-6 included a win on Saturday night, (but I also thought the Knicks would win last night) but the sixers still have to 'find' a win somewhere.
I want them to finish strong, but don't think there is a big difference between 6/7/8 seed given that the teams at the top are so close. 5th seed would be great, but is probably out of reach.
To me the accomplishment is the big difference, to come out of that 3-13 start, those horrible losses against bad teams to end up 6th when people were writing them off, to catch the new 'super' team (whatever) in the Knicks, I think it would say a lot about the roster and the coach (but not the front office who didn't do a damn thing to help once the season started).