Record: 12-2 Stein Subjective Power Ranking: 3rd in League Hollinger Computer Power Ranking: 4th in League Advanced Stats ORtg: 3rd in League (110.6 per 100 possessions) DRtg: 13th (103.9 points per 100 possessions) SOS: 18th (Note: Spurs 26th, Heat 28th, Pacers 30th) vs. .500 and above: 4-2 Final Record if they go .500 for the rest of the season: 46-36 Two of the League-wide Memes is that the Blazers are a poor defensive team and that the Blazers have faced an extremely poor schedule. After 14 games, the numbers suggest that these are myths, or perhaps historical (they did in fact start out as a poor defensive team.) Some other things I've noticed: The Blazers can win when some of the rotation players are not playing well. The Blazers have coherent offensive and defensive systems. The Blazers have players who fit and even thrive in those systems. The Blazers are very well coached.
The Blazers have won all 8 games in 4 back to backs (only team in the NBA to go undefeated), lead the league in double digit wins (8), and have the best road record in the NBA.
The Heat and Pacers will have a weak strength of schedule this entire year. The other 13 teams in the east have to play two teams in their conference with awesome records significantly over .500. The Heat and Pacers only have to play one, because you can't play yourself. It illustrates a great point that superior teams always have a worse strength of schedule. Bad teams don't have to play themselves which improves their strength of schedule, good teams don't have to play themselves which hurts their strength of schedule. Also as other posters such as Kingspeed have pointed out everytime a team wins they give their opponents a loss hurting their strength of schedule. Every time a team loses they give their opponents a win helping their strength of schedule. It would be a more useful statistic if a teams strength of schedule didn't include games they played against their opponents.
We'll have our up & downs but this start will build good confidence. I still say 46 wins, but I hope to be pleasantly surprised.
The 2007-08 team ended up 41-41, and had a 13-game winning streak in the middle... that's not a 13-2 start, though, and I see where this sort of performance early on is a little more indicative of quality construction rather than getting randomly hot (if Travis Outlaw is the answer, you're asking the wrong question), but it's still possible to have downs as intense as the ups in a long season.
I'd have to look it up, but I think that streak had a ton of games we came back from big deficits and games where Roy iso'd at the end to win by 1 point. It was more dramatic and exciting but this feels far more real and sustainable.
Hell it started with a Travis Outlaw prayer, and he won more than one game like that. Definitely not sustainable. I agree we're winning closer to the right way now.
What I can't get over, is that after 14-15 games, the East only has 3 teams 500 or better. While the West has 12 teams.
Atlanta's going to lose to Houston today and Dallas on Friday. After those games, there will only be 2 teams at .500 or better.
