Let's see. Over the rest of March, we have 4 home games, and 4 road games. April has us facing 3 home games, and 5 road games. We might steal a couple of road wins - but we are equally likely to throw away a couple of home games. That leaves us finishing the year on a 7-9 run. That means the Suns have to go 12-3. Pretty long odds. On the other hand, if we collapse and go 5-11, things could get sticky.
the suns absolutely are toast and the blazers are an absolute lock to make the playoffs. portland has been terrible on the road against good teams. fortunately, the blazers only have 3 more games against good teams on the road(cavs, rockets, spurs). portland is 10-5 on the road against teams not in the top 9 in the west or top 5 in the east(teams that have shown they are good by being significantly over .500). the blazers have 6 remaing road games against such teams. a 4-2 record in those games(and 0-3 in the tough road games) would be consistent with what has happened so far this season. so that's a 4-5 finish on the road. i feel very confident that at the absolute worst, the blazers will win 4 of their remaining home games(and more than 4 is much more likely). that puts the suns needing to go 13-2 at the very least to pass portland. have you taken a look at the suns schedule? at portland, at utah, at dallas, at new orleans and with home games against utah, denver, and houston. they aren't capable of going 13-2. even 10-5 is likely to be beyond their capabilities.
the odds are against it, but things could certainly change from those projections. what if we go 2-7 road 4-3 home including losing to them (possible) and the suns start playing inspired and beating good teams at home(very possible with the firepower they have). they'd only have to finish 11-4 and could afford to lose a few tough road games. hollinger's computer has us about 95%, which is realistic because it reflects trends like your analysis does, but also allows for variation which you're not doing. saying there is zero chance isn't being realistic. shit happens sometimes.
We are definitely not out of the woods yet and we shouldn't celebrate a playoff spot until we've clinched it. Our remaining schedule will kill us if we don't start gaining some confidence on the road. I'm happy where we are right now, only a game out of 3rd place but let's not count our chickens before they're hatched.
WAYT A MYNITE!!!!!! Iv yu thynk thiz hole playov thyng iz a dun deal... juzt hope an prey thayt travis outlaw duzn't fall on a saw and kut hiz arm off. Thiz playov thyng iz naought a lock!!!!!!
Why do we think the suns will magically start winning now? Hey can't hold anybody under 120 points, that is not a recipe to win games.
why? like i said, there are only 3 more tough road games. the blazers need to gain some confidence on the road if they want to have any hope of advancing in the playoffs without homecourt advantage. but they don't need to play any better on the road than they have over the course of the season to comfortably make the playoffs.
and they are 1-8 against teams with a winning record since amare went down. and they have 8 more games against teams with winning records.
They won't, unless they find the fountain of youth and Steve Nash thinks he's 30, Shaq thinks he's back in his MVP days in LA, Grant Hill finds himself in his Detroit days, and Amare finds his vision again. They've got a brutal stretch next week. I'm not worried about them at all.
