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Zach Lowe and Tom Haberstroh examined the issue of back-to-back-to-back games awhile back.
The most grueling stretches of 1998-99
When people bring up the alleged sloppiness of the 1998-99 lockout-shortened season (sloppiness that is more than alleged, unfortunately), they tend to bring up the dreaded back-to-back-to-back, a stretch of three games in three nights that doesnât exist in a normal 82-game season. The NBA had use the back-to-back-to-back in 1999 to squeeze 50 games into three months.
Many have studied the good olâ back-to-back, with Tom Haberstroh of ESPN.com recently looking at which teams struggled most â and the few that actually thrived â playing on consecutive nights in 2010-11. He found that teams, on average, played about three points per 100 possessions worse on the second night of a back-to-back, and that defense typically suffered more than offense.
Just for kicks, I decided to take a quick look what happened on back-to-back-to-backs in 1999, to see if weâll be in for a bunch of super-ugly games featuring exhausted players should the league resort again to a compressed season. The basic findings:
⢠There actually werenât too many back-to-back-back stretches â 64 in all among the leagueâs 29 teams, or about two such stretches per team. Of course, two back-to-back-to-back stretches amounts to six games, which in 1999 accounted for 12 percent of a teamâs 50-game schedule â a significant chunk. Pity the 13 teams who had three such stretches, accounting for nearly 20 percent of their total schedule.
⢠Teams playing the third game of a back-to-back-to-back â when theyâd be most fatigued, in theory â went a combined 28-36, for a winning percentage of about .438. Interestingly, that winning percentage is almost exactly what we expect from teams playing on the second end of a back-to-back in an 82-game season, according to the most comprehensive long-term studies. So no big change there.
⢠As I wrote on Thursday, the average team scored (and thus allowed) 102.1 points per 100 possessions in 1998-99, the worst overall scoring rate in any season since the league installed the three-point line. Turns out, that didnât change much in this (very small) sample of back-to-back-to-backs. Teams on the final night of such stretches averaged about 102.6 points per 100 possessions, according to Basketball-Reference. Iâd have to dig a little deeper to see if any of the other fatigue indicators (turnovers, fouls, a slower pace) popped up in these games, but the overall scoring output for offenses remained the same.
⢠The drop-off happened on defense, again mirroring what Haberstroh found for teams on back-to-backs last season. Teams at the end of these dreaded 1999 stretches allowed about 103.1 points allowed per 100 possessions, which amounted to somewhere around an extra 1.2 points per game given the average pace of play that season. Thatâs not a huge change, but itâs something.
⢠This might be the thing to watch if we go down this road again: There were more blowouts in these games than weâd expect on an average night of NBA action. The average scoring margin jumped significantly, with winners outscoring losers by about 13 points per 100 possessions. Thatâs nearly two full points higher than the average per-possession scoring gap last season, according to Neil Paine, one of the wizards behind Basketball-Reference.
But wait! It turns out the fatigued teams were just as likely as more rested teams to come out on the winning side of these lop-sided blowouts. There is no rhyme or reason to any of this, which probably has to do with the small sample size involved and the general wackiness of the 1999 season.
⢠The league could not matchup teams so that rest was equal, at least when these triple-game stretches were concerned. Only four of these 64 games featured two teams each playing on the final end of a back-to-back-to-back. The league schedule is a complicated thing, and they did make up for some of this rest differential by giving the victims â those teams playing their third straight game against a more rested club â a game or two in the opposite scenario.
To sum it up: Playing on the third straight night of a back-to-back-to-back stretch was a disadvantage in 1999, but perhaps not quite as big of one as weâd expect. Letâs hope we donât have to look at how this plays out in 2012.
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Originally Posted by Scientific Method
It's playoff rematches, contentious matchups in fact, except for the Lakers Bulls. That's the game that makes little sense. Two big markets, so I guess you want to include them, but I would have either said Lakers vs Mavericks (extra salt bringing the winners into the other team's building) then and given you like a Grizzlies vs Thunder. Well I guess the Mavericks have to get their rings though and we'll get to see if Cuban followed through on his "something else too" promised he brainstormed about out loud where it was sounding like he was thinking cars or something for every player but couldn't figure out how it would be legal and not a cap violation.@mcuban Almost there Mavs fans ! Can't wait to present solid gold commemorative mouse pads I got the guys !!