Last night was an extremely close night for most games in the NBA. Four games went into overtime. For the data lovers, the average spread between the scores of the winning and losing teams was 4.36 points and the largest differences were between the Pistons and the Bobcats (11 points) and the Kings and the Bucks (8 points). If you were to remove those two games, the average spread barely changes to 3.22 points. For games going into OT, the average spread was 2.5 points.

Of the total 21 periods played in OT games last night, the winning team outscored the losing team in each separate period less than 50% of the time (48.33%). And if we remove the obvious period, being overtime (except for the 76ers and Cavaliers with double OT) in which the winning team outscored that period, then the winning team only outscored the other team in 36.25% of the periods.

Even more interesting, at the end of each of the 21 periods, the winning team was ahead only 29.17% of the time. Again, if we take out the overtime period in which they won, the winning team was ahead only only 12.5% of the time at the end of each period. The only OT game in which the winning team was ahead at the end of the first quarter was the Trailblazers vs. Timberwolves.

It's amazing what a few minutes, Excel, and a Google Desktop Gagdet can do. Completely useless, yes. But still amazing.

Labels: basketball, nba, statistics