NBA Finals

First off, in a nod to Tyler Dawson, let's point out that I said neither the Celtics nor Lakers would make the finals. The Lakers had a pretty reasonable shot, so we can assume that's just random variation (and remember, they're two tips away from two game sevens). The Celtics have shown an impressive ability to "turn it on" in a way that they didn't have during the season. Partially it's recovery from injuries, partially it's Rondo's emergence, but I also think the Celtics are just playing better now, and the Power Ranking is only just an average over the season. With that said, here are the odds on how the series turns out.

Lakers: 60.9%

in 4: 7.6

in 5: 12.4

in 6: 20.8

in 7: 20.0

Boston: 31.9%

in 4: 4.3

in 5: 12.1

in 6: 11.3

in 7: 11.5

Unique to the NBA finals is the 2-3-2 format, unlike the 2-2-1-1-1 format of the earlier series, which gives these odds a little bit of a different flavor than ones from the first couple rounds. Because of that, I'm going with the Lakers in 6. This time though, I'm rooting for Tyler Dawson.

Disaster!

Thank you Tyler Dawson for pointing out the failures of me.
"I enjoyed your blog post about the statistical likelihood of a sweep going into the second round, but like it even better now that there were 3 sweeps in this round."
Tyler Dawson is very smart.


It's true though, not only have the sweeps gone against my math, but so far I've gotten two out of three second round series' wrong, and am on pace to miss the third (what are you doing Lebron?!). Of course, I'd like to point out that I still had a 5% chance of a sweep for both the Lakers and the Suns. The Magic also had a 13% chance of sweep. That's missing the point though, because I still got pwned. At least the Blackhawks won (take that Darien and Stan!), so not all is wrong in the sports world.

Speaking of the Blackhawks, what are the odds that the Blackhawks win? Well, knowing what I know about hockey, and that they're in the semifinals, I'd say about about 25%. I guess it's hard to get really into hockey when you can't even ice skate. I'm just excited for my Byfuglien shirt.