Sunday playoff food for thought

Phoenix versus Liberty.

Phoenix can decide who they want to play.  They will get either the 5th or the 6th seed and a single elimination home game.

A loss puts them at the 6th seed and the would be guaranteed a home game versus the Lynx.

A win puts them in the 5th seed and they would be guaranteed a home playoff game versus the Wings.

Do they want to play the Wings or the Lynx?  

Dream and Mystics...

Dream @Aces game starts an hour earlier than the Mystics @Lynx.  Dream clinch second with a win.  Mystics cannot be anything but a third seed then with a Dream win.  However if the Dream lose (or are losing), with a win the Mystics at the Lynx they can get the second seed. 

Lynx are locked into 7th place irregardless if whether they win or lose versus the Mystics.

Connecticut and Sparks

Sun will get 4th seed with a win at home versus Sparks and could drop to 6th with a loss and a Mercury win.  Sparks drop to 6th with a loss  and a Mercury win, (giving them a home single elimination game versus the Lynx) however the Mercury game is 3 hours later, obviously the motivation will be there for both the Sun and Sparks to avoid a single elimination road game and to have a home court advantage in a second round single elimination game to make it to the last four teams.

Looking at the database of past history in the WNBA playoffs....

The format of the WNBA playoffs has been relatively new, and those teams on the road with a worse or equal  regular season record and haven't played the same team last game have been 4-1 ATS, 2-3 straight up and 0-5 O/U, so the road team plays the home team tough and defense predominates.

So the lesson here is, DON'T Discount The Worse Regular Season Team In Early Rounds of The Playoffs,.......

which in the case of this year is the Lynx and the Wings and in the second round which could also include those teams seeded 5th or 6th.  

This is very similar to the NFL playoffs where the worse seeded team road has a high percentage of covering, especially in the Wild Card round.

In running the data, after game 36 (after the single elimination rounds), in game 1 road teams  with the worse or equal regular season record have been 4-16 ATS/straight up, losing by an average of -11.70 points/game.

After that it gets a bit better, if playing the same team after game 36 in a series, the road team with the worse seed  has been 14-16-1 ATS (+0.90) and 10-21 straight up (-5.45).  Now, at some time the conferences were divided and I am not sure how the finals home advantage team was determined, whether it was by best regular season record or already pre-determined.

So, when it gets into the final two rounds, the team with the lesser regular season record on the road wins less than 35% of the time, and  has a terrible game one covering record.     After the first road game, they cover almost 50% of the time, but still win straight up only approximately 1/3 of the time.

Yes, that was the point I wanted to make that you boiled down into a very short synopsis DG, I'll be looking hard at taking the Wings, and also possibly the Lynx in their opening playoff games on the road.

I also don't think the Mercury will give a very good effort today and they may even decide to tank their game, and the Liberty has covered their last two games by teams that were in must-win scenarios anyway. Those must-win teams often choke and the market places the prices too high.  It comes down to the organization's thoughts about who they think the biggest threat to them is, the Lynx or the Wings.  For me it's the Wings, I don't want to be facing Cambage and having Griner foul out or get negated in the center position.  The opposite view would be that the Lynx are battle tested, based on their past few years' history, but they look like no threat whatsoever to me.

Plays:

1)  Sun -5

2)  Aces +4'

To make sure that game number 35 is the first game of the playoffs, use this:

A and playoffs=1 and p:playoffs=0 and game number.........15-6-3 ATS

Use something simllar to see if game 36 was a different series.

A and playoffs=1 and pp:playoffs=0 and p:playoffs=1 and po:team!=o:team.......3-2 ATS

1)  Sun -5 loser

2)  Aces +4'

Adding:

3)  Liberty +12 

I would want NOTHING to do with Cambage come playoff time that's for sure.  I don't think they have the bench to full on tank this game. (Randomly sitting D, Griner etc...)  But I could just see them jacking up a ton of 3's and offering no resistance defensively.  Yet, even with that...not sure Liberty give 2 shits about anything come this game.  So only chance they got is Charles actually playing and dropping 25+