Don't believe me?
Consider:
After our 1-7 start, we have gone 16-16.
Without Boogie, we are 1-7. With Boogie, we are 16-16.
And we have been very consistent in our .500 ness. If you break the 32 games since the 1-7 start into 10-12 game groups:
First 12 games: 6-6
Next 10 games: 5-5
Last 10 games: 5-5
We are a .500 team so long as Boogie is on that floor.
I feel pretty confident in predicting that is the longest stretch of .500 ball we have played in 8 years at least, but there is a problem beyond the up and down play playing havoc with an already jittery fanbase. We have gone 16-16 since the bad start, if we go 21-21 the rest of the way, because of the 1-7 start we end up only 38-44, very very borderline for a playoff spot even in this down year out West. If all we do is play .500 ball, we can never make up the early 1-7 and actually reach .500 for the season. We just keep marginally inching toward.500, but can't reach it without a good win streak.
Here's a season win chart:
Bad start. Stabilize, and then very very slowly and mostly steadily inch forward bit by bit.
We've got 42 games remaining. In order to actually hit .500 for the full season we need to convert that 21-21 into 24-18, which is to say we need to play at about the level Dallas/Miami/Atlanta have thus far. Basically we need to play like a #5 seed just to finish at .500.
20 are home games.
22 are road games.
9 more back to backs
We've got 8 remaining games against the 5 worst/spiraling teams in the league (PHI, LAL, PHX, BKN, MIN).
We've got 4 remaining games against the 3 superpowers (GSW, CLE, SAS)
We've got 4 remaining games against Portland and Utah.
Consider:
After our 1-7 start, we have gone 16-16.
Without Boogie, we are 1-7. With Boogie, we are 16-16.
And we have been very consistent in our .500 ness. If you break the 32 games since the 1-7 start into 10-12 game groups:
First 12 games: 6-6
Next 10 games: 5-5
Last 10 games: 5-5
We are a .500 team so long as Boogie is on that floor.
I feel pretty confident in predicting that is the longest stretch of .500 ball we have played in 8 years at least, but there is a problem beyond the up and down play playing havoc with an already jittery fanbase. We have gone 16-16 since the bad start, if we go 21-21 the rest of the way, because of the 1-7 start we end up only 38-44, very very borderline for a playoff spot even in this down year out West. If all we do is play .500 ball, we can never make up the early 1-7 and actually reach .500 for the season. We just keep marginally inching toward.500, but can't reach it without a good win streak.
Here's a season win chart:
Bad start. Stabilize, and then very very slowly and mostly steadily inch forward bit by bit.
We've got 42 games remaining. In order to actually hit .500 for the full season we need to convert that 21-21 into 24-18, which is to say we need to play at about the level Dallas/Miami/Atlanta have thus far. Basically we need to play like a #5 seed just to finish at .500.
20 are home games.
22 are road games.
9 more back to backs
We've got 8 remaining games against the 5 worst/spiraling teams in the league (PHI, LAL, PHX, BKN, MIN).
We've got 4 remaining games against the 3 superpowers (GSW, CLE, SAS)
We've got 4 remaining games against Portland and Utah.