Much has been made of the easy 76ers strength of schedule going forward from ASG to the end of the season. Currently they are only 2 games out of the 4th spot (and home court advantage in Rd1). I think most would agree a top 3 spot would be highly unattainable but I wanted to see how our schedule compares to the other 4 teams fighting for the 3 thru 8 spot. (I'm not including Detroit, they are only 1.5 games out of a playoff spot but they are 9-17 on the road and start the stretch after the All Star Game with 11 out of 15 road games. They are toast.)
I looked at a few different factors of schedule. Home vs Away, obv. Then I broke those down in to games vs the top 8 teams in the league AND vs. the bottom 8 teams in the league. Top 8: TOR BOS CLE WAS HOU GSW SAS MIN. Bottom 8: ATL ORL BRK PHO DAL SAC MEM CHI. (The top 8 teams are a little dicey since there are really 11 teams that are % points from WAS. But that is what I used.)
The other thing I looked at is Back to Backs remaining, as well as opponents playing their 2nd game of a B2B against that team.
Here is the hard data:
Team |
Record |
Home |
Away |
H top8 |
H bot8 |
A top8 |
A bot8 |
B2B |
Opp B2B |
Wizards |
33-24 |
14 |
11 |
5 |
3 |
5 |
2 |
6 |
3 |
Bucks |
32-24 |
13 |
13 |
4 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
6 |
Pacers |
33-25 |
10 |
10 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
4 |
1 |
1 |
76ers |
30-25 |
13 |
13 |
2 |
7 |
2 |
7 |
6 |
3 |
Heat |
30-28 |
15 |
9 |
3 |
5 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
5 |
H Top8 = Home Game vs top 8 team, A Bot8 = Away vs bottom 8 team, so on and so forth
B2B is that teams remaining B2B
Opp B2B is how many games that team plays against another teams on a 2nd game of a back to back.
What do I see?
Wizards have been playing exceptionally well without their All Star and have an advantage in Home games (where they are 17-10). However of the 5 teams they play the most games against the Top 8 (10), they play the least amount of games vs the Bottom 8 (5), and they are tied with the 76ers for most B2B remaining. Not listed is how much they all hate John Wall.
Bucks actually have a game tonight and then 25 after the break. Their schedule is fairly even in terms of opponent balance. They lucked out into only having 2 B2B, but get the benefit of seeing 6 teams playing on their 2nd night.
Pacers play 14 of 24 games on the road following the break. They are currently 13-14 in road games on the year. They also have 5 road games vs top 8 teams as opposed to only 2 such games at home. They luck into having to play only 1 B2B going forward.
76ers play alot of bottom feeders. I wasn't sure how it compared to the other teams but whoa! They play 14 games vs the 8 worst teams in the league. The most any other team plays is 7. The Sixers also only play 4 teams in the top 8 and 2 of those are at home. Unfortunately the 76ers have 6 back to back remaining, which really is the only downfall to this 3rd of the Schedule.
Heat play 15 of 24 remaining games at home. You'd think that was a good thing for the Heat. Oddly they are only 14-12 at home. When you consider the Sixers (18-10), Pacers (20-11), and Bucks (19-9) play so well at home I'm not sure if this is a true advantage. The Heat play more bottom feeding teams than elite teams. And they only play 3 back to backs while getting to see 5 teams on their SEGABTB (is that how you do it?).
This isn't so much a look at strength of schedule as it is Ease of Schedule. From the looks of things the Sixers have a good chance to get that 4th seed. The team that appears to have the inside track to the 1st round Home Court unfortunately looks to be the Bucks. I hope I'm wrong