NBA PLAYOFF TIME .....................2025......

0-1, lost 1.1 units

Finals --- 1-2, lost 1.2 units

Pacers win the all-important FG% battle ........

51.8% to 46.8%

OKC wins 3 pt , 45.5% to 33.3% but Pacers took 5 more 3's

Pacers won FT battle a strength of OKC , 86.4% to 76.7% but OKC took 8 more

Pacers won TO battle another strength of OKC, 17 to 13 by 4 TO.

OKC won rebounding battle 42 to 36 by 6.

Taking more 3's and more FT's does matter.

So who should of won ?

Adding up 2 pt shots, 3's, FT's and TO's ...........

Pacers shooting efficiency- 53.21 % to 48.12%

The team wins this will win over 90% of the time regardless of rebounds. 

The winner of this battle has won every game thus far.

Pacers should of won by 5.91 pts. Pretty close to actual margin of 9 pts.

But what if we reverse the TO's which is normally what OKC does , win TO battle.

Reversing TO having OKC win by just 4 TO which is below their ave game.

Pacers shooting efficiency......51.33 to 50%

Now Pacers only win by 1.33% in this case rebounds could make a difference.

OKC should win by their 6 rebound advantage by .67 pts.

 the game could of come down to the wire on a last second shot.

MY LINES ..................game 4

OKC -6.51 over Pacers

Line close to game line.

OKC off a SU loss................

Teams 3.25 or better in playoff only PR's off a loss.......

Won by 18,13, 9, 9 , 6 .......5-0 SU  before this series.

OKC in this same spot game 2 wins by 16

Based on regular season PR's OKC should win this series so they have to win this game...,

Play is on OKC

I did break down Pacers numbers up to Jan 2.

Their PR I on Jan 2 was (-1.57)

They finished the season at 2.13

From Jan 2cd on they are better then their 2.13 end of season rating 

My lines thus far is 1-1 in finals but has work with Pacers throughout the playoffs using end of season.

My lines had no play game 3 , i don't use my line game 3 tied 1-1 but if I did a no play.

Game 4 a no play at this point.

I will try to add up Pacers rating from Jan 2 till end of season

They will be improved but how much ? And how would that affected Pacers all throughout the playoffs.

Would my line been a better record or not ?

I hope you are right, but I am in dire straits with OKC -1.5 games; I need OKC to win 3 straight to salvage my wager.

OKC's DEF has been a crushing disappointment in this series (or IND's OFF has been spectacular).  My stats show that IND's OFF has rattled off 3 straight games of above-average performances (or one could say that OKC's DEF has underperformed for all 3 games vs. IND).  OKC's blowout win in Game 2 was due to their great OFF stats (or IND's weak stats).

I really want OKC's DEF to finally step up and clamp down in Game 4 to give me a bit of hope going forward.

Good luck tonight; as of now I'm still a pass.

OKC's defense did not bring the same effort game 3 as they did game 2. .................

I just saw Williams say the same thing. T9night they have no choice, they better clamp down on D and win TO battle and they should roll.

OKC -6 over Pacers --- 1.1 units

I was hoping line would drop, looks like more bets and money coming in on Pacers as we get closer to game time.

I see guys on you tube afraid to touch OKC ATS but  in playoffs but really like them to win SU.

I still say OKC 0-8 ATS  should be able to play a big game in the right spot which is tonight .

@theclaw

 I agree, I'm laying the 6. However, Pacers really seeming like the fkn team of destiny 

OKC has been horribly weak on the road during this season's playoffs:

SU:   4-4 (-7.1, 50.0%)

ATS:  0-8 (-14.1, 0.0%)

Going 4-4 SU on the road is bad enough, but losing by an average of -7.1 points is atrocious, especially for a team that was -635 to take the Finals.

In the playoffs OKC off a loss was 5-0 SU with an average margin of 19.6 points.

Obviously something's gotta give.

Yes they do..............

Yea................

I was thinking about this today  dog, maybe, just maybe the time to look at road/home splits is when there is a significant difference  in the regular season. 

This makes sense to me. I saw guys on you tube talking about the big difference in the regular season based on net rating.

That got me to thinking  that a significant difference might be worth paying attention  to.

I really need to look into this for the future.

It is always a good thing to learn a thing or 2 every year.

GL  on your plays @theclaw 

This just in ...............

Pacers since Jan 2 .........

Shooting efficiency margin .........3.73%

Full season 2.13%

Pacers vastly improved. 3.73% is very, very good.  Close to 4% .

But still weak rebounding. 

3.73% is championship calibre level of play but when combined with weak rebounding is not.

PRI .......... 5.55

Full season 2.13

My Line game 4 --- OKC -3.09

My Line in game 4's .........12-7 ATS with a 1.25 difference  since 1991.

With a 2 pt difference........ 10-6 ATS, almost the same %.

.

My line in games 1& 2 would have been right on the actual lines.

Game 3 ....OKC -1.09, although I don't use my line, just saying.

Based on this new info we can see how overvalued OKC is on the road and that has nothing to do with road/home splits.

More to do with Pacers playing far better since Jan 2.

Now, the spot favors OKC, my new line favors Pacers would be a pass on this game for me if I were to use the new line. 

OKC is 5.09 better in just PR I so when combined with PR II which I don't have as of now OKC would still be over 4.5 better then Pacers in line with our other superior teams.

Based on this the spot has to be on OKC but there is decent room for OKC to win but Not cover. Similar to other road game wins in Denver and Miinesota when my line was on Nuggets by a good amount and lean on Twolves by .86.

OKC just overvalued on the road.Then if we add in the significant road/home splits makes them overvalued by more.

The right play just might be OKC ML like guys on you tube were saying after all.

Oh boy .................

Mac-attack good luck ..............

Just look up OKC's record ATS using my lines with at least a 1 pt difference  to closing line.

My Lines went against  OKC in everyone of their road games.

My lines 6-0 ATS fading OKC and 2-0 on leans under 1 pt difference. 

As we can see OKC is flat out overvalued on the road.

Thinking about this, possibly having set the record for largest margin of victory in history and people knowing the big scores OKC is capable of wining by the book can't really put up the right line on the road because it will seem far to small and people will pound OKC.

So they need to Inflate the number and still get many wanting OKC.

With all that said I am sure books would inflate game 3 number because series tied and OKC being better team has a strong history 

The same can be said for this game 4, OKC should win and many know/expect this books naturally will inflate the line some.

How much I don't know, never really track that over the years but I do know some spots the book inflates the line relative to my line anyway. 

And this is why some spots I don't use my line, they won't work .

This spot based on the quality of the 2 teams is a spot where I'd give less weight  to my lines.

Congratulations.  OKC won and finally covered on the road.

Assuming OKC wins Game 5, that should bode well for Game 6.

My sundial is two days fast.

It was only a matter of time...............

Pacers cannot sustain winning every close game where every bounce goes there way, eventually things will go against them.

I saw a prop, Hali to make a last second shot to win the game with no inbound pass by opp after made shot.

+4500

Books taking advantage of the Pacers close win magic to build their coffers.

1-0, won 1.1 units

Finals 2-2, lost .2 units

Opps, won 1 unit not 1.1..........

Playoffs --- 24-19, won 4.99 units

Pacers finally lose their close game magic. Making big mistakes and missing key shots.

Did OKC just break that air of invincibility the Pacers had ?

OKC's defense was incredible late, super aggressive.

I was pretty confident OKC would pull this game out going down the final 3 to 4 minutes. As I said those close wins are not repeatable over the longer run.

But I didn't think they would cover, well, I thought they'd need to get lucky to cover. Which is what happened.

Claw any early thoughts on game 5? Prob gonna put in a wager tomorrow. 

Would like to know where ur at.

Most of your writeups for the past couple of weeks have said something like OKC efficiency is great. 

And you’re going with the clearly better team. Which everyone knows is OKC. But obviously you can’t bet the clearly better team every game. 

Yes you don't want to back the clearly better team each game..................

However based on the situation on how this series is playing out the spot has been better for the better team in each game.

OKC won the all-important FG% battle 47.4 to 42.5 = 4.9%, that is 4-0 now for the winning team.

Pacers won 3 pt % , 30.6 to 18.8 = 11.8% and Pacers took 36 attempts to OKC 16.

That seems like a big win by Pacers but not really.THAT 30.6% equates to 45.9% on 2's.

Considering Pacers shot over 50% on 2 pt shots and overall including TO's 46.64% by keeping cranking up 3's and misses is not creating an advantage.

OKC shot very poor but limited their 3's.

OKC won FT battle pretty good amount, 89.5% to 75.8% = 13.7% and they took 5 more FT's.

Taking more FT's creates an even bigger advantage, on the 5 extra FT's that means Pacers are shooting from the field where each possession they averaged 46.64%.

Wow, that's over a 42% advantage , that's  why Taking more matters. Same with 3's unless you shoot poorly 

OKC won TO battle by only 2.  The 2 big areas of strength  for OKC, FT's and TO they won both while winning 1 by a pretty good amount.

OKC won rebounding battle by 10.

OKC I think has now won rebound battle in 3 of 4 games only losing game 1 when coach took both bigs out and try playing with a small line up.

Shooting Efficiency..........

OKC 50.45%

Pacers 46.64%

By 3.81%

Equates to a 11.67 point vistory. The right team won and should have covered the spread.

MY LINES .........................game 5

OKC -12.51 over Pacers

OKC -9.09 over Pacers ........since Jan 2.

My full season line is 1-1 ATS in finals

Since Jan 2cd line is 0-1 ATS in finals.

If we used my lines on game 3 then Jan 2cd line won while full season line had no play but since I don't use my lines on game 3 tied 1-1 the full season line has been a bit better.

I look at all the playoff games and about the same result, both lines are pretty close, since Jan 2cd line is slightly ahead for what it is worth.

But the one big advantage if since Jan 2cd line I would have been on Pacers to win series over Knicks .

By using since Jan 2cd line missed out on a few fades on Pacers that were easy wins with no sweating it out at the end.

So could that be the case game 5 ?

Since Jan 2cd has no play but full season has OKC.

Line would need to go to 10.5 to have a play on Pacers with Jan 2cd line which is not very likely

Spot favors OKC as the clearly better team, with the series tied 2-2 probabilities say the team to win the series should win game 5.

winning teams in the finals cover at a high rate.

From 2008 to 2015 I broke down all finals games some years back.

Of 47 games only 6 did the losing team cover the spread, could of been a push or a few.

I don't have more recent data but most likely it will be similar. Maybe not as good but still it will point to winning team.

Unfortunately  I don't have my lines record in finals games with series tied 2-2. The only spot I don't have.

Since 94 there have been 11 teams tied 2-2 the winner of Game 5 has won series 8 times. All 3 losing teams played in the old 2-3-2 format which meant both games 6 & 7 were at home.

And opp had 3 of 5 games at home, hence the 3-2 lead.

But in game 5's be it 2-2 or 3-1 the one consistent is back teams off SU wins. Teams off losses are around 50% ATS.

Teams off SU wins are above 65%

From some reason I don't have the past 6 or 7 years I stop logging that info. Regardless pretty much everything  wants to point to OKC.

Play has to be on OKC.