Lakers-Spurs preview/review

Three games into the Western Conference Finals, we have a decent idea of how the Spurs and the Lakers match up. Here are how the season numbers play out for the teams in this series.

OFFENSIVE QUOTIENT:

Los Angeles Lakers.....5.47
San Antonio Spurs.....-0.20

DEFENSIVE QUOTIENT:

Los Angeles Lakers.....1.71
San Antonio Spurs......5.69

The Spurs are significantly better on defense and the Lakers are significantly better on offense. This is not a surprise. However, I had no idea that the Spurs were below average on offense. With Duncan, Parker and Ginobili, this is a serious indictment of the Spurs' supporting cast. Also, while the Lakers' offensive numbers are impressive, they are even more impressive after Gasol joined the team (+7.44), while still remaining above average on defense (+0.28).

Since the home/road splits have been more accurate this year, here are those full season numbers for each team:

OFFENSE

Lakers Home

Los Angeles Lakers........6.29
San Antonio Spurs........-2.67

Spurs Home

Los Angeles Lakers........4.63
San Antonio Spurs.........2.25

DEFENSE

Lakers Home

Los Angeles Lakers........3.24
San Antonio Spurs.........2.82

Spurs Home

Los Angeles Lakers........0.15
San Antonio Spurs.........8.53

These numbers lead to another series with a wide disparity between home and road performances for each team. So it is not a surprise that the road team has won each game.

A look backwards...

Each team has had approximately 282 possessions in this series. Based on the home raod splits from the numbers above, we would expect the Lakers to have outscored the Spurs by approximately 12.36 points over the course of the series. The actual difference between the two teams is 16 points. This shows that the numbers are fairly accurate and the fact that there has been a significant amount of garbage time in the last two games easily explains the difference between the two figures (although the difference amounts to an error of approximately one percent).

A look forward...

A safe bet would be to assume that each team will win their remaining home games. However, the Lakers have approximately a 48.8% chance of taking one of the remaining two games in San Antonio and the Spurs have a 32.9% chance of taking one of the two final games in LA. Because both of these percentages are below fifty, I would expect this to be a seven game series.