The stat I find annoying is the "road teams on 5 days rest are 9-24 in the playoffs" one that keeps getting thrown about.
Given that the only time you can be on 5 days rest in the playoffs is the divisional round, and because all of those games are being hosted by the #1 or #2 seed historically, me thinks there's some confounding there. Namely, you're usually just losing to a much better team in that scenario. 9/33 is 27%, and road teams in the divisional round overall only win 29% of the time.
In other words, it's a meaningless stat. It's just a microcosm of the overall divisional round reality. Most road playoff wins occur in the Wild Card and Conference Title game round. The divisional round is where you most often see great teams overmatching much inferior teams that made it out of the WC round. And Dallas/SF are A LOT closer than most divisional round matchups. The typical divisional round game looks more like Jacksonville/KC or NY/Philly.
Given that the only time you can be on 5 days rest in the playoffs is the divisional round, and because all of those games are being hosted by the #1 or #2 seed historically, me thinks there's some confounding there. Namely, you're usually just losing to a much better team in that scenario. 9/33 is 27%, and road teams in the divisional round overall only win 29% of the time.
In other words, it's a meaningless stat. It's just a microcosm of the overall divisional round reality. Most road playoff wins occur in the Wild Card and Conference Title game round. The divisional round is where you most often see great teams overmatching much inferior teams that made it out of the WC round. And Dallas/SF are A LOT closer than most divisional round matchups. The typical divisional round game looks more like Jacksonville/KC or NY/Philly.
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