Western Conference Odds to Make the NBA Playoffs ; Sacramento Kings, ; Golden State Warriors, + ; Los Angeles Lakers, + ; Houston Rockets, + Odds to Win NBA Finals · Boston Celtics + · Denver Nuggets + · Dallas Mavericks + · Los Angeles Clippers + · Oklahoma City Thunder + The fourth edition of the NBA play-in tournament — where some teams kinda make the playoffs but still need to do a little more work to. Team ratings, game schedule, playoff probabilities nba odds and in-game win probabilities, updating live.
Show more games. Read more » Game metrics are on a scale. Related Stories. Nuggets , , , Heat , , , Celtics , , Lakers , , Warriors , Suns , Knicks , Bucks Cavaliers Timberwolves Basically, predictions are slightly better once the official schedule is known. DEN Vlatko Cancar. IND Bennedict Mathurin. NOP Zion Williamson. NYK Julius Randle. First, we keep a regular season rating , which is based on a team's most recent 50 games — including the end of the previous season, in the case of early season ratings — and is regressed to the mean by 15 games.
This is used to create win probabilities for regular season games, and it implies that a team's recent form matters a lot during the regular season not surprising, but still interesting to see quantified. For each team, we also keep a playoff rating , which is used to simulate playoff games. This is based on the team's most recent games, and it contains no regression-to-the-mean factor, though postseason games receive triple weight in the ratings.
This means that the ratings take a much longer view of a team's performance when looking ahead to the playoffs, which also makes sense in the context of research showing that a team's previous playoff resume matters a lot relative to the regular season. Another factor that gets baked into the simulations is uncertainty.
The win probabilities of any two teams in either a regular season or playoff game vary depending on how far into the future it is, with a game tomorrow being considered more certain than a game eight months from now. The challenge for any model is figuring out the balance between simplicity and complexity, which can mean deciding how much relevant information to include.
This forecast style is simpler than the one previously maintained by FiveThirtyEight , which was based on player ratings and accounted for trades, injuries and other player movement. Our basic model won't be able to adjust immediately to those differences. However, it will evolve over time as more of the rating sample includes the mix of players a team will use going forward.
To help mitigate some of this, the default for our model is what we call Composite Mode , which blends the pure ratings-based forecast simulations with implied betting-market probabilities from FanDuel. Playoff probabilities nba In theory, this should steer our forecast in the direction of more qualitative factors like injuries and trades that a statistical power rating-based system cannot readily account for.
However, if you want to see the pure stats-based version, you can toggle the interactive above to Stats-only Mode , which removes the betting-market feature.