Jon Snow: NBA First Quarters

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All right Jon Snow here are the web links that i use to analyze NBA first quarters

NBA has a good number of games for statistical analysis.

NBA 82 games. NHL 82 games. MLB 162 games

NFL 16 games. College Football 12 games.

There are 32 NFL teams. There are 130 college football teams.

NBA, NHL, and MLB offers the most opportunities for statistical analysis of teams and riding streaks.

So far the NBA teams have played about 23 games.

We have a good amount statistics, and we can feel for the quality of the teams and players.

We have found NBA games volatile and hard to predict.

I believe that by focusing on the first quarter,

we reduce the volatility and noise

and make better predictions.

This is why I say this . . .

Both teams start of with zero points. Neither team is ahead or behind. This is important, because teams play differently when they have a lead, and when they are behind.

At the beginning of the game, players are hyped up with the pregame festivities, and give a good effort. NBA basketball is like a marathon with ebbs and flows in energy during the 48 minutes in a whole game. In the first quarter, we can expect a good consistent effort from the NBA basketball players.

Players are not robots. Players are human. Motivation and effort are variable. Many factors can influence motivation and effort.

Home, road, back to back games, standings, rivalries, coaching, management, ownership, crowd effect, etc.

Each quarter is 12 minutes. NBA has frequent change of possession. I believe and I see that one quarter has enough events to be a statistically sound period of time. In contrast, NFL football needs two quarters to give you enough statistical events, thus I recommend first half for NFL. For NBA, first quarter is the optimal time frame.

During the half time break, teams make adjustments. These adjustments can influence the outcome of the game. In addition, as the game progresses, there is more chance of injuries during the games.

Starters play a majority of minutes in the first quarter. Later bench players are rotated in. This later variability in the lineup increases variability in team performance. Think about relief pitchers in MLB baseball. The bullpen brings variability in team pitching. This is part of the reason that first five innings is more predictable.

Starters playing a majority of the first quarter, good effort, 0-0 starting point. These are the major reasons that I believe the first quarter NBA predictions are more reliable.

I am developing a system for NBA.

Check the standings. Win percentage, home record, road record, wins the last ten games. Offense points per games. Defense points allowed. Point differential. Point differential is PPG scored minus points allowed. Point differential is strongly correlated with wins. Point differential and win percentage are the best measurements of a team’s overall quality.

Point differential are used by Vegas to make point spreads. Take the point differential of the favorite team and subtract the point differential of the underdog team. You will see that the vegas point spread is close. Vegas usually give the home team 3 points.

Look at schedule and results. Look for back-to-back games, travel, and other fatigue factors. Look at wins and losses, and margin of victory.

Consider strength of schedule. When evaluating the quality of a win or lose, consider the quality of the opponent and margin of victory. To evaluate the opponent’s strength, I use win percentage and point differential. I also do benchmarking to anchor a team. Let’s say Team A recently beat the Golden State Warriors. That would anchor Team A to a benchmark, and indicate that Team A may be a good team. Benchmarking is an MBA concept.

Note that season stats are averages for the whole season. You want to look at recent performance to give you a more real time measure of a team’s quality. Start with the last game and go backwards ten games. The NBA regular season is long and has 82 games for every team. Team performance will vary, and there can be both negative and positive streaks. If there is a streak, we want to identify the streak and jump on it early and ride the streak. The goal is to have a real time power rating for the team going into the next game.

Look at injuries. You want to evaluate the impact of the injured player. Consider points score per game, assists, rebounds, blocks, steals, and position of the player. Consider the drop-off with the replacement players.

There are few NBA stars and a injured to a star play can have huge impact. Look at Porzingis with the Knicks. Knicks have hard time winning without Porzingis.

You can look at the team’s performance with and without the injured player. This is called with-you-or-without-you analysis.

The loss of a point guard and mess with the coordination and rhythm of team. Consider the effects of the player’s position.

In general, I look at points per game and rebounds of a player to evaluate the impact. Points per game and rebounds give you a quick feel for the player.

Keep an eye on the Blake Griffin injury. This is another high impact injury.

Also, consider past matchups. Some teams just own other teams.

Another advantage of the first quarter is that the favorite’s point spread will be reduced and easier to cover. For example, let’s say that Golden State’s point spread is -10 for the whole games. The first quarter point spread may be -2.

Reduced point spread was a major motivation for me to look at the first quarter. You can get great matchups with top teams with high win percentage and point differential versus bottom teams - with a reduced point spread.

I believe that second, third, and fourth quarter are Not predictable. First Half and Second Half are inferior for sports forecasting purposes.

As our knowledge and master of sport advance, at some point, we will have to be more selective, and focus on the best pick with the highest probability of success.

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For me, the 2013 NHL season, I had a 90% win percentage. Looking back, it was blind luck, most of my picks were the Chicago Blackhawks who won 75 percent of their games. I actually God was guiding me. Once I have learned more, I would like to get back to that high success rate.

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NHL Straddle

Speaking of Hockey - Let me introduce to technique I call straddling. It’s inspired by hedge funds and arbitrage at investment banks. I call it the straddle.

The Straddle

Look for an underdog that has a reasonable chance to win with a moneyline of +150 or better.

Look to see that the favorite has a PuckLine that pays our +150 or better.

You bet equal amounts on the favorite and underdog. As long as the favorite does not win by just one goal, then your straddle gives you a profit.

Here is an example, December 3, 2017 :

Ottawa Senators were playing at Winnipeg Jets.

Ottawa was the underdog with a moneyline of +150.

Winnpeg PuckLine paid out +165.

There are three scenarios here :

Ottawa wins, and you will +150

Winnipeg wins by 2+ goals, and you win +165

Winnipeg wins by one goal, and you lose.