Spurs/Trail Blazers: The Game Inside the Game
By DAVID MALINSKY
When a series gets to 3-0, the usual Zig Zag patterns of oddsmaking for the NBA playoffs go away. The markets clearly understand the long-term patterns for these games, which is why the Spurs can close at +1 on Saturday night, and now be sitting at -3.5 for Monday, which a good chance that -4’s appear. And understanding why the history of these games has been so strong should be your starting point for breaking down Game #4.
As always there are two parts to the equation, although the mentality of the team down 0-3 might carry more than half of the weighting in terms of the outcome. But let’s open by dealing with the favorite. Does a team up 3-0 take a breather knowing that the series is in hand? Rarely.
First, to be up 3-0 means that you are pretty good, and that also tends to mean pretty savvy as well. Savvy grasps that the faster you close a series, the more rest before the next one begins. Look no further than to Gregg Popovich, who is also Exhibit A for Monday night. This is the 12th time that Pops has been up 3-0 in a playoff series, and through the first 11 it has been a perfect 11-0 SU, with an 8-3 ATS, going for the closeout. In those 11 games the Spurs beat the spread by a significant 76 points. The margin is meaningful because these are isolated games with an unobstructed focus from the oddsmakers and betting markets, and not a mid-season pattern through which they could be caught napping.
Yes, Popovich will want to get this game and go back to San Antonio for some respite, especially with the Thunder and Clippers in the process of potentially exhausting each other. Which then takes us to Exhibit B.
The strength of 3-0 teams getting closeouts will look mostly like the better teams going for the jugular the way that history records the results, but as mentioned above, it is the team down 0-3 that often carries more weight in terms of the result. In these settings, backers of the trailing team often do not get their money’s worth.
Focus on the psychology. When you are down 0-3 you know that you are not the better team, and that winning the series is almost certainly beyond reach. So with the end to a long season in sight, there is often a mindset of just getting it over with and heading towards vacation time (yes, the NBA lifestyle is absolutely a factor here). Consider what it means for an 0-3 team to be playing at home – a win forces another road trip, to face the inevitable on the home court of the superior team. Many players genuinely do not want that.
Every once in a while there will be an 0-3 team that brings a purpose to merely win a single game, and not get swept. That can happen in the first round, especially for a team lacking playoff experience, for which a single win would matter. But as the rounds go by that motivation falls away.
Which brings us to Portland for Monday. There is no logical reason to believe that the Trail Blazers can turn this series around – in losing by a combined 56 points they have led for only 33 seconds. Since they have a series win over Houston under their belts, getting swept 4-0 would not be a huge embarrassment. But there may be a question about their effort that was already answered.
Terry Stotts and his team had a chance to turn the series momentum in front of a terrific home crowd on Saturday night. It was the kind of setting in which a team’s energy should have been at a zenith. So what happened? The Trail Blazers trailed 60-40 at halftime. That was not necessarily anything new – they trailed the first two games by a combined 45 points at intermission. But here is what was bothersome – in that first half of Game #3 they did not have a single steal or blocked shot. The effort that should have been, wasn’t.
If Portland did not bring it on Saturday, should there be any expectation of that changing for Game #4? That becomes your starting point to build a good handicap at the adjusted pointspread, with one other important notion – while the Trail Blazers did not play well, Stotts did keep the pedal down for his struggling machine. Every starter went at least 36:50, with LaMarcus Aldridge at 44:02 and Damian Lillard 43:01, which makes it even more difficult to recharge the batteries for a “last stand”.
