“You're never as good
as you look on your good days, and you're never as bad on your bad days.” Penn
State football coach Joe Paterno mentioned that after a 1981 upset of Pitt,
48-14, when the Nittany Lions were a big underdog.
He was referring to
the fact that even though his team just trounced a top-rated Pitt club, it
didn't mean they were the best team in the country simply that it was Penn
State's day, while a good Pitt team simply had a bad game.
It’s important for
handicappers not to overreact to surprising upsets and blowouts, because those
surprises happen all the time. Successful handicappers are able to keep things
in perspective. All the buzz after Sunday was the Miami Heat and LeBron James
getting throttled at Chicago in Game 1, a 103-82 pasting. Which means the home team is 6-2-1 ATS in the
last nine meetings.
Bulls own the glass
Luol Deng was a surprise hero, with
21 points, four three-pointers, four steals and seven rebounds. And this
Chicago defense, exceptional all year, was smothering, holding James to 15
points on 5-of-15 shooting. Meanwhile
Chris Bosh had the quietest 30 points and 9 rebounds in NBA playoff history. The Chicago Bulls also dominated in bench scoring 28-15, with
huge efforts from Taj Gibson and Ronnie Brewer, and in all the hustle areas.
Still, the game was tied at the half, so it’s not as though Miami
was dominated the entire game. The biggest concern for the Heat would be
rebounding, as Chicago had a whopping 45-33 edge, including an astounding 19-6
in offensive boards, while outscoring them 31-8 on second-chance points, none
more emphatic than the Gibson slam in the fourth. Those are things that are
correctable with some combination of adjustments and effort. Just because
Chicago dominated the glass in Game 1 doesn’t mean we will see a repeat in Game
2.
Perhaps the biggest concern for Miami is that they shot over 47%
from the field and still got blown out while scoring only 80 points. The
regular season shouldn’t mean that much, but it’s interesting that Chicago is
now 4-0 against Miami this season.
Has Miami faced
anything like this in the postseason? No. They went up 2-games-to-none on both
the 76ers and Celtics in the first two rounds and have not faced any kind of
pressure thus far. One game, even a blowout contest, does not a series make,
although Miami is 3-12-1 ATS in their last 16 playoff games as an underdog.
NBA playoff blowouts and bounce backs
Think back a few
years in the NBA Playoffs when the Mavericks and Heat met in the Finals for the
title. What happened during their two regular season meetings? What happened
were two blowouts by the Dallas Mavericks, 103-90 and 112-76. Novice sports
bettors might look at those two games and conclude that the Mavs would likely
top the Heat in the Finals, maybe even by double digits each game.
However, good
handicappers know not to read too much into those two meetings. A closer look
finds that in the first meeting, Dallas won 103-90 at Miami but Shaq did not
play. In the second meeting, Dallas won 112-76 at home shooting 56%. Dallas
just happened to be red-hot shooting that second game. That came in the middle
of a 17-3 run by Miami, so it’s not like the Heat wasn’t playing good ball.
They just had a bad game. In addition, Miami never really had its whole team
together healthy until late in the season, another key factor in their run to
the title.
Things like that can
happen in playoff series, too. Miami lost Game 1 of the playoffs one year
against New Jersey by 12 points as a 5-point favorite. Didn’t matter, as the next game they won 111-89. Sometimes a team that you wager on may have a
horrible game, but be careful about writing that club off as bad or overrated.
They may, in fact, be a bad team, but it might also be just one bad game. It’s
smarter to log it in the back of your head as just a bad game. Most important,
don't be afraid to back that team again if the circumstances dictate.
1985 Lakers/Celtics
In Game 1 of the 1985
NBA Finals, the Lakers and Celtics were evenly matched in a rematch of the
previous year’s Finals that had gone seven games. That Game 1 Final score:
148-114, Celtics, a shocking blowout. It was also an aberration, as the Lakers
proceeded to win four of the next five games and the title. Game 1 just
happened to be a real bad game by a great team.
As a sports bettor,
it's important to understand seasonal dynamics. Even great clubs aren’t going
to be great every game. Teams can simply have poor shooting nights, or bad
defensive games. A decent team off of one bad game could provide value the next
game.