The Week in Hoops: March 28, 2011

The Colton Index:

Teams of the Week:

	1. Sacramento Kings(from 27th to 25th) - Wins at Milwaukee, at Indiana, at Philadelphia; Loss at Chicago. Did the Maloof's promise DeMarcus Cousins and his teammates free passes at Disneyland next year if they won four out of five on the roadtrip? Unfortunately, they may have cost themselves some ping-pong balls in the process.
	2. Memphis Grizzlies (from 11th to 10th) - Wins vs Utah, at Boston, vs San Antonio; Loss at Chicago. The Grizzlies are 8 games above .500 and managing fine without their franchise player. Memphis was 8-14 at one point this year.
	3. Chicago Bulls (from 3rd to 2nd) - Wins vs Sacramento, at Atlanta, vs Memphis, at Milwaukee. I love Stacey King on the Bulls broadcasts, but even I have to admit he's laying on the Derrick Rose for MVP love a little too thick lately. C'mon, Stace, D-Rose has this thing wrapped up. I did find it amusing that Dwight Howard managed to creep into the MVP conversation early last week, primarily because talking heads needed something to keep talking about. Then Rose continued his fourth-quarter heroics in multiple victories this week.

Teams of the Weak:

	1. New York Knicks(stays at 17th) - Losses vs Boston, vs Orlando, vs Milwaukee, at Charlotte. The Knicks are 7-12 since the Melo trade. Some numbers for you: Stat Before Trade After Trade Pts Scored 106.2 105.0 Opp Pts 105.8 105.3 Team FG% 46.0% 44.8% Opp FG% 46.9% 47.9% Compare that to the Nuggets pre- and post-trade: Stat Before Trade After Trade Pts Scored 107.6 107.9 Opp Pts 105.2 95.8 Team FG% 47.4% 48.2% Opp FG% 46.4% 44.0%
	2. Utah Jazz (stays at 18th) - Losses at Memphis, at Oklahoma City, vs New Orleans, vs Dallas. While we're at it, let's look at the Jazz pre- and post-Deron Williams trade. The key difference between Utah and New York is that the Jazz had no expectations of being better after the deal. The new Jazz are horrendous defensively. Stat Before Trade After Trade Pts Scored 99.4 102.4 Opp Pts 99.7 108.5 Team FG% 46.3% 47.4% Opp FG% 45.4% 47.5%
	3. Boston Celtics (stays at 15th) - Losses at Miami, vs Sacramento; Win vs Atlanta. Sixers show up primarily for losing to our #1 Team of the Week, although I can't kill 'em too badly.

Updated with Games as of Sunday March 20th

Rk	Move	Team	W-L	Last 15	Avg Diff	SOS Rk	Colton
1	-		57-16	9-6	6	15	59.30
2	+1		53-19	13-2	7.39	29	57.95
3	-1		53-20	14-1	6.58	24	57.87
4	-		52-21	10-5	4.34	16	55.47
5	-		51-22	9-6	7.15	25	55.30
6	-		51-21	9-6	6.01	30	53.20
7	-		48-24	12-3	3.63	20	52.47
8	-		47-26	11-4	5.62	27	51.89
9	-		44-29	11-4	4.56	13	50.97
10	+1		41-33	9-6	1.86	1	47.56
11	-1		42-31	9-6	1.64	11	46.76
12	+1		42-32	8-7	1.55	3	46.54
13	-1		38-35	11-4	1.82	5	45.97
14	-		42-32	6-9	0	28	42.47
15	-		37-36	8-7	1.53	26	41.68
16	-		36-36	6-9	-0.4	10	41.66
17	-		35-38	5-10	0.25	21	38.89
18	-		36-38	4-11	-1.65	9	38.44
19	+2		32-42	6-9	-2.8	12	35.46
20	-1		32-42	5-10	-1.5	22	35.02
21	-1		29-43	7-8	-1.19	23	34.35
22	-		30-42	5-10	-3.97	7	34.08
23	-		29-45	8-7	-2.92	14	33.52
24	-		26-47	5-10	-3.97	18	29.87
25	+2		20-52	6-9	-5.25	8	27.59
26	-1		23-49	6-9	-5.58	19	27.13
27	+1		17-57	4-11	-5.78	2	24.59
28	-2		20-53	4-11	-6.33	17	24.57
29	-		17-55	2-13	-8.38	6	20.89
30	-		14-58	4-11	-10.31	4	18.56

Note: Updating from last week...if the NBA combined the conferences and simply took the best 16 teams for the playoffs, the first-round match-ups would look like this if the season ended today (to account for differences in strength of schedule, I use the Colton Index full-season run of just wins and losses to rank order the teams):
1. San Antonio (57-16) vs. 16. Utah (36-38)
2. LA Lakers (53-20) vs. 15. Phoenix (36-36)
3. Chicago (53-19) vs. 14. Houston (38-35)
4. Dallas (52-21) vs. 13. Atlanta (42-32)
5. Miami (51-22) vs. 12. Memphis (41-33)
6. Boston (51-21) vs. 11. Portland (42-31)
7. Oklahoma City (48-24) vs. 10. New Orleans (42-32)
8. Orlando (47-26) vs. 9. Denver (44-29)

Effectively, the bottom three teams in the East would be replaced by Utah, Phoenix and Houston. I was surprised to see that Utah's 36-38 record is actually statistically slightly ahead of Philadelphia's 38-37 record when you consider strength of schedule.

Plan Accordingly:

Must watch games this week (all times ET):

Mon 3/28: Philadelphia at Chicago (8:00 PM, NBATV); Portland at San Antonio (8:30 PM)
Tues 3/29: Miami at Cleveland (7:00 PM) - LeBron's return to Cleveland highlights a weak slate of games, although does anybody really care anymore?
Weds 3/30: Orlando at Atlanta (7:00 PM) - preview of the 4/5 series nobody's going to watch; Portland at New Orleans (8:00 PM); Oklahoma City at Phoenix (10:00 PM) - New Jersey at New York is on ESPN, can we get a mulligan on that one?
Thurs 3/31: Boston at San Antonio (8:00 PM, TNT); Dallas at LA Lakers (10:30 PM, TNT)
Fri 4/1: Memphis at New Orleans (8:00 PM); Boston at Atlanta (8:00 PM, ESPN); San Antonio at Houston (8:30 PM); Oklahoma City at Portland (10:00 PM)
Sat 4/2: Oklahoma City at LA Clippers (10:30 PM)
Sun 4/3: Phoenix at San Antonio (1:00 PM, ABC); Denver at LA Lakers (3:30 PM, ABC); Dallas at Portland (9:00 PM)

Dunks of the Week:

Here are the top 5 Dunks for the week ending 3/26, as voted on by the Wegobomber Dunk Committee. 60% of the top dunks came from the Lakers-Clippers game.



5. Derrick Rose with the double-pump reverse jam on the breakaway.
4. Shannon Brown drives to the hole and throws down the impressive one-handed reverse jam.
3. Ronald Stuckey dunks right on top of Chris Bosh's Avatar-ish mug.
2. Blake Griffin with a 55-foot alley-oop jam.
1. Blake Griffin rears back and throws down a one-handed alley-oop.


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