It is at this point of the NBA Live Coins season that we start to get a sense of teams' true
identity. Surprisingly decent teams who should be bad tend to fall off. (Hello,
Bobcats. Meet the 2010-11 Cavaliers.) Surprising mediocre teams who should be
great break out. (Great to hear from you, 2010-11 Heat.) Things come together,
and the season begins to show real definition.
The Lakers enter this zone of the Buy Nostalrius Gold season on a two-game skid, giving up a
combined 231 points to the Thunder and Jazz. Sunday's loss to Utah came at home,
which is particularly odd: the Jazz are terrible on the road -- they had been
3-9 away from Salt Lake, with the wins coming in Toronto, D.C. and New Orleans
-- and the Lakers had been passable if not good at home -- 7-5 with a solid
margin of victory before the loss.
Why would the defense crumble the way it did? It's been a recurring theme,
actually: the defense has been really, really erratic.The best judge of a team's
quality is scoring margin. Win-loss record is a crude implement. In win-loss
record, a two-point squeaker counts the same as a 25-point blowout. We know that
wins of those types indicate different levels of quality: the team that wins the
blowout did a better job, even if both accomplished their goal (a win).
If we're looking at multiple games and we need a single number to tell us
whether a team is good or bad, scoring margin can do it. A positive scoring
margin is like a good win-loss record ... and the larger, the better. A negative
scoring margin is like a bad win-loss record ... and the further from zero, the
worse.In the aggregate, over 21 games, the Lakers have a scoring margin of ...
+3.1, which is roughly second-tier in the https://www.mmogo.com/
