this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2023
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Point differential tie breaker for In-season tournament is dumb? (alien.top)
submitted 11 months ago by JuggernautSuperb5203@alien.top to c/nba@nba.space
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I was looking at the In season tournament standings and to me it looks like there could be a lot of tie breaking needed(especially for the wildcard teams). Head to head is the first tiebreaker, but it looks like this is not going to work everywhere (for example all of west group c teams could easily finish 3-1 with wins against each other).

The way I understand the wildcard is that the the top 2 teams that don't win their groups will be chosen, but there will be like 4 of those with tied records as well, so they will go to point differential. So we are basically choosing the teams based on who ran up the score against the wizards, spurs and grizzlies the most? Doesn't encouraging running up the score seem kinda dumb? Sorry if I misunderstood the format I'm just trying to figure it out.

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[–] rwoteit@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

You also mitigate your differential by not losing big to the other teams. In any case, it doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to split the teams and when players understand how fine the margins can be, the end of games will always have something to continue to compete for rather than letting it play out.

Outside of wanting to progress, it encourages another layer of intensity that wouldn't exist in a normal regular season game. Should make you fight harder to win your group too rather than leave it to fate.

[–] SoKrat3s@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

It's just as dumb to use h2h as the primary tiebreak. No round robin should run like that. All games are supposed to have equal value.

Take the World Cup for instance, if Ireland beats Turkey but the two end up tied in points, it doesn't default to their h2h, because the other games mattered just as much.

[–] bravof1ve@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

The whole thing is a clear gimmick, if the carnival colored courts didn’t make that obvious enough

[–] UncleColli@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The real problem to me was how uneven the scheduling was. Philadelphia had played their fourth IST game before others had played their second. If point differential is in play, that’s an enormous advantage to know the exact target you are shooting for

[–] koenigsaurus@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Yeah this has been a weird quirk of being a first-time event. In the future it could benefit a lot from having scheduled IST nights, maybe where two nights a week for 4 weeks are set aside exclusively for all teams to play their IST game. Would be even easier once there are 32 teams, with two nights evenly split into 8 games each.

[–] WrightwoodHiker@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I’m actually ok with teams playing hard for longer.

[–] Ramu_1798@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

As a soccer fan, I live and die by Goal Difference, aka point difference

[–] angel2timez@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I think the NBA loves the point differential tie breaker. They are trying to make less games boring during the regular season since there is a lot of opinions that theres too many games and games are meaniless. That opinion grows stronger during blow outs and both teams stop trying and running actual plays and it just more of a sloppy pick up game.

With the point differential, teams are still trying and running plays which makes the offense look better and produces a better casual watch which most fans are casual watchers.

[–] Firm_Squish1@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

I think that’s good because it sets up players and teams to get pissed at each other over running up the score.

[–] MrAdelphi03@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Just win and you’ll go through.

[–] TheBottomLine_Aus@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Dude point differential is used in basically all major competitions around the world. It's not a new concept.

There is no more reasonable way to sort them. I don't see how this is a problem in the slightest.

[–] mysteryman403@alien.top 1 points 11 months ago

Why is running up the score dumb? It’s exactly what we want to see as nba fans, is a blowout game still having players working hard till the buzzer