On the morning of Thursday, December 17, six Eastern Conference teams are in the midst of active losing streaks (defined as two games or more): Boston, Brooklyn, Charlotte, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and Washington.
On the same morning, six East teams have active winning streaks: Chicago, Cleveland, Indiana, Miami, New York, and Orlando. That’s 12 of 15 teams, with only Atlanta, Detroit and Toronto not being immersed in a streak. The Hawks, Pistons and Raptors will either create a streak in their next games or turn those outcomes into “solo results,” in other words, single wins or losses immediately followed by the opposite result.
It seemed that at first glance, this is a conference in which teams bounce from a winning streak to a losing streak (or vice-versa) with relatively few “solo results,” those individual wins or losses which dangle in the open.
What’s counterintuitive (at least to an extent) is that while teams obviously want to maximize winning streaks and minimize losing streaks, it can easily be a plus to have more losing “solo results.” The presence of a lot of “single losses” means they were followed by wins, which consequently means that multi-game losing patterns were minimized.
The East has been confusing so far this season. It seems hard to believe that 10 teams will finish the regular season with winning records. It is even more difficult to believe that teams two through ten will be separated by 2.5 games, as is the case right now.
We’re going to continue to try to make sense of the puzzle that is the East — a puzzle for a lot of good reasons, but a puzzle nonetheless. Win-loss profiles offer a good starting point for our examination. We’ll do this team by team and then offer a few general statistics.
*
The Atlanta Hawks have two three-game losing streaks on their dossier.
The Boston Celtics have won or lost more than two consecutive games only twice so far this season. They’ve never won or lost more than three games in a row. They don’t bunch together a lot of big streaks.
The Celtics stand on one side of the spectrum. Cleveland, Indiana and Toronto are on the other side. The Cavaliers uncorked three winning streaks of three games or more (one with eight). The Pacers have unfurled five streaks of three games or more (three winning streaks, two losing streaks, including a six-game win streak). The Raptors have produced three winning streaks of at least four games and two three-game losing streaks.
The Brooklyn Nets have suffered six losing streaks and have created only two two-game winning streaks.
The Charlotte Hornets have two four-game winning streaks. Their current losing streak (two games) is their first losing streak since the start of the season (0-3).
Detroit has just three “solo results.” Almost all of the Pistons’ wins and losses have come within the context of streaks.
Other teams (not yet named in this article) with very small amounts of solo results: Milwaukee (4, all wins), New York (3, two wins), and Philadelphia (that lone win, of course).
Other teams already named in this article with low solo result totals: Brooklyn (3, all wins), Cleveland (2, both losses), Indiana (4, three losses), and Toronto (2, one win and one loss).
The Miami Heat have only one losing streak, a three-gamer. All their other losses were solo results followed by wins.
Milwaukee has endured three three-game losing streaks.
New York has endured two four-game losing streaks; its last solo result came in game three of the season.
Orlando has four winning streaks, including a five-gamer.
Washington has already suffered four multi-game losing streaks.
Philadelphia? What else is there to say? 18-L and 8-L, for a 1-26 tankapalooza after 27 games.
*
A few final general notes:
The highest number of solo results for an Eastern Conference team to this point in the season: Atlanta, 11 (6 wins, 5 losses). The only other team with at least 10 solo results: Miami, 10 (4 wins, 6 losses).
The total number of solo results: 79, for an average of 5.27 per team (rounded). Cleveland has played 23 games, the fewest in the East to this point. Several teams have played 27, the maximum number. If you use 25 as the average number of games played per team in the East, the number of games played so far this season is 375. Results occurring within the context of streaks far outnumber solo results.
The fact that so many teams are so closely bunched together, even with so many instances of streak-based (bundled) winning, reveals the up-and-down nature of the conference to this point.
We’ll see if a settling process begins to take place as we move into the holiday season and then January.
