Sportsfrog.com

Three teams that were popularly picked as playoff teams in the East are stinking up the joint with a combined record of 4-17. Washington (who helped that record with a win last night), Chicago, and Miami had been utter disappointments thus far for their fanbases.

Some people had a pretty good read on why the Heat (ahem) were going to be bad, and adding Ricky Davis and Mark Blount to the mix did not help. Davis is a selfish gunner and Blount is the fourth big man in the Miami mix behind O’Neal, Mourning, and Haslem. Now that he’s back, Dwyane Wade has a chance to show that he really is an elite player.

What about those other two teams?

Washington wasn’t a universal playoff choice (Hollinger at ESPN didn’t like them this year and Simmons is backtracking due to a couple slow weeks). The Bulls, however, were the chic choice to represent the East in the Finals (guilty as charged) and there is debate over if it is just another slow start for the Bulls or if something is really wrong with this team (the Kobe trade talk, the unsigned extensions by Luol Deng and Ben Gordon, Ben Wallace’s slow start, their big guns’ inability to hit the broad side of a barn). The two squads, however, are showing a lot of similar signs for being teams with two different philosophies. The Wizards rely on the offensive skill of their stars while the Bulls grind down their foes with defense and getting enough offense to win, but some of their stats look the same.

Last year’s field goal shooting for these two squads:

Washington – 45.0 percent on 83.2 attempts per game
Chicago – 45.7 percent on 81.3 attempts per game

This year:

Washington – 39.2 percent on 83.4 attempts per game (29th in the league)
Chicago – 38.1 percent on 84.8 attempts per game (last in the league)

As a result, the Wizards are scoring 10.6 fewer points per night (24th in the league at 93.7 points per game) and the Bulls are tallying 12.3 fewer points per night (29th in the league at 86.5 points per game). In case you are wondering about that 7.2 point-per-game difference, the Wizards make 6.2 more free throws per game.

There are three stats that usually determine who wins a basketball game: turnovers, rebounding, and field goal percentage. Teams that perform better in these stats tend to win more games. In this young NBA season (116 games, which is about 9.5 percent of the season), here’s the relation between those stats and wins:

Fewer turnovers than opponent – .582 win percentage (64 winning teams had fewer turnovers, seven others tied)
More rebounds than opponent – .651 win percentage (72 winning teams had more boards, seven others tied)
Better field goal percentage – .853 win percentage (99 winning teams had a higher field goal percentage)

In this sample, field goal percentage differential appears to have a much stronger relationship with teams winning games than the other two statistics. As it pertains to the two Eastern Conference teams discussed here, Washington ranks 26th and Chicago ranks 29th in field goal percentage differential. In case you were wondering, the other teams in the bottom five in this stat are Sacramento (2-6), Charlotte (4-4), and Golden State (0-6). (A pair of 30-plus-point losses where the Bobcats shot 36.6 and 30.7 percent is skewing Charlotte’s number.)

It should be no surprise which teams are at the top of field goal differential – Boston, Los Angeles Lakers, San Antonio, Detroit, Denver, Utah and Orlando. That list includes five of the six early division leaders, plus the Lakers, who are 4-3, and the Nuggets, who are one game behind the Jazz. Phoenix is the lone division leader not listed and they rank 11th in field goal percentage differential.