NBA trends in back-to-back-to-back scenarios
By Marc Lawrence
In yet another battle of billionaires winning our over millionaires, the NBA finally came to its senses when it agreed to a new 10-year collective bargaining agreement. The 2011-12 NBA season is back on and with it abound a myriad of scheduling complexities.
Every team will play 48 conference games and 18 against opposing conference opponents. Forced to cram a 66-game compacted schedule into a shortened agenda, the league needed to schedule 42 back-to-back-to-back games.
To give you some perspective about how many that is, the league had only 84 total three games in three days situations played between 1994-2001 (the last year the league abolished back-to-back-to-backs).
Here is a breakdown of how teams performing in this NBA troika fared over the final 8-year span…
Home Not So Sweet Home
NBA home teams in the last of a triple-back set in three days struggled mightily as the linemaker could not compensate enough.
That’s confirmed by as 15-24 SU and 12-21-1 ATS mark in these games by the tired hosts.
Whether it was a case of too much home cooking or tired legs, home teams simply wore down in this three-day window.
Suitcase Success
Overcompensating road teams in these back-to-back-to-backers was another gaffe of oddsmakers.
How else do you explain a 16-19 SU and 24-8 ATS record when playing on the road in the last leg of 3-games in 3-days?
Better yet, when these ‘tired travelers’ were playing off a win they wanted more, going a sterling 15-3 ATS in this situation.
Over And Out
As might be expected, three games in three days met with an abundance of high scoring games.
Whether it was because of a lack of defense or an unassuming host, the over in these games was certainly the play, going 39-27-1.
There you have it. It’s now ‘trips to win’ in more ways than one when it comes to cracking the mystery to back-to-back-to-back games in the NBA.