We might look back at the second full week of July as the one where the standings started to match the numbers. In the West, Phoenix emerged atop the pack of teams competing for the second seed, while Indiana now leads the Eastern Conference by percentage points after a pair of wins last weekend. Or, alternatively, things will continue to be wacky. Could go either way. Still, let’s take a look at how the advanced statistics stand. As always, see our updated Statistical Analysis 101 page for explanations of these stats.
OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE RATINGS
Team ORtg Team DRtg
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Seattle 110.6 Indiana 93.1
Phoenix 109.5 Washington 96.4
Connecticut 103.9 Seattle 97.7
Chicago 102.2 Chicago 98.4
Indiana 102.1 Atlanta 99.3
LEAGUE 101.7 Connecticut 101.2
Atlanta 102.6 LEAGUE 101.7
New York 101.1 New York 101.7
Washington 99.8 Minnesota 102.6
Los Angeles 99.4 San Antonio 106.1
San Antonio 98.5 Los Angeles 106.3
Minnesota 96.1 Tulsa 107.5
Tulsa 94.9 Phoenix 109.3
It was a bit of a rough week for Washington, which tumbled in Offensive Rating, and Atlanta, which went from third to fifth in Defensive Rating. Not coincidentally, Indiana made up ground on both teams. Saturday’s game was really a microcosm of the Lynx’s season. Minnesota has been much improved on defense and is within shouting distance of league average after finishing 12th out of 13 teams last year. However, Minnesota has been held back by an offense that remains surprisingly ineffective.
EXPECTED WINS STANDINGS
Team Exp. W% Team Exp. W%
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Seattle .819 Indiana .701
Phoenix .530 Washington .622
Minnesota .339 Connecticut .586
Los Angeles .312 Chicago .566
San Antonio .306 Atlanta .549
Tulsa .171 New York .477
As discussed earlier, Phoenix and Indiana have finally risen to the heights their point differential saw them in all along. Atlanta remains an outlier; the Dream is tied with the Fever for first place in the East despite the conference’s fifth-best point differential. Chicago is playing some good basketball but will still have a hard time making up the ground on the leaders in the East. One surprise in the West: Despite losing in San Antonio on Sunday, the Sparks still narrowly overtook the Silver Stars in terms of differential.
WARP LEADERS
Player Tm Win% WARP
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Tamika Catchings IND .838 6.3
Sylvia Fowles CHI .770 6.2
Lauren Jackson SEA .806 6.1
Tina Charles CON .699 4.3
Katie Douglas IND .684 4.0
Cappie Pondexter NYL .665 4.0
Penny Taylor PHO .657 3.8
Diana Taurasi PHO .649 3.6
Crystal Langhorne WAS .632 3.5
Sue Bird SEA .635 3.3
For the first time since May, Lauren Jackson has been bumped out of the top spot of the WARP leaderboard. Really, Jackson, Tamika Catchings and Sylvia Fowles – this season’s clear top three players – are all virtually tied. Chicago has played two more games than the Storm and Fever, which has worked to her advantage. It’s easy to see why Indiana won two big games: Catchings and Katie Douglas both had excellent weeks. Cappie Pondexter also surged up the rankings on the strength of her 40-point outing yesterday. But other than the order, the top 10 remains unchanged.
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With 13 games to go in the regular season hasn’t the Storm cliched a playoff berth? The team coming 5th LA has 15 losses so far. Surely going on our head to head record against LA means we have at least claimed 4th at this point?
Rod, I agree absolutely that the Storm have clinched. We currently sit at 19-2, and there is no way that Tulsa can catch us. LA currently sits at 6-15, if they were to run the table and win all of their remaining games, the best they could finish would be 19-15. The worst that the Storm could finish is 19-15. And by winning the season series (4-0, with one game remaining) vs. the Sparks, we take the tie-breaker.
However, one might suggest that there could be multiple team tie, negating the Storm/Sparks tiebreaker. I can see a scenario where the Phoenix Mercury, Minnesota, and Los Angeles all finish at 19-15, tied with Seattle. However, for this to work Phoenix would have to lose their one remaining game to the Sparks (since LA has to run the table), and they would have to lose two games to Minnesota. Minnesota would have to lose all three of their remaining games vs. LA, but win all of their remaining games.
So, with this scenario, we have the following—
Seattle 19-15
Phoenix 19-15
Los Angeles 19-15
Minnesota 19-15
This results in a four-way tie, but there’s no way to work it so that San Antonio has 15 losses or fewer, since they have remaining games with Phoenix, Minnesota, and Los Angeles. They all have to play each other, so there’s no scenario for a five-way tie, and it’s not mathematically possible for all of the four remaining Western Conference teams (discounting Tulsa, which already has lost more than 15 games) to finish with 15 losses or less.
So, in summary, the Seattle Storm have clinched a play-off berth with their victory yesterday afternoon.
As Sue Bird might say, “I didn’t realize that there would be math…”