Alex Speers

It means I'm starting to think about how much certain narratives about specific teams really matter when it gets to the playoffs.

And half-court offense is one of those things that people seem to think matters a lot.

We always hear about how the game slows down in the playoffs.

You have to be able to execute in the half-court.

So how much does your regular season half-court offense really matter?

How bad can you be and still win in the playoffs?

So I went back to the 0-3-0-4 season on Cleaning the Glass.

I looked at the half court offense rank for every team that made the conference finals in the last 22 seasons.

So 88 teams in total.

How good were they in the half court offense in the regular season?

And this won't be surprising, but to win the whole thing, half court offense does appear to matter.

There are exceptions, of course, but the average rank of a champion's regular season half court offense was 5.7%.

The only NBA champion in the last 22 years who had a bottom half half-court offense was the Bubble Lakers, who ranked 16th in 2020.

The 2010 Lakers ranked 15th.

The 2004 Pistons ranked 13th.

And then the 2022 Warriors ranked 12th.

The other 18 champions all ranked in the top eight for half-court offense during the season.

12 of those 22 finishing top five in half-court offense.

Now, if you expand it out to not...

Winning the whole thing, but just making the finals.