In both of these reasons the “victim” is the team in the group that did not play a game in the last day of group stage tonight (11/28).
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If it ends up coming down to point differential, the teams playing on 11/28 have the advantage of knowing how many points they need to catch up to the team that is not playing on 11/28. They would know this before their last game starts.
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Since the other 4 teams play on the last day, the last game that the “victim” team plays is going to be a game that is NOT the other teams last game of the group stage. This means it’s more likely that the team that they are playing would still be in the running for the tournament, and would make an effort to maintain the point differential until the end of the game.
To give a perfect real world example…East Group C! The Magic played their last game of the tournament against the Celtics. When that game was over, the Celtics immediately knew how many points they would need to score in order to catch up to the Magic in point differential, AND they had the benefit of playing on the last day, matching up against a Bulls team that was already out of the tournament from the start of the game. Of course the Bulls wanted to win the game, but once the Bulls had already shit the bed as we all expected, they did not pay any mind to the point differential of a tournament they were already eliminated from the week before.
I realize this is a small nitpick, but I believe those are two genuine structural advantages that the 5th left out team does not enjoy. Might not seem like a big deal, but when the final point differential between first and second in your group is 5 points, maybe that makes you look into the details more.
Signed, A coping Magic fan
You assume these teams can get whatever differential they need, you know there is another team actively working to not let them run up the score right?
Silly silly take
Hopefully the powers that be realized that Pt Diff isn’t an adequate tie break in basketball as it is in futbol
No one should care this much about a made up gimmick
This would be a good argument if teams didn’t know about the point differential in the beginning lol
Win all your games next time
The suns are literally the counter argument to this. They played first and knew they needed to set a high differential….so they left Book in during garbage time to run up the score.
be at ease that the algorithim will give you favorable matchups in ur two regular season games next week.
Oh I like this as a consolation! Hadn’t thought about that
Counter point: it is not easy to run up the score if the team actually cares as they can consider keep the spread low and eliminating the other team s consolation Victory. Also smart teams would be running up the score in the first games knowing they will get tougher matchups at the end.
Yeah this.
What team is willing to have their own players get completely wrecked on even if its garbage time. Yeah they might sub on a bunch of rookies but rookies are going to play hard just to prove it to coaches they’re worth a spot on the roster.
Your team actually has to be good to win let alone be scoring 20+ point wins. If the magic were worried then maybe try building a bigger point differential
I really had t thought about the fact that the bulls had no reason to even theoretically care about point differential, that’s a good point
it’s the 1st year, i’m sure they’ll tweak it.
Every team play as hard and as long as they can. Problem solved
complete collapse
lose the 12 point lead
lose CP3 and GP2
you can’t also lose the game after all that
That locker room is gonna suuuuuuuuck
Hence why the last games of the group stage in the FIFA World Cup are all played simultaneously.
This entire in-season tournament feels half-baked.
These should not count as regular season games. It should be a separate tournament, just like the Playoofs are separate from the Regular Season.
teams that play more back to backs have a structurally unfair schedule. we deal with it.
I think a Swiss-style tournament format would be insanely entertaining.