NC Watchability Rankings: Tonight’s Warriors-Suns Matchup Tops This Week’s Scores

Jan 31, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; Phoenix Suns guard Eric Bledsoe (2) drives past Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) in the first quarter at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

Welcome back to the Watchability Rankings! As a reminder, last week was the first set of scores that placed slightly more emphasis on the last ten games. So as silly as these rankings may be, they are not without their adjustments. Measuring team-by-team[1. This is something I really don’t prefer just because some teams just crush in certain statistic like Houston in three-point rate, which hurts otherwise very good numbers by other teams. Averaging between two teams in a matchup takes away some, but not all of that problem.], Dallas got penalized for that adjustment more so this week than last and thanks mostly to their drop in offensive efficiency[2. 99.4 points per 100 possessions over their last ten games, according to possession and scoring totals by Darryl Blackport.]  We’ll see if Chandler Parsons has any effect on that and every other stat taken into account here. It’s actually hard to see their decline in the games this week because of their brutal (but watchable?!) schedule.

Miami and San Antonio got boosts, thanks in part to both teams’ faster pace as of late. By putting some more weight on recent games, those teams and others have a better chance at changing their scores without having to go on a huge winning or losing streak. It seems like the Spurs could string something together as we move closer to the postseason. Golden State remains bulletproof, and their game tonight against the Suns is the top game of the week, at least projected here. This week was, well, weird as I’ll explain a bit further, but below is look at those previously mentioned teams and the 52 games scheduled this week. As usual, the table on the left is sorted by score while the one on the right is sorted by day.

So one of the more interesting results was Boston and Orlando and how it not only ranked higher than Orlando and Cleveland, but scored about seven more points than their matchup last week. It was something I stared blankly at for more than a few moments, but this does not mean that Boston rates better than Cleveland even though the Celtics continue to be one of the weirdest teams here. The difference in the two games looks to be more matchup-based, like how the biggest difference between the two came in net rating, specifically net rating difference[3. Explained in the very first post.]. The Celtics and Magic are much closer together as opposed to the title-contending Cavaliers, and a lot more matchups had the same situation compared to games from other weeks. So in net rating difference, Cavaliers-Magic was penalized a bit more than usual.

As mentioned before, Warriors-Suns topped the week, but they won’t be broadcasted nationally. When looking at games each day, we should have another exciting Wednesday and Friday. We also have a few more games on Thursday than usual, but the two nationally televised games were in the top three. Sunday looks to be fairly solid again, hopefully making up for what looks like a so-so Saturday. These are just silly projections though, and there’s always a few weirdly exciting games that perform beyond their score here. Maybe one of those games this week will be Saturday night’s Timberwolves-Spurs when we could get one last matchup between Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan.

Regardless, enjoy the week!