So. Many. Blowouts.

When Cleveland Cavaliers throttled the Golden State Warriors by thirty points in Game 3 of the NBA Finals, another blowout was added to the annals of the 2016 playoffs which lead to some asking an obvious question:

There do seem to have been an unusually large number of blowouts this year, and the numbers confirm this to be the case:

A higher percentage of playoff games have been decided by 20+ points than those that finish within 6 points. That has not happened in at least the last 20 years of playoff history. We should be careful, though, not to see this as a part of a larger historical trend:

Average margin of victory has not really gone up or down in the postseason in the last twenty years. One could speculate whether a higher three-point rate would increase the number of blowouts. If that were the case, margin of victory should have risen up in the last 20 years as three point rates skyrocketed. It has not.

Hitting more threes than the opponent is certainly a recipe for winning games, but it is not necessarily a strong predictor of whether a win is going to be a blowout. Below are all games (by home teams, so as not to count each game twice) in this year’s playoffs:

The plot shows that in many of the blowouts this year, the winning team has had fewer than 5 threes made than the loser. It certainly helps to hit a lot of threes, but a blowout can be created in a lot of ways. The plot also shows how remarkable Game 6 of the Western Conference Final was. That is the game all the way to the left, where OKC lost by 7, despite hitting 18(!) fewer threes than Golden State.

Home-court advantage has returned in this year’s playoffs:

It had been absent for a few years, but this year home teams are winning about 70% of the games. Interestingly, a large number of the blowouts we’ve seen have been from the home team:

This year, the 10 biggest blowouts and 17 out of the 20 biggest blowouts have been a home team destroying the visitors. The average margin of victory in a home win this season is almost 17 points.

There has not been as many close games this year in the playoffs, but there does not seem to be any obvious cause for this but randomness in terms of team quality, injury luck and matchups. A few days ago, I would have told Cavs fans to take heart from the fact that the team is coming home, which seems important in these playoffs. Today, I would say to Warriors fans, that fortunately for you, your team has home-court in these mad playoffs.