A comeback happens seemingly every game…but do teams actually play better when their losing…? And worse when they’re ahead?
In this video, we analyze the elasticity of comebacks (specifically in the NBA) and the studies done around potential causation. The NBA has long been a league where it is known that a 10-20 point lead can evaporate within one quarter…but how much of this is an actual trend, and how much of this is just narratives that float to the top of 30 teams playing a lot of games?
I only had time to skim it. I saw that he concludes it's a real effect (not just statistical anomaly), and he talked about risk aversion, but did he conclude that it's primarily due to risk attitudes?
No strong conclusion. Heightened risk aversion vs increased defensive intensity were the main hypotheses.
He didn't get into how losing teams make more adjustments, which is something I've heard. He also didn't get into whether the refs might let the losers get away with a bit more.
Maybe it just seems more dramatic in NBA when you see teams coming back from down 20 points fairly often. In baseball you don't often see teams come back from down 5 runs. Or in NFL teams don't usually come back from down 20.
I only had time to skim it. I saw that he concludes it's a real effect (not just statistical anomaly), and he talked about risk aversion, but did he conclude that it's primarily due to risk attitudes?
No strong conclusion. Heightened risk aversion vs increased defensive intensity were the main hypotheses.
He didn't get into how losing teams make more adjustments, which is something I've heard. He also didn't get into whether the refs might let the losers get away with a bit more.
did he also look at regular season / post-season splits?
i imagine that when teams are up by a lot, they let second units get more reps in too
Nope, but second units probably aren't that relevant because the effect is strongest early in games.
I think more so in the NBA than other sports.
He didn't show that comparison, but supposedly it's been observed in just about every sport.
Maybe it just seems more dramatic in NBA when you see teams coming back from down 20 points fairly often. In baseball you don't often see teams come back from down 5 runs. Or in NFL teams don't usually come back from down 20.
Ya if your playing a computer
🔗 Privacy-friendly: https://invidious.tiekoetter.com/watch?v=aqk9MPfjKSw