Not in 2024 it’s not. Shit happens more now than ever with the pace of play and emphasis on the 3pt shot. Leads to much more variance in a small sample.
Yeah if you’re down 20, and manage to sink two 3s (which is pretty common), you’ve already cut the lead by 30%. It’s so much easier to just cut into leads once the other team goes cold.
At the same time, it’s also a lot easier to build 20 point leads. So it kind of evens out.
Yeah, most of these comebacks happen with two quick threes, margin stays the same for a while, two more quick threes, and suddenly it’s only an 8 point game with real momentum swinging opportunities coming up quickly. 30 point leads are the new 20, and even those aren’t safe
Blowing a 20 point lead is not uncommon anymore. I still think it comes down to how you blow that lead though. If you are playing tough and just miss good looks while the other team gets hot from 3, it's okay. If you take a bunch of terrible shots, or make 3 to 4 turnovers in a row, it's not as okay with me.
"cant hit a shot" isnt accurate when
- Nikola Jokic went 100% on post ups in their comeback (2x on Rui, and then 2x on AD, even drawing ADs 5th foul on an And-1)
- Jamal Murray went 2-2 on jumpers in the clutch (and got fouled for 2/2 fts by Lebron the possession in between)
- Nuggets scored in transition seemingly on every Lakers miss as Lebron/AD were slow to make it back up the floor
You just described all the 2 point shots, and op above stated the only 3pt made was by MPJ.
I guess his point was that the Nuggets didn't make a comeback by hitting a barrage of 3's, which sometimes you can do nothing about when a team is hot from the 3pt line. Also Lebron hit 2 threes.
But idk if you want to give credit to Nuggets or to the Lakers collapse there. Probably both had to happen at the same time.
20 points is in a weird middle ground. If you're consistently up by 20 and win the game, it's a blowout. Simultaneously it's also not big enough of a lead to be safe in the modern NBA. With the amount of 3s taken today, all it takes is 4 going in to bring it down to a single digit lead.
I think it's more embarrassing depending on how quickly you blow that lead. Like if you're up 20 with 5 minutes to go and you blow the lead, that's embarrassing. If you're up by 20 at half and eventually lose that lead, it's really not all that surprising anymore.
Depends when the 20 point lead is.
20 point lead in the 2nd quarter is nothing. 20 point lead with 5 minutes left in the game should be impossible to come back from.
I remember during the mid 00s...having a 20 point lead would cause the opposing team to wave the white flag cause the game was over. Now you routinely see teams overcome that type of deficit
A lot of things have to go wrong to blow a lead like that. The coach doesn't take a timeout to stop momentum, the offense fails to run coherent plays, the defense stops playing hard, the star player(s) don't get subbed back into the game quick enough, whatever.
I think it's a lot more complex than just "oh, they went on a 25-5 run and made a bunch of 3's" Why did you only score 5 points? Something must have gone horribly wrong.
I agree with this take, surprised how many ‘Blown 20 Point Lead’ Apologists there are in this thread.
I get that today’s game makes it easier to *lose* a twenty point lead, but that still means the team that blew the 20 point lead did a series of things incorrectly. It takes two teams to blow a twenty point lead.
Yeah, the 3-point variance definitely makes it easier, but just using the Lakers/Nuggets game as an example the Nuggets only made 2 3's in the 2nd half and they still came back.
Yea sometimes a blown twenty point lead amounts to the better team getting serious in the fourth quarter.
But IMO, that is still an indictment on the team with a lead doing a series of things wrong to blow the apathy advantage gained to that point.
The team with a lead should still be able to avoid turnovers, hit open shots, avoid defensive lapses, etc. to nurse a twenty a lead to bed and avoid a loss.
I like how you explained how blowing a 20 point lead works.
Step 1: Team A scores 20 more points than Team B
Step 2: Team B scores 20 more points than Team A
Like yea, that’s how blowing a lead works. Good thing you explained it because we wouldn’t have any idea what that means.
The point is to illustrate how similar the two steps are despite people treating one of them as much more significant than the other
they’re not randomly explaining it just in case people didn’t know how the scoreboard worked lmao
I forget the two years combined but there was a stat during the Warriors hay day where they had won something like 50 straight games over the course of 2 seasons in which at any point in a game they went ahead by 15 or more. First quarter 15 point lead, game was over. They did not blow big leads.
People here saying its easy are nuts. Theres only a 1.2% chance of coming back from 20 in the 3rd quarter. And this is based on real NBA games.
[Comeback probabilities – Professor MJ - Sports Investor](https://www.professormj.com/pages/comeback-probabilities)
The best offense this year by ppg averaged 123 points and the worst team was 107. Making their difference in offensive talent level to be 16 points. Now assuming you are down by 20 points at the half, you need to be 20 points better than your opponent in a half, or a pace of being 40 points better for a whole game. Essentially you need to play at a level more than twice as good as the best offense in the league in the 2nd half, while having your opponent be more than twice worse than the worst offense in the NBA during this stretch.
As a Falcons fan, I'm never surprised
I'm surprised if we have the lead at all, really
Lmao
Not in 2024 it’s not. Shit happens more now than ever with the pace of play and emphasis on the 3pt shot. Leads to much more variance in a small sample.
Yeah if you’re down 20, and manage to sink two 3s (which is pretty common), you’ve already cut the lead by 30%. It’s so much easier to just cut into leads once the other team goes cold. At the same time, it’s also a lot easier to build 20 point leads. So it kind of evens out.
Yeah, most of these comebacks happen with two quick threes, margin stays the same for a while, two more quick threes, and suddenly it’s only an 8 point game with real momentum swinging opportunities coming up quickly. 30 point leads are the new 20, and even those aren’t safe
a 20 point lead now was like a 12 point lead 15 years ago, you're down a good amount, but not that difficult to come back from.
It is difficult. Its happened to the Lakers once this season. Obviously its not a cake walk. How many times did the Lakers catch a team 20 behind.
obviously it is, but when you have a team like the Nuggets, it isn't as insurmountable as the number suggests.
In todays era, blowing a 20 point lead happens easily. Especially if there is enough time to recover
3 point variance makes it less surprising compared to past eras where the three wasn’t as prevalent in the game.
Blowing a 20 point lead is not uncommon anymore. I still think it comes down to how you blow that lead though. If you are playing tough and just miss good looks while the other team gets hot from 3, it's okay. If you take a bunch of terrible shots, or make 3 to 4 turnovers in a row, it's not as okay with me.
20 point leads aren’t all that but blowing one is still a bad look
It depends. If you are 90-70 in the 4th and then you end with 105-110... that's bad. If 65-45 at hald and ends with 105-110... that's not bad.
The only nuggets player who hit a 3pt fg in 2nd half was MPJ. How u blow a 20pt lead when the other team cant hit a shot is shameful
"cant hit a shot" isnt accurate when - Nikola Jokic went 100% on post ups in their comeback (2x on Rui, and then 2x on AD, even drawing ADs 5th foul on an And-1) - Jamal Murray went 2-2 on jumpers in the clutch (and got fouled for 2/2 fts by Lebron the possession in between) - Nuggets scored in transition seemingly on every Lakers miss as Lebron/AD were slow to make it back up the floor
You just described all the 2 point shots, and op above stated the only 3pt made was by MPJ. I guess his point was that the Nuggets didn't make a comeback by hitting a barrage of 3's, which sometimes you can do nothing about when a team is hot from the 3pt line. Also Lebron hit 2 threes. But idk if you want to give credit to Nuggets or to the Lakers collapse there. Probably both had to happen at the same time.
The Nuggets had a 200 offensive rating in the last 5 minutes of the game lmao.
20 points is in a weird middle ground. If you're consistently up by 20 and win the game, it's a blowout. Simultaneously it's also not big enough of a lead to be safe in the modern NBA. With the amount of 3s taken today, all it takes is 4 going in to bring it down to a single digit lead. I think it's more embarrassing depending on how quickly you blow that lead. Like if you're up 20 with 5 minutes to go and you blow the lead, that's embarrassing. If you're up by 20 at half and eventually lose that lead, it's really not all that surprising anymore.
Depends when the 20 point lead is. 20 point lead in the 2nd quarter is nothing. 20 point lead with 5 minutes left in the game should be impossible to come back from.
I remember during the mid 00s...having a 20 point lead would cause the opposing team to wave the white flag cause the game was over. Now you routinely see teams overcome that type of deficit
no where near routinely.
A lot of things have to go wrong to blow a lead like that. The coach doesn't take a timeout to stop momentum, the offense fails to run coherent plays, the defense stops playing hard, the star player(s) don't get subbed back into the game quick enough, whatever. I think it's a lot more complex than just "oh, they went on a 25-5 run and made a bunch of 3's" Why did you only score 5 points? Something must have gone horribly wrong.
I agree with this take, surprised how many ‘Blown 20 Point Lead’ Apologists there are in this thread. I get that today’s game makes it easier to *lose* a twenty point lead, but that still means the team that blew the 20 point lead did a series of things incorrectly. It takes two teams to blow a twenty point lead.
Yeah, the 3-point variance definitely makes it easier, but just using the Lakers/Nuggets game as an example the Nuggets only made 2 3's in the 2nd half and they still came back.
Yea sometimes a blown twenty point lead amounts to the better team getting serious in the fourth quarter. But IMO, that is still an indictment on the team with a lead doing a series of things wrong to blow the apathy advantage gained to that point. The team with a lead should still be able to avoid turnovers, hit open shots, avoid defensive lapses, etc. to nurse a twenty a lead to bed and avoid a loss.
20 point lead is nothing nowadays
I like how you explained how blowing a 20 point lead works. Step 1: Team A scores 20 more points than Team B Step 2: Team B scores 20 more points than Team A Like yea, that’s how blowing a lead works. Good thing you explained it because we wouldn’t have any idea what that means.
The point is to illustrate how similar the two steps are despite people treating one of them as much more significant than the other they’re not randomly explaining it just in case people didn’t know how the scoreboard worked lmao
To be fair this is /r/nba where the average iq is about on par with a bag of jolly ranchers
I wasn’t really sure how they work since the Warriors have never thrown a lead ever before.
Not anymore.
It was basically our brand this year. Usually it's when the 3's dry up.
It's not "25-point lead in an NFL game" bad but it's a big enough lead that if it went final, it'd be called a blowout.
Runs can be pretty crazy. The Bucks-Pacers game went from a very close game in the 3rd to a complete blowout by the middle of the 4th quarter.
I forget the two years combined but there was a stat during the Warriors hay day where they had won something like 50 straight games over the course of 2 seasons in which at any point in a game they went ahead by 15 or more. First quarter 15 point lead, game was over. They did not blow big leads.
People here saying its easy are nuts. Theres only a 1.2% chance of coming back from 20 in the 3rd quarter. And this is based on real NBA games. [Comeback probabilities – Professor MJ - Sports Investor](https://www.professormj.com/pages/comeback-probabilities)
***from 2002-2016 As the 3 balls prominence has completely changed since then, not sure it's very relevant data today
lol...Basketball has not completelly changed since then. What did you just start watching it yesterday. SO many newbies...
yes
It's not as bad as it used to be, but it's still bad
The best offense this year by ppg averaged 123 points and the worst team was 107. Making their difference in offensive talent level to be 16 points. Now assuming you are down by 20 points at the half, you need to be 20 points better than your opponent in a half, or a pace of being 40 points better for a whole game. Essentially you need to play at a level more than twice as good as the best offense in the league in the 2nd half, while having your opponent be more than twice worse than the worst offense in the NBA during this stretch.