The Boston Celtics chose rest over home court advantage in the final week of the regular season, opting to let key players get healthy instead of pushing the Atlanta Hawks in the fight for the better record going into the 2012 NBA Playoffs. That may have been the right move. But based solely on the Log5 projection system, it also may have cost Boston the first round.
PROJECTION: Hawks Over Celtics, But It Might Take 7
Log5 favors the Hawks in the teams’ series, which begins Sunday evening. Had Boston gone in with home court advantage but identical stats otherwise, the C’s would have gotten the nod.
The full outcome map is below the jump.
The most likely outcome based on Log5 is a Hawks victory in seven games. The numbers indicate that this could be a home-dominated series: Atlanta has a 67 percent probability of winning any given home game in the series, and Boston has a 57 percent probability of winning any given game at home. That’s a recipe for seven.
That said, the numbers show a better probability of the Hawks winning in five than of the Celtics winning in six, which is Boston’s highest-probability result.
PICK: Hawks in 7
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