Goin' Streaking

"We're going streaking!"

No one actually followed Will Ferrell when he exclaimed, “We’re going streaking!” in Old School. Maybe he should have screamed it to the NBA instead of a frat party. He could have found some followers there.  The three division leaders in the East, the Celtics, Bulls, and Heat, are all on win streaks of 7 games or more and hope to keep them going. Frank the Tank really wishes he had partied with these teams right now.  It’ll be interesting to see how long these teams can go before they lose.  Let’s check out each streak and see how they’ve done it and if it's likely they'll continue.

Boston
Boston has won 12 games in row after beating the Hawks 102-90.  Overall, it have been an impressive streak with two wins over Atlanta in addition to wins over Chicago, Denver and New York. Their next few tough games are at Orlando on Christmas Day, San Antonio on January 5th, and then Chicago on January 8th.  Overall it could be a manageable schedule up until the Spurs game.

Interesting Stat: They have had seven different leading scorers over their twelve game streak. Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett, Rajon Rondo, Shaquille O’Neal, Nate Robinson, and Glen Davis have all been the leading scorer. This balance among the team will really help in the next few games with Rondo out.

Concern: Rajon Rondo will miss the next couple of weeks due to an ankle injury.  He will be missed as he leads the league in assists and is able to bring this team together.  Robinson has shown he can be productive in limited minutes and did well against Atlanta, but we will have to wait and see how he does in the starting role.  (And does anybody else love his early-90s, Fresh Prince haircut?)

Miami
Miami has now won 10 in a row and will look to make it eleven in New York on Friday night. Everyone had been waiting for this team to show their potential, and now we see it.  Dwayne Wade and LeBron James have fully adjusted and are playing extremely well together.  What has been most impressive about this team has to be their defense.  They have the best defense in the league, giving up barely over 91 points a game.  Of the three teams streaking right now, they have the hardest upcoming schedule as they have to play the Knicks twice, the Mavs, and the Lakers all before New Year’s.

Interesting Stat: The Heat have not allowed over 100 points in a single game during this streak and is allowing a mere 85.5 points per game.  It seems Spoelstra’s “do something good on defense, you can do what you want on offense” reward system is working. They also have nine of the ten games by double digits easily handling their opponents.

Concern: The schedule. They have a lot of good teams coming up and I doubt they will make it to New Year’s still on this streak. They are bound to have a close game sooner or later, which will be fun to watch. The Heat are 0-3 in games decided by 5 points or less. We still do not know how they will play in a close game with their new confidence.

Chicago
Chicago has won seven in row so far and it hasn’t been easy.  They won an overtime game against Houston and then had to go through the Lakers and Thunder. Their upcoming schedule won’t be as hard.  They play only one team above .500, the Knicks, in their next eleven games.  The combined winning percentage of those opponents is .341. If it wasn’t for Joakim Noah’s injury, I would have confidently said the Bulls would be riding an 18-game winning streak heading into their January 5th match-up against the Celtics.

Interesting Stat: Derrick Rose has made 19 three-pointers during this seven game streak. He made a total of 16 in each of his previous two seasons.  Rose has fully taken on the leadership role for this team and has drastically improved his game this season.  Before the season he had asked, “Why can’t I be the MVP of the league?”  What seemed quite unrealistic at the time doesn’t sound so crazy anymore.

Concern: Joakim Noah’s thumb injury. He will be out for the next 2-3 months and this a huge loss to the Bulls.  The energy he brought to the team was immense. The loss in rebounds is huge as he was one of the NBA’s top five rebounders and led Chicago to be the second best rebounding team in the league. Boozer and Gibson have to try to take over and at times play like a center. We may see Omer Asik playing more minutes, but there are also rumors that the Bulls may sign someone new.