NFL: 2013/14 PLAYOFFS, ANALYSIS // NBA: STANDINGS AT THE NEW YEAR

sports-notebook.blogspot.com . . . FOR MORE ANALYSIS, GO TO "MILE HIGH SPORTS RADIO," AM1510 or FM93.7, and to Denver’s best sports blogging team---milehighsports.com. SPORTS NOTEBOOK posts its columns Tuesday and Friday of each week. Ed., Publ., Marvin Leibstone; Copy & Mng. Ed., Gail Kleiner. . . // . . . NFL: PLAYOFFS-2013/14, ANALYSIS // NBA: STANDINGS AT THE NEW YEAR. . . USUALLY the NFL post-season happens differently than desired or expected. But when a perfect storm seems to be headed one’s way, it’s hard to visualize a different outcome, like the Denver Broncos and the Seattle Seahawks arriving ready for one or the other to achieve Super Bowl XLVIII dominance on Sunday, February 2. What is it that constitutes the NFL post-season perfect storm? Surely it’s a Super Bowl that competes the league’s current best defense (Seahawks) against the NFL’s now best offense (Broncos), and the NFL’s best quarterback ever, the Broncos Peyton Manning, versus the NFL’s possibly best next-gen QB, the Seahawks Russell Wilson. And, let’s keep in mind that while a perfect storm is definable, we can never know what the final damage will look like. Surely, the Peyton Manning-led Broncos offense can cause the Seahawks defense to appear marginal and raggedy; yet the Broncos could lose to the Seahawks from a Broncos defense that throughout the regular season only managed to allow fewer than 20 points to an opposing team in four of 16 games. QB Manning’s fast read of an opposing defense, and his subsequent pass or handoff, this serves a family of well-positioned weapon systems, that is, wide receivers Eric Decker, Demaryius Thomas, Wes Welker, Eric Decker, tight end Julius Thomas, plus running backs Monte Ball and Knowshon Moreno. This combo has outplayed just about every defense faced during NFL-2013. The Seahawks offense-counterparts can only compare when up against a weak enough defense. This said, if the Broncos defense allows more than, say, 28 points to the Seahawks, the best of the most effective Manning-led offense plays may not be able to offset that. Whenever the Broncos experienced a deficit greater than that during NFL-2013, Manning and crew weren’t able to break ahead easily with enough TD’s + field goals . . . Of course, the Broncos and the Seahawks first have to purchase their conference titles, and each can do that by winning two games. The fireworks begin this Saturday and Sunday, January 4 and January 5, from Wild Card competition, to be continued January 11 and 12 with Divisional Playoffs, then it’s Sunday, January 19, for Conference Championship selection, afterward February’s Super Bowl, to be held at NYC. Let’s look at how this could play out at the start, using some existing stats and some performance factors. Tomorrow, it’s the AC West’s 11-5 Kansas City Chiefs battling the AC South’s 11-5 Indianapolis Colts, and the NC South’s 11-5 New Orleans Saints competing against the NC East’s 10-6 Philadelphia Eagles. On Sunday, it will be the AC West’s 9-7 San Diego Chargers facing the AC North’s 11-5 Cincinnati Bengals, and the NC West’s 12-4 San Francisco 49ers versus the NC North’s 8-7-1 Green Bay Packers. The teams in this mix that have NFL-2013 win/loss numbers suggesting elimination are the 9-7 Chargers and the 8-7-1 Packers, all others have won 10 or more games during the regular season, the 49ers atop from 12-4. This said, the NFL playoffs are close to being a clean slate, meaning that the Chargers and the Packers could reach the divisional face-offs and go further. . . As for tomorrow’s CHIEFS/COLTS GAME, from pass completions = touchdowns, the two are without significant disparity. Both include almost evenly-balanced defense and offense squads regarding points allowed/points gained. However, that the Colts defeated the Seahawks, the Broncos, the 49ers “and the Chiefs” during 2013 regulation, and that the Chiefs lost twice to Denver “and to the Colts” during regulation, such implies a Colts win, the aforementioned balance signaling a win by no more than three points. . . As to Saturday’s SAINTS/EAGLES GAME, the former’s defense has done a better job throughout NFL-2013 than the latter’s defense, allowing no more than 17 points in any of its 10 victories, the Saints last win being 42-17 vs. the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Six of the Saints NFL-2013 wins were of 30 points or higher. Even so, the Eagles can claim five wins of 30 or more points, including a 54-11 win against the NC North’s Chicago Bears and a 49-20 defeat vs. the AC West’s Oakland Raiders; but the Eagles five losses totaled 191 points, three of these 52, 48 and 33 points given away respectively. The Saints defense allowed 134 points in its five losses, no loss more than the 34 points given away to the Seahawks. Too, the Saints were able to defeat the NC East’s Dallas Cowboys, 49-17, during NFL-2013, a team that the Eagles had defeated for its last shot at making the playoffs, final score being 24-22. Yet the Eagles have lost only one of its last eight games. Of its last nine games played, the Saints have lost four, not one of these by a narrow margin. Either the Saints or Eagles could dominate on Saturday, our take being the winner by seven . . . CHARGERS VS. BENGALS---Here we have a 9-7 + third place division team, the Chargers, vs. an 11-5 division leading franchise, the Bengals. The Chargers can boast about defeating the Broncos and the Colts this year, also the Eagles, and the Chiefs twice. That’s wins against four other teams that have attained NFL-2013 playoff spots. Still, the Bengals have beaten the Colts, the Patriots, the Packers “and the Chargers” during NFL-2013, four teams that have reached the playoffs. The regular season’s points allowed/points gained ratios for these teams have been fairly even, and so the difference on Sunday could be home advantage, therefore the game ending with the Bengals ahead by three. . . S.F. 49ers VS. PACKERS---That the 49ers defeated the Seahawks “and the Packers” during NFL-2013 speaks well for this team that can also take pride in having won its last six games of the regular season. But three of its four season losses have been against today’s playoff selectees, the Seahawks (the 49ers and the Seahawks met twice in 2013), the Colts and the Saints, while eight of the 49er’s 12 season wins were against third and fourth position franchises. The Packers, they haven’t been as hot as the 49ers in the last half of NFL-2013, winning but three of their last nine games. In most of their losses, the two teams have allowed more than 25 points to winners, suggesting that Sunday’s match will be QB against QB. Will it be 49er QB, Colin Kaepernick, or Packer QB, Aaron Rodgers, as the victor? Post-season experience and data has Rodgers ahead. Also, the Packers have received for more TD’s than the 49ers have throughout NFL-2013, and they have been just one point shy from equaling the number of 49er TD’s from rushing. The implication here is that the 49ers/Packers game will be close. . . In sum, the edge that appears from the NFL-2013 win/loss records, and the year’s offense and defense data, point to the Colts or the Patriots playing the Broncos for the AC championship title, and the 49ers or the Saints vs. the Seahawks for the NC title. BUT---while win/loss figures and categories of performance-data outweigh what’s on the list of unseen variables, the latter are potent enough to astonish, to surprise. In other words, the playoff teams that begin with the best numbers may not be those that get past early rounds and will be afield for Super Bowl XLVIII. . . // NBA---MORE than a third of NBA 2013/14 is in the past, a new year has begun and the Western Conference Northwest’s Oklahoma City Thunder, the WC Southwest’s San Antonio Spurs, the WC’s Pacific’s L.A. Clippers, and the Eastern Conference Central’s Indiana Pacers, the EC’s Southeast Miami Heat and the EC’s Atlantic’s Toronto Raptors have been leading the league as if their division first place slots were frozen in time. Except for the Raptors, each has 24 or more wins to date. These division leading teams are playoff-possibles today. Meanwhile, it’s been up and down the win/loss elevator for other franchises, sadly and unexpectedly for the East’s Atlantic Division's 9-21 New York Knicks landing at last place, and for the WC Northwest 14-17 Denver Nuggets, a team that obtained a seven game winning streak November 21 through December 3. Since a December 23 loss to the WC Pacific’s Golden State Warriors, the Nuggets have lost four more games. Two additional straight losses will weaken the purity of those seven consecutive wins. Of the 51 games that the Nuggets have left to play before the NBA 2013/14 season ends in April, they must win more than 30 to fit into playoff candidacy range. That’s being better than a .500 team, winning more than 50 percent of games left to play, and the Nuggets hadn’t been at that range for long during 2013’s competition. Nor have the WC Pacific's L.A. Lakers, the NC Atlantic's Boston Celtics or the NC Central's Chicago Bulls sustained promise, each now below .500, the Celtics luckily in second place of the East’s Atlantic because the division has the lowest win/loss continuums, the Raptors being in first place with but 15 wins, one more than the WC Northeast fourth place/.452 Nuggets have accrued. . . END/ml.