Let’s turn our attention to NBA. This time, we will analyse a common belief – that the matches are decided in the fourth quarter. Apart from that, we will also try a bunch of other hypotheses, such as home-away advantage. We have collected the first 100 matches of the NBA season 2021-22 to test the hypothesis.
First, we check if there is any relationship between the point difference in the fourth quarter with what is at the end of the third.
The graph shows no real relationship. So, the fourth quarter is different; but do they determine the winner? That’s next.
The correlation here also is modest. That brings us to the all-important graph – the winner vs the point difference at the end of the third quarter.
Winner till Q3 wins the match
The result is obvious. There seems a much better correlation between the leader until the third quarter to the ultimate winner.
