Clevelander17

Last night's game, as fun as it may have been, made something very clear to me: The Cavaliers are going to be in deep trouble against Golden State.

The "Law of Averages" is basically a fancy term for the "Gambler's Fallacy." It's essentially the same thing and wrong for the same reasons. Outcomes don't "even out" in the short-run. However with a large enough sample size, overall percentages approach the expected likelihood. What's already happened has happened and has no bearing on future outcomes. James Jones going 0-for-5 in a game doesn't make it any more likely that he'll go 5-for-5 in some subsequent game. It's most likely that he'll have many, many, many more 2-for-5 games in the future (with quite a few 1-for-5 and 3-for-5 games as well), leading to his OVERALL shooting percentage coming very close to his expected shooting percentage.

It's pure coincidence every time it does play out the way you believe it should, and you can make the same type of "prediction" for every other player that has ever played in the league. It's more likely that given if he takes five shots that he's going to hit two or less. The key idea here is that what happens in one game has absolutely no affect on what happens in the next game. Either you believe that general premise or you don't, but I will say this: All of the research on statistics and probability supports that premise. Just for fun: James Jones is a career 41% shooter. Here are the percentage chances that in any game where he takes five shots that he'll hit a given number: 0/5 - 7.2% 1/5 - 24.8% 2/5 - 34.5% 3/5 - 24.0% 4/5 - 8.3% 5/5 - 1.2% Assuming that you agree that all of these possibilities are completely independent of his previous game's results, if you predicted that when he takes five shots the game after going 0-for that he'd hit at least three of those shots, you'd have about a 34% of being correct. But there'd also be about a two-thirds chance that he's going to hit two or less shots in that subsequent game.

If someone is a 40% shooter, they're a 40% shooter. Whether it's skill or not, percentages don't change based on what has already happened. They're not all of a sudden going to become an 80% shooter in the next game because they shot 0% in a previous game. This is a very common probabilistic misconception. It doesn't matter if some event is fundamentally a "skill" or if it's a game of a chance. In both cases there is a probability of an event happening that is completely independent of previous events.

Also sometimes referred to as the Gambler's Fallacy.

So I think a strong argument can almost be made that Kyrie should be shut down until the Finals. No matter how the two Conference Finals series play out, the NBA Finals will start on June 4th. That would give Kyrie a full two weeks of rest.

Not to pick on you personally, but I cringe every time someone says something like this.

This team would be toast without Griffin's midseason additions. He's looking like a genius now. There's no playoff run without Shumpert and Smith. I don't know exactly how the salary situation might look for next year, and of course it's doubtful that everyone will remain healthy all season, but on paper the following rotation would look like the best in the league hands down: LeBron James Kyrie Irving Kevin Love Timofey Mozgov Anderson Varejao J.R. Smith Iman Shumpert Tristan Thompson Matthew Dellevedova

Kluber pitched another gem last night...and the Indians made sure to not lose it until after he departed. :(

More like Cleveland City Clowncil.

This series is an absolute brawl. I just wonder how much they'll have left in the tank if/when they move on. This is also why I was very concerned when Chicago snagged the #3 seed from Toronto on the last day of the season. We were one game away from very potentially having a second-round matchup with Milwaukee while Chicago and Atlanta (or even Washington) battled it out on the other side. Our pathway went from looking quite favorable for us to looking quite challenging.

Wow...this team needs some rest. Hopefully Atlanta wins tomorrow to ensure that that series is extended.

Atlanta lost on a last second shot yesterday too. It's contagious. After they had incidentally just tied it up on the other end with a 3-pointer. It was eerie how similar the two games were, although Atlanta was down much more than the Cavaliers were and thus for the Hawks to even be in that position was almost miraculous. I've managed to avoid seeing any replays of Rose's game-winner, which is good, because it's pissing me off thinking about it.

Complete luck. They'll win game four.

Why is Tony Brothers still doing Cavaliers games this postseason?

Lots of things falling into place for Chicago to win this series. Regardless, it's not over by a long shot.

Shumpert shot 40% from 3 a few years ago, but he's a career 34% shooter. I wouldn't feel good about him stepping in and taking more shots unless he really catches fire...or maybe if Kyrie and LeBron get him more open looks.

Milwaukee's already won more games then I hoped they would. At this point, I'm getting greedy: I want to see them take the series.

I'm anxiously awaiting the announcement from the NBA of their suspensions for yesterday's officials. I'm really pissed right now, but I'm confident that James and Irving will be as motivated as they've been in their entire careers. I still think the Cavaliers can win this series despite not having Love. Can Smith appeal his suspension?

I find sociological discussions like this fascinating in general. However I was particularly interested in seeing that towards the end of the article they list some of the places (with more than 10,000 residents) where this phenomenon is most significant, and, lo and behold, three of Cleveland's inner-ring suburbs (Shaker Heights, Euclid, and Garfield Heights) made the list. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1 Thoughts?

Avon? Wonderful for a small portion of this area's population. Another argument in favor of the need for regional planning.

That's all well and good, but it's a bit defeatist if Sittenfield plays hardball with Strickland and/or forces him to spend a significant portion of his war chest.

I don't think they're an essential ingredient to democracy. I believe the first-past-the-post system itself (one of the few systems in which the concept of the "primary" would even arise) isn't incredibly democratic in nature. I guess I don't really care because my main objective for this and pretty much all elections is to see center-left candidates win seats almost regardless of how it happens. And as has been pointed out, the Republicans have shot themselves in the foot on more than one occasion by not being on the same page and putting forth unelectable candidates in general elections.

Strickland would have a great shot at beating Portman. As someone who wants to see Ohio's senate delegation become completely blue, I think that Sittenfields's refusal to back off is highly questionable. His lack of experience and name recognition is a problem. If we had IRV or some voting system that is fairer than the one we have, I'd be all for him running. However his campaign and all of this controversy is possibly going to hand Portman a reelection that he may not have won otherwise. Maybe that's what Sittenfield, and more importantly his supporters, want. In reading his background without knowing him personally, it screams "DINO" to me.

The thing I remember most about Strickland is how he whined after losing to Kasich. Like, he sounded pathetic. What did he say?