The tiebreaker is a little goofy for this. In a normal round robin format, you’d only do point differential to break a tie where there is no existing head to head advantage. Perfect scenario: Magic, Celtics, Nets all at 3-1, with no head to head advantage.
But the key to that is you only count the scores of the games from the teams who are tied. So for Group C, the only games that would traditionally matter should’ve been Magic vs Nets, Magic vs Celtics, and Celtics vs Nets. If you add just those scores up, the Nets would actually have been the winner for Group C.
Why the NBA chose to use all games to break the tie vs just the relevant games is beyond me. Had to be that way for the wildcard, of course, with an absence of like games to compare against, but within the grouping? Strange decision.
The tiebreaker is a little goofy for this. In a normal round robin format, you’d only do point differential to break a tie where there is no existing head to head advantage. Perfect scenario: Magic, Celtics, Nets all at 3-1, with no head to head advantage.
But the key to that is you only count the scores of the games from the teams who are tied. So for Group C, the only games that would traditionally matter should’ve been Magic vs Nets, Magic vs Celtics, and Celtics vs Nets. If you add just those scores up, the Nets would actually have been the winner for Group C.
Why the NBA chose to use all games to break the tie vs just the relevant games is beyond me. Had to be that way for the wildcard, of course, with an absence of like games to compare against, but within the grouping? Strange decision.