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How Much Do 1st Quarter Leads Matter, Anyway?

After last night's Thunder implosion, one couldn't help but shiver in memory of our 2017-2018 Clippers' tendency in the late season and playoff hunt to earn a lead by the end of Q1, only to squander it later in the game.

But in a game of high scoring (now more than ever), how much do those leads actually matter? Do better teams win at a higher percentage with early leads, and worse teams at a lower rate?

As always, our good friend Basketball Reference is here to help out. Let's do some crude math that I am in no way qualified for.

The first question is simple: how many times did teams win after gaining a lead of at least one point by the end of the first quarter, compared with how many times they lost?

In the 2017-2018 season, teams with a +1 point differential at the end of Q1 won 764 games, compared to 411 losses. If you're ahead by any measure after the first buzzer, you had about a 65% win probability. Blow that up to +5 or more, and your team would be about 71% likely to win.

Taking a look back at the past nine years, that probability has stayed relatively stable. +1 or more leads stayed in the 65-69% (nice) win range, while +5 would remain 70-74% likely to win. Just for good measure, I also looked back at a few seasons chosen at random that were somewhat further back, and that really hasn't changed much.

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The 1999-2000 season had a 66% win chance, the 1969-1970 season 68%. While I didn't look at those eras extensively, those checks told me that this trend would not be significantly different enough to merit the time.

Now, if you're still here, then bless you. Have some Boban before we get into more of it.

Okay. For the 2017-2018 season, the Clippers were 29-9 with a lead of any kind by end of Q1, and of those games, the team was 19-1 when that lead was 5 points or higher. With a first quarter lead, we outperformed the average by a significant margin. With a deficit, we would underperform, losing a little over 71% of the time.

How does the Blake Griffin trade affect this? Not much at all, looking purely at the numbers and not taking the schedule into account. Five of our losses were before the trade, and four were after (more on that later).

Just to compare to other teams, the Houston Rockets, with 45 of their 67 wins coming with a lead to start the 1st quarter, with 10 of their 17 losses also starting with a lead. When the Rockets got ahead, they were a strong lock to win the game, pulling down a W about 82% of the time.

Now, you might be asking: "hey, Logan, who was the worst at it?"

To find that out, I'd have to look at all 30 teams. That'd take a while. But let's do it, because I'm bored and I love you.

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To no one's surprise, worse teams would have a lower win % even if they were ahead at the start of the game (and furthermore, not listed on the chart, they would have a much lower incidence of being ahead by end of Q1).

What surprised me was where the Clippers landed -- 7th in the league. And the sample size is comparable to the Cavaliers and the Warriors, with 38 games for LA and 39 for Cleveland and Golden State.

But look at the Hawks: they lost more games than they won with a lead at the end of the first period. Same goes for the Mavericks, Grizzlies, Knicks, Suns and Kings. It's like these teams would show up and play, and their opponents didn't even pay attention until later in the game.

And what of the Clippers? With a 42-40 record, they would significantly outperform. With a deficit starting the 2nd quarter, they just wouldn't recover well enough, frequently enough.

After the Blake Griffin trade, the Clippers' win percentage did not change much, but the losses came at critical moments, the most egregious one being against the Indiana Pacers, April 21st, 2018. With an eight point lead in the 1st, the Clippers squandered it by end of half, with only a 1 point lead going into the third. They held strong, only going -1 by the end of the third. And then it was freefall: a 35-26 final quarter and the Pacers won 111-104.

From that game on, they would only win once more, the very next game where they overcame a 14 point first quarter deficit to defeat the Spurs at home. The Clips never held a first quarter lead for the remainder of the season.

As far as this season is concerned, well, the sample size is ridiculously too small to draw any conclusions, but of the two games lost, they were with Q1 deficits.

Both of the wins? Up by 5 against the Rockets, and up by 7 against the Thunder.

*Shrug*

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