NBA 2008 Wrap-up

As an Englishwoman, there's no earthly reason for Lady Godiva to be so rapt (see http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rapt) by the 17th Celtic championship.

Given my dim view of Kobe, I guess it's a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend".

My results for the 2008 NBA playoffs against the spread:

All my picks 47 wins 37 losses 2 ties (56%)
My overdog picks 43-32-2
My underdog picks 4-5
Spread a factor: 3-9-2

Lady G can't complain about 56% over 86 games, but before I get carried away with my NBA expertise I have to recognise that a plain-vanilla, "homer rules" strategy led the way at 49-35-2 (58%) followed closely by all-overdogs at 48-36-2 (57%).

I racked up a 58% winning record with my NCAA March madness picks this year.

For my basketall picks, I have been following a system based on historical data from regular season games showing a statistically significant tendency for "heavy" underdogs to beat the spread and a statistically insignificant trend favouring "light" overdogs.

But, in both NBA and NCAA playoffs this year, "heavy" underdogs performed poorly while all overdogs ruled. I would be very interested if anyone out there can point me to long-term data on NBA and NCAA playoff results against the spread. One hypothesis would be that playoff results differ from regular season results against the spread.