Last week, as the Philadelphia 76ers were plummeting toward a tie for the NBA's longest losing streak in history (26 games), I posted an analysis of whether teams were ever able to end long losing streaks against really good opponents. Occasionally this happened, as we discovered. More likely, however, was that a skid would end against very weak opposition.
With tonight's Spurs-Thunder game starting shortly, I have put together a graphic that turns last week's question on its head. How often does a long winning streak end against poor opposition? Or, does it nearly always take a high-caliber opponent to end a team's long winning streak? Except for now looking at all-time great NBA winning streaks instead of losing streaks, my methodology today is the same as last week's.
What we find in the graph below (on which you can click to enlarge) is that some of the greatest winning streaks, such as the Lakers' record 33-gamer, were ended only when a stellar opponent came up on the schedule. A few times, however, a hot team was embarrassed by an opponent playing at or below a .300 clip!
Time is short, so I'll end here. I may come back and add more commentary later...
UPDATE: The Spurs' winning streak ended at 19, with a loss to the Thunder.
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