Re: No rest, 3-in-4 etc. I do think it still plays a factor. Though there have been cases this year where it hasn't seemed to matter, I wouldn't give up on it yet. For one thing, the season is young, and teams may not be THAT tired yet even after playing 3-in-4. But three months into the season, and THEN playing a 3-in-4...well, by then they should be getting worn down.
While a lot of people concentrate on how LITTLE rest a team has had, many ignore situations where teams have had TOO MUCH rest. Teams off 3+ days rest tend to get a bit rusty, have trouble finding their shots. Boston, for example, had played just 2 games in 11 days heading into Wed vs Atlanta....and they sure stunk it up, giving Atlanta their first road win in 24 games.
Re: Handicapping - Mostly, I am looking for situations where teams play a string of games against one type of team, and then face a completely opposite type. IE. A team plays against nothing but defensive, grind-it-out-type teams, and then comes up against a team with weak defense that likes to play up-tempo. After facing a lot of tough D, a team can usually score at will when they finally get an opponent that isn't tough. And the inverse is true too... face lots of bad D, you get soft...then you play vs the best D and you can't do a thing on offense. I find these situations the most advantageous....especially if both teams are playing against types they haven't seen recently.
After that I consider things like rest, bouncebacks from uncharacteristic games, recent tendencies, cover rates and recent historical records between teams (no older than 3 yrs, and ignored if one of the teams in the matchup has undergone a major overhaul during that time) - roughly in that order of importance. I generally try to ignore/don't believe in angles such as revenge, must-wins and that sort of thing.
[This message has been edited by GM (edited 11-23-2001).]
