I decided to go back and collate stats specifically for the situation of teams playing b2b games off 4+ game road trips. The first thing I should note is that the site that allowed me to do this to the degree I could (19 seasons worth) presented results based on closing lines, not like the opening line based stats of the major Post Road Trip ATS thread. What these stats reveal is frankly some quite startling trends, startling to the degree that initially I only went back 10 seasons but after sifting through those results I had to go back further to gather a larger stat pool to see if those trends held true: sure enough they did. So, on with the show...
Overall results
1st game back off a 4+ game road trip: 80-100-4
2nd game back off a 4+ game road trip: 76-104-4
Immediately there's a surprise: teams have been almost as bad in their 1st games back as they have been in the 2nd of the B2B games. We've assumed the real killer spot would naturally be the 2nd B2B game, but generally speaking that's not been the case.
1st Game Back
1 day of rest off road trip + opponent NOT playing b2b: 26-35-3
2+ days rest off road trip + opponent NOT playing b2b: 29-33
Overall: 55-68-3
1 day of rest off road trip + opponent playing b2b: _6-20-1
2+ days rest off road trip + opponent playing b2b: 19-12
Overall: 25-32-1
Again, there's another immediate surprise: the worst spot for teams playing their 1st home game after a 4+ game road trip has come when facing an opponent that is playing in a no-rest situation. The post -road trip team has been slaughtered when off minimum rest (1 day) & facing an opponent with even less rest, but otherwise has been it's most dominant when off decent (2+ days) rest against the same no-rest opponents. When their opponents have not been subject to a no rest situation, then the extent of rest that the home team has benefited from hasn't really been too relevant, with the ATS winning rates being almost identical (40.6% w/1 days rest vs. 46.8% w/2+ days rest). Looking at the overall marks, the ATS winning rates are almost identical (43.6% w/opp. not b2b vs. 43.1% w/opp. b2b)
2nd Game Back
1 day of rest off road trip + opponent NOT playing b2b: 22-34
2+ days rest off road trip + opponent NOT playing b2b: 27-45-2
Overall: 49-79-2
1 day of rest off road trip + opponent playing b2b: 16-11-1
2+ days rest off road trip + opponent playing b2b: 11-14-1
Overall: 27-25-2
More surprises. For the 2nd b2b game for the team off the road trip, the situation is now totally reversed from the 1st game back results when facing an opponent that is itself playing b2b: Here playing with short rest (1 day) produces the best results (compared to their being slaughtered in the same spot in the 1st game back scenario), and conversely playing with the extra rest (2+ days) produces a losing record (where it's the best spot going in the 1st game back situation). When playing an opponent who is off any sort of rest, again we see a losing record no matter how much rest a team has gotten between their recently ended road trip and their subsequent b2b games (though this time round the better ATS win rate belongs to the lesser rest situation). Looking at the overall marks which ignore the amount of rest involved off the road trips, there's little doubt that the stats show this spot contains no real advantage for betting their opponents when those opponents themselves are also playing B2B. But when their opponents aren't playing b2b? That's a mere 37.7% winning rate the last 19 completed seasons: This is the spot to look for to fade the post-road trip team, no questions asked.
Result Sequences (do not include those involving Pushes)
Sequence ......... W-W ... W-L ... L-W ... L-L
1 day of rest ....... 16 ..... 15 ..... 21 .... 29 (total instances = 81)
2+ days rest ....... 24 ..... 22 ..... 11 .... 38 (total instances = 95)
Looking at these results in comparison to one another on a rest basis -
The first obvious thing here is the unsurprising fact that teams off longer rest have recorded a significantly higher percentage of Win-Win sequences relative to their overall results (25.3%) than those off the shorter rest relative to their own overall results (19.7%). The percentage of Loss-Loss sequences are almost identical (shorter rest's 35.8% vs. longer rest's 40.0%) so there's no advantage to betting a loss in the 2nd game after knowledge of a 1st game loss in one situation or the other. The only remaining standout figure is for the Loss-Win sequences. The biggest discrepancy between the two rest situations is seen with the Loss-Win sequences: where they only account for 11.6% of the overall results for the greater rest situations, they account for a quarter (25.9%) of the results for the shorter rest situations.
Looking at these results within each rest grouping -
Teams who have won their 1st game have pretty much been a 51-52% shot to win their 2nd game, no matter what the nature of their rest off their recent road trip.
Teams who have lost their 1st game after short rest have lost their 2nd game at a 58.0% rate, but off longer rest have lost that 2nd game at a much more significant 77.6% rate.
It would seem that it's worth paying some attention to the result of the 1st game, when it comes to ascertaining what's worth betting for the 2nd game.
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Given the importance of knowing whether an opponent is playing b2b itself against these teams in either of these 2 games off a 4+ game road trip, I've gone back and highlighted in blue & bolded such teams (not only for these teams playing b2b off their road trips, but for all teams off road trips, as can be seen in my main thread containing the overall fixture list for this entire season. While I haven't bothered to take on the tireless task of gather all the stats for the non-b2b game situations, it will no doubt pay to take head of opponents who are themselves playing b2b in spots mirroring those highlighted by the stats here, ie. 1st game back with 1 days rest vs. a b2b opponent shouldn't be producing that much different results for teams not playing the next night, as teams that are here).
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opcorn:
