Ed Kupfer, who's an analyst for the Rockets, which kind of makes him one of the smart guys who does homework for the other smart guys, put together a simple visualization of the strength of schedule teams have faced so far (on the left), and the strength of schedule of their remaining games (on the right).


The teams are sorted by win percentage, which means that some innate biases will creep in, most basically the fact that teams that lose a lot will have stronger strengths of schedule by virtue of having handed their opponents a ton of wins, and vice versa for very good teams winning a lot. Obviously, this also misses injuries or returning players (Rondo's back!), or home/away and travel schedules. But as a general barometer of what you can expect each team to be facing for the remainder of the year, this is a pretty good indicator.


Portland, Denver, San Antonio, and Golden State will all have much tougher schedules, while Toronto, Utah, Orlando, and Brooklyn will get things a little easier. Indiana, Detroit, Cleveland, and Philly are all basically the same from here out—though with Indiana, which has the best record in the league, the previously mentioned bias means it probably comes out ahead in the bargain.

Update: Commenter Carrie Hunt and the Spoonerisms/Matt English made this accompanying chart, showing who's outperformed their strength of schedule: