re: Pop blew game one of this series

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So if we agree with that premise, then it's not hard to believe at all that the body may function better or worse in moments of stress/excitement.

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Most professional athletes these days are training in game like ways. They are training for the game and everything that comes along with it.

It's easy to look at a situation anecdotally and say that player choked or that player is clutch because of one defining moment.

I think that's just a way to rationalize why a certain outcome occurred.

Take the Super Bowl.

Did the Falcons choke? Or were they just playing well above their mean and the Patriots playing well under theirs and things balanced out?

The theory is that because of a series of events has transpired a certain way, that the subsequent events are more likely to happen.

I think they have no bearing on each other and are mutually exclusive.

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Did the Falcons choke? Or were they just playing well above their mean and the Patriots playing well under theirs and things balanced out?

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That's a hard question to answer which is why I haven't taken either side. How can you definitively say one way or the other?

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Players handle pressure differently. The issue is that the sample sizes for these data points is much smaller than the overall data for that player.

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Reading back through your posts, I think maybe there's a disconnect here. It seems weird that you would acknowledge that pressure affects players but then have a problem with what I said.

I think perhaps you're thinking that our definition of momentum as experiencing a higher likelihood of future immediate success based on a few previous positive results, like someone hits a couple of shots and then he's "hot" and more likely to make more shots simply because he hit those first two shots. I don't think anyone believes that's what momentum is, at least I don't.

All I think momentum is, is a temporary psychological and perhaps physiological spike experienced by the group, gained from some sequence of events that's transpired. It's probably what other people call an adrenaline rush. Adrenaline is literally the first "performance enhancer." I believe it can lead to better play in the short run but not necessarily, so it's really hard to prove when it was in play and when it wasn't.

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I think perhaps you're thinking that our definition of momentum as experiencing a higher likelihood of future immediate success based on a few previous positive results,

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All I think momentum is, is a temporary psychological and perhaps physiological spike experienced by the group, gained from some sequence of events that's transpired. It's probably what other people call an adrenaline rush. Adrenaline is literally the first "performance enhancer." I believe it can lead to better play in the short run

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How are these different?

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How are these different?"

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Because all I'm saying is that the psychological/physiological response occurs at times in the course of an athletic contest. I'm not necessarily attributing subsequent results to it.