Here's the margin of victory differentials for the Western Conference. As you can see, Utah and Phoenix both underperformed in terms of wins and losses relative to the margin of victory metric, whereas the Hornets and Spurs both overperformed. Margin of victory is, however, the better predictor of future performance.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2008/04/margin-of-victory/44435/
