Thursday, June 14, 2007

Maybe They Missed the Point

Brutal. That's the only word for this year's NBA Finals.

Let me put this year's Finals in perspective for you. Here's the list of teams that accumulated fewer than 400 points throughout all games of the Finals.
  • 322 points: Cleveland Cavaliers (2007 Finals)
  • 346: San Antonio Spurs (2007)
  • 376: Baltimore Bullets (1971)
  • 382: Washington Bullets (1975)
  • 387: New Jersey Nets (2002)
  • 391: New York Knicks (1999)
  • 395: New York Knickerbockers (1953)
  • 398: Golden State Warriors (1975)
And that even includes garbage-time points and Damon Jones's buzzer-beating 3-pointer in Game 4.

Yikes! These teams simply demolished the previous record for futility!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not to diminish the brutality that was the finals... but your data is pretty useless. This was a four game series. The number of points are naturally going to be low.
Numbers you should look at are average ppg throughout the finals, number of possessions per game, and average time per possession.

These are going to be the numbers that most clearly demonstrate why no one watched the finals

dr. tv (mike vicic) said...

Useless? You make it sound like this was the only NBA Finals sweep. Remember, there were seven other four-game series before the Cavs-Spurs Finals.

I chose cumulative stats rather than average stats for a few reasons. First, ABC was reporting average stats during the telecast so I would be adding nothing new. Secondly, using an average stat didn't really highlight the HUGE difference in points between what the teams scored in this series versus previous Finals. (That factor of four between average and cumulative scoring has an emotional impact for the casual fan.)

But you're right. There are MUCH better stats, especially for those who follow basketball. I'll leave that job to people who blog specifically about basketball.