I've never been a big numbers guy. You can use numbers to prove anything. 76 percent of people know that.
But statistics are a booming business for a reason. They look at the past to predict the future, and that holds very true in sports.
Sure, Nene might have dropped 24 on the Dallas Mavericks yesterday, but seven seasons worth of stats tell us that he averages about 11.2 PPG, so that output probably isn't normal.
A look at the numbers from game one aren't exactly promising for the Mavericks, so let's take a look.
10: The number of shots taken by Carmelo Anthony
23: The amount of points he scored on those shots.
6: The number of points scored and assisted dished by Chauncey Billups.
What do those three numbers tell you? That the two best players on the Nuggets didn't exactly have breakout games, but the Nuggs were able to win by 14.
'Melo only shot 10 times, but he made seven of those, and hit another seven free throws. A very efficient game from him, despite him sitting out much of the first half with foul trouble.
The Mavericks couldn't have asked for a better opportunity in the first half, and yet when it ended they were trailing by four.
The defensive gameplan also worked on Billups, as he didn't get to the line, and his six points were a result of two three-pointers, which I can live with.
What I can't live with is the fact that Billups scores 17.7 PPG, so we can be counted on do do a lot more damage as the series goes on.
What I can't live with is that 'Melo takes 18.3 shos a game, and if he is shooting as his current clip, that means a few over-30 point games.
Let's look at some of the Mavericks' numbers.
28: The number of points scored by Dirk Nowitzki.
32: The number of minutes played by Jason Terry.
15: The number of points scored by Jason Terry, Josh Howard and Jason Kidd
For the first two on that list, 15 is much too low, for the third, more than you can expect.
For a guy who played 32 minutes, Jason Terry was absolutely invisible. If him and Brandon Bass had a "who can make the least impact off of the bench in game one" competition, they would go into more overtimes than the Bulls-Celtics series.
Bass, whose athleticism is going to be sorely needed to compete with the likes of Chris Andersen and Nene, did not come out of the gates with the physicality and energy that the Mavs needed.
Ryan Hollins and Bass are going to be needed to make much more of an impact than they did in game one, because Dampier is a step too slow to hang with Andersen and Nene.
A few more numbers:
8: The number of turnovers committed by Jason Kidd in game one
3: The number of turnovers committed by Jason Kidd in five games against the Spurs.
The Kidd turnovers only bother me because they wasted an otherwise great offensive game from Kidd. For a while in the first half, it was 2003 all over again. Kidd was hitting open threes, hitting elbow jumpers, he even tossed in a floater that made me think that the Mavs had traded for Chris Paul at halftime.
Kidd can't be counted on to drop in 15 a game, and he shouldn't be. In a way, he deserved a lot of credit for contributing. It was clear that after Howard's ankle injury that Howard couldn't (or wouldn't) get as aggressive as he needed to be, so Kidd tok up some of the slack.
The Nuggets gave him space, and he made them pay for it.
But in the debacle known as the fourth quarter, Jason Kidd went to another rarely seen aspect of his game, a turnover machine. Forced bounce passes, miscommunications with other players and sloppy ball handling became a disease that Kidd quickly spread to the other Mavericks as the fourth quarter got away from them.
Now here's where the numbers game gets a little bit ugly. You could argue that the Mavericks beat the numbers against the Spurs. Dirk and Terry didn't play up to their usual levels for most of the series, but the reserves like Bass, Hollins and J.J. Barea played above their levels, so the Mavs were able to win.
ell, yesterday, aside from Jason Terry, we saw a regression to the mean. Dirk got his points, and the role players didn't. Which is bad news since a regression to the mean seems to mean an "L" for Dallas against the Nuggets.
So do the Mavericks come out tomorrow night and have another game that defies the numbers? More importantly, will that matter?
Assume Kidd doesn't turn the ball over eight times, assume Terry and Howard score 20-plus, assume Brandon Bass puts up eight and four, his season average. Sounds good right?
Except we have to be fair. Assume 'Melo shoots more than 10 shots. Assume Billups scores more than 6 points.
Sure, Nene probably won't score another 24, and Andersen probably won't block six more shots, but when the last two paragraphs are thrown together, does it help the Mavericks gain an extra 15 net points? Especially at the Pepsi Center?
I sure hope so, but I don't know if the numbers are behind me.
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