Alright, so today I decided to dive into the stats from the Denver Nuggets vs. Minnesota Timberwolves game. I’ve been trying to get better at understanding basketball stats beyond just the final score, you know?
First, I needed to find a place that actually showed the player stats. It took a bit of searching, I tried a few different websites that turned out to be pretty useless.
Finding the Data
So, I went to a couple major sports websites. I looked for the game and clicked around until I found a “box score” or “player stats” section. It was kind of buried on one of the sites, had to do some digging!
Making Sense of It All
Once I found the stats, I started looking at the columns.
- MIN: Minutes played, that’s pretty straightforward. How much time each player was actually on the court.
- FGM-A: Field goals made and attempted. So, like, how many shots they took, and how many went in.
- 3PM-A: Three-pointers made and attempted. Same deal as above, but only for the three-point shots.
- FTM-A: Free throws made and attempted. Again, pretty clear.
- OREB, DREB, REB: Offensive, defensive, and total rebounds.
- AST: Assists. Passes that lead to a basket.
- STL: Steals. I figured that one out.
- BLK: Blocks. When a player stops a shot.
- TO: Turnovers. When a player loses the ball to the other team.
- PF: Personal fouls.
- PTS: Points. Finally, the most basic one!
Putting It All Together
I spent some time just looking at the numbers for different players. I looked at who scored the most points, who had the most rebounds, who had a good shooting percentage (made shots divided by attempted shots).
It was actually pretty interesting to see how the different stats related to each other. You could see who was a good shooter, who was good at getting rebounds, who maybe turned the ball over a lot.
I’m still learning what all the “advanced stats” mean, but just getting comfortable with these basic player stats felt like a good step. Baby steps, right?
