Additional Mathematics SBA

Was the best offensive and defensive player from each team able to affect the results of the final outcome of the matches?

PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT:

Intro:

The purpose of this project is to give an idea based on

the information collected to inform us who the best

offensive and defensive player on each team that made it

to the National Basketball’s Association Championship

series are.

Twenty-nine teams participated in the regular season

and at the end the top eight teams (the top four from

each conference) was selected to contest the conference

finals.

WHY AM I DOING THIS PROJECT?

I am doing this to compare the statistics of the best

offensive and defensive player from each team that

made it to the NBA championship finals. It was done to

see if the player’s performance would affect the overall

outcome of the competition. The players that were

selected for the Miami Heat were: Lebron James and

Chris Anderson. Lebron James would be the offensive

study while the defensive study would be Chris

Anderson.

For the San Antonio Spurs, the players selected were:

Tim Duncan and Tony Parker. Tim Duncan was seen as

the defensive study while Tony Parker is the offensive

study.

METHOD OF DATA COLLECTION:

- Data was collected from the official NBA website.

- Data was collected from each conference final

match.

- Miami was seeded 1st followed by New York in 2nd

position. In 3rd we had Indiana and 4th was Brooklyn.

In 5th position was Chicago and 6th was Atlanta. The

lower end was rounded up with 7th position going to

Boston whilst 8th went to Houston. This was the

positioning of the teams in the eastern conference.

- Oklahoma City was seeded in 1st place and San

Antonio in 2nd. In 3rd position we had Denver and 4th

was Los Angeles clippers. In 5th was Memphis and 6th

was golden state. The lower end was rounded up

with 7th position going to Los Angeles Lakers and 8th

to Houston. This was the positioning of the teams in

the western conference.

- The 1st placed teams had to play the 8th placed team

while the 2nd would play the 7th, the 3rd would play

the 6th and 4th would play the 5th in each conference.

- These series were contested and the winner

determined by the best out of 7.

- The data collected to do this research and

experiment was: points per game, 3 point shooting,

rebounds, blocks, steals and field goals.

PRESENTATION OF DATA:

- TABLES:

Lebron James record for all the games in the 1st playoff

round, 2nd playoff round, conference finals and the

Finals.

Table 1:

Playoff round 1 Points scored Game 1 27 Game 2 19 Game 3 20 Game 4 30

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Points scored

Points scored

This table show us the amount of points that Lebron

James scored in the 1st playoff round.

Table 2:

Playoff round 2 Points scored Game 1 24 Game 2 15 Game 3 25 Game 4 27 Game 5 23

This table shows us the amount of points Lebron James

scored in the 2nd playoff round.

Table 3:

Conference finals Points scored Game 1 30 Game 2 36 Game 3 22 Game 4 24 Game 5 30

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Points scored

Points scored

Game 6 29 Game 7 24

This table shows us all the points scored by Lebron James

in the conference finals.

Table 4:

The Finals Points scored Game 1 18 Game 2 15 Game 3 12 Game 4 33 Game 5 25 Game 6 32 Game 7 37

0 10 20 30 40

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

Game 7

Points scored

Points scored

This table show us the point scored by Lebron James in

The Finals.

- We would now look at the statistics of the defensive

study for the Miami Heat. The table would show us

the number of steals/blocks made by Chris

Anderson.

0 10 20 30 40

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

Game 7

Points scored

Points scored

Table 1:

Playoff round 1 Steals/blocks Game 1 4 Game 2 7 Game 3 3 Game 4 4

This table shows us the amount of blocks/steal made

in playoff round 1.

Table 2:

Playoff round 2 Blocks/steals Game 1 3 Game 2 8 Game 3 3 Game 4 5 Game 5 1

0 2 4 6 8

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Steals/blocks

Steals/blocks

This table shows us the number of blocks/steals made in

playoff round 2.

Table 3:

Conference finals Blocks/steals Game 1 4 Game 2 3 Game 3 7 Game 4 2 Game 5 5 Game 6 1 Game 7 6

0 2 4 6 8 10

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Blocks/steals

Blocks/steals

This table shows us the amount of blocks/steals this

player made in the conference finals.

Table 4:

The Finals Blocks/steals Game 1 2 Game 2 6 Game 3 0 Game 4 3 Game 5 5 Game 6 7 Game 7 4

0 2 4 6 8

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

Game 7

Blocks/steals

Blocks/steals

This table recorded the results for the amount of

blocks/steals this player made in The Finals.

- Now we shall look at the offensive study for the San

Antonio Spurs. His name is Tony Parker. The

following tables would give us a better idea into his

contribution to his team and their effort into making

it to The Finals.

0 2 4 6 8

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

Game 7

Blocks/steals

Blocks/steals

Table 1:

Playoff round 1 Points Game 1 25 Game 2 16 Game 3 33 Game 4 28 Game 5 21

This table shows us how many points were scored by

this player in the 1st round playoffs.

Table 2:

Playoff round 2 Points Game 1 18 Game 2 25 Game 3 31 Game 4 23

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Points

Points

This table showed us the amount of points scored by

the player in the 2nd playoff round.

Table 3:

Conference finals Points Game 1 18 Game 2 33 Game 3 24 Game 4 14 Game 5 28 Game 6 26

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

points

points

This table shows us the number of points scored in the

conference finals.

Table 4:

The Finals Points Game 1 23 Game 2 12 Game 3 34 Game 4 25 Game 5 08 Game 6 41 Game 7 23

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

points

points

This table shows us the number of points scored by the

offensive study for the San Antonio Spurs.

- Now, we shall look at the data for the San Antonio

Spurs’ defensive study. For this we have chosen Tim

Duncan. The following tables would give us a better

idea on his performances during the playoffs and

finals.

0 10 20 30 40 50

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

Game 7

Points

Points

Table 1:

Playoff round 1 Blocks/steals Game 1 5 Game 2 7 Game 3 4 Game 4 3 Game 5 6

This table showed us the performances made by this

player during the 1st round playoffs.

Table 2:

Playoff round 2 Blocks/steals Game 1 5 Game 2 3 Game 3 1 Game 4 6

0 2 4 6 8

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Blocks/steals

Blocks/steals

This table shows us the results for playoff round 2.

Table 3:

Conference finals Blocks/steals Game 1 4 Game 2 0 Game 3 10 Game 4 8 Game 5 7 Game 6 4

0 2 4 6 8

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Blocks/steals

Blocks/steals

This table shows us the results obtained from the

defensive study during the conference finals.

Table 4:

The Finals Blocks/steals Game 1 5 Game 2 7 Game 3 8 Game 4 4 Game 5 4 Game 6 3 Game 7 6

0 2 4 6 8 10 12

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

Blocks/steals

Blocks/steals

This table shows us the amount of blocks/steals

made by this player during The Finals.

Analysis of Data:

The following calculations would show us the mean

number of points each player scored per game:

-Lebron James- 575/23

= 25 points per game

-Tony Parker- 552/23

= 24 points per game

0 2 4 6 8 10

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

Game 7

Blocks/steals

Blocks/steals

The next set of calculations would show us the mean

number of blocks/steals made by each defensive player:

-Chris Anderson- 93/23

= 4.04 blocks/steals per game

-Tim Duncan- 110/23

= 4.78 blocks/steals per game

STANDARD DEVIATION:

What is standard deviation?

𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑑𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡

Commonly used in statistics when the mean is used to

calculate central tendency.

To show the results of the standard deviation, we 1st

calculate the mean of the data set, and then subtract the

mean from each data set. After doing this, the results are

squared from the previous step. Following this, we add

these squared results together and then divide by the

total number of observations.

The following would show us the results recorded when

the standard deviation method was used:

Lebron James: 6.47

Tony Parker: 6.57

Chris Anderson: 2.00

Tim Duncan: 2.25

Stem and leaf diagram:

Discussion of findings:

After working out and studying the results we came up

with a few observations. The difference of the mean

points scored by both Lebron James and Tony Parker

were close. Lebron James had a mean of 25 points per

game while Tony Parker was slightly lower at a decent 24

points per game. Also, the average amount of blocks

made by Chris Anderson was 4.04 while Tim Duncan had

an average of 4.78 blocks per game. Since both sets of

calculations were extremely close, using the information

to come to any sort of conclusions would have been

unfair to the other player. Although Lebron James scored

more points his team wasn’t able to win The Finals.

Tim Duncan had the better results when it came to the

amount of blocks/steals made per game. Using the mean

number, he had 4.78 blocks. In essence, his team was

able to win The Finals.

The more consistent offensive player was Lebron James.

His average was 25 points per game and the standard

deviation of his results was 6.47. This means that on

average he would usually score 6.47 points more than 25

or 6.47 points less than 25. Tony Parker had a higher

standard deviation of .1.

In the defensive aspect of things, Tim Duncan mean was

higher as well as his standard deviation. Chris Anderson

mean was 4.04 and his standard deviation was 2.00. So,

in simple terms, each game he either had 2 blocks/steals

less than 4 or 2 blocks/steals more than 4.

Suggestions:

Here are some ways in which we can further develop

better findings and be able to make a larger comparision.

-have a wider range of matches to show results.

-have a specific age group to do the research.