Consistency wins

I have smelled what Mr. Johnson is cooking. I took bowling in college as a Phys. Ed elective, knowing that it had to be the easiest class on campus. So when I was two thirds of the way through the semester and failing the class spectacularly, I went to my professor to express my concerns and see how I might improve in time for the Final. His response stuck with me the rest of my life.

“Olson, you are ridiculously inconsistent. You have a ton of power, but you approach the game as if you were learning it new every day. One day you use a ball six pounds heavier than you did the day before. You roll from every part of the lane. When I ask you what marks you were trying to hit, you seem unclear on the concept, even though we’ve covered it repeatedly. My 90-year old grandma, who uses a featherweight ball that she rolls as slow as molasses would beat you. Every single time. Do you know why? Because she does it the same way. Every single time.”

He was undeniably right. I hadn’t really practiced any discipline in refining a game, I just kept trying to huck it down there and hit the pins as hard as I could. I spent the rest of the semester finding a ball I could use time and again, and nailing down a throw I could repeat over and over in my sleep. From there, it was just finding the right spot to stand on the floor. For my Final, I rolled a 233, and was ridiculously lucky to leave the class with a B. Nowadays, I maybe play once a year, and still usually land somewhere around 150 by just doing the same thing. Over. And over.

The Denver Nuggets have one of the NBA’s most consistent threats on the floor in probable MVP Nikola Jokic. His approach to the game and part in Denver’s success is the picture of consistency. But when the Portland Trail Blazers met the Nuggets in Game 1 of their first-round playoff series, their goal was clear. Knock the Joker off of at least one of his maddeningly consistent stats, and see if the rest of the team could fills in the gaps. Jokic had one assist, a stat somewhat predicated on a few open misses, but was still telling in why Denver lost the game.

One of the best things about sports is the data it provides to measure success. And no matter how you glorify individual stats, in the end the only stat that counts is the score. A final score made up of the scores over the quarters/periods/innings of a game. Whether you were a plus or minus over that timeframe rolls up into your success over the game. Here was the very basic plus or minus of that Nuggets first game against Portland:

Q1: –
Q2: +

Q3: –
Q4: -How would you guess that game turned out? Sure, it’s possible that that Denver “Plus” was a big enough quarter to outweigh all those minuses. But, as you may have suspected, it worked out as a loss. A minus 5, plus 8, minus 13, minus 4, 14-point loss. Here’s game two:

Q1: +

Q2: +

Q3: +

Q4: +

How would you guess that worked out? When you win all four quarters? A no-lose situation. Denver won that one, by 19.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Avalanche ran through the St. Louis Blues like a hot knife through butter in a four-game sweep. Let’s run that same plus/minus look over those four games.

Game 1

Period 1: +

Period 2: –

Period 3: +

Q1: +

Q2: –

Q3: Even

Q4: Even

Well. Hell. What to make of that one? Almost reminiscent of a Game 3 these two teams played two playoffs ago. Take a look at this one…

Q1: –

Q2: +

Q3: –

Q4: +

OT1: Even

OT2: Even

OT3: Even

OT4: –

Ouch. Fortunately, last night, Denver’s Q1 plus was bigger than Portland’s Q2. Plus envy. The jealousy is real. Make no mistake that this Denver-Portland thing has been as serious as a heart attack since that 4OT battle a couple years ago. The Nuggets won another game last night by consistently winning more battles than the Trail Blazers did.

The old adage of losing battles to win wars is primarily lost in the vicious math of professional sports. The Avs and Nuggets both will only take themselves as far as they can by winning plays that win quarters/periods that win games. The Avs were so consistent and efficient that they spent less energy and gained time to fully heal, making them even more dangerous for their next opponent. The Nuggets consistency currently has them on the plus side of a very pitched battle. They well know the eventual costs of seven-game wars in the rounds to come. Stay consistent, stack up the wins. Avalanche or Nuggets. The first one to 16 wins it all. Just. Be. Consistent.